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
