Filmfetish Friday: Wuthering Heights, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese: Cinematic Genius)

Apr 13, 2012 | by Anouk | Art, Event

About the author

As a freelance journalist, Anouk (26) usually writes about what other people do or like. In her precious spare time she watches arthouse films. Not a few. A lot, thanks to her trusted Cineville pass. Here she can finally share her film-fetish with the world.

To watch or not to watch? I will tour around Amsterdam’s cinemas and answer this crucial question every Friday. Without mercy, of course. Sucky movies will be slaughtered, cinematographic pearls will be appreciated as such. Or the other way around. After all, good taste is in the eye of the beholder.

Wuthering Heights

You probably had to read this book in high school. I know I had to, and that’s the reason why I didn’t. (I was a teenager pur sang.) Director Andrea Arnold is not the first one to make a film out of Emily Brontë’s classic, but she is the first director that made Heathcliff a black guy. Very plausible, says Arnold, because in the book Heathcliff is called an ‘Indian sailor’. Doesn’t sound like a white boy, true that. In nineteenth century England a guy like Heathcliff can’t be together with a girl like Catherine, who is from a rich family. Their future together is non-existant.

Arnold didn’t make the typical English costume drama. The actors, which she found on the streets, do not even try to talk like they did over a hundred years ago. Wuthering Heights is raw, cool and interesting for people that usually don’t like costume dramas that much.

Watch this film in Cineville’s Cincecenter, EYE, Rialto and The Movies.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Martha is a young, insecure woman. She finds more stability in some sort of sect in the woods of Connecticut. That she doesn’t know anymore what’s normal behaviour and what’s not, becomes painfully clear when she goes to live with her sister for a while. The trailer promises a sweltering film with a touch of pure anxiety. A film I would really like to see, even in the new EYE Film Institute.

Watch this film in Cineville’s EYE.

Taxi Driver

Like I mentioned above, the new EYE is open for the public now. To celebrate their own migration to the north side of Amsterdam, they have a few golden oldies on their programme. Also, there’s good news for Martin Scorsese fans. And let’s be honest, who isn’t a fan of the directing icon? Untill May 16th EYE is showing Scorsese’s newest work (Hugo) and some of his old successes (Taxi Driver, Casino, New York New York). Always wanted to know where the the famous words ‘Are you talking to me?’ are coming from? Take a trip to the north and get a short education in film history.

Watch this film in Cineville’s EYE.