Telluride Film Festival Cinematheque at Wilkinson Library

The Telluride Film Festival Cinematheque is a program of free films, food and discussion produced in conjunction with Telluride’s Wilkinson Public Library for cinephiles in the greater Telluride community who want to enjoy the art of filmmaking all year ’round, not just  Film Festival weekend. The event is programmed by Telluride Film Festival co-director Gary Meyer. The next program is Monday, October 19.

Last season, the theme was French New Wave. This second season, the subject is film noir, a genre that emerged post WWII in the late 1940s when the mood in the country was dark. Post war malaise is the result of the atrocities of war and deeper understanding of the human nature’s dark underbelly.

A defining characteristic of film noir is fatalism, one small step that leads to doom: an “ordinary Joe” protagonist, a predatory femme fatale.

The program on Monday, October 19, is a double bill, just as films were shown in the 1940s and 1950s.

The first show is “Laura,” (1944). Otto Preminger’s masterful and haunting directorial debut investigates the deep levels of human obsession when police detective (Dana Andrews) falls in love with Laura (Gene Tierney), a woman in a portrait whose murder he is investigating.

The second film is “The Hitch-hiker,” (1953),  about two friends on a fishing-trip (Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy, both fantastic) who make the mistake of their lives when they pick up a sociopathic hitch-hiker who never closes his right eye, not even when he’s sleeping.  He delights in threatening the two men – telling them that they are both marked for death before they reach his destination, a ferry boat in Baja.  Directed and co-written by Ida Lupino.

A pre-show reception starts at 5:30 p.m. Screening is 6 p.m.

For further information contact Erika Gordon, 970-626-3137, egordon@telluridecolorado.net