UPDATE: Due to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Sam Pollard is unable to visit the Bay Area as planned. His behind-the-scenes lecture and San Francisco Film Society workshop will be rescheduled for a future date. We will screen Mo'Better Blues, a film that Pollard selected as an example of his work, at 7 p.m.

Starring Denzel Washington as jazz trumpeter and composer Bleek Gilliam, Mo’ Better Blues traces the self-absorbed Gilliam’s hot-and-cool relationships with his band, lovers, and friends. Spike Lee plays Giant, his manager, who provides comic relief, but whose gambling debts eventually set off a slide down the scale toward tragedy. A “foxy, original, and moving film” (Gary Giddins, Village Voice).


• Written by Lee. Photographed by Ernest Dickerson. Edited by Sam Pollard. With Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, Joie Lee, Cynda Williams. (127 mins, 35mm, From Universal Pictures)