Cinema

(de voertaal van deze avond is Engels).

Jeffrey's Underground Cinema has been showing neglected and forgotten films for the last decade. This night:  

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA   1935
Directed Sam Wood
90 minutes
In English

There are many who have heard of the wild antics of the Marx brothers, but still haven’t experienced their form of untamed cinematic freedom. In a way, they didn’t produce anything… instead they were deconstructionists…. tearing apart the world around us with a zany sense of humor that bordered on a kind of poetry. And once again, what we’re talking about here isn’t the soulless computer-generated effects we have in movies today… but something from another universe, where the skills of the human body are fused with fantasy and wit to the point of utter combustion. Bam – we are catapulted into a world of rapture.

This is one of the most iconic movies made by those legendary brothers (Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx). As far as the storyline goes, I’m not sure there is any point in trying to unravel it here – it is far too chaotic and explosive… stumbling and crashing from one scene into the next. But I can say the madcap journey does involve the Metropolitan Opera House of New York City… along with a love story, some stuffy bigwigs, incredibly twisted word salads, a lot of Verdi singing (both serious and ridiculous) and some mind-blowing piano playing.

One of the amazing things about these wildcats is how they’re able to roll with the punches – even when they are cornered in the most difficult situations, they always transform the dead-end seriousness of the predicament into absurdity and farce. That is their magic, and the fact they can achieve it by their outrageously twisted, illogical means, is even more amazing. Their antics are pure surrealism, utterly delirious. And along the way they are able to also transform us, the viewers, and break down all the fake walls that illusions that confine us. In other words, in a lonely world like today where everybody is increasingly hedged in by technology and over-information, the Marx Brothers offer us an escape hatch with their unique way of transforming the world by the sheer force of their imagination. 

With a short introduction by Jeffrey Babcock

20:30 (doors and bar open at 20:00)
Free entrance / no reservations
We advise you to come early: max. 70 people /
no admittance after 20.30