The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) has recently announced its summer film series, featuring award-winning and classic movies.
Throughout the year, the museum presents films in its Brown Auditorium and Lynn Wyatt Theaters. The films this summer have been curated into the following categories: Restorations and Revivals, New Releases, and Spotlight on Indian Cinema. Additionally, this season the MFAH will present two films to complement the current exhibition William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows.
Learn about a selection of upcoming films below, via descriptions provided by the MFAH. Visit the museum’s website for a full list of films.
Anton Corbijn’s “Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)”
Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis), from the museum’s New Releases series
Directed by Anton Corbijn
(UK, 2022, 101 min., digital)
Friday – Saturday, July 21-22, 7:00 p.m. and Sunday, July 23, 5:00 p.m. (Lynn Wyatt Theater)
Whether or not you are a fan of Pink Floyd, chances are you recognize the album covers of The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. The creative duo behind those iconic images—Aubrey “Po” Powell and Storm Thorgerson—established innovative design studio Hipgnosis after meeting in Cambridge, England, in the 1960s. Squaring the Circle celebrates analog creativity and artistic risk, revealing the duo’s influence by revisiting their iconic album covers and tracing their career. The documentary features commentary from stars including Peter Gabriel, David Gilmour, Paul McCartney, and Robert Plant.
“Wozzeck”
Directed by William Kentridge with Luc de Wit/Directed for live cinema by Gary Halvorson
Wozzeck, part of the museum’s programming around its William Kentridge exhibition
Directed by William Kentridge with Luc de Wit/Directed for live cinema by Gary Halvorson
(USA, 2020, 111 minutes, in German with English subtitles © 2020 The Metropolitan Opera)
Sunday, July 23 and Sunday, July 30 at 2 p.m.
In 1925 Alban Berg based his first opera, Wozzeck, on the 1837 Georg Büchner play about a man’s life being destroyed by the casual sadism of military bureaucracy. This William Kentridge collaboration with New York’s Metropolitan Opera sets the tragedy during World War I, focusing on a soldier (Peter Mattei) whose madness and paranoia ultimately lead to murder.
John Schlesinger’s “Midnight Cowboy”
Midnight Cowboy, from the museum’s Restorations and Revivals series
Directed by John Schlesinger
(USA, 1969, 103 min., digital)
Saturday, August 5, 7:00 p.m. and Sunday, August 20, 5:00 p.m. (Brown Auditorium)
Naive Texas hustler Joe Buck (Jon Voight) travels to New York City to seek personal fortune. Joe soon finds himself living in an abandoned building with a con artist named Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), and together they kick-start Joe’s hustling career just as Ratso’s health begins to deteriorate. 1969 was a turning point for American cinema, with Midnight Cowboy (the first x-rated film to win an Oscar for Best Picture) among the year’s most provocative releases. Director John Schlesinger (Darling) adapted the story from the novel by James Leo Herlihy.
Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali”
Pather Panchali, from the museum’s Indian Cinema series
Directed by Satyajit Ray
(India, 1955, 115 min., Bengali with English subtitles, 35 mm)
Friday, August 18, 7:00 p.m. (Brown Auditorium Theater)
Tasked with creating illustrations for a new edition of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novel Pather Panchali, Satyajit Ray was so captivated by the story of the Roy family that he became a filmmaker in order to adapt it. The Roys share a tumbledown ancestral home on the rural outskirts of Calcutta (Kolkata), where a distant train’s smoke on the horizon offers a faint trace of the urban world. A timeless family saga, Pather Panchali was shot over three years and is still considered to be one of cinema’s greatest debuts.
