FSLC announces THIS IS SOFTCORE: THE ART CINEMA EROTICA OF RADLEY METZGER

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES
THIS IS SOFTCORE: THE ART CINEMA EROTICA OF RADLEY METZGER
August 7-13, 2014

NEW YORK, NY, (July 19, 2014) – The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today This Is Softcore: The Art Cinema Erotica of Radley Metzger (August 7-13). Celebrating the work of the filmmaker considered to be the preeminent director of the Golden Age of Erotic Cinema and a pioneering American independent filmmaker, the series includes Metzger’s most notable softcore films. Select screenings will feature intros and Q&As with Metzger, a fascinating transitional figure whose unique brand of sophisticated erotic art cinema created an almost utopian space between the cheap grindhouse sexploitation of the ’60s and the full-on hardcore porn of the ’70s.

Among the screenings for which Metzger will be present are Camille 2000 (1969), Metzger’s adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s The Lady of the Camellias; The Image (1975), his uncompromising and groundbreaking depiction of sadomasochism set in Paris; The Lickerish Quartet (1970), his film about a female houseguest who seduces each member of a household that’s regarded by many to be his magnum opus, and has been declared “an outrageously kinky masterpiece” by Andy Warhol; Score (1974), in which a frustrated, competitive swinger couple has designs on another younger couple; and Therese and Isabelle (1968), Metzger’s adaptation of Violette Leduc’s censored autobiographical 1955 novel of sexual awakening and lesbian passion.

Born in 1929, Metzger got his start as an editor, dabbled in commercials, helped with the dubbing of …And God Created Woman, cut trailers for Janus Films (notably some of their Bergman titles), and in 1958 made his first feature, Dark Odyssey, a drama about a young Greek immigrant in New York. In 1960 he formed Audubon Films with partner Ava Leighton. Their business plan? To import, re-edit, and distribute European sexploitation films. They released The Fast Set and The Twilight Girls that year, and made enough money to go to Europe on buying sprees, picking up and releasing a host of other titles, notably I Spit on Your Grave, and Mac Ahlberg’s I, a Woman, which proved to be a smash hit in U.S. in 1966). Metzger’s second directorial effort, The Dirty Girls (shot in 1963 and released in 1965), marked his emergence as a sexploitation film director—and he never looked back.

Commercially calculating, Metzger hit upon a formula that would make his films stand out from other sex films of the day: an eye for chic, glamorous beauty; a genuine sensuousness; a feel for the ’60s zeitgeist, an artful stylistic precision and control; glossy, strikingly upscale production values; and a predilection for Continental location shooting and casting—these were the hallmarks of the Metzger style. Moreover, he had a particular interest in “creating a total environment.” As he put it: “I created an idealized enactment of sex, as a unifying force between people … In the area of eroticism, I think it’s easier to involve the audience if you deal with rich people… So I had to keep everything upscale. It’s a kind of seduction.”

Tickets and a discount package for This Is Softcore: The Art Cinema Erotica of Radley Metzger will go on sale Thursday, July 17. Single screening tickets are $13; $9 for students and seniors (62+); and $8 for Film Society members. See more and pay less with a discount package starting at $30; $24 for students and seniors (62+); and $21 for Film Society members. The discount package prices apply with the purchase of tickets to three films or more. Visit www.filmlinc.com for complete film festival information.

Press Screening Schedule

Screening Venue:
The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam

All attendees must RSVP in advance to John Wildman at [email protected].

Tuesday, June 24
11:00AM  Camille 2000 (115m)
1:15PM  Score (90m)
3:15PM Therese and Isabelle (118m)

Films, Description & Schedule

Camille 2000

Italy/USA, 1969, 35mm, 115m
The decadent high society of late-1960s Rome gets the royal treatment in one of the best and most visually inventive films from Metzger’s European phase. Set in a world of jaded and over-sexed beautiful people dressed in increasingly outrageous costumes, and interspersed with a succession of ever more debauched parties, this faithful adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s The Lady of the Camellias tells the tragic story of doomed love between eligible bachelor Armand (Nino Castelnuovo) and beautiful but remote Marguerite (Danièle Gaubert), a kept woman. But in this collision of Old Europe grandeur and ’60s mod stylings, heroin is the new tuberculosis…
August 9, 9:30pm (Introduction by Radley Metzger)
August 12, 4:00pm

Carmen, Baby
USA/Yugoslavia/West Germany, 1967, 35mm, 90m
With this first prototype of his winning “Continental” formula, Metzger takes Prosper Mérimée’s 19th-century tale of an amoral gypsy temptress, updates it to Swinging ’60s Spain, and dresses it up with plenty of sex and visual style. In thrall to seductive grifter Carmen (played with easy charm by Uta Levka), naïve young policeman Jose (Claude Ringer) sacrifices all, only to be tormented as his amoral lover sleeps her way up the social hierarchy from minor officials to influential aristocrats in order to achieve her goals. Shot on location on the coast of Spain, Carmen, Baby epitomizes Metzger’s flair for erotic melodrama with polished production values.
August 7, 6:30pm

The Cat and the Canary
UK, 1978, Digibeta, 98m
Changing gears, Metzger tackles a British-shot period remake of the 1939 horror classic. It’s 1934 and the avaricious relatives of a deceased eccentric millionaire convene at his mansion 20 years after his death for the reading of the will—which comes in the form of a film in which the millionaire reveals his testament. The sole heir to the fortune proves to be innocent, young Annabelle (Carol Lynley)—but should she die or prove of unsound mind, a second film has been shot naming the beneficiary next in line. Let the intrigue begin! A dark and stormy night, a hideously disfigured madman escaped from a nearby asylum, a secret torture chamber—all the classic ingredients are in place. Assembling a powerhouse cast including Honor Blackman, Michael Callan, Edward Fox, Wendy Hiller, Olivia Hussey, and Daniel Massey, Metzger attacks this material with gusto, and a true knack for classic old dark house suspense.
August 11, 9:00pm

The Image
USA, 1975, 16mm, 89m
Adapted from the 1956 novel by Catherine Robbe-Grillet (writing under the nom de plume Jean de Berg) and also known as The Punishment of Anne, this uncompromising and groundbreaking depiction of sadomasochism is perhaps Metzger’s darkest film. Jean (Carl Parker) encounters the mysterious Anne (Rebecca Brooke as Mary Mendum) at a Paris literary party only to discover that she’s the sex slave of middle-aged dominatrix Claire (Marilyn Roberts). Fascinated, he is drawn into their high-class world of dominance and submission, first as observer and then participant in the women’s erotic games, which take a turn when Claire hands Anne over to Jean for his own personal use. While Metzger never loses sight of the humanity of his characters, be warned—in its harrowing and relentless penultimate chapter in Claire’s “gothic dungeon,” The Image takes you to the dark side—its scenes of torture and flagellation are emphatically not for the faint of heart. The Image also marks the point at which Metzger makes the transition from softcore to hardcore, begun with the tentative first steps in Score, while nevertheless maintaining his customary high style and visual invention. With its fearless depiction of the objectification of Anne in a succession of no-holds-barred sexual scenarios, The Image ranks alongside Barbet Schroeder’s Maîtresse as one of cinema’s best depictions of S&M.
August 12, 9:15pm (Q&A with Radley Metzger)

The Lickerish Quartet
Italy/USA/West Germany, 1970, 16mm, 88m
Metzger considers this enigmatic tale of a decadent family’s seduction his “most personal and most free” film. Based on an original story idea by Metzger and Michael DeForrest, The Lickerish Quartet opens with a quote by Pirandello (“All this present reality of yours is fated to seem a mere illusion tomorrow”). An aristocratic married couple and their son attend a carnival after watching a crude black-and-white skinflick and recognize a female motorcycle stunt rider in a form-fitting white leather outfit as one of the women in the film. The girl accepts an invitation to their grand Italian castle, but when they show her the film, there is no longer any resemblance between the blonde on-screen and their gorgeous brunette guest—but the next morning she has become a blonde. As the girl seduces each family member in turn, liberating them from their repressed states, illusion merges with reality. Metzger’s most distinctive and most beguilingly unconventional film, regarded by many as his magnum opus, and declared “an outrageously kinky masterpiece” by Andy Warhol.
August 8, 9:15pm (Introduction by Radley Metzger)
August 13, 4:45pm

Little Mother
West Germany/USA/Yugoslavia, 1971, 35mm, 90m
In a major departure, Metzger fictionalizes the real-life saga of Evita Perón, seven years ahead of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical. In this sexy tale of intrigue and ruthless ambition, a series of flashbacks detail the rise to power of third-rate actress Marina (Christiane Krüger), who marries South American dictator Colonel Pinares (Siegfried Rauch) and successfully cultivates a mass cult of personality around her persona as the nation’s “Little Mother”—but her Machiavellian schemes don’t end there…
August 13, 7:00pm

Score
USA/Yugoslavia, 1974, 35mm, 90m
How do you know who’s touching who during group sex? “First you don’t know, then you can’t tell, and then you don’t care,” explains worldly Elvira (Claire Wilbur). She and husband Jack (Gerald Grant) are frustrated swingers on an extended visit to the French Riviera (re-created on the Yugoslavian coast), whose competition for the most sexual conquests has reached its six-month deadline. On this final evening, Elvira has until midnight to seduce wide-eyed Betsy (Lynn Lowry), with some chemical assistance, while Betsy’s husband Eddie (Calvin Culver) plays sailor and cowboy with Jack downstairs. Although it’s an adaption of Jerry Douglas’s (Queens-set!) Off-Broadway play, the film’s rapid-fire, subtext-heavy dialogue, enclosed domestic setting, and scenario of a seasoned couple playing host to a pair of innocent newlyweds suggests a kinky, sex-romp reworking of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
Co-presentation with Viva Radio.
August 7, 8:30pm (Q&A with Radley Metzger; party to follow screening)
August 13, 9:15pm

Therese and Isabelle
France/USA/Netherlands, 1968, 35mm, 118m
Writer Violette Leduc’s censored autobiographical 1955 novel of sexual awakening and lesbian passion brought Metzger to Paris to tell the story of sensitive, forlorn Therese (Essy Persson), who is abandoned by her newly married mother and businessman stepfather at a high-class boarding school. She’s immediately befriended by class minx Isabelle (Anna Gael) and develops a crush on the more worldly girl. When an encounter with suave Pierre (Rémy Longa) at a nearby bar leads to a traumatic first sexual experience, Therese turns to Isabelle, acting on the erotic attraction between them in a succession of increasingly explicit Sapphic trysts. Delicately building a charged eroticism, Metzger’s direction fuses the classicism of his elegant black-and-white camerawork and George Auric’s sweeping score with the modernism of the film’s time-shifting narrative—and while they may be just a shade too old to pass for adolescent schoolgirls, Persson and Gael share a potent chemistry and sensuousness that makes the film genuinely intense.
August 9, 6:30pm (Q&A with Radley Metzger)
August 11, 4:30pm

Public Screening Schedule

Screening Venues:
The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam

Thursday, August 7 – Screenings in the Walter Reade Theater
6:30PM Carmen, Baby (90m)
8:30PM Score (90m)

Friday, August 8 – Screening is at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
9:15PM Lickerish Quartet (88m)

Saturday, August 9 – Screenings at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
6:30PM Therese and Isabelle (118m)
9:30PM Camille 2000 (115m)

Sunday, August 10
NO RADLEY METZGER SCREENINGS

Monday, August 11 – Screenings at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
4:30PM  Therese and Isabelle (118m)
9:00PM The Cat and the Canary (89m)

Tuesday, August 12 – Screenings at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
4:00PM Camille 2000 (115m)
9:15PM The Image (89m)

Wednesday, August 13 – Screenings at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
4:45PM Lickerish Quartet (88m)
7:00PM Little Mother (90m)
9:15PM Score (90m)

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year’s most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, LatinBeat, New Directors/New Films, NewFest, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, The Film Society recognizes an artist's unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award. The Film Society’s state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at Lincoln Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, Jaeger-LeCoultre, American Airlines,The New York Times, Stella Artois, the Kobal Collection, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

For Media specific inquiries, please contact:
John Wildman, (212) 875-5419
[email protected]

David Ninh, (212) 875-5423
[email protected]