LINK TO STREAMING VERSION OF 'A DANCER'S LIFE - THE FIRST POSITION' AS SHOWN ON PBS

79.170.44.112/williamrichert.com/pages/

LINK TO 'JIMMY REARDON' WEBSITE IN PROGRESS: 
web.me.com/richertwilliam/JIMMY_REARDON/RIVER_PHOENIX_IS_JIMMY_REARDON.html
 

New Hollywood Maverick: Wild Bill Richert - The Film Society of Lincoln Center   1/10/11 9:17 AM

New Hollywood Maverick: Wild Bill Richert

January 21-22

A bold, brash uncompromising figure in the tradition of Orson Welles and John Cassavetes, William Richert burst on to the Hollywood scene near the end of the storied 1970s, first as a screenwriter and then as director of the dazzling conspiracy opus Winter Kills. A critical triumph abandoned by its studio, the movie set the tone for Richert’s career to come—a quartet of highly original, idiosyncratic American features that have maintained an almost clandestine existence, subject to poor distribution and myriad unauthorized versions.

We are pleased to welcome William Richert for this in-person retrospective of his work, featuring all of his films in their director- approved cuts, including the New York premiere of The Man in the Iron Mask.

Double Feature Package for Wild Bill Richert!

See any two films in New Hollywood Maverick: Wild Bill Richert for only $16! ($12 Students & Seniors / $10 Members)

Aren’t You Even Gonna Kiss Me Goodbye? (A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon) William Richert, 1988/2008, USA, DVD; 95m

“A nifty little sleeper—funny, sad, heartfelt and true, with an adolescent angst that lingers.” —Nathan Rabin, The Onion A.V. Club

Adapted from his autobiographical novel written when he was 19, Richert’s wonderfully off-kilter 1960s coming-of-age story was released to theaters in a version butchered by studio executives, who removed crucial scenes (plus Elmer Bernstein’s musical score) and marketed the film as a cookie-cutter teen sex comedy. Two decades later, Richert reconstructed his original, darker version of the film, starring River Phoenix as a libidinous, literary-minded high-

$12 General Public $9 Students $8 Seniors $7 Members *Except for The Wrestler

Tickets and passes are also on sale at the Walter Reade Theater's box office. Certain restrictions apply.

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New Hollywood Maverick: Wild Bill Richert - The Film Society of Lincoln Center         1/10/11 9:17 AM

school grad pondering the future while working his way through most of the eligible women in Evanston, Illinois. Featuring Matthew Perry (in his film debut) as Phoenix’s rich-kid best friend.

Produced simultaneously with Hollywood’s big-budget Leonardo Di Caprio adaptation (and released virtually the same week in a single Los Angeles theater), Richert’s handcrafted take on the Alexander Dumas classic was conceived as a reunion project with River Phoenix, star of Aren’t You Even Gonna Kiss Me Goodbye?. In light of the actor’s untimely passing, Richert cast his own son, Nicholas, in the dual roles of King Louis XIV and his imprisoned twin, Philippe, and himself as the cunning musketeer Aramis. What Richert lacks in terms of budget, he more than makes up for in canny ideas about the contemporary relevance of Dumas’s tale, and in the garrulous playing of co-stars Edward Albert and Timothy Bottoms.

Q&A Q&A with William Richert on Sat Jan 22 at 1pm!

“A supremely playful and visually witty movie.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times

When production on Winter Kills was shut down by the studio with one week left to shoot, Richert decamped for Germany with Winter actors Jeff Bridges and Belinda Bauer in tow. There, he quickly fashioned this zesty, neo-Lubitschian comedy about the hapless son (Bridges) of a wealthy tycoon (Ned Beatty), who turns to a comely prostitute (Bianca Jagger) in an effort to transform himself into his wife’s idea of a “real” man. Smuggled by Richert out of the vaults of Columbia Pictures for its 1982 New York opening at the Public Theatre, Success has since been further re-edited by the director to include an additional 10 minutes of never-before-seen footage.

“This isn’t a social satire—it’s more like a movie with spring fever. It doesn’t make a bit of sense, but it’s fast and handsome and entertaining, bursting with a crazy vitality all its own. Sitting back and watching it doesn’t seem the proper response, somehow. Chasing it with a butterfly net might be closer to the mark.” —Vincent Canby, The New York Times

Richert’s extraordinary, darkly comic debut, adapted from a

New Hollywood Maverick: Wild Bill Richert - The Film Society of Lincoln Center       1/10/11 9:17 AM

bestseller by Manchurian Candidate author Richard Condon, spins the (barely) fictional tale of the powerful Keegan family, captains of American industry and politics. Nineteen years after the assassination of U.S. President Timothy Keegan, new evidence surfaces suggesting that the government’s official lone-gunman theory may be the cover for an elaborate conspiracy, in turn leading the President’s younger brother (Jeff Bridges) on a wild manhunt involving Cuban gangsters, an Oz-like wizard of information (Anthony Perkins), a mysterious Washington madam (Elizabeth Taylor) and even the Keegan clan’s own shadowy patriarch (a lip- smacking John Huston).

An intricately plotted series of trap doors and dead ends, culminating in an unforgettable finale atop a giant-sized Old Glory, Winter Kills stands as one of the great, unjustly forgotten films of the ’70s.