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Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.
3 Women
U.S., 1977
Robert Altman has said that the idea for 3 Women came to him in a dream with the heavy influence of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona also contributing to what is one of Altman’s most enigmatic works. Water, reflections, split frames and other devices add an atmosphere of European-style ambiguity to an exploration of female identity and solidarity while the film’s distinctly American setting keeps everything solidly grounded. Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule each deliver astonishing performances as women in a California desert town whose lives intersect and lose their fixity under the pressure of patriarchy and consumerism.
DCP, color, 124 min. Director: Robert Altman. Screenwriter: Robert Altman. With: Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Janice Rule.
Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
U.S., 1982
Robert Altman directed Ed Graczyk’s play on Broadway (with Cher making her theatrical stage debut) before he and Graczyk adapted it for the big screen. Ingenious art design transforms a Woolworth’s in a small Texas town near the site where Giant was shot into a vortex of memories and revelations when the members of a James Dean fan club gather there for a 20th anniversary reunion. Altman’s fluid choreography between past and present underscore the powerful draw of nostalgia for some and the liberation of escape for others. Among the stellar ensemble cast, Karen Black delivers a particularly complex turn as a trans woman returned to confront the trauma that drove her away.
35mm color, 109 min. Director: Robert Altman. Screenwriter: Ed Graczyk. With: Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black.
—Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm
