This end-of-year cycle is an opportunity to bring together some of the finest 35mm prints in our collections.
The criteria that led to this selection:
a) the rarity of the chosen movie on film
b) the effect of contrast (period, style, culture) between one film and the other
c) the quality of conservation of the print
Sean Penn as gay-rights icon Harvey Milk. Mr. Milk (1930-1978) was an activist and politician, and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in America; in 1977, he was voted to the city supervisors' board of San Francisco.
Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant is an American director, screenwriter, producer, editor, photographer, and musician. He spent much of his life in Portland, Oregon, a city that serves as the backdrop for many of his films. After starting out as an independent filmmaker, notably with My Own Private Idaho (1991), he moved closer to Hollywood with commissioned films like To Die For (1995) and the Academy Award winner Good Will Hunting (1997). He then returned to a cinema far from financial pressures and artistically independent, including Elephant (2003), loosely inspired by the Columbine massacre (Palme d'Or at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival), and Last Days (2005), which depicts his vision of Kurt Cobain's final days. His career took another turn in 2008 with Milk (2008), a very personal yet popular film. It won several Academy Awards and was a great commercial success.
