SCREENING WEDNESDAY 18th MARCH

JLG’s first English-language film is a radical, essayistic riff on Shakespeare that finds the director continuing to reinvent the syntax of cinema. In a post-apocalyptic world where culture has collapsed, William Shakespeare Junior the 5^th (theatre director Peter Sellars) attempts to reconstruct his ancestor’s titular play, aided by a cast that includes Burgess Meredith, Molly Ringwald, Julie Delpy, and Leos Carax. The film premiered at Cannes but received only limited release; its unconventional form and fraught production (the initial script by Norman Mailer was not used) led to a muted commercial life despite later critical reassessment.

Notes by David O’Mahony

Screening as part of Truth, 24 Frames per Second: The Films of Jean-Luc Godard