Marriage and infidelity have rarely been treated as intelligently as in Liv Ullmann’s masterful adaptation of a screenplay by none other than Ingmar Bergman, her ex-director and, intriguingly, her ex-lover. Framed within the reminiscences of an elderly man (Erland Josephson), Faithless tracks the adulterous romance between a conductor’s wife and a narcissistic filmmaker. Tracking how love...

Ten years after neorealism’s waning came Ermanno Olmi, with his deceptively simple style of observation. In Il posto, an ingenuous lad just out of school is stuffed into a suit, shoved out of his suburban home, and pointed toward Milan in search of un posto sicuro: a steady job. We follow Domenico’s progress through the dehumanizing labyrinth of the corporate world; along the way he finds and...

A young, shut-away Chinese emperor becomes enraptured by a nightingale’s song—and then by its mechanical reproduction—in Trnka’s magical adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. A baroque music box brought to life, The Emperor’s Nightingale is stop-motion at its most lavish, featuring some of Trnka’s greatest designs: refined porcelain figurines bedecked in ornate costumes, a court...

A powerful study of that enduring status symbol, the uniform, and a piercing critique of its importance in German society, The Last Laugh is the story of a proud hotel doorman’s demotion to lavatory attendant and his fall from grace in the eyes of neighbors and relatives who had previously respected him. Working in close collaboration with writer Carl Mayer, cameraman Karl Freund, and actor Emil...

In eleventh-century Japan, two children are kidnapped and sold into slavery while their mother, Tamiki, withers away on a distant island, dreaming only of being reunited with them. After many years the son assumes his rightful post as provincial governor and sets about deposing the cruel bailiff who brought tragedy upon his family. As in Greek tragedy, this film’s distanced determinism vies with...

Liv Ullmann gives a devastating performance in Bergman’s wrenching portrait of a woman on the brink of collapse. A successful psychiatrist, Ullmann’s character seems to have it all: a rewarding career, a (vaguely) loving husband, and even a (somewhat tepid) lover on the side, but nightmares are beginning to seep into her sleep and soon come to dominate her entire life. About this moving study of...

During its 50th anniversary year, the Lawrence Hall of Science is presenting a series of inspiring science films, introduced by scientists from UC Berkeley and beyond. In Robot & Frank, cantankerous retired cat burglar Frank is given a robot caretaker from his son. This film will be introduced by Dr. Ken Goldberg, Professor & Department Chair of Industrial Engineering & Operations Research.

Trnka’s earliest works already demonstrate his craftsmanship and artistry, moving from hand-drawn cartoons to surrealist interventions to the expressive beauty of his stop-motion beginnings. Drawing on ancient fables (Grandpa Planted a Beet; The Animals and the Brigands), a Chekhov story (Romance with Double Bass), and even a World War II–era, anti-Nazi urban legend (Springman and the SS), these...

Written and directed by A+D Thursdays series co-curator Stan Lai, The Peach Blossom Land (1992) is the award winning film adaption of his groundbreaking 1986 play Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land. The film radically challenged the principles of filmed theater, featuring remarkable innovations in staging, the use of song and dialogue, and the convention of the "fourth wall." Two theater companies...

Berkeley Center for New Media Kevin J. Delaney is editor in chief and co-CEO of Quartz, the global business news site at qz.com. Kevin cofounded Quartz in 2012 and has led its pioneering approach to journalism, which has won many awards and attracted a readership around the world. Prior to Quartz, Kevin was a Wall Street Journal reporter for a decade, with postings in Paris and San Francisco....