BAMcinématek Presents: Cat People

Part of the BAMcinématek series New Orleans on Film 

Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 4:30, 9:30pm

Directed by Paul Schrader
With Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard

(1982) 118min, 35mm

“This is the stuff of audacious myth, combining the perverse, the glorious, and the ridiculous.”—Roger Ebert

The last in an ancient line of humanoid cats, Irena Gallier (Kinski) travels to New Orleans to find her brother (McDowell). Schrader’s remake of Jacques Tourneur’s 1942 classic is given a kinkier edge: in the midst of her sexual awakening, Irena is forced to choose between continuing her bloodline—by having sex with her brother—or pursuing a relationship with a kind zookeeper who she will surely kill in the heat of passion. Cat People is scored by the great Giorgio Moroder and art directed by the legendary Ferdinando Scarfiotti, who “imagine[s] New Orleans as a post-feminist kingdom whose traditions are on the brink of destruction” (Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine).