focus on female gothic lady beware

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Morgiana

April 14 - April 25, 2005

Exploring expressions of the Female Gothic in a variety of classic and contemporary film genres - the horror, melodrama, girl's-own thriller and noir.

This season assembles an intriguing collection of films in which the heroine finds herself contained, stymied or otherwise thwarted by interior as well as more tangible forces.

Critic Dana Polan suggests that the Female Gothic is expressed in cinema via films in which 'a woman wonders about the designs upon her of the man in her life - does he love her, does he hate her, does he wish to do her harm?'. Taking this as its starting point, Lady Beware traces the impulse through films whose protagonists embody and extend some of the defining archetypes of the genre.

The season launches with the Melbourne premiere of Jonathan Glazer's haunting new film, Birth, starring Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall and Danny Huston.

Guest curator Adrian Martin will present an exclusive lecture, which will include screenings of seminal short films, tracing the paths of the Female Gothic through the thriller and horror genres, women's cinema and the avant-garde.

Curated by Adrian Martin and Roberta Ciabarra.

Read Lady, Beware: Female Gothic Variations, an introductory essay by Adrian Martin.

or phone (03) 8663 2583

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birth

Anna (Nicole Kidman), a brittle and uncommonly self-possessed widow, accepts a marriage proposal after years of subdued grief and resignation. Melbourne Premiere of the new film by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast).

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femme fatale

A veritable anthology of every great De Palma moment, Femme Fatale is a wildly imaginative, giddy game with the stereotypes and clichés of the film noir and erotic-thriller genres.

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perfect strangers

A one night stand goes spookily awry in this New Zealand gothic mystery thriller. Rachael Blake plays a woman who is trapped because of desire, but soon learns how to turn the tables. Also stars Sam Neil.

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ms .45

Ms .45 details the oppression of mute Thana on every social level - sexually, publicly, at work. The only way for the heroine to confront an insane, violent world is on its own terms: as a deranged vigilante.

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gaslight

Beyond its efficiency as an atmospheric costume thriller, Gaslight traces the contours of a fascinatingly dark and ambivalent female fantasy: what if one's suave, beloved husband were actually a calculating murderer?

rosemary's baby

Roman Polanski's tale of Satanism and paranoia set in a deceptively serene 'old world' New York apartment is the genre-defining 'mother' of all supernatural possession thrillers.

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marnie

Marnie (Tippi Hedren) is a Hitchcock 'cool blonde' who is repressed, tormented, frigid, and a kleptomaniac. The man who guides her life is at once her cop, analyst and ambiguously suave lover.

ginger snaps

The anti-social spawn of Carrie live on in a contemporary Canadian horror film with bite! With its clever jokes about pop fads, switching moods, and a subtly disturbing sound design, Ginger Snaps is an arresting, entertaining film.

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positive ID

A 'desperate' housewife constructs a new identity to even the scales in this cult US indie thriller. Positive ID takes elements of the Woman's Nightmare film - trauma, revenge, identity-transformation - and locates them within an everyday framework.

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klute

John Klute (Donald Sutherland) is on the trail of a man who has disappeared. Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) turns up among the clues, but while Klute is investigating her, she is nervously trying to 'find herself' before a trick with a vicious streak does.

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in the cut

Meg Ryan and Jennifer Jason Leigh star in Jane Campion's atmosphere-laden girl's own thriller. In the Cut places a confused, modern woman (Meg Ryan) in a Gothic New York, amidst a range of shadowy male figures - all embroiled in a murder mystery.

leave her to heaven

In Leave Her to Heaven, Gene Tierney is the seductive psychopath who 'loves too much' (as her mother says), possessive of her man to the point of 'necessary' murder.

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buongiorno, notte (goodmorning, night)

A young female terrorist confronts ideology, patriarchy and her own identity in Marco Bellocchio's hallucinatory drama. A richly imaginative rendition of the terrorist kidnapping by the Red Brigades of Christian Democrat Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978.

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the exorcist - director's cut

The justly influential The Exorcist, cannily revised in 2000, is among the most remarkable, daring films of the 70s. Director William Friedkin is the master of modernist shock, fragmentation and disorientation.

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morgiana

In this 1971 hallucinatory goth horror from Czech New Wave director Juraj Herz, poor Klara - who has her pick of suitors - can't quite figure out why her spurned, lovelorn sister, Victorie, would want to poison her.

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every woman's nightmare

Guest Curator of ACMI's Focus on Female Gothic season, Age film critic Adrian Martin presents an exclusive lecture that traces the paths of the Female Gothic across the thriller and horror genres, women's cinema and the avant-garde.

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