Event

CANDY MOUNTAIN in 35mm

Monday, February 6 at 7:30 PM - 9:45 PM

Music Box Theatre
3733 N Southport Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60613

CANDY MOUNTAIN
Directed by Robert Frank and Rudy Wurlitzer 1987
The cult rock n roll weirdo road movie of your dreams, the wildly underseen and very funny "Candy Mountain" somehow manages to be both a lark and a creative and thematic apotheosis for both of its codirectors, photographer/filmmaker Robert Frank and novelist/screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer. Mediocre musician and all-around jackass Julius (Kevin J. OConnor) insinuates himself into a deal to track down legendary and reclusive guitar maker Elmore Silk, an oblique figure who has left a trail of disgruntled family members and forlorn ex-lovers in his wake. Julius finds that nothing about his assignment is easy as he loses vehicle after vehicle, drinks himself into a stupor, and meets innumerable deranged personalities (a great many of whom are played by notable musicians, including Tom Waits as a yuppie, Joe Strummer and Arto Lindsay as the worlds worst no wave band, and Dr. John as a wheelchair-bound psychopath) whom he invariably leaves frustrated, confused, or enraged. Given that Frank and Wurlitzer were best known, respectively, for the photography book _The Americans_ and the screenplay for "Two-Lane Blacktop," it should come as no shock that their feature film collaboration would so greatly concern itself with Americas preoccupation with the road and wayward notions of freedom. Nor should its deeply odd, dead-end splendor surprise us, given the tremendous creative brain trust involved. (CW)
91 min Xanadu Films 35mm from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Short: Energy and How to Get It (Robert Frank, Rudy Wurlitzer, and Gary Hill, 1981) 16mm 28 min