Love and Death on Long Island

A meditation on obsession worthy of Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Kwietniowski‘s 1998 feature begins with widower author Giles De’Ath (John Hurt) accidentally locking himself out of his flat and electing to kill time at a screening of a film entitled Hotpants College II, at which he becomes fixated on handsome young actor Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestley). Giles’s infatuation with Ronnie grows ever more intense, and he ultimately heads to Long Island in hopes of meeting him, with the results leading him to new levels of self-discovery. Adapted from a novel by Gilbert Adair, Love and Death on Long Island is something like Death in Venice refracted through the prism of silver screen desire. This film print is from the collections of the BFI National Archive.