Tinseltown: Hollywood dreams and nightmares, new Mondays film series at the UAB Cinema Hall

The title of the cycle “Tinseltown: somnis i malsons a Hollywood” referes to the often scornful name used when talking about Hollywood in the 1970s, when the independent studios were thriving.  

This is a unique opportunity to once again view six films set in Hollywood, with the exception of the first film, set in Paris and including as one of the actors Georges Méliès, pioneer and innovator in the use of special effects in filmmaking.  

The activity is organised by the Department of Communication and Advertising, with the support of the Cultura en Viu Unit, and will include a brief presentation of each session by lecturer Ludovico Longhi from the UAB Faculty of Communication Studies and main organiser of the film cycle. 

The audience will be able to enjoy this free activity of films in original version and with Spanish subtitles: Hugo (Martin Scorsese, 2011),  Nickelodeon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1976), Babylon (Damien Chazelle, 2022), The Artist (Michael Hazanavicius, 2011), The Last Tycoon (Elia Kazan, 1976) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019). 

The title of the cycle “Tinseltown: somnis i malsons a Hollywood” referes to the often scornful name used when talking about Hollywood in the 1970s, when the independent studios were thriving.  

The cycle will open next Monday 9 October with Hugo. The film, winner of five Oscars, tells the story, set in Paris in 1930, of Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterflied), a young goldsmith who lives in the train station and tries to rebuild the automobile that his father, a watchmaker, left incomplete. To do so, he will receive the help of Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) and George Méliès (Ben Kingsley), with whom he will enter a world full of fantasies where everything is possible.

The following week (16 October), Nickelodeon will be screened, a film that pays tribute to one of the industries that generates the most desires: Hollywood; and portrays its origins. It was in 1910 when a group of citizens went to a place where they paid a nickel (5 cents) to see a film projected on the wall, with explanatory posters and a live piano, in what was to be the forerunner of the cinema.

November's sessions begin on the 6th with Babylon, which tells the story of the rise, fall and excesses of Hollywood in the 1920s. Until then, the big stars were those of silent films, who, with the changeover to sound films, see that new things are expected of them. Nellie Laroy (Margot Robbie) adapts very well to the new situation, something that many of her colleagues do not achieve, and this will cause the industry to start to collapse.

Babylon will be followed by The Artist on 13 November, set in the same period and with the same premise as the previous film. Filmed entirely in black and white, it tells the story of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a silent film star who sees how, with the transition to sound films, his career is in danger and his popularity on the big screen begins to fall into oblivion. Then Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), a young dancer who started out as an extra and who has now become a star of the new cinema, appears into his life.

December will begin on day 4 with The Last Tycoon, the film based on the last and unfinished novel of Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the 1930s, Monroe Stahr is one of Hollywood's most important production directors and, with the death of his wife, he begins to devote all his free time to his work. However, one day he meets a young actress on a film set with whom he becomes obsessed and everything changes.

Finally, the cycle will end on 11 December with Tarantino's latest work, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie and takes us back to the end of the 1960s, when a western actor who is losing his starring role and his stunt double try to get an important role in a Hollywood that is constantly changing. Meanwhile, they meet one of the most promising actors of the time, who had been nominated for the Golden Globe  Award the previous year.