Secret Honor (1984) / Precious Blood (1982)

May 17, 2014 - 7:30 pm

Billy Wilder Theater

In-person:

Philip Baker Hall.

Secret Honor (1984)

Archive Head of Public Programs Shannon Kelley spotlights the film on our blog.

Directed by Robert Altman.

Director Robert Altman brilliantly adapted this cyclonic, one-man play after having seen it performed live by Philip Baker Hall, who ferociously depicts ex-President Nixon narrating a defense of his presidency to a tape recorder. Theorizing a deeper stratum of evil than a Watergate-obsessed press and public ever suspected, the fictional Nixon builds a case for his “secret” honor, and expresses disdain for the suckers who elected him in the first place.

Sandcastle 5 Productions. Producer: Robert Altman. Screenwriter: Donald Freed, Arnold M. Stone. Based on the play by Donald Freed, Arnold M. Stone. Cinematographer: Pierre Mignot. Editor: Juliet Weber. Cast: Philip Baker Hall.

35mm, color, 90 min.

Precious Blood (1982)

Directed by Robert Altman.

Filmmaker Robert Altman renewed an early-career commitment to live theater in the mid-1980s, directing plays for the Los Angeles stage, and adapting some works (including Precious Blood) into features or for broadcast. This intense, two-character play, with subtle uses of lighting, camera and music, concerns a white man and a black woman whose lives never intersected, except perhaps around one traumatic story that each one relates separately.

Screenwriter: Frank South. Cast: Guy Boyd, Alfre Woodard.

Digital video, color, 60 min.

Part of:

Robert Altman: A Retrospective

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Secret Honor (1984) / Precious Blood (1982)

Secret Honor (1984)

Precious Blood (1982)

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