The return of queer classic ‘High Art,’ plus the week’s best movies in L.A.
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
The AFI Fest is already underway, but there are still a few days left and lots of movies worth seeing. Many of these screenings still have tickets available or there will be rush lines for those willing to take a chance on getting in. (You often do!)
Among the movies on Friday are RaMell Ross’ staggering adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel “Nickel Boys,” Carson Lund’s baseball-themed “Eephus,” Johan Grimonprez’s documentary ”Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” Noémie Merlant’s horror-comedy “Les Balconettes,” Justin Kurzeil’s true-crime “The Order” and Marielle Heller’s satire of motherhood “Nightbitch.”
Playing Saturday are Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie, Tim Fehlbaum’s dramatization of the 1972 Olympics hostage crisis “September 5,” Paul Schrader’s mournful “Oh, Canada,” Alain Guiraudie’s thriller “Misercordia,” Athina Rachel Tsangari’s historical drama “Harvest” and a restored selection of short films made by the band Devo.
On Sunday will be the festival’s most high-profile world premiere, Clint Eastwood’s courtroom thriller “Juror #2,” along with Alonso Ruizpalacios’ electrifying restaurant-set drama “La Cocina,” Durga Chew-Bose’s sensually evocative “Bonjour Tristesse,” Mike Leigh’s emotional “Hard Truths,” David Cronenberg’s grief-stricken “The Shrouds,” Jia Zhang-ke’s formal hybrid “Caught by the Tides” and Mohammad Rasoulof’s gripping “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.”
Restoration of Lisa Cholodenko’s ‘High Art’
On Friday night the UCLA Film and Television Archive will screen the world premiere of a restoration of director Lisa Cholodenko’s 1998 drama “High Art.” Cholodenko, editor Amy E. Duddleston, producer Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte, producer Susan A. Stover, composer Craig Wedren and photographer JoJo Whilden are all scheduled to be present for a Q&A moderated by Sundance Institute director of programming Kim Yutani.
A key work of late-’90s queer cinema, the film has not been available on streaming and was never released on Blu-ray. It won the screenwriting prize at the Sundance Film Festival and Ally Sheedy’s bold performance won an Independent Spirit Award for best actress and was also recognized by the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. and the National Society of Film Critics.
The film revolves around a young woman named Syd (Radha Mitchell), looking to make a name for herself in the worlds of art and publishing, who realizes her upstairs neighbor is a reclusive, acclaimed photographer, Lucy Berliner (Sheedy), who is living in a haze of drug addiction with her girlfriend Greta (Patricia Clarkson), a once-notable European art-house actress. Syd and Lucy soon find themselves intertwined in a relationship driven by mutual ambition and desire.
Cholodenko, who would go on to be nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay to her 2010 film “The Kids Are All Right,” recalled that she was anxious when she first rewatched “High Art,” seeing only the flaws of a movie made while she was still in film school at Columbia University. But then she was able to settle in and appreciate the passion that went into it.
“I was kind of amazed at how brazen it was,” said Cholodenko in an interview this week. “It was just kind of stark — the intimacy and the proximity to people with the camera.”
With a laugh she added, “And there was a lot of cigarettes and that isn’t part of the culture anymore.”
There was a fearlessness that went into the film, as Cholodenko put it. “That was its superpower,” she said, “to be like: I’m going to show these women, I’m going to show heroin, I’m going to show this kind of intimacy. This is what I want to show. This is what is going to make it compelling and why people are going to want to watch this.
“When I looked at it now, I was like, wow, OK,” Cholodenko added. “It seems provocative to me. Maybe I’m square now, but that’s how it felt to me.”
The restoration is the culmination of a partnership among the UCLA Film and Television Archive, Sundance Institute, Frameline, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Strand Releasing. The film will screen in San Francisco next week and the restoration will receive a broader nationwide theatrical launch next year.
“It reflects the spirit of independent cinema and the spirit of independent film restoration,” said May Hong HaDuong, director of the UCLA Film and Television Archive. “I think ‘High Art’ falls in this sort of gray zone of independent cinema, shifting from a photochemical to a digital world where it became very clear it wasn’t being seen. And it’s such an important queer film, coming at the edge of New Queer Cinema and really offering a different narrative for queer audiences.”
HaDuong referred to films like “High Art” as “heirlooms” that deserve to be passed down from one generation to the next through the work of preservation and archiving.
“You see so much how these films really have an impact on the way people see themselves,” said HaDuong. “And it’s not just single screenings. It’s every computer or way that somebody can see a film digitally can change their lives. And ‘High Art’ has not been available that way. And we have a moment now where we can do this work and telegraph these messages to anywhere in the world, and that’s our responsibility. There are a lot of people at the margins and it’s really important that we make these available to them.”
For Cholodenko, the film represents a specific moment in time, both as a filmmaker and for the independent film community.
“I don’t know if anybody would want to make this film now,” she said. “I don’t even know how they do it at that time. It was kind of the golden age of independent cinema in New York. It was a short window. I really admired Todd Haynes and other people that had made this work, and I was just sort of narrow-focused: If they can do it, if he can be queer and make these great films, I could do that. I’m free to write and do what I want. That said, I think people are still doing that.”
Alonso Ruizpalacios retrospective
The American Cinematheque is launching a retrospective of filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios, who, over the last 10 years, has become one of the most exciting new voices to emerge from Mexican cinema. Ruizpalacios will appear in person at all the screenings.
The series will begin with a 10th anniversary showing of Ruizpalacios’ debut, “Gueros,” a tale of disaffected youth in Mexico City, which won five of Mexico’s Ariel Awards, including best picture. The documentary “A Cop Movie,” about police corruption, will also screen.
A double-bill of the fun museum-heist film “Museo” starring Gael García Bernal and Ruizpalacios’ latest film, “La Cocina,” will play on Tuesday at the Aero. Ruizpalacios will be joined by actor Anna Diaz for a Q&A moderated by Carlos Aguilar.
“La Cocina,” which I will be reviewing next week, is a blast of furious energy as it goes behind the scenes at the kitchen of a New York City tourist restaurant. The film captures the cosmopolitan chaos of city life, work life and the specifics of food service with a cast that includes Raúl Briones and Rooney Mara. Comparisons to “The Bear” will be inevitable and “La Cocina” more than stands up to them.
Points of interest
‘Heaven’s Gate’ director’s cut
The Academy Museum is screening Michael Cimino’s 1980 “Heaven’s Gate” in its epic 216-minute director’s cut on Sunday in their big room, the David Geffen Theater. To see the grandeur and spectacle of this movie unfurl itself in that space should be nothing short of overwhelming.
The film of course became a symbol of artistic hubris and ambition run wild, as well as financial recklessness. But time has been good to “Heaven’s Gate” and, removed from the tumult and furor over its initial release, it now stands as a stately vision of the Western as something timeless and enduring — at once a dream, a promise and a brutal reality. Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert star in a tale of land ownership and immigration in frontier Wyoming.
In his April 1981 review of the truncated release version of the film, Times critic Charles Champlin wrote, “What seems clearer than ever after ‘Heaven’s Gate’ is that the making of movies is a collaborative effort and that sole autonomy for the filmmakers is risky to the point of catastrophe. From overcontrol of the creators in the days of the moguls, the pendulum swung all the way over to abandonment of all controls and has not got to swing back. The latitudes Cimino had did him as much a disservice as anything else.”
At No. 18 of the LAT’s recent list of the 50 best books on Hollywood was “Final Cut,” written by Stephen Bach, production executive at the film’s studio United Artists. It’s an insider’s look at the making of “Heaven’s Gate.” As Mark Athitakis wrote, “Bach died in 2009, Cimino in 2016. The type of studio executive and director they represented probably won’t be seen again. Hollywood is too cautious, too alert to demographics to hand off so much trust to any one person. Yet Hollywood still wants to make genius films, and people still want to see them. That’s what makes “Final Cut” worth returning to. It asks: How much recklessness do you need to make a masterpiece? How much control, how much brilliance, how much money?”
‘The Boy Friend’ in 35mm
The Academy Museum will also host a rare 35mm screening of Ken Russell’s 1971 “The Boy Friend” as part of their ongoing Branch Selects series, with an introduction from costume designer and academy governor Daniel Orlandi.
Starring supermodel Twiggy in her first starring role, the film was an adaptation of a popular stage musical and provided the fantastical visual imagination of Russell a fertile playground for extravagant production numbers. The film is at once a tribute, pastiche and deconstruction of Hollywood musicals.
In a 1971 Times profile of Russell written by Mary Blume while “The Boy Friend” was in production in London, Russell spoke mostly about the controversies that had surrounded his previous film, the provocative religious-themed “The Devils.” As Russell noted, “‘The Boy Friend’ was supposed to be a holiday after ‘The Devils’ — just entertainment. It’s turned out to be the hardest picture I’ve made.”
In other news
Producer Lynda Obst dead at 74
Lynda Obst, film producer, author and longtime advocate for women in Hollywood, died this week at age 74. Among her productions were “Flashdance,” “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Interstellar.” She also wrote a number of books, including 1996’s “Hello, He Lied: Tales from the Hollywood Trenches,” an essential look at the entertainment industry of the era.
One affectionate tribute to Obst came from actor Glen Powell, star of this year’s “Hit Man” and “Twisters,” who noted, “I interned for Lynda when I first moved to L.A. A true trailblazer who never missed an opportunity to help me learn. I’d often get to drive her home from the office and witnessed someone who took in everything. To her, the entire world was a great story ripe for the making.”
ICYMI, our Halloween screening guide
If you are still looking for last-minute ideas for what to do in the run-up to Halloween, our local venues have really outdone themselves this year.
As Amanda Salazar, director of programming at Vidiots, put it, “It is so fun to program for Los Angeles audiences during this time of year. It is a city that is built around creativity and a deep love for world-building and make-believe. Much of the inspiration comes from the city and our community’s love for the holiday.”
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