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Variety (1983 film)
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Wikipedia article
'Variety' is a 1983 American independent film directed by Bette Gordon with a screenplay by Kathy Acker from a story by Gordon. The film stars Sandy McLeod, Will Patton, and Richard M. Davidson. The film follows a young woman who takes a job at a New York City pornographic theater and becomes increasingly obsessed with a wealthy patron who may or may not be involved with the mafia.
Plot
Christine, an aspiring author, desperately needs a job. Her friend Nan gives her a tip that the Variety, a pornographic theater in Times Square, is looking for a ticket-taker. Christine takes the job and becomes interested in the movies that are playing. Her boyfriend Mark, an investigative journalist, is concerned and confused about her interest in her new job. At the Variety, Christine meets a rich patron, Louie, with whom she spontaneously decides to go on a date. After he abruptly leaves, she follows him in a cab, watching while he meets a mysterious man. Later, she shares her suspicions with Mark that he is involved in some kind of mafia operation. Increasingly obsessed, she follows Louie to Asbury Park, New Jersey, sneaking into his hotel room, from which she steals a pornographic magazine. Her obsession with Louie and her own awakened sexuality ultimately leads her to call and threaten him unless he meets her. The final, mysterious shot is of an empty intersection at Fulton and South Street, where Christine has told Louie to meet her.
Cast
* Sandy McLeod as Christine
* Will Patton as Mark
* Richard M. Davidson as Louie
* Luis Guzmn as Jose
* Nan Goldin as Nan
Production
After meeting Kathy Acker, Bette Gordon asked her to collaborate on a screenplay for a new film. Gordon also collaborated with the burgeoning New York film scene: "The film is a sort of Whos Who of downtown street cred: music by John Lurie, cinematography by frequent Jarmusch collaborator Tom de Cillo, script by former sex worker and Pushcart Prize-winning feminist novelist Kathy Acker, and roles played by Spalding Gray, Luis Guzman, Mark Boone Junior and photographer Nan Goldin (who also took production stills)." The film was produced with an initial $80,000 budget, provided by ZDF West German Television,Hulser, Kathleen. A TV Workshop That Relishes Risk. New York Times, August 15, 1982, sec. 2. Great Britain's Channel 4, and the New York State Council.Dubler, Linda. Review. Film Quarterly 38, no. 1 (October 1, 1984): 2428. doi:10.2307/1211864. It played at the 1983 Toronto Film FestivalKlady, Leonard. Film Reviews: Reviewed From Toronto Fest - Variety, 'Variety', September 21, 1983. and the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.Martini, Emanuela. Review. Cineforum 235 (July 1984): 32.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews; John Coleman hated Acker's "dreadful dialogue,"Coleman, John. Review. New Statesman, May 25, 1984. while Amy Taubin championed the film in the 'Village Voice', describing how "the editing alternates conventional Hollywood action cutting with sequences that forcibly distance the viewer."Taubin, Amy. As Long As She Pleases: Bette Gordons Variety. The Village Voice, May 15, 1984.
The film was released in a particularly important time for feminist filmmakers, and Gordon was both criticized and praised for making a film about pornography. Gordon presented at the watershed 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality with Kaja Silverman, arguing that since cinema itself had recently been theorized as voyeuristic, then pornographic films have really become "extreme examples of mainstream Hollywood cinema, [since both] employ the voyeuristic mode to exploit women as objects of male fantasy and male desire."Gordon, Bette. Variety: The Pleasure in Looking. In Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, edited by Carole S. Vance, 189203. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.
References
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