A Bigger Splash
A Bigger Splash. Courtesy Metrograph Pictures
Los Angeles Filmforum and Other Aspects present
A Bigger Splash, featuring David Hockney
Sunday June 25, 2023, 7:30 pm
At 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90057
Free parking on Beverly Blvd and at the church lot across the street
Tickets: $15 general, $10 students/seniors, free for Filmforum members
Masks are still required at Filmforum shows - N95 or KN95.
For more event information: www.lafilmforum.org, or 323-377-7238
50th Anniversary, 4K restoration of this creative portrait of David Hockney at the end of his relationship with Peter Schlesinger, Hockney’s resulting artistic paralysis, and his making of “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)”
LA Filmforum and Other Aspects come together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jack Hazan's creative docufiction and artist film, A Bigger Splash.
As summer weather finally comes on, we revisit the creation of one of David Hockney's legendary California poolside works alongside the agonizing breakup with boyfriend (and LA native) Peter Schlesinger, the muse and subject of some of Hockney’s best-known works.
Pre-pandemic in 2019, a lovely restoration of A Bigger Splash had a limited theatrical run. We situate it here in its proper season, one night only, 50 years to the month of its opening scene in June, 1973 in an undisclosed (and fictional) "Geneva resort".
Note that this screening is restricted to age 21+ guests, as it contains explicit sexual scenes. Writer Melissa Anderson best describes the film in Artforum as: "...effulgently yet casually gay, replete with cocks in various stages of tumescence and alabaster butts contrasting starkly with otherwise sun-kissed flesh. Recently reissued in a coruscating 4K restoration, it is also beautiful to behold."
This is the first entry in an occasional summer film series at 2220 we're calling "The Summer of Bummer", revisiting some artist and arthouse cinema released exactly fifty years ago, in another year of national and global malaise not unlike today: 1973. Hard times were had, good films were made!
Come see our bummer crop as we grow and harvest it over the summer months.
Age 21+ (bar open, mature themes)
“In essence, the movie, shot over a period of several years, is a mosaic in which a flurry of episodic shards revolve around Hockney. A moon-faced dandy in owlish spectacles, the artist is shown attending fashion events, including the Alternative Miss World contest; mourning the end of his relationship with the artist Peter Schlesinger; and kvetching to the curator Henry Geldzahler, a friend and sometime subject, who tells him, “You are the painter of Southern California now.” – J. Hoberman, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/movies/david-hockney-a-bigger-splash.html
A Bigger Splash. Courtesy Metrograph Pictures
A Bigger Splash
A Bigger Splash
Directed by Jack Hazan
1973, 105 minutes
Distributed by Metrograph Pictures, Restoration by Watchmaker Films
“That Hockney’s arguable self-indulgence eventually led to the creation of a landmark of 20th century modern art is not given much weight here either, as the film is a contemporary portrait of the artist. What the movie, with its combinations of staged conversations and encounters and intimate documentary glimpses, is finally about is how a certain artist has to work. Hockney doesn’t theorize or make grand pronouncements or whine about how lonely he is. He marks time until something within him moves, and he’s compelled to paint. Martin Scorsese has praised this film, and given that he sometimes used to say, “If I could explain the impetus behind my films in words, I wouldn’t have to make the film” (or words to that effect), it’s easy to see why. Hockney gets his feelings out, justifies them to himself, though painting. And it’s revealing that the film is framed by scenes staged very late in the process of making the film, in which Hockney is seen to have pretty much all but forgotten Schlesinger.” – Glenn Kenny, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-bigger-splash-2019