Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Gold: Enduring Power, Sacred Craft, this series organized by Brian Jacobson, Professor of Visual Culture at Caltech, explores gold’s enduring power to attract, enchant, bewitch and beguile. From Charlie Chaplin’s droll send-up of the California gold rush to medieval Japan and the legend of El Dorado, these films illustrate how gold’s broad cultural significance has made it an appealing subject for filmmakers the world over. Each film begins with an introduction by Jacobson.
Free with Museum admission.
No reservations taken. The theater opens at 4:00 p.m. and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Charlie Chaplin’s comedic masterwork charts a prospector’s search for fortune in the Klondike and his discovery of romance (Georgia Hale). Shot partly on location in the Sierra Nevadas and featuring such timeless gags as the dance of the dinner rolls and the meal of boiled shoe leather, The Gold Rush is an indelible work of heartwarming hilarity. Presented in a new restoration of the original silent film.
This meditation on cinema’s past pieces together the bizarre history of a long-lost collection of 533 nitrate film prints from the early 1900s, discovered buried under the permafrost in a former Canadian gold rush town. Dawson City: Frozen Time depicts the history of this Canadian gold rush town by chronicling the life cycle of a singular film collection through its exile, burial, rediscovery and salvation.
The Hidden Fortress stars Toshiro Mifune as a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess (Misa Uehara) as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory. Accompanying them are a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants who may or may not be their friends. This film delivers Akira Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action and compassionate humanity. In Japanese with English subtitles.
In the 16th century, the ruthless Spanish conquistador Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) leads an expedition in Peru in search of El Dorado. Accompanied by his daughter Flores (Cecilia Rivera), Aguirre faces off against his superior, Don Pedro de Ursúa (Ruy Guerra), and grows increasingly volatile after seizing control of the group. As Aguirre presses deeper into the Amazonian jungle, he descends further into madness.
