The Yards

Director: James Gray

2000 / 115min / 35mm

Sunnyside Yards, that is—the scene of a murder that threatens to topple a Queens dynasty. Mark Wahlberg is a small-time con fresh out of prison when he hooks up with his commuter rail contractor uncle James Caan, heir-apparent cousin Charlize Theron, and her boyfriend, Joaquin Phoenix, in the first of four collaborations with Gray, playing a seductive sleaze. The setting is a lived-in bridge-and-tunnel world with an inch of accumulated dust on it; the emotional content is pure Puccini. The shadow-drenched tenebrist photography of DP Harris Savides would exert a lasting influence on Young, who continues to test the limits of what the camera can see in low light, with exquisite results. .

35mm print courtesy of the Chicaco Film Society