Fidelio Film Series

07.19.2024

Scene from Eyes Wide Shut

If cinema is a reflection of its time, great artists will reach the rotten core. “Fidelio,” a four-film series presented by The Film Stage and Chapo Trap House‘s Movie Mindset that hits Roxy Cinema this August, highlights the 1%’s malevolent influence, deep-state connections, and sexual corruption vis-à-vis the major filmmakers of our time—a series that leaves one both fantastically entertained and with a rattled view of our world.

Each film, in ways either direct or roundabout, is a thriller; all are concerned with the catastrophe that emerges from civilians coming into contact with great power; all reflect real-life figures, or at least force acknowledgement of what we imagine is happening behind closed doors. The Film Stage considers its fortune teaming with our movie-loving and ferociously political friends at Movie Mindset. We look forward to seeing you at the Roxy.

WELCOME TO NEW YORK

Abel Ferrara’s dramatized account of Dominique Strauss-Kahn engendered controversy the second it premiered, not least for a threatened lawsuit from its thinly disguised subject. Though among the harshest works in Ferrara’s scorched-earth filmography, Welcome to New York is also a remarkable showcase for Gérard Depardieu (eerily presaging the actor’s current legal entanglements) and a granular, nearly journalistic detail of political power in horrible play.

EYES WIDE SHUT

Though Stanley Kubrick’s final film met befuddled disinterest upon release, 25 years hence Eyes Wide Shut seems nearly incontestable as one of this director’s supreme achievements––a work that still feels unresolved and irreconcilable, every viewing some new opportunity to peek into incomprehensible horrors among your community and within yourself. Just remember the password.

ABSOLUTE POWER

What would’ve seemed a hilariously paranoid vision of the American Presidency in 1997 was strangely vindicated just one year later; from 2024’s vantage, Absolute Power is almost utopian for its vision of justice served in the highest corridors of power. The enforcer is none other than Clint Eastwood, who leads and directs this gem of his airport-thriller period, featuring an absurd collection of disguises and Gene Hackman as an arrogant, criminal Commander in Chief.

THE GHOST WRITER

One of Roman Polanski’s greatest films also holds an odd mirror to his own sins and circumstances. The director is at home in this perfectly tuned thriller about evading charges and extradition treaties––one whose story of an outsider sucked into the terrifying whirlpool does more than a bit to echo Chinatown––but its thrills are largely an excuse for conspiracy du vibe: wintry skies, deeply enviable beachside real estate, sweaters, suit jackets, athleisure, and a playful Alexandre Desplat score handily supplant plot. Just as few movies have used Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, or Olivia Williams better, almost nothing from the last decade matches The Ghost Writer for pure entertainment.

Words by Nick Newman