Variety
Synopsis
Variety inverts the traditional narrative structure of cinema – whereby a man watches and a woman is watched – without showing, and thus flaunting, the object of female desire. Creating a counter-narrative to Hollywood, Bette Gordon asks the same question formulated by Teresa de Lauretis in “Oedipus Interruptus”: “How did Medusa feel upon seeing herself in Perseus' mirror just before being slain?”
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Forum Archival Constellations
Details
- Year
- 1983
- Type of project
- Features
- Running time
- 100 mins
- Director
-
Bette Gordon
- Producer
- Renée Shafransky
- Editor
- Ila von Hasperg
- Screenwriter
- Kathy Acker (script), Bette Gordon (original story)
- Director of Photography
- Tom Dicillo, John Foster
- Sound
- Helene Kaplan; Sound Design: Ila von Hasperg
- Composer
- John Lurie
- Principal cast
- Sandy McLeod, Will Patton, Luis Guzman, Nan Goldin, Richard Davidson
- Digital restoration
- New York Women in Film and Television's Women's Film Preservation Fund, DuArt Film and Video
- Film Image
- © Bette Gordon, Nan Goldin
Genre
Categories
Production Status
Production Company
US, Germany, UK co-production
Channel 4 Films (UK), Variety Motion Pictures (US), Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen/ ZDF (DE)
Page updates
This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.
See also
You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.
Elsinore
Director: Simon Stone
Year: 2026
The powerful, deeply moving and inspiring true story of the actor Ian Charleson who faced incredible odds while preparing to give the performance of his life in Hamlet. Official Selection Telluride Film Festival 2026 Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026
Amped
Director: Jake Goddard
Year: 2026
A dysfunctional and toxic rock band is barely being held together by their stressed-out manager. With one last concert to impress a record label and get signed, the band's future hangs in the balance as tensions threaten to tear them apart.
Mother Water
Director: Julius Amedume
Year: 2028
After the horrific death of their child, a grieving architect and her doctor husband travel to Africa on a fake humanitarian trip. But when their helicopter crashes, they seek refuge in a remote African fishing village, where strange things begin to happen. Mysterious offerings appear at their door, the villagers worship an ancient water deity known as Mami Wata, and over the course of the next few days, they are forced to confront their deepest desires and what they're willing to sacrifice to obtain them.