Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2626 Bancroft Way
510.642.0808
This event has passed.
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Night Tide
- When
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Thursday July 23, 2009 (8:45pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$9.50
- Links
Experimental filmmaker Curtis Harrington made his feature debut with this moody tale of doomed romance. Dennis Hopper (in one of his first film roles) is Johnny Drake, a naive sailor who falls for a carnival mermaid who may or may not be a real-life Siren. Feeding off classical mythology, Gothic ambience, and existential anxiety, Harrington clearly took good notes during his work with Kenneth Anger (Harrington shot Puce Moment and appeared in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, two of Anger's most opulent early productions). The epilogue is sad: Hopper became a wealthy conservative, while Harrington had to scrape for TV jobs; but at least their stars aligned long enough to give us this visionary fable.
