Tone Glow Presents Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Director: Albert Lewin

1951 / 126min / DCP

Joshua Minsoo Kim, the Chicago-based culture writer and Editor-in-Chief of Tone Glow—a newsletter about experimental music both new and old that has, since 2024, hosted numerous screenings of independent and avant-garde films—joins Metrograph in-person for a special one-off screening of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), preceded by a musical performance from singer and pianist Eliana Glass.

In the the fictitious Spanish port town of Esperanza—played by Tossa de Mar in Catalonia—haughty, headstrong heartbreaker Pandora (Ava Gardner) finds herself drawn into the orbit of mysterious stranger Hendrik van der Zee (James Mason), whom she comes to suspect of being the fabled “Flying Dutchman,” a 16th-century captain condemned to sailing the seas until such time as he finds a woman willing to die for love. A ravishingly romantic fairy tale of a film from Lewin, one of the most cultured men to make a living in studio-era Hollywood and probably the only American director of the time who would think to invite Man Ray onto his set to do behind-the-scenes photography, featuring the sublimely saturated Technicolor imagery courtesy English past master cinematographer Jack Cardiff.

“Eliana Glass’s spare, stirring vocal jazz will precede Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, capturing the mesmerizing beauty of Lewin’s Technicolor masterpiece. According to Cardiff, ‘Lewin thought Ava was a goddess’ and obsessively filmed close-ups of her face. This passion recalls Glass’s own love for having muses, allowing them to be ‘embalmed in the music forever.’ For this special performance, she will be accompanied by Luke Bergman on pedal steel. The evening will offer a chance to consider Lewin’s ‘consuming obsessions,’ which include myth, magic, beauty, the nature of art, and the cruelty of love.” —Joshua Minsoo Kim

4K restoration completed by the Cohen Film Collection in conjunction with OCS (France), using the photochemical restoration begun by The Film Foundation in 2008.

Pre-screening musical performance by jazz vocalist Eliana Glass accompanied by Luke Bergman on pedal steel on Saturday, December 13th