Lives of Performers (1972) dir. Yvonne Rainer
This is the new restoration of Yvonne Rainer s Lives of Performers. Rainers debut feature film announced both her shift from the world of dance towards avantgarde cinema, and what would become a careerlong interest in womens stories and the teasing machinations of melodrama. The familiar tale of a man who cant choose between two women and makes everyone suffer is reworked by Rainer as a jolting and radically austere, antiillusionist spectacle, comprising dance rehearsals, photography, tableaux, and a flurry of fragments of text, both onscreen and not. Offcamera, multiple voices can be heardincluding that of cinematographer Babette Mangolte, who was at the time just beginning work with a young Chantal Akerman.
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