Giveaway: Two tickets to see 40th Anniversary 2K projection of Altman's 'Nashville'

One of the most distinguished actresses of our time, Geraldine Chaplin, will celebrate on succeeding days – Saturday, January 24 and Sunday, January 25 at the Coral Gables Art Cinema – the 50th anniversary of David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago and the 40th anniversary of Robert Altman’s Nashville, respectively. Both lovingly restored landmark epics will be followed by Q&A’s with Ms. Chaplin immediately following their one-time only 1:00 pm screenings.

Doctor Zhivago – 50th Anniversary

Restored to its original splendor, Doctor Zhivago can now be fully appreciated as David Lean’s last great film; an awe-inspiring epic of the Russian revolution as reflected in the lives of those who adapted or were crushed.

Geraldine Chaplin as Tonya Gromeko in Doctor Zhivago

It’s a film of daunting real-life grandeur unlikely to be equaled in the pared-down era of computer animatronics. Omar Sharif (in his second starring role for Lean) is the titular medic caught in the throes of war and social upheaval. He is flanked by an all-star cast featuring, in alphabetical order, Geraldine Chaplin, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay, Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson and Rod Steiger. In its day, Time magazine celebrated Chaplin’s screen debut noting that “a striking resemblance to her father may be somewhat more than skin-deep,” and concluding that Zhivago “reaches that level of taste, perception and emotional fullness where a movie becomes a motion-picture event.” Richard Schickel added: “It succeeds, in the last analysis, because of the perfection of visualization by Lean [who] with careful, conscious artistry, has created the visual equivalent of Boris Pasternak’s novel.” The source novel itself – an international bestseller – was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, twenty-eight years after Pasternak’s demise. Doctor Zhivago went on to win 5 Oscars, including Adapted Screenplay (Robert Bolt), Cinematography (Freddie Young) and Original Score (Maurice Jarre). Adjusting for inflation, it is the eighth highest-grossing film of all time and will reach Broadway – as a musical – in the spring.

Nashville – 40th Anniversary

One of the greatest films from the decade of American Film’s renovation – the seventies – is also, in the words of Pauline Kael, “the funniest epic vision of America ever to reach the screen.” Robert Altman’s restored masterpiece is a backstage musical drama centered around a political campaign in the music capital of America on the eve of the Bicentennial (“We must be doing something right / To last 200 years”).

Scott Glenn as Pfc. Glenn Kelly and Geraldine Chaplin as Opal in Nashville

It’s a snapshot of the country in the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate, prescient of the perils of a celebrity-obsessed society. In an ensemble cast of two dozen featured characters (including Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakley, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Shelley Duvall, Allen Garfield, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Barbara Harris, Michael Murphy, Lily Tomlin, Gwen Welles, Keenan Wynn), everyone’s a standout and some were encouraged to write and perform songs, most notably Carradine, whose “I’m Easy” went on to win the Golden Globe and Oscar. Chaplin’s faux BBC correspondent was nominated for a Supporting Actress Golden Globe (along with Blakley, Harris and Tomlin). Critical acclaim was immediate and rhapsodic. Andrew Sarris called it “the most exciting dramatic musical since Blue Angel.” The NY Times’ Vincent Canby wrote: “It’s a film that a lot of other directors will wish they’d had the brilliance to make.” Roger Ebert confessed “… after I saw it I felt more alive, I felt I understood more about people, I felt somewhat wiser. It’s that good a movie.”

Doctor Zhivago and Nashville are stand-outs (she was honored with Golden Globe nominations for both) in an international career that has spanned five decades and almost 150 films. Nashville marked her first of three collaborations with director Robert Altman.

She would go on to star in three additional films with Altman disciple Alan Rudolph (most notably Remember My Name). Her twelve year partnership with Spain’s Carlos Saura yielded nine films including Cría Cuervos. She has worked twice with France’s Alain Resnais and Jacques Rivette, twice with England’s Richard Lester on his popular Musketeers tandem and twice with Spain’s Juan Antonio Bayona, including The Orphanage in 2007. Her filmography includes James Ivory’s Roseland, Michel Deville’s Le voyage en douce, Claude Lelouch’s Les Uns et Les Autres, Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, Franco Zefirelli’s Jane Eyre and Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her.

Ms. Chaplin received her third Golden Globe nomination in 1992 for playing her grandmother, Hannah Chaplin, in Richard Attenborough’s biography of her father, Chaplin, and a lifetime achievement award from Spain’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2006. She appeared for the first time onscreen as a little girl in the opening scene of Charles Chaplin’s 1952 classic Limelight.

Geraldine Chaplin was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth child of Charles Chaplin and the first of his eight children with his fourth and last wife, Oona O’Neill. Her maternal grandfather was American playwright Eugene O’Neill. She has two children, Shane (by Carlos Saura) and Oona (by husband Patricio Castilla).

Busier than ever at age 70, Ms. Chaplin won the Best Actress award at the last Chicago Film Festival for Sand Dollars; Pascal Thomas’ comedic thriller Valentin Valentin just opened in France; and Guy Maddin’s typically quirky The Forbidden Room will be unspooling at Sundance later this month.