631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Ulrike Ottinger, Dorian Gray Im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse (Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press), Germany, 35mm (on Blu-Ray), Color, 150 min., 1984
Presented in collaboration with REDCAT Film and the Thomas Mann House
Legendary German auteur Ulrike Ottinger (Madame X: An Absolute Ruler, Johanna D'Arc of Mongolia) returns to REDCAT with the screening of her cult film, Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press. Vibrant restored colors and breathtaking scene design encase the battle of seduction and power between two divas—the glamorous femme Delphine Seyrig as Frau Dr. Mabuse, the head of a media conglomerate, and the gender-bending über-model Veruschka von Lehndorff as the dandy Dorian Gray. As Mabuse wants to mold Dorian into a tabloid celebrity, they dive into the Berlin sexual underground haunted by creatures escaped from Fassbinder’s cinema (Magdalena Montezuma, Irm Hermann) or attend a performance of their own doubles in a pre-colonial operatic fantasy, interacting with a singer (Tabea Blumenschein) who will become Dorian’s unpredictable love object.
In person: Ulrike Ottinger