Films for the Crimbo Limbo
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Welcome to your new monthly insight into programming at GFT. Each month, we'll be sharing an article by our Programme Manager, Paul Gallagher, on a part of the programme he's particularly excited to share with you. I always look forward to programming the days between Christmas and New Year. This little ‘festive gap’ presents an opportunity – maybe to catch up on a worthwhile new film we weren’t able to fit in earlier in the year, or to play a particular classic that feels fitting for the moment, or – as is the case this year – to fit in a final few titles that have been spinning around my head for a while and which, for one reason or another, have not yet found their way into any of our other programmes. Top of that list for me is Wayne Wang’s 1995 indie gem Smoke. The reason being that its writer, the singular Brooklynite Paul Auster, passed away in April of this year, and screening this film is my small tribute to his genius. A master storyteller, endlessly fascinated with themes of chance and coincidence, Auster was an exceptional novelist first and foremost. His script for Smoke was his first and most successful attempt to bring those fascinations to the screen: under the sensitive direction of Wayne Wang, a brilliant cast – led by an against-type Harvey Keitel as cigar-shop owner Auggie Wren – bring to life characters who will be instantly recognisable in speech and action to anyone who has ever read an Auster novel. Made in what we can now see was a golden age for American independent cinema in the mid-1990s, Smoke will endure as a minor triumph as part of Auster’s considerable legacy. Speaking of legacies, one that continues to loom large over the movie world is that of director John Huston. His final film as director, a beautifully faithful adaptation of James Joyce’s short story The Dead, was one of the key references in Pedro Almodóvar's 2024 film The Room Next Door. While it wasn’t possible to fit The Dead into our schedule to exactly complement screenings of Almodóvar's film, it stayed in my mind as an ideal opportunity (or excuse) to give Huston’s film a few screenings. With its early new year setting The Dead is arguably perfect ‘Crimbo Limbo’ viewing, with the potential to prompt a kind of thoughtful reflection that our cramped and overstuffed brains may have a bit of rare space for at this point in the year. Next on the list of ones that almost got away is Leos Carax’s 40-minute personal essay film It's Not Me (C’est Pas Moi). Premiering at Cannes in May, this seemed like a film that might not find its way to a general cinema release due to its unconventional length and hard-to-categorise nature. Thanks are due then to the ICA in London, who have made it possible through their Off-Circuit initiative for cinemas like us to screen it, and while we’re at it we’re also bringing Carax’s 2012 masterpiece Holy Motors back to the big screen for a couple of shows. This particularly pleases me as Holy Motors struck me as a defining reference point for Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast, which beguiled and bewitched audiences at both GFF and GFT in 2024. Film viewings are so much richer when they’re in conversation with each other, so I hope this particular bit of programming lets a few more people make the connection between these two uniquely strange films. Rounding out this collection of post-Christmas treats are three slightly more conventional, but no less essential, choices. Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson’s idiosyncratic comedy/romance from 2017 has turned up in many New Year programmes in the short time since its release, thanks to a key moment in the film taking place over Hogmanay. Phantom Thread also offers a striking consideration of the obsessive nature of creativity, which makes it an ideal pair with The Red Shoes, which is back for a couple of screenings as a kind of encore to last year’s spectacular Powell and Pressburger season. Lastly, I’ve fitted in two shows of Bergman’s beloved and enduring Fanny and Alexander – which went down so well with audiences when we had it as part of our Christmas programme for its 50th anniversary in 2022, but just couldn’t quite find space for in the official festive rundown this year. Better late than never though, right?Films for the Crimbo Limbo
Tickets for our Crimbo Limbo season are on sale now at https://www.glasgowfilm.org/crimbo-limbo
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