Film Series to Celebrate Mozart Bicentennial

To mark the bicentennial of Mozart’s death, the Goethe Institute, 8501 Wilshire Blvd., will present a film series that commences Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. with the screening of Klaus Kirschner’s 224-minute “Mozart: A Childhood Chronicle” (1976).

The film is nearly as exhausting as it is exhaustive but worth the effort, especially for admirers of the New German Cinema and perhaps also music lovers. Kirschner seems to adhere strictly to Mozart family documents and resists the false dramatizations of the typical film biography. There’s very little dialogue, but much narration, apparently drawn directly from actual letters and diaries. The result of such rigor is an extremely austere experience. By suggesting quite convincingly what Mozart’s early life was like--the film spans the composer’s life from age seven to 21--we get an idea of the man he was to become.

In starkly beautiful imagery, this film depicts a life of frequent hardship amid comfortable and at times opulent settings as it celebrates unspoken familial devotion and the passions of the mind.

Information and full schedule: (213) 854-0993.

Rare Revivals: Francois Truffaut’s rarely revived, “The Bride Wore Black” (1968) and “Mississippi Mermaid” (1969), both based on Cornell Woolrich mystery novels, screen Wednesday through Saturday at the Vagabond (with fresh 35mm color prints). Not an emulator of the Master of Suspense, the first is rather an expression of sentiment on the part of Truffaut--his feelings for Hitchcock, about vengeful bride Jeanne Moreau and her victims. The style may be a worthy tribute to Hitchcock, but its sensibility makes the film entirely Truffaut’s.

The second film, as poignant at the first, is in turn dedicated to Jean Renoir. “Mississippi” is the name of the steamer that brings the siren (or “mermaid”) Catherine Deneuve to a French colonial island in the Indian Ocean to become the mail-order bride of tobacco planter Jean-Paul Belmondo; Deneuve is not what she seems--that’s all you need to know of the plot. The film becomes an homage to Renoir through its depictions of the beauties of nature and implicit stress on its importance, in nostalgia for romantic love and compassion for lovers.

Information: (213) 387-2171.

A Happy Confluence: “Clash by Night” (1952), which screens Thursday at 8 p.m. at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, shows what can happen when a great director, Fritz Lang, and a great star, Barbara Stanwyck, have strong material to work with--namely the Clifford Odets play of the same name, skillfully adapted to the screen by Alfred Hayes. Stanwyck plays a disillusioned woman approaching middle age who comes home after a 10-year absence to Monterey’s Cannery Row. She knows she should settle down with naive, awkward, unabashedly devoted Paul Douglas but is powerfully attracted to his best friend, virile Robert Ryan.

Also on hand is Marilyn Monroe as the girlfriend of Stanwyck’s younger brother (Keith Andes). Playing with it is a late ‘40s stag reel featuring a young woman some say is Monroe.

Information: (213) 822-3006.

Sounds of Life: William Wellman’s “Beggars of Life” (1928) screens Friday and Saturday at the Silent Movie along with Fritz Lang’s landmark “Metropolis” (1926). Written by Jim Tully, it is a brisk, warm tale starring Louise Brooks, who rides the rails (while looking adorably vulnerable in boys’ clothes) with hobo Richard Arlen. This beautifully composed film anticipates Wellman’s fast, breezy “Wild Boys of the Road” (1933), one of the era’s most realistic depictions of the Depression. “Metropolis,” one of the most famous of all silents, is Lang’s boldly Expressionistic bleak vision of a future in which society is sharply divided into dictatorial management and an enslaved labor force.

Information: (213) 653-2389).