Joseph Losey. The shadowline showcase. This showcase will be opened by the screening of "Time without pity".

Having ended the tribute showcase for Claudia Cardinale, the Mario Gromo Library/Mediatheque is offering a showcase in April titled The shadowline, dedicated to American filmmaker Joseph Losey. The programme features four titles, overall defining his style and topics, between the end of the Fifties and the beginning of the Sixties. The showcase will be inaugurated on Monday 9 April at 3.30 p.m., by the screening of Time without pity, the first film in which Joseph Losey returned to filming with his own name, after six years.

United States, beginning of the Fifties. Joseph Losey, a pupil of Bertold Brecht’s, and enrolled in the Communist party, refuses to collaborate with the Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1952, after a short period spent in Italy (the country where he filmed Stranger on the prowl, with Paul Muni), he decided definitively to settle in Great Britain in order to continue his work as a filmmaker, although he used to sign the films he made using a pseudonym. Only beginning from 1957, did his name return to the opening credits, with a series of works that would definitively establish him as one of the most important and programmatically “modern” authors in the history of film.

Whilst strongly linked to a dimension of genre cinema (particularly to noir), his films distanced themselves from it through the director’s skill in creating a pursuing analysis of the theme of unjustly accused innocents in the clutches of the oppressive mechanisms in bourgeois society. Social criticism is accompanied by a peculiar baroque style (which was to find its maximum expression in The servant), capable of blending with expressionist and dynamic naturalist tensions, with a claustrophobic use of spaces, and using the actors in a dimension of bewildered and bewildering psychologism.

All screenings are admission free until full seating capacity is reached, subject to free membership registration to the Library/Mediatheque and presenting an identity document.

Screenings calendar

Joseph Losey

Time without pity

(Great Britain, 1957, 85’, b/w)

Writer David Graham arrives in London when there is just one day to go before his son’s death sentence, being accused of having murdered a girl. Graham was not able to follow the trial because he was interned at a clinic to recover from alcoholism, but now he is determined to carry out inquiries in order to demonstrate his son’s innocence and thereby save his life, in a desperate race against time. The first European film which Losey signed with his own name, after escaping from the United States to avoid the anti-Communist witch-hunt.

With Michael Redgrave, Ann Todd, Leo McKern, Peter Cushing

09 April, at 3.30 p.m.

Joseph Losey

Blind date

(Great Britain, 1959, 95’, b/w)

In London, young penniless Dutch artist Jan Van Rooyen is accused of murdering his lover. The investigation is entrusted to inspector Morgan, who starts suspecting that the wish to cover-up the involvement of some political figure may be at the bottom of requests to close the case in a hurry. Convinced of the young man’s innocence, Morgan goes against his personal and professional interests to make truth emerge. This film marks Losey’s meeting with actor Stanley Baker, whom he would direct in three further films.

With Stanley Baker, Hardy Kruger, Micheline Presle, John Van Eyssen

16 April, at 3.30 p.m.

Joseph Losey,

The criminal

(Great Britain, 1960, 97’, b/w)

After stashing away the loot from a robbery, Johnny Bannion, a cynical but loyal criminal, is arrested due to a betrayal on the part of his ex lover. The perspective of a long period as a prison inmate does not scare the man, who enjoys the respect of most of the prisoners and of the guards. But the ascendancy being gained by Carter, his former right-hand, within the gang he heads, forces him to plan an escape, supported by Saffron. A victim of his mates’ double-game, Bannion treads towards his tragic destiny, hoping in freedom and an escape abroad.

With Stanley Baker, Sam Wanamaker, Grégoire Aslan, Margit Saad

23 April, at 3.30 p.m.

Joseph Losey

Hallucination

(Great Britain, 1962, 118’, col.)

In a small town on the English coast, a band of teddy boys led by King lords it over the streets, causing chaos and confusion. In the meanwhile Joan, King’s young sister, tries to distance herself from the greyness of everyday life, which she finds devoid of perspectives, and from the control that her brother tries to wield over her. After accepting a lift on rich American Simon Wells’ boat, they both end up by chance in a secret centre, where some radiation-contaminated children are kept, who kill anyone who comes into contact with them.

With Oliver Reed, Shirley Ann Field, Vivenca Lindfors, Alexander Knox

30 April, at 3.30 p.m.