Bad Timing (1980)

Thursday, January 09, 2020 @ 6:45 PM
Plaza Theatre - 1133 Kensington Road NW, Calgary, AB
$12 General | $10 Members/Seniors/Students | $40 5-Pack Punch Pass | $99 Season Pass

Labeled as "a sick film made by sick people for sick people" upon release, Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing is a bold story of dangerous passion.

Iconoclast British director Nicolas Roeg’s (Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth) film Bad Timing (1980) was labeled by its own distributor as “a sick film made by sick people for sick people.” Indeed, its bold and powerful story of the all consuming and even dangerous passion that erupts between Milena Flaherty (the great Theresa Russell) and Dr. Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel, of Simon and Garfunkel fame) is as provocative, brash, and innovative as it was when it was originally released in 1980. Nicolas Roeg’s long fascination in experimenting with editing, cinematography, narrative, and the way in which we react to it is unleashed in full bore. Aided by committed and passionate performances and a stirring soundtrack (featuring Tom Waits, The Who, and Billie Holiday), Bad Timing’s heady Gustav Klimt-influenced tale results on one of Roeg’s most inimitable masterworks. This is a film that considers the fine, blended line between love and passion.

-Written by Scott Lang

FOCUS: SEXUALITY

Jean-Luc Godard famously once said “All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.” Film critic Pauline Kael seemingly echoed this statement when she titled one of her books Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Both filmmaker and critic observed the obvious relationship of sexuality and violence to cinema itself, and in both cases the amorous element comes first. Our Focus: Sexuality series explores how sexuality over the course of the last century has paralleled the development of cinematic language. Featuring films from the 1920s up to the 1990s, this globe-spanning series presents key films that consider subjects such as female sexual autonomy, gender fluidity and performativity, amorous power dynamics, and toxic predation. These are firebrand movies, emphasizing how the presentation of sexuality and human relationships on-screen is limited by the specific sociocultural framework of their era. In their emotional and cinematic power, these films are still strongly resonant and provocative today.

About Calgary Cinematheque

We are a non-profit film society dedicated to presenting significant, challenging, and essential works of cinema art in Calgary. During our season, which runs from October to April, we screen films weekly, in curated programs which situate each film in a thematic and historical context. We do this because we believe cinema is an essential form of artistic, social, and political expression. Audiences should be able to engage with a wide range of cinematic expression, not only with what is commercially viable. We believe in the power of sharing these experiences with other people in a theatrical setting and we strive to cultivate a community around that experience.  

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