
Animating Funny Pages
On the occasion of Film at Lincoln Center’s release of Funny Pages on August 26, Kline has handpicked an assortment of films that influenced the world to which his hilariously dark, pleasantly unexpected debut belongs.
Owen Kline
2022|
USA|
60 minutes
A one-time-only screening made specially for this series, this hour-long, evolving 35mm print of film clips, commercials, trailers, and other surprising miscellany was handpicked and assembled by Owen Kline.
Frank Tashlin
1955|
USA|
109 minutes
A struggling artist (Dean Martin) begins to use his comic book-obsessed roommate’s dreams as the basis for a successful comic book in Frank Tashlin’s eye-popping, hilarious satire of mid-1950s pop culture. Screening with Jerry Lewis’s Theater Chain Outtakes and Tashlin’s Swooner Crooner.
Robert Downey, Sr.
1972|
USA|
91 minutes
Robert Downey, Sr.’s seminal acid Western-cum-religious allegory transposes the life of Jesus to the American frontier to delirious effect. Screening with Friz Freleng’s Rabbit Every Monday.
Ralph Bakshi
1973|
USA|
77 minutes
A pinball-playing cartoonist named Michael Corleone escapes the shocking and brutal experiences of living in 1970s New York City by satirizing them into something altogether more outlandish in adult animator Ralph Bakshi’s second feature. Screening with Chuck Jones’s Rabbit of Seville.
Boaz Davidson
1982|
USA|
93 minutes
An early hit for schlock factory Cannon Films, this leering but ultimately surprisingly serious-minded teen sex comedy follows a trio of suburban L.A. youths chasing girls and competing for the attentions of a cute transfer student. Preceded by Seymour Kneitel and James Tyer’s Puppet Love.
Robert Rossen
1964|
USA|
114 minutes
Robert Rossen’s deeply personal final film is set in a psychiatric institution and follows the emerging relationship between an occupational therapist trainee (Warren Beatty) and an alluring, creative patient who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia (Jean Seberg). Screening with Dave Fleischer’s Minnie the Moocher.
George Axelrod
1966|
USA|
105 minutes
A masterpiece of American film comedy as undefinable as its title, Lord Love a Duck swings wildly between deadly-earnest pathos and wig-flipping Dada. Screening with Ben Harrison’s The Bon Bon Parade.
Richard Kwietniowski
1998|
UK / Canada|
93 minutes
A meditation on obsession worthy of Vladimir Nabokov, Kwietniowski‘s 1998 feature follows a widower author (John Hurt) who becomes infatuated with a mediocre film actor (Jason Priestley) and heads to Long Island in hopes of meeting him.
Lindsay Anderson
1973|
UK|
178 minutes
Stylistically bold, wildly entertaining, with a cast of British greats, O Lucky Man! is an epic road movie and modern-day Candide that stars Malcolm McDowell once again as Mick Travis, the everyman character made famous in If… (1968).
Mike Judge
1999|
USA|
89 minutes
Mike Judge’s hilarious ode to white collar disaffection stars Ron Livingston as Peter, a disgruntled programmer who is left in a seemingly permanent state of blissful ambivalence after his “occupational hypnotherapist” puts him in a trance and then promptly dies of a heart attack.
Bruce Robinson
1987|
UK|
107 minutes
Robinson’s debut feature is a cultishly beloved chronicle of the misadventures, follies, and misfortunes of two unemployed actors (Richard Grant and Paul McGann) on a disastrous holiday at a countryside cottage.
A highlight of this year’s Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, actor-turned-director Owen Kline’s Funny Pages draws on an intricate network of film references—from the psychodrama and Hollywood teen comedies to underground cinema to Golden Age cartoon one-reelers. On the occasion of Film at Lincoln Center’s release of Funny Pages on August 26, Kline has handpicked an assortment of films that influenced the world to which his hilariously dark, pleasantly unexpected debut belongs, including works by Ralph Bakshi, Frank Tashlin, and Robert Downey, Sr.; 35mm cartoon pairings; and the premiere of an hour-long 35mm “Mystery Reel” assembled by Kline himself.
Organized by Owen Kline, Dan Sullivan, and Tyler Wilson.
Acknowledgements: A24; Academy Film Archive; Chicago Film Society; Thad Komorowski; Bob Furmanak; Jack Theakston.






















