Bing Theater
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
SHARE
Motion picture costume design is often associated with elaborate historical costumes, although designers also create more modern garments. Using the groundbreaking urban American films of the late 1960s and 1970s, the Academy’s Friday series demonstrated how a designer’s work can be a key element in creating contemporary characters. The work of the featured designers enhanced some of the most memorable performances of the era and complemented the gritty, soul-baring aesthetic of New Hollywood, which found innovative, director-driven cinema briefly holding sway in the industry.
Also in this series:
- Taxi Driver and Uptight
- Klute and Network
- Annie Hall and Fingers
- All That Jazz and Phantom of the Paradise
Join our email list and be the first to hear about new Academy screenings, exhibitions and events.
Street Clothes: ContempoRary Costuming in new hollywood
Oscar winner Ann Roth vividly costumed the “Fun City” era of New York with the seedy threads of Midnight Cowboy and the hip look of Klute. Rosanna Norton dressed the L.A. drug-and-music scene of Cisco Pike and the hallucinatory horror-rock of Phantom of the Paradise.
midnight cowboy
friDAY, JANUARY 9 | 7:30 P.M.
Michael Childers (producer, photographer, and John Schlesinger associate) will be on hand to present the film.
Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight made a memorable pair of down-on-their-luck New Yorkers in director John Schlesinger’s moving, groundbreaking drama, still the only X-rated film to win a Best Picture Oscar. In his first high-profile role, Voight plays Joe Buck, a naïve Texan who moves to “Fun City” to find his dreams only to end up working as a male prostitute, and Hoffman is unforgettable as his only friend, the scruffy, ailing Ratso Rizzo, an iconic image of Times Square squalor in Ann Roth’s clothes. John Barry provided the moody score including the popular main theme, and Harry Nilsson’s rendition of “Everybody’s Talkin’” helped make this unusual, daring film an instant classic.
1969, 113 minutes, color, 35mm | Directed by John Schlesinger; written by Waldo Salt, based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy; with Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Ruth White, Jennifer Salt.
cisco pike
FRIDAY, JANUARY 9 | 9:40 P.M.
Costume designer Rosanna Norton will present the film.
Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson had his first major film role in this quasi-road movie that has steadily gained a cult following in the decades since its release. Kristofferson plays the title character, a faded Venice rocker now making ends meet by dealing drugs. Coerced into unloading $10,000 of high-grade Acapulco Gold by corrupt narc Gene Hackman (fresh off his breakthrough role in The French Connection), Pike embarks on a cross-town journey that also offers a fascinating time capsule of the look and attitudes of the period. Costume designer Rosanna Norton dressed the cast, which also features Karen Black and Warhol superstar Viva, with indelible ’70s flair.
1972, 94 minutes, color, 35mm | Written and directed by B. L. Norton; with Kris Kristofferson, Karen Black, Gene Hackman, Harry Dean Stanton, Viva, Joy Bang, Roscoe Lee Browne.