Mask
UW Cinematheque 821 University Ave., UW Vilas Hall, Room 4070, Madison, Wisconsin
press release: Director’s Cut: USA | 1985 | 35mm | 127 min.
Director: Peter Bogdanovich; Cast: Cher, Eric Stoltz, Sam Elliott
Rocky Dennis (Stoltz) is trying to make the most of his teenage years while living with a bone disorder that causes deformities to his skull. Rocky’s strength comes from the love and encouragement that he gets from his high-energy mother, Rusty (Cher), though she could use some confidence building of her own. This touching drama based on the lives of real people was the first modest box office success after five flops in a row for Bogdanovich. The director’s career stalled again, however, when he complained about studio meddling to what became the original release version of Mask. This Director’s Cut restores about seven minutes worth of scenes and several songs by Bruce Springsteen, the real Rocky Dennis’ favorite musician.
All summer screenings take place at 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Avenue. Admission free for all screenings, seating limited. No admission 15 minutes after scheduled start times. Please visit our website for a complete listing of programs and descriptions.
On Wednesday evenings this summer we will remember one of contemporary cinema’s most talented and most mercurial auteurs, Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022). Before he became a writer, producer, and director, Bogdanovich was a curator of repertory film programs and a journalist who specialized in interviews with pioneering Hollywood actors and filmmakers, and his movies are suffused with cinephilia, especially for 30s and 40s Hollywood melodramas and comedies. Although he was widely celebrated for a trio of early 70s box office successes (The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, and Paper Moon), this series will focus on six Bogdanovich features made after he fell out of favor with American audiences and the Hollywood establishment. We start with his final narrative feature, Squirrels to the Nuts, a radically different director’s cut of the movie that became She’s Funny That Way, and shown here for the first time since its well-received premiere earlier in 2022 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The series also includes three other definitive director’s cuts of neglected Bogdanovich movies, as well as the theatrical release versions of two very fine movies, Saint Jack and The Thing Called Love.