SCAD Cinema Circle continues its presentation of gangster films for the winter quarter with a screening of the 1949 movie “White Heat” Friday, Feb. 17 at SCADshow.
The ongoing series has already included screenings of “The Godfather” and “Scarface” and is scheduled to show “Goodfellas” and “The Untouchables” in March.
“These are must-see gangster films in film history,” said Dustin Weldon, the operations coordinator for SCADshow, who chose the theme and built the schedule in coordination with Josh Lotz, the director of operations from the Trustees Theater in Savannah. “We discussed various themes, and then chose films to fit those themes. Narrowing it down to only five films was difficult, but we were able to pick films that we felt most influenced the genre as whole.”
For many of these films, the screenings at SCADshow are a rare opportunity to see the movies on a large screen and Weldon said he hopes that as such, audiences will be able to better appreciate the classic films.
“Hopefully, our audiences are able to see these groundbreaking and important films as they were meant to be seen, on a big screen, with surround sound and with the laughter and gasps of an audience,” said Weldon. “This way our audience is able to truly find themselves transported into and transformed by these films.”
While the screenings are available to the general public, tickets are free for SCAD Card holders and Weldon said he hopes that students learn from the film series and further their own abilities.
“If there are any film students watching, we hope they’re able to pick up techniques employed by the filmmakers,” said Weldon.
“White Heat,” the next installment in the series, stars James Cagney as a dangerous and volatile criminal who escapes from prison and reunites with his gang to pull off a major heist. The film is considered by many to be one of the top noir films of all time. Rotten Tomatoes, a popular online aggregator of movie and TV show reviews, assigned the film a “Tomatometer” rating of 100 percent.
The SCAD Cinema Circle will continue its presentation of gangster movies with a screening of “Goodfellas” Friday, March 3, and a screening of “The Untouchables” Friday, March 10. All screenings begin at 7 p.m.