- Sign In
- Cart (0)
Fox Theatre presents: Battle of the Sexes!
A screening and lecture series that interrogates how gender plays out on screen through films by male directors about women and by female directors about men.Â
Cinema has always been obsessed with the relationship between men and women. The medium itself, with its inherent voyeurism, is a perfect arena for projections and fantasies about others. But in reality, the difference between the sexes (and of course, different gender identities and social constructs) is not as significant as we’ve been led to believe. And so why are we still so obsessed with naming and reinforcing this difference?Â
The series poses this question through provocative works like Mary Harron’s American Psycho, Chantal Akerman’s La Captive, Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie, and Jonathan Glazer’s Birth, films that lay bare gender projections, fantasies, and distortions. The series is hosted by Gabrielle Marceau, critic and editor-in-chief of In the Mood Magazine. Each screening is introduced by a guest writer or critic who will unpack these complex and sometimes controversial works.Â
Through erotic obsession, fraught relationships, and psychological turmoil, Battle of the Sexes invites you to experience cinema’s most dangerous match-up.
Writer with work in the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and In the Mood.
Dir. Mary Harron
Based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, Mary Harron’s American Psycho is a searing, funny, and stylish portrait of the men at the top of the financial food chain. The film follows Patrick Bateman, a Wall Street investment banker with fastidious grooming, a tastefully severe apartment, and unstoppable murderous impulses.Â
While Harron’s sleek and campy thriller is taking on the yuppies of the 1980s, her film remains painfully relevant in an era of personal optimization, unchecked wealth hoarding, and extreme misogyny fuelled by online discourse.
Dir. Chantal Akerman
Enigmatic and cutting, Chantal Akerman’s rarely screened masterpiece, La Captive, is a Hitchcockian portrait of a tortured male psyche.
A wealthy young man becomes obsessed with the idea that his girlfriend is hiding something from him. He begins to follow her daily activities, interrogates her on her inner thoughts, and grows increasingly convinced that she is having an affair with her female friend.Â
In a style that’s at once spare and lush, Akerman explores the frailty of the male ego, the folly of trying to possess someone, and the inability to truly know those we love.
Writer, critic, and editor-in-chief of In the Mood Magazine
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Marnie is Alfred Hitchcock’s darkest and most revealing film, featuring a haunting performance by Tippi Hedren, one of the last of her career.
After a compulsive thief with a troubled past is found out, she’s forced to marry the wealthy employer she tried to rob. Observing her erratic behaviour, he becomes obsessed with “curing” her of her destructive impulses.
A devastating study of control and trauma, Marnie is also a film that tells us more about its director than its subject: Hitchcock’s real-life romantic fixation on Hedren seeps unnervingly into every frame.
Her writing can be found in Little White Lies, Cornelia and C Magazine.
Dir. Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer’s hypnotic and disturbing Birth examines how social expectations clash with our deepest longings.
Ten years after her husband’s death, a woman is preparing to remarry when a young boy shows up in her home, claiming to be her dead husband reincarnated. Soon, she finds herself increasingly willing to believe him and to unravel her life in the process.
Jonathan Glazer uses upper-class decorum and the backdrop of a gorgeously bleak New York winter to create a suffocating examination of a woman’s inner world.
In The Mood Magazine is a pop culture journal about the things we like to watch.
Published online bianually, we delve into film, TV, music videos, and celebrity culture through essays, conversations, and unconventional forms of criticism like film diaries, poetry, and comics.
Our focus is on the viewer, their viewing habits, highs, and hang-ups. Why can't we stop thinking about the exact shade of pink of Suki’s car in 2 Fast 2 Furious? Or the look on Marnie’s face after she’s fired the shotgun? Tell us what you're obsessed with, we want to hear all about it. But you should know that we’re terrible at keeping secrets.
| TYPE | TIER | PRICE | TAX | FEE | SERVICE FEE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Child (3-13) | Admission | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.99 |
Purchases: $0.00
Service Fees: $0.99
Sales Tax: $0.00
Total: $0.00
Wednesday, January 10, 7:00 p.m.
Are you a Member? Sign-In to Purchase