Fred Zinnemann's Julia.
Multiple Oscar-winning director Fred Zinnemann's final two films will screen as the final Film Comment Double Feature of 2014. The December 2 event will kick off with Zinnemann's last movie Five Days One Summer, starring Sean Connery and Betsy Brantley, at 6:30pm, followed by the filmmaker's 1977 feature Julia, starring Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jason Robards.
The winner of three Academy Awards, including Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Jason Robards, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Vanessa Redgrave, and Adapted Screenplay for Alvin Sargent, Julia centers on "the test of courage faced by celebrated playwright Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda), whose childhood friend, wealthy heiress Julia (Vanessa Redgrave), asks her to risk her life in the name of the anti-Nazi cause during a trip from Paris to Berlin in 1930s Europe."
The Film Society observes that the feature divides "its focus between Lillian’s privileged world of the New York literary scene and the world of refugees and the political underground explored by Zinnemann in his 1943 film The Seventh Cross." Julia received eight nominations in addition to its three wins in 1978, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress in a Leading Role for Jane Fonda. Both Redgrave and Fonda were controversial choices because at the time both were vilified for their politics. Her win at the Oscars prompted Redgrave to give a notorious acceptance speech.
Noted Tracy Young in the March/April 1978 issue of Film Comment: "It is… possible to be a star and to make it work within the context of a role. In Julia, what we know about Lillian Hellman collides with what we know about Fonda. There is of course an element of irony—a naïve Sixties radical playing even more naïve Thirties radical—that is, at times, a large part of the film's charm."
Julia also features Maximilian Schell, Hal Holbrook, Rosemary Murphy, and, in her film debut, a 28-year-old Meryl Streep.
Fred Zinneman's Five Days One Summer.
Five Days One Summer, meanwhile, was a passion project that recalled Zinnemann’s youthful mountaineering experiences. Undaunted by age (he was 73), Zinnemann made this rugged mountain-climbing drama in the Swiss Alps, returning him to the pre-war European genre of the Bergfilm. Set in 1932, it details the unraveling of a covert love affair between a middle-aged doctor (Sean Connery) and his young niece (Betsy Brantley) during an Alpine mountaineering vacation, precipitated by the attentions of their young, attractive mountain guide (Lambert Wilson).
Time Out says in its online review: "[Five Days One Summer is a] film which creates drama more out of gesture and nuance than dialogue, and employs a lush setting which overwhelms instead of pointing up the characters' emotions. Older, married doctor takes his young niece for a dirty week in the Swiss Alps in the 1930s."
''A director,'' Zinnemann once told an interviewer, ''should never compromise on important things. He must be determined to retain his ideas. This can require real stubbornness, but without it you can lose everything.''
[Both titles will be presented in 35mm. Tickets go on sale Thursday, November 6. Enjoy two films for the price of one: $13 General Public, $9 Student & Senior (62+), and $8 Film Society Member. Visit Filmlinc.com for more information.]