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Film/Video 
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"GUY MADDIN'S BODY OF WORK IS AS BEAUTIFUL AS IT IS CONFOUNDING AND DELIRIOUS." --ZEITGEIST FILMS
If Guy Maddin keeps a diary, it is certainly full of surprises. He is a prolific filmmaker who shows us what he imagines in his daily life, filtered through his alternative history of motion pictures. Two new works make their regional premieres during this series: a vaguely autobiographical video peep show entitled Cowards Bend the Knee and his newest film--straight from Sundance and starring Isabella Rossellini--The Saddest Music in the World. "Only Isabella," Maddin says proudly, "could plop herself into one of my movies without destroying the perfumes. There's something timeless about her. She understands the Italian diva picture. And this is the first movie in which she plays a blonde. So at times it seems like she's channeling her mother [Ingrid Bergman]."
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The youngest-ever recipient of a Telluride Lifetime Achievement Award at age 39, Maddin has a long list of films that have established his signature style. His International Emmy Award-winning Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002) is a tour de force. Reinterpreting Bram Stoker's gothic classic through a performance by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Maddin presents what the New York Sun deemed "quick-witted and dazzling. Imagine Murnau's Nosferatu remade by Kenneth Anger, edited by Eisenstein . . . , and produced for Masterpiece Theatre." This critique hints at an absurdist bent that puts Maddin in good company with David Lynch and John Waters, and points to his deep love for the moods and techniques of cinematic history. "His reverence for early film shows in his handcrafted look of early 20th-century cinema: black and white, styled with deep chiaroscuro, and brought to life with melodramatic storytelling," says Sheryl Mousley, Walker Associate Curator of Film/Video.
This series explores the recent works of this Winnipeg-born director, from his cult hit Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988) to his two latest films. Winner of the U.S. National Society of Film Critics' prize for Best Experimental Film of the Year for The Heart of the World (2000), Maddin will be at the Walker on February 6 for a Regis Dialogue with New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell.
PAGES FROM A FILMMAKER'S DIARY: A FILM RETROSPECTIVE AND
REGIS DIALOGUE WITH GUY MADDIN IS MADE POSSIBLE BY GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM
THE REGIS FOUNDATION. SPECIAL THANKS TO IFC FILMS FOR THE PRINT OF THE
SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD.