Q&A with James Toback!

Nastassja Kinski plays the part of a Midwestern English student turned New York supermodel in James Toback’s zigzagging urban odyssey, which also takes its heroine through an affair with a somewhat unhinged violinist (legendary dancer Rudolf Nureyev) and an embroilment with the ringleader of a Parisian terrorist cell (Harvey Keitel). Kinski’s performance embodies a woman driven by ambition, passion, reflection, self-possession, and a hunger for life, while Toback pushes the plot in surprising directions, cultivating an uneasy air of spontaneous violence and tragic fatalism.