Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981) | Jameson's Cinematic Century
Schedule
Sat, 01 Nov, 2025 at 04:00 pm
UTC-04:00Location
Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University | Durham, NC
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Jameson’s Cinematic Century --A film series organized by the Franklin Humanities Institute's Future of Critical Thought initiative and Screen/Society
presents:
"Diva"
(Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981, 117 min, France, French with English subtitles, New 4K DCP restoration)
"A single misstep, and reedy postman Frédéric Andréi is on the run all across Paris— including a hair-raising motorcycle-and-moped chase through the Métro — hotly pursued by a drug dealer’s hit team, ruthless Taiwanese music pirates, and the obviously outmanned flics: all because he pirated a recording of the woman of his dreams, the never-recorded opera super-star Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, singing an aria from obscure 19th composer Alfredo Catalani’s THE WALLY. Longtime assistant director Beineix’s debut was an international arthouse sensation, playing for over a year in some cinemas, nabbing four French Césars (including Best First Film, Best Music, Best Sound, and Philippe Rousselot’s cinematography), and singlehandledly launching the 'cinéma du look', an explosion of visually stunning, punk-inspired, super-cool French movies in the early 80s, soon followed by the films of Luc Besson and Leos Carax." — Film Forum
"For his first feature, Jean-Jacques Beineix borrowed the formal innovations of the French avant-garde—Godard’s colors and conflicting tones, Rivette’s screwball thriller plotting—for a work of unalloyed entertainment, which was such a sharp commercial idea it’s a wonder no one had thought of it before." — Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"There were some, like Frederic Jameson, who cited DIVA as 'the first French postmodernist film.' ... 'It’s a glittering toy of a movie by a director who understands the pleasures to be had from a picture that doesn’t take itself very seriously. Every shot seems designed to delight the audience,' glowed Pauline Kael." — Emerson Rosenthal, Metrograph
“DIVA is not only the most purely pleasurable movie to open here this year, but surely one of the finest films to arrive from France in a decade.” — J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
"A visual extravaganza. One of the most persistently entertaining, absorbing and scary thrillers I've seen in a long time. . ." — Roger Ebert
-- Winner: Best Cinematography, 1983 National Society of Film Critics Awards (USA)
The new 4K restoration of DIVA was produced from the original 35mm negative and the sound negative. Scanned in 4K by TransPerfect Media, the image was then digitally graded and cleaned to remove imperfections from the original elements. The project was carried out by the Studiocanal team, Sophie Boyer and Jean-Pierre Boiget. Restoration and digitization with the support of the CNC.
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Event URL: https://cinematicarts.duke.edu/screensociety/screenings/diva-jean-jacques-beineix-1981-jamesons-cinematic-century
View Trailer:
Screen/Society screenings are free and open to the public.
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https://cinematicarts.duke.edu/covid-19-information
Parking Info: https://artscenter.duke.edu/parking
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Where is it happening?
Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University, Campus Drive,Durham,NC,United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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