Variety (1983 film)

Variety is a 1983 American independent film directed by Bette Gordon with a screenplay by Kathy Acker from a story by Gordon. The film stars Sandy McLeod, Will Patton, and Richard M. Davidson. The film follows a young woman who takes a job at a New York City pornographic theater and becomes increasingly obsessed with a wealthy patron who may or may not be involved with the mafia.

Variety
box cover art for Variety (Bette Gordon, 1983)
Directed byBette Gordon
Produced byRenée Shafransky
Screenplay byKathy Acker
Story byBette Gordon
StarringSandy McLeod
Will Patton
Richard M. Davidson
Luis Guzmán
Nan Goldin
Music byJohn Lurie
CinematographyTom DiCillo
John Foster
Edited byIla von Hasperg
Production
company
Distributed byHorizon Films
Release date
March 8, 1985
Running time
100 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Christine, an aspiring author, desperately needs a job. Her friend Nan gives her a tip that the Variety, a pornographic theater in Times Square, is looking for a ticket-taker. Christine takes the job and becomes interested in the movies that are playing. Her boyfriend Mark, an investigative journalist, is concerned and confused about her interest in her new job. At the Variety, Christine meets a rich patron, Louie, with whom she spontaneously decides to go on a date. After he abruptly leaves, she follows him in a cab, watching while he meets a mysterious man. Later, she shares her suspicions with Mark that he is involved in some kind of mafia operation. Increasingly obsessed, she follows Louie to Asbury Park, New Jersey, sneaking into his hotel room, from which she steals a pornographic magazine. Her obsession with Louie and her own awakened sexuality ultimately leads her to call and threaten him unless he meets her. The final, mysterious shot is of an empty intersection at Fulton and South Street, where Christine has told Louie to meet her.

Cast

Production

After meeting Kathy Acker, Bette Gordon asked her to collaborate on a screenplay for a new film. Gordon also collaborated with the burgeoning New York film scene: "The film is a sort of Who’s Who of downtown street cred: music by John Lurie, cinematography by frequent Jarmusch collaborator Tom de Cillo, script by former sex worker and Pushcart Prize-winning feminist novelist Kathy Acker, and roles played by Spalding Gray, Luis Guzman, Mark Boone Junior and photographer Nan Goldin (who also took production stills)."[1]

The film was produced with an initial $80,000 budget, provided by ZDF West German Television,[2] Great Britain's Channel 4, and the New York State Council.[3]

It played at the 1983 Toronto Film Festival[4] and the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.[5]

Reception

The film received mixed reviews; John Coleman hated Acker's "dreadful dialogue,"[6] while Amy Taubin championed the film in the Village Voice, describing how "the editing alternates conventional Hollywood action cutting with sequences that forcibly distance the viewer."[7]

The film was released in a particularly important time for feminist filmmakers, and Gordon was both criticized and praised for making a film about pornography. Gordon presented at the watershed 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality with Kaja Silverman, arguing that since cinema itself had recently been theorized as voyeuristic, then pornographic films have really become "extreme examples of mainstream Hollywood cinema, [since both] employ the voyeuristic mode to exploit women as objects of male fantasy and male desire."[8]

References
  1. "All hail, Bette Gordon". www.downtownexpress.com. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  2. Hulser, Kathleen. “A TV Workshop That Relishes Risk.” New York Times, August 15, 1982, sec. 2.
  3. Dubler, Linda. “Review.” Film Quarterly 38, no. 1 (October 1, 1984): 24–28. doi:10.2307/1211864.
  4. Klady, Leonard. “Film Reviews: Reviewed From Toronto Fest - Variety.” Variety, September 21, 1983.
  5. Martini, Emanuela. “Review.” Cineforum 235 (July 1984): 32.
  6. Coleman, John. “Review.” New Statesman, May 25, 1984.
  7. Taubin, Amy. “As Long As She Pleases: Bette Gordon’s ‘Variety.’” The Village Voice, May 15, 1984.
  8. Gordon, Bette. “Variety: The Pleasure in Looking.” In Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, edited by Carole S. Vance, 189–203. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.
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