Film Forum puts the city on the screen

Every Monday at 7 p.m., an audience ponders the alluring images and sounds that saturate the Rocky-Mathey Theatre as the projector hums. Students, professors and townspeople alike attend the Film Forum to experience and discuss the mystery, the beauty and the complexity of art films: movies that go beyond the simple beginning, middle and end to penetrate the soul of the modern condition. This semester, the theme is “city sounds,” and as urban life so astutely unites the highs and lows of the human condition, so do the films that give it voice.

Recently, two drastically different films have been shown, each of which manages to turn the city of Rome into a character in itself: the semi-documentary “Roma” by director Federico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini’s neorealist World War II drama “Rome, Open City.” Movies to be screened later this semester include “Monty Python” veteran Terry Gilliam’s futuristic “Brazil” — featuring a memorable cameo by Robert De Niro — and “Metropolis,” the Fritz Lang classic.

Erika Kiss, director of the Film Forum and associate research scholar in the University Center for Human Values, describes the humble origins of the Film Forum as it began in her family’s home.

“The idea started in our living room in the spring term of 2005,” she explained, “where I projected on a ... white wall my favorite films to a circle of friends and family from the [University] faculty.”

The concept soon moved beyond simply watching the movies. “During our conversations after the films, I thought what a great opportunity it would be for students to witness their professors from different academic disciplines argue about [Akira] Kurosawa’s ‘Seven Samurai’ or [Stanley] Kubrick’s ‘Paths of Glory,’ [and] moreover to be able to join in themselves,” Kiss said.

The Film Forum then found its home in the intimate Rocky-Mathey Theatre and has, for the last five years, brought artistic cinema to the Princeton community, exploring such themes as dreams, freedom and war.

This semester’s topic of city sounds highlights an often-ignored, yet crucial, aspect of film: the soundtrack. “I wanted to dedicate a season to cinematic sound in order to draw attention to the fact that in the kind of films we show, the audio-image is as important as the visual image,” Kiss explained, “not to mention the exciting relations between the two.”

Anyone who attends the “Metropolis” screening on April 25 or the Siodmak brothers’ “People on Sunday” screening on April 4 will be in for an incredibly unique moviegoing experience that has rarely been explored in the past 80 years. Andrew Lovett, a music department staff member and composer, will provide live accompaniment to the two silent films, just as would have been done in movie theaters a century ago. Next fall, the Film Forum will be presenting a “greatest hits” collection of the 12 best films shown during the past five years, which will be picked using an online vote.

Kiss said she believes in the power of the collective aspect of watching films to create bonds and break barriers. “The films we show, as well as their audience, are from all over the world,” she said. “Yet each week, a very particular community of viewers is created and recreated.” These movies may not have you scarfing down popcorn or give you a warm and fuzzy feeling at the end, but they will make you think and reflect upon yourself and the people around you. Accordingly, Kiss added, “Princeton, like any sophisticated and cosmopolitan campus, needs a place like this.”