Bigger than Life/ American Gigolo + Introduction at HOME

Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor

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Bigger than Life / American Gigolo + Introduction

HOME Manchester, Manchester
16 November 2019

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

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It features music by Blondie and Giorgio Moroder, suits by Armani and a simmering, career-making performance by Richard Gere — Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo is undisputedly one of the most stylish films of the 1980s. Gere plays Julian Kaye, a high-class prostitute who positively gleams amongst the sun and palms of Los Angeles. Meticulously turned-out, with a taste for fast convertibles and expensive sunglasses, his clientele is exclusively wealthy older women.

Julian embodies the kind of solipsistic materialism that came to define 1980s America in the popular imagination. A consumer, but also routinely consumed, we meet Julian as his life begins to unravel. Schrader marries his trademarked brand of existential character study (the director of Hardcore and Blue Collar also co-wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull) with the generic conventions of film noir and the seedy excitements of the erotic thriller, as one bad trick turns into a false murder charge and Julian is left trying to clear his name.

Julian’s strictly ordered life quickly crumbles, and his servile position within the upper echelons is made abundantly clear as friends and clients alike begin to melt away. Only Michelle (Lauren Hutton), a lover, patron and the wife of a US senator, remains an ally as Julian turns detective in an attempt to clear his name. Released in 1980, American Gigolo has a seventies sensibility and an eighties wardrobe. There’s darkness and a mean grit to this story of a male prostitute caught in the wheels of power, but Moroder wrote Blondie hit Call Me for the soundtrack, while fashion blogs and men’s magazines continue to obsess over the menswear on show.

Local programmers Bigger Than Life present the film from a rare 35mm print with an introduction by film writer Christina Newland. Editor of the upcoming critical anthology She Found It At The Movies: Women Writers on Sex, Desire & Cinema, Newland wrote in Sight & Sound that “spiritual sickness never looked so good” as in American Gigolo. The presentation at HOME should illuminate some of the complexities and contradictions which are essential to the movie, and present viewers with context for a film which simultaneously borrows a conclusion from Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket and features enough full-frontal nudity to turn its star into a sex symbol.

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Where to go near Bigger than Life/ American Gigolo + Introduction at HOME

Manchester
Restaurant
Indian Tiffin Room, Manchester

Indian Tiffin Room is a restaurant specialising in Indian street food, with branches in Cheadle and Manchester. This is the information for the Manchester venue.

The Ritz Manchester live music venue
Manchester
Music venue
The Ritz

The Ritz was originally a dance hall, built in 1928, has hosted The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and The Smiths and is still going strong as a gig venue now.

Homeground
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Homeground

Homeground is HOME’s brand new outdoor venue, providing an open-air space for theatre, food, film, music, comedy and more.

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Café or Coffee Shop
Burgess Cafe Bar
at IABF

Small but perfectly-formed café – which also serves as the in-house bookstore, stocking all manner of Burgess-related works, along with recordings of his music. It’s a welcoming space, with huge glass windows making for a bright, welcoming atmosphere.

Rain Bar pub in Manchester
City Centre
Bar or Pub
Rain Bar

This huge three-floor pub, formerly a Victorian warehouse, then an umbrella factory (hence the name), has one of the city centre’s largest beer gardens. The two-tier terrace overlooks the Rochdale canal and what used to be the back of the Hacienda, providing an unusual, historic view of the city.

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The Briton’s Protection

Standing on the corner of a junction opposite The Bridgewater Hall, The Briton’s Protection is Manchester’s oldest pub. It has occupied the same spot since 1795, going under the equally patriotic name The Ancient Britain.

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The influential Castlefield Gallery sits at the edge of Manchester’s exciting Castlefield district, an ideal home for thought-provoking contemporary art.

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