June 9 – June 15, 2023 Seven Nights with Abel Ferrara: An 18-Film Retrospective With Live Scores Series | MS. 45, THE DRILLER KILLER, 4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH, BODY SNATCHERS, KING OF NEW YORK, ZEROS AND ONES, TOMMASO, SIBERIA, BAD LIEUTENANT, DANGEROUS GAME, THE ADDICTION, THE FUNERAL, CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS, GO GO TALES, NEW ROSE HOTEL, WELCOME TO NEW YORK, PADRE PIO and MARY
ABOUT THE SERIES: The American Cinematheque is thrilled to welcome filmmaker Abel Ferrara to his first ever retrospective in Los Angeles for a week-long, 18-film residency at the Aero Theatre and Los Feliz 3, featuring rare in-person Q&As, as well as live scores and a concert performed by Ferrara and his band Flyz, featuring Joe Delia and Paul Hipp. A native of the Bronx, Abel Ferrara was heavily inspired by his Catholic upbringing in New York City and the avant-garde influence of figures like Rosa von Praunheim at the Art Institute in San Francisco, where he attended college. After directing a series of experimental short films in the early 1970s, plus a pornographic feature debut, Ferrara achieved cult following with two independent thrillers, MS. 45 (1981) and THE DRILLER KILLER (1979), both of which feature protagonists on a murderous rampage through Ferrara’s home turf of New York. The pinnacle of underground American cinema, Ferrara’s art largely exists on the margins of Hollywood, featuring movie stars in startlingly subversive roles. 1992’s BAD LIEUTENANT, co-written by Ferrara and Zoë Tamerlis, stars Harvey Keitel as an NYPD officer caught in a self-imposed spiral of corruption and drug abuse, and reached the top of several notable “Best Film of the 1990s” lists. THE ADDICTION (1995) and NEW ROSE HOTEL (1998), likewise, gained cult status while racking up independent filmmaking awards and accolades for stars like Lili Taylor and Willem Dafoe. Dafoe in particular has become a staple of Ferrara’s cinematic universe, appearing in international festival favorites such as 4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH (2011) and TOMMASO (2019). Lauded for his reinvention of neo-noir tropes and the gritty, dystopic imagery found throughout his filmography, Ferrara often focuses on characters relegated to the margins of society, either by their own choice or due to some grave violence or tragedy that brings them there. KING OF NEW YORK (1990), for example, centers around drug kingpin Christopher Walken and his release from prison, while titles like GO GO TALES (2007) and CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS (2008) see a cast of characters contained within a subcultural space, fictional or real. Not one to shy away from boundary-pushing, Ferrara’s explorations of religion, sex, and addiction have attracted long-time collaborators including Ethan Hawke, Forest Whitaker, Victor Argo, Matthew Modine, and many more. Recent international co-productions like SIBERIA (2020), starring Dafoe, and ZEROS AND ONES (2021), starring Hawke, have seen Ferrara dive deeper into the psychological thriller genre, painting layered character portraits that combine external action with a more intimate exploration of mind and meaning. The trend continues in 2022’s PADRE PIO, a shot-on-location biography of the eponymous Italian priest and mystic. Photo credit: Cormac Figgis