BRIGHT BULB SCREENINGS, Free Double Features Every Second Thursday of the Month
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SHELLEY DUVALL DOUBLE-FEATURE!
BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR (1976, directed by Joan Micklin Silver, 48 minutes, U.S.)
TWILIGHT OF THE ICE NYMPHS (1997, directed by Guy Maddin, 95 minutes, Canada)
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Just a couple of months back, Bright Bulb dazzled the audience with Shelley Duvall's pitch-perfect portrayal of the cartoon figure Olive Oyl in Robert Altman's POPEYE, so we were saddened to hear of her recent death at age 75. Duvall's screen presence was unforgettable, yet she only had a handful of major roles outside of her work with director Altman. In August we'll feature two lesser-seen performances from the actress, a perfectly-wrought short story produced for PBS and perhaps the most audacious film in which Duvall would ever appear.
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Ground-breaking '70's director Joan Micklin Silver followed up her Oscar-nominated debut HESTER STREET with another period tale of a young woman wrestling with societal expectations in Silver's 1976 F. Scott Fitzgerald adaptation, BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR. A beautifully-told 48-minute film, originally made for the PBS program "The American Short Story", Duvall is Bernice, the 18 year old Wisconsin cousin who comes east for the summer and finds herself a bit of a dullard in modern Jazz Age society. When her popular cousin agrees to give her a make-over, she gets more than she bargained for as she unleashes the knowing and flirty Bernice on the Connecticut social scene.
BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR (1976, directed by Joan Micklin Silver, 48 minutes, U.S.)
TWILIGHT OF THE ICE NYMPHS (1997, directed by Guy Maddin, 95 minutes, Canada)
- - - - -
Just a couple of months back, Bright Bulb dazzled the audience with Shelley Duvall's pitch-perfect portrayal of the cartoon figure Olive Oyl in Robert Altman's POPEYE, so we were saddened to hear of her recent death at age 75. Duvall's screen presence was unforgettable, yet she only had a handful of major roles outside of her work with director Altman. In August we'll feature two lesser-seen performances from the actress, a perfectly-wrought short story produced for PBS and perhaps the most audacious film in which Duvall would ever appear.
- - - - -
Ground-breaking '70's director Joan Micklin Silver followed up her Oscar-nominated debut HESTER STREET with another period tale of a young woman wrestling with societal expectations in Silver's 1976 F. Scott Fitzgerald adaptation, BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR. A beautifully-told 48-minute film, originally made for the PBS program "The American Short Story", Duvall is Bernice, the 18 year old Wisconsin cousin who comes east for the summer and finds herself a bit of a dullard in modern Jazz Age society. When her popular cousin agrees to give her a make-over, she gets more than she bargained for as she unleashes the knowing and flirty Bernice on the Connecticut social scene.
Duvall would demonstrate her range going from extrovert to introvert the following year in Altman's THREE WOMEN. Here, Duvall goes from introvert to extrovert, enjoying the new freedoms women enjoyed in the 1920s while ultimately confronting the limitations that stubbornly persist for modern women. An uncommonly rich and concise film, BERNICE is among the highest achievements of both Duvall and director Silver. The cast also includes Veronica Cartwright (ALIEN), Bud Cort (HAROLD & MAUDE), Dennis Christopher (BREAKING AWAY) and Polly Holliday (Flo from TV's ALICE).
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The work of Canadian auteur Guy Maddin defies comparison, since his 1985 debut short THE DEAD FATHER he's crafted a dozen features and numerous highly-acclaimed short films, with his mock-antique aesthetic in service of absurdly lurid melodrama and surrealistic flourishes. The fantasy TWILIGHT OF THE ICE NYMPHS was his first film shot on 35mm film and with a budget that allowed him to enlist a few name actors for his uncompromised madness.
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The work of Canadian auteur Guy Maddin defies comparison, since his 1985 debut short THE DEAD FATHER he's crafted a dozen features and numerous highly-acclaimed short films, with his mock-antique aesthetic in service of absurdly lurid melodrama and surrealistic flourishes. The fantasy TWILIGHT OF THE ICE NYMPHS was his first film shot on 35mm film and with a budget that allowed him to enlist a few name actors for his uncompromised madness.
Nigel Whitmey (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) is Peter, a young man returning from prison to the family ostrich farm run by his sister Amelia (Shelley Duvall). Although Peter had a fleeting romantic moment on the ship home, he pursues an affair in a hollow tree with Zephyr (Alice Krige of BARFLY), a fisherman's wife while sister Amelia pursues the mysterious one-legged Dr. Solti, who possesses powers of mesmerism. Frank Gorshin, the Riddler from TV's BATMAN appears as the disgruntled farm hand, Cain.
Certainly one of the most visually daring films of the 1990s, TWILIGHT is exclusively-bathed in pseudo-Technicolor pastel hues that infuse the film with a deeply dreamlike aura. The otherworldly visuals serve Maddin's grim fairy tale and his trademark whimsical ghoulishness.
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