On the phone recently, Rebecca Fons was discussing the 1987 one-night-stand-like-hell-it-is thriller “Fatal Attraction,” and its place in the upcoming “Bad Romance” retrospective at the Gene Siskel Film Center, where Fons has been director of programming for a year now.
There Fons was, at home last November, rewatching Glenn Close terrorize Michael Douglas and set feminism back a generation while demonizing frizzy Reagan-era blowouts for all eternity. Fons’ husband, filmmaker and educator Jack C. Newell, hadn’t tried director Adrian Lyne’s smash hit before. She felt he should.
Fons hadn’t seen it since “my 20s, probably. I was fascinated with all the ‘sexy crazy woman’ energy of it, and just how poorly matched those two were.” She started thinking about the beleaguered horndog vs. predatory she-wolf thrillers Douglas made after “Fatal Attraction,” notably “Basic Instinct” and “Disclosure.” The formula, in four words: When Scary met Clenchy.
Running Feb. 1-27, the nine-film “Bad Romance” series celebrates Valentine’s Day its own special way. Seven of the nine will screen in 35mm prints, starting with the Feb. 1 presentation of the title that became a verb: “Gaslight,” directed by George Cukor, starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotten.
In the 1944 film, adapted from the 1940 British version “Gas Light” and Patrick Hamilton’s stage success produced in America as “Angel Street,” grief-stricken Paula and charming, highly motivated Gregory embark on a whirlwind romance in Italy. Back home in London and now married, Paula and her husband settle into Paula’s family residence. In short but subtle order, Gregory instigates a campaign of sly psychological torture for his own nefarious purposes. Example A: lowering the light in the interior gas fixtures and then denying it, blaming Paula’s misperceptions on her fragile and unstable mind.
On the strength of the film, “gaslight,” the verb, soon came into existence — shorthand for “to mess with someone’s sense of verified reality.” The word enjoyed a massive resurgence in usage around the time of Donald Trump’s presidential victory, and with the ongoing Republican characterization of the 2020 election as illegitimate, gaslighting has become our new national pastime. Just last week, “Saturday Night Live” spoofed “Gaslight.”
Across all the February “Bad Romance” selections, says Fons, the Film Center is striving for “a full reflection of dynamics inherent in all kinds of high-stakes relationships, unhealthy or not.” Other titles range from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to the perpetually undervalued Elaine May tour de force “A New Leaf” to the ripping film noir classic “Leave Her to Heaven.”
“My hope,” Fons says, “is that couples will go to this series and have some conversations afterward. It’s a unique date night opportunity.”
Over at Facets, meanwhile, February brings a four-film screening series, its title borrowed from “Parks and Recreation’s” Leslie Knope. “Galentine’s Weekend” will offer contrasting tales of female friendship, starting Feb. 11 with the 1996 “Set It Off” with the stunning quartet of Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, Jada Pinkett Smith and Kimberly Elise.
“Mulholland Drive” (Feb. 12), David Lynch’s hypnotic Hollywood reminder that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere in your delusional fantasies, will be followed by two very different comedies on Feb. 13: “Frances Ha” (a Greta Gerwig/Noah Baumbach joint) and “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,” starring Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino.
You can see all of these films at home, of course, by way of various streaming platforms. Or, at the Film Center and Facets this month, you can opt for the in-person experience.
For “Bad Romance” information and tickets, go to siskelfilmcenter.org. For “Galentine’s Weekend” information and tickets, go to facets.org.
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
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