What better way to absorb 115 years of film history than -- on film? This weekend, Walker Art Center presents a marathon screening of this 15-hour visual history of international cinema that first aired as a TV series in Britain.
It will be split into five parts, beginning today at 7 p.m. Director Mark Cousins, a film historian who based the series on his book of the same name, drew on thousands of hours of interviews and criticism.
Cousins calls the series a global "tasting menu," and that's what he delivers, with no bias favoring Western films and directors. Jane Campion, Wim Wenders and Lars von Trier may be familiar names, but other segments of equal weight feature Japan's Shôhei Imamura, Senegal's Djibril Diop Mambéty, and Walker fave Apichatpong Weerasethakul of Thailand.
The series also stands out because of the connections it makes between filmmakers from different parts of the world, being influenced by and influencing each other, said Dean Otto, associate curator of film and video. It includes many films and filmmakers that have been part of the Walker's programming, Otto said: "People are always asking us to curate their Netflix queue. Watching this would be a great way to do it yourself."
Interested, but not up to devoting most of your weekend? Each chapter will be screened for one week continually during gallery hours through year's end. 7 p.m. today, parts 1-3; 2 p.m. Sat, parts 4-6; 7 p.m. Sat., parts 7-9; noon Sunday, parts 10-12, and 4:30 Sunday, parts 13-15. $9 each or all parts for $20.
