During June and July, the Lincoln Library Film Society will present “Wheels on Reels: A Festival of Films About Bicycling.” Bikes are not just a means of transportation; they can also signify a livelihood, an identity, a way of life, and the empowerment of the human body. Hop on your slick road racer or dust off the old commuter and come for a ride through the many characters of the bicycle.
A Sunday in Hell
Tuesday, June 14 at 7 p.m.
Denmark / 1976 / in English / 93 minutes
The Paris-Roubaix is one of the most grueling cycle races in existence, taking the athletes who attempt it through mud, dust and narrow cobblestone streets that can be disastrous when wet. Cyclists lie strewn about the road like soldiers on a battlefield. Master filmmaker Jørgen Leth’s documentary about the event is, in contrast to the tough conditions, elegant and beautiful, comprehensively capturing the mood of intense concentration and total devotion. From the preparation and lead-up, to the excitement of the race itself and the many personalities involved in it, we get a well-rounded encapsulation of all that it entails. Please note: the English narration of this film is at times difficult to understand and the film will be shown without subtitles.
The Triplets of Belleville
Tuesday, June 24 at 7 p.m.
France, Belgium and Canada / 2003 / in French with English subtitles / 78 minutes
With a very French atmosphere of sinister whimsy, the wildly successful The Triplets of Belleville is a tour de force (-de-France) filled with eccentric music and insane adventure. An elderly woman leaves her sheltered house to search for her missing grandson, a bicycle racer who has been kidnapped and brought to the big city of Belleville. She and her obese dog find themselves in the house of three aging music-hall sisters (the triplets of the title), who all live together and eat frogs from a disgusting pond nearby. From there, the old woman is able to infiltrate the mafia racket that has been holding her grandson captive for betting purposes. The original music is fantastic, and the shambolic, old-timey aesthetics mix with cutting-edge animation techniques in this award-winning cartoon.
The Triplets of Belleville will be preceded by Boy and Bicycle (UK / 1965 / in English / 27 minutes). This he first film by famed director Ridley Scott is a black and white, 16mm short from his days as a photography student. Although it precedes his first feature by 15 years, Boy and Bicycle (the boy played by Scott’s younger brother, Tony) bears similarities with some of the director’s later visual flares, the industrial menace of Northeast England prefiguring the science fiction environments of Blade Runner (1982) and Alien (1979).
BMX Bandits
Saturday, June 28 at 1 p.m.
Australia / 1983 / in English / 88 minutes
The day-glo kid’s action movie BMX Bandits has improbable stunts and bikes that emit sci-fi sound effects. Two young BMX enthusiasts, Goose and P.J., put their dream of building a cycle track on hold when their bikes get totaled in an accident. They soon arrive at an opportunity for quick money when they discover a trove of black-market walkie-talkies. Unfortunately, the ruthless bank robbers who own the devices set out to reclaim them. Together with a grocery store clerk (a 16-year-old Nicole Kidman, in her first screen credit), they use their brains and bikes to thwart the bad guys. Not only is the film an artifact at Australia’s material culture during an economic boom, but it’s also a pre-internet farce of personal broadcasting, as the hapless protagonists use the airwaves (both intentionally and unintentionally) to achieve their aims. Their negotiation of the lawns, streets, and beaches of Sydney develop a blunt but still interesting commentary on the nature of public space in an urban setting.
Cycling the Frame
Tuesday, July 1 at 7 p.m.
In 1988, avant-garde filmmaker Cynthia Beatt filmed Cycling the Frame (West Germany / 1988 / in English / 27 minutes), in which actress Tilda Swinton makes the 160-kilometer trip around the entirety of the Berlin wall by bicycle.
The Invisible Frame
Tuesday, July 1 after Cycling the Frame
In 2009 the pair returned to document the same ride in “The Invisible Frame” (Germany / 2009 / in English / 60 minutes), observing the city from its former confines, which seen at the ground level are demarcated by the ghostly palimpsest of political division and social isolation. Showing little else besides the journey itself and the shifting landscape through which Swinton cycles, the two films serve as a powerful reflection on boundaries, both outside and within the human soul. Seen next to one another, they suggest, together, a narrative of a past, present, and future wall – one whose imprint on memory is persistent.
Quicksilver
Tuesday, July 8 at 7 p.m.
USA / 1986 / in English. 106 minutes
Mostly panned when it came out, Quicksilver is an exciting take on a rarely depicted facet of the urban landscape: people who bike for a living. Kevin Bacon plays a Wall Street broker who loses his family’s fortune and becomes a bike messenger on the streets of New York. Free of the excesses of the corporate world, he nonetheless becomes embroiled in rivalry (with a coworker, played by Laurence Fishburne), romance (with a new girlfriend) and a criminal underworld (who is pursuing said girlfriend). While it idealizes and overemphasizes the fancy riding that the messengers do, the film is also a look into a subculture that uses the a command of the urban environment to surpass modern technology.
