Bette Gordon’s fascinating 1983 film about a woman working in an adult movie theatre has a script by Kathy Acker and parts for Nan Goldin and Spalding Gray
The 1983 indie-underground New York movie Variety, directed by Bette Gordon and scripted by Kathy Acker, is re-released for its 40-year anniversary. It is a flawed but fascinating critique of the male gaze, the porn gaze, and the luxurious ordeal of guilty voyeurism. Gordon casts a female lead, flipping gender assumptions and turning the tables on the underworld quest-torments of Paul Schrader’s male heroes in the likes of Taxi Driver and Hardcore. Perhaps she was inspired by the mysterious inner life of the listless young woman played by Diahnne Abbott in Taxi Driver, working behind the porn-cinema concessions counter, irritated by Travis Bickle’s inquiries about what candy she has: “What you see is what we got.”
Actor and film-maker Sandy McLeod plays Christine,...
The 1983 indie-underground New York movie Variety, directed by Bette Gordon and scripted by Kathy Acker, is re-released for its 40-year anniversary. It is a flawed but fascinating critique of the male gaze, the porn gaze, and the luxurious ordeal of guilty voyeurism. Gordon casts a female lead, flipping gender assumptions and turning the tables on the underworld quest-torments of Paul Schrader’s male heroes in the likes of Taxi Driver and Hardcore. Perhaps she was inspired by the mysterious inner life of the listless young woman played by Diahnne Abbott in Taxi Driver, working behind the porn-cinema concessions counter, irritated by Travis Bickle’s inquiries about what candy she has: “What you see is what we got.”
Actor and film-maker Sandy McLeod plays Christine,...
- 8/8/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Exclusive: Jesús I. Valles’ play Bathhouse.pptx has been awarded the prestigious 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize, with the honor’s judge Jeremy O. Harris calling the new work an exploration of “a queer history that is quickly being erased.”
The prize for emerging playwrights, now in its 16th year, was selected from more than 1,500 entries. As is the prize’s custom, Harris, the author of Slave Play and a Yale alum, was the selection process’ presiding playwright, or sole judge. Previous judges have included Edward Albee, David Hare, John Guare, Marsha Norman, Nicholas Wright, Ayad Akhtar and Paula Vogel.
“This is one of the most exciting speculative fictions I’ve encountered in years,” Harris said, “using a unique dramaturgy to explore a queer history that is quickly being erased. It brought to mind the works of many heroes like Samuel Delaney, Martin Crimp, and Kathy Acker.”
Winning playwright Velles said,...
The prize for emerging playwrights, now in its 16th year, was selected from more than 1,500 entries. As is the prize’s custom, Harris, the author of Slave Play and a Yale alum, was the selection process’ presiding playwright, or sole judge. Previous judges have included Edward Albee, David Hare, John Guare, Marsha Norman, Nicholas Wright, Ayad Akhtar and Paula Vogel.
“This is one of the most exciting speculative fictions I’ve encountered in years,” Harris said, “using a unique dramaturgy to explore a queer history that is quickly being erased. It brought to mind the works of many heroes like Samuel Delaney, Martin Crimp, and Kathy Acker.”
Winning playwright Velles said,...
- 3/16/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
“Woman in Rage” is an experimental narrative work that utilizes unsettling distortions of female form, accompanied by a confrontational narrative and a disorienting score. The short film acts to give voice to those who have marginalized and abused by a system that sets double standards within certain cultures and environments.
“Women in Rage” is Screening at Cartoons Underground
Exploding with energy from the opening frame, Chen Yanyun and Sara Chong’s short expounds on the injustices that face many women in the modern era. The flow certainly reflects the title of rage, and the words come out in a poetic flow that would also favor the medium of spoken word. Each sentence carries weight and is punctuated by strong statements which resonate perfectly with the distorted imagery of the female form. The approach has a vibe similar to the postmodern feminist movement, echoed in the literature by the likes of...
“Women in Rage” is Screening at Cartoons Underground
Exploding with energy from the opening frame, Chen Yanyun and Sara Chong’s short expounds on the injustices that face many women in the modern era. The flow certainly reflects the title of rage, and the words come out in a poetic flow that would also favor the medium of spoken word. Each sentence carries weight and is punctuated by strong statements which resonate perfectly with the distorted imagery of the female form. The approach has a vibe similar to the postmodern feminist movement, echoed in the literature by the likes of...
- 12/8/2020
- by Adam Symchuk
- AsianMoviePulse
Chances are, if you’ve seen many of the late films of Theodoros Angelopoulos, Michelangelo Antonioni (everything since L’avventura), Marco Bellocchio, Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini (almost everything since Amarcord), Mario Monicelli, Elio Petri, Francesco Rosi, Andrei Tarkovsky (Nostalghia), the Taviani brothers, and/or Luchino Visconti, and paid much attention to their script credits, you know who Tonino Guerra (1920–2012) was and is—a ubiquitous presence in modernist European cinema, especially its Italian branches. Petri was his first cinematic employer, after Guerra started out as a schoolteacher and poet whose parents were illiterate; later on, he became a visual artist as well as a screenwriter with over a hundred credits.Even after one acknowledges the exceptionally collaborative role played by multiple writers on Italian films, it seems that no one else was considered quite as essential by so many important directors. In Nicola Tranquillino’s documentary about Tonino (visible on YouTube...
- 9/29/2020
- MUBI
It’s rarely ideal to find yourself held behind a pane of glass. Consider police lineups, artefacts in airless museum cabinets, and trapped specimens awaiting examination. But to catch your own reflection while in that state of vulnerability is something particularly miserable, as if being assessed by a wiser version of yourself. A newly waxed Cadillac hood, a makeup compact, or the surface of a sunlit puddle can all do the trick—revealing your strained face and unkempt hair as you rush to the supermarket or run across a wild intersection. You don’t have to be confined by something bulletproof to appreciate the demeaning function of the mirrors that surround us. Being forced to meet your own gaze is often punishment enough.But what is the difference between feeling watched and feeling seen? First released in 1983, Bette Gordon’s gorgeous neo-noir Variety is awash in all those fraught surfaces...
- 10/23/2019
- MUBI
Now in its seventh edition, the Nitehawk Shorts Festival (running November 11-18 in Brooklyn) is billed as “a celebration of independent short filmmaking, featuring seven days of screenings, workshops, and special events that highlight and support a diverse range of voices in short films.” The curation of Nsf “prioritizes conversations over categorical listings” and aims to provide audiences with an experience unlike most short film programs. This year’s lineup continues its mission to “represent diverse backgrounds, voices, and perspectives with our selection of exceptional short-form films.” Nsf is committed to gender parity.
As such, 61 percent of this year’s selection includes films is directed by women. All short films are under 20 minutes and made in the last two years. The festival’s main slate features a range of filmmakers, from emerging film-school students to Academy Award nominees. The Nitehawk Shorts Festival “provides an inclusive platform for filmmakers to encourage...
As such, 61 percent of this year’s selection includes films is directed by women. All short films are under 20 minutes and made in the last two years. The festival’s main slate features a range of filmmakers, from emerging film-school students to Academy Award nominees. The Nitehawk Shorts Festival “provides an inclusive platform for filmmakers to encourage...
- 10/7/2019
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Hannah Kallenbach is a Brooklyn-based performance artist whose primary interest is in female grossness and exploring ways to reclaim the fetishization of her own body. She recently staged “Re:” at Vital Joint in Brooklyn, and "2 girls 1 hotdog" premiered at The Glove as part of The Exponential Festival. Hannah is associate directing the Shakespeare in the Square's food-fight-inspired production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream touring at the end of March through April.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being able to do whatever I want to do in a given moment without financial, social, political, psychological, or physical restraints.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I am learning to not spend as much money on my work, to use more trash or found items.
What is your current state of mind?
Make make make and document all that you make be young and embrace fucking up and have fun art...
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being able to do whatever I want to do in a given moment without financial, social, political, psychological, or physical restraints.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I am learning to not spend as much money on my work, to use more trash or found items.
What is your current state of mind?
Make make make and document all that you make be young and embrace fucking up and have fun art...
- 2/7/2018
- by bradleyrubenstein
- www.culturecatch.com
Catherine Grant has tweeted a link to the shocking news as reported by El Mostrador: Raúl Ruiz, widely considered the most important filmmaker to have come from Chile, has died in Paris at the age of 70. The funeral will be held on Tuesday morning.
Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times' Ao Scott profiled Ruiz, director of more than "100 films in several languages and also, in his spare time, a theater director and film theorist of some renown in Europe and beyond. He has taught at Harvard, adapted the last volume of Proust into a feature film, transformed several of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tales into a dark, surrealist comedy starring Marcello Mastroianni and made the life of the Viennese painter Gustav Klimt into a fractured biopic starring John Malkovich. His forays into North America have included the twisty psychological thriller Shattered Image, starring William Baldwin and Anne Parillaud,...
Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times' Ao Scott profiled Ruiz, director of more than "100 films in several languages and also, in his spare time, a theater director and film theorist of some renown in Europe and beyond. He has taught at Harvard, adapted the last volume of Proust into a feature film, transformed several of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tales into a dark, surrealist comedy starring Marcello Mastroianni and made the life of the Viennese painter Gustav Klimt into a fractured biopic starring John Malkovich. His forays into North America have included the twisty psychological thriller Shattered Image, starring William Baldwin and Anne Parillaud,...
- 8/19/2011
- MUBI
By Michael Atkinson
One of the pioneering wagon-train movies of the inaugural, New York-based independent film movement, predating Jarmusch's "Stranger than Paradise," Bette Gordon's "Variety" (1983) comes off in retrospect as a veritable time capsule of post-punk downtown coolness. Just read the credits: screenwriter Kathy Acker (experimental novelist), star/photog Nan Goldin (famed shutterbug and model for the Ally Sheedy role in "High Art" 15 years later), soundtrack composer John Lurie (of Jarmusch movies and The Lounge Lizards), cinematographer Tom Dicillo (director of "Living in Oblivion," etc.), producer Renee Shafransky (Spalding Gray's longtime girlfriend), co-star Luiz Guzman, bit players Spalding Gray and Cookie Mueller (veteran of John Waters's universe), production assistant Christine Vachon, and so on. Where is Cindy Sherman? The grungy vibe of "Variety" is itself a window on the past . only at the nascent launch of a Diy indie wave in the post-'60s period could you,...
One of the pioneering wagon-train movies of the inaugural, New York-based independent film movement, predating Jarmusch's "Stranger than Paradise," Bette Gordon's "Variety" (1983) comes off in retrospect as a veritable time capsule of post-punk downtown coolness. Just read the credits: screenwriter Kathy Acker (experimental novelist), star/photog Nan Goldin (famed shutterbug and model for the Ally Sheedy role in "High Art" 15 years later), soundtrack composer John Lurie (of Jarmusch movies and The Lounge Lizards), cinematographer Tom Dicillo (director of "Living in Oblivion," etc.), producer Renee Shafransky (Spalding Gray's longtime girlfriend), co-star Luiz Guzman, bit players Spalding Gray and Cookie Mueller (veteran of John Waters's universe), production assistant Christine Vachon, and so on. Where is Cindy Sherman? The grungy vibe of "Variety" is itself a window on the past . only at the nascent launch of a Diy indie wave in the post-'60s period could you,...
- 6/3/2008
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
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