Cruising

press release:

USA | 1980 | 35mm | 106 min.

Director: William Friedkin

Cast: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen

When a serial killer begins targeting the patrons of gay S&M bars in New York City, a straight cop goes undercover to stop him and becomes entangled in an overwhelming new world. Largely maligned as a harmful representation of gay culture during its production and initial release, Cruising has since received greater appreciation as an unusually explicit mainstream artifact of the pre-AIDS era. Pacino gives an exceptional performance as the in-over-his-head cop, wandering through Friedkin’s enticingly sordid party scenes that were shot on-location in leather bars.

Special Presentations: Spring 2017 is filled with numerous special repertory screenings. Our lineup includes several new restorations, including new DCPs of Julie Dash’s landmark movie Daughters of the Dust, Juzo Itami’s uproarious food comedy Tampopo, and Julien Duvivier’s terrific thriller Panique. We will also present a new DCP of the long-thought-lost RKO proto-disaster movie Deluge which will screen as part of a “flood and fire” double feature with a 35mm print of another RKO super production, The Last Days of Pompeii. Other 35mm showings include the ultra-rare "Moment in Time" cut of animator Richard Williams' magnum opus, The Thief and the Cobbler; Ingmar Bergman’s film of Mozart’s The Magic Flute and two fine IB Technicolor prints of Francis Ford Coppola’s two 1974 releases (and Best Picture Oscar nominees) The Godfather Part II and The Conversation. Plus an evening of musical Vitaphone shorts and live musical performance; Al Pacino in William Friedkin’s controversial Cruising; and two very different Cannon Films adaptations of an Elmore Leonard crime novel classic (52 Pick-Up), made only two years apart!

All Cinematheque screenings are free and open to the public.