Closed Circuit
This week the From Below Microcinema presents *Close Circuit *(1978) on Thursday, October 17, at 7 pm.
Here is the link to reserve a seat. Doors will be at 6:50 and we’re starting the movie at 7:10!
What are the pleasures and dangers of looking up at the movie screen?
This week we’re diving into *Closed Circuit * (1978), an overlooked Italian made-for-TV whodunit about a group of movie-goers attending a matinee screening of a Spaghetti western. After a spectator is murdered, an investigation is launched to find the culprit among the audience. As the detective interviews the strange attendees one by one, the movie-within-movie, *A Sky Full of Stars for the Roof, *plays on, with leading man Giuliano Gemma looming above our characters, squinting into the sun.
This movie is a blast, reminiscent of *Demons *(1985) (minus the goo) and a thoughtful deconstruction of the mystery and western genre films. Goofy characters, excellent tension and intrigue, and a cinematographic eye that beautifully showcases the cinema-house as a place in its own right. The question, “Why do we go to the cinema?,” usually an aesthetic or social one, is delightfully warped into a legal query, re-posed to us and the characters under the suspicious gaze of the detectives. If you are like Emma and have been begging the From Below to program some “Big Guy -Little Guy” cinema, here is your chance, as the director Giuliano Montaldo has clearly fallen head over heels in love with the mise-en-scéne of a giant cowboy projected above the tiny Italian cinema goers.