The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present
The Hop Pickers
When
Wed 21 Dec 2022
Rychman expanded upon his experience making proto-video clips when bringing to the big screen the first great Czechoslovak musical, a Romeo and Juliet-like tale of teen love often dubbed 'East Side Story'. Framed by a trio of guitarists acting as a Greek chorus, this sly satire of the socialist-realist “tractor musical” dramatises the conflict between collective and individualistic principles and foregrounds the interests of youth no less than the films of the contemporaneously emerging New Wave. The film’s terrific songs are sung by domestic pop stars working in the American idiom including Karel Gott, “The Golden Voice of Prague”.
Digital restoration courtesy of the National Film Archive in Prague.
Also screening on Wed 21 December
Program
Genre Nonconformity and East Side Stories: Decentering the Musical Part 1
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) – Wed 7 Dec, 7pm
City of Lost Souls (1983) – Wed 7 Dec, 8.50pm
The Lure (2015) – Wed 14 Dec, 7pm
The Legend of the Stardust Brothers (1985) – Wed 14 Dec, 8.45pm
The Hop Pickers (1964) – Wed 21 Dec, 7pm
Singing on the Treadmill (1974) – Wed 21 Dec, 8.45pm
About the program
The movie musical, while intermittently revived in the mainstream affections, has long been associated with the golden age of Hollywood between the 1930s and the 1960s. This season demonstrates that the musical has also flourished away from this perceived American “centre” – while still existing in dialogue with it – throughout the subsequent decades.
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About Melbourne Cinémathèque
Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.
Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven.
