Black Narcissus

press release: UK | 1947 | DCP | 99 min.

Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger; Cast: Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Jean Simmons

High in the Himalayas, a convent of English nuns spirals into disarray upon the arrival of a virile government agent (Farrar). Powell and Pressburger’s erotic masterpiece won two Oscars, for Jack Cardiff's Technicolor cinematography and Alfred Junge's vertiginous art direction. Kerr and Kathleen Byron’s dueling sisters personify the film's strange, hypnotic tone, located somewhere between contemplation and hysteria.

Our numerous and diverse Fall 2018 special presentations include a screening of an excellent vintage print of Roger Corman’s low-budget The Little Shop of Horrors; Douglas Sirk’s masterful melodrama All That Heaven Allows and Todd Hayne’s reworking of Sirk, Far from Heaven; rare 35mm prints of Antonioni’s counter-culture classic Zabriskie Point and Claire Denis sibling saga Nenette and Boni; a screening of the popular recent documentary The Eagle Huntress with producer Stacey Reiss in person; plus new digital restorations of two cult horror comedies from the early 1980s: Basket Case and Strange Behavior, as well as George Sluizer’s great thriller The Vanishing, Powell and Pressburger’s repressed nuns classic Black Narcissus, and the landmark independent Buddies, the first movie to depict the AIDS crisis.

All Cinematheque screenings are free and open to the public.