High Art (1998)

Director:

Lisa Cholodenko

Writer:

Lisa Cholodenko (writer)

Release Date:

12 June 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

a story of ambition, sacrifice, seduction and other career moves.

Plot:

A young female intern at a small magazine company becomes involved with a drug-addicted lesbian photographer, both of whom seek to exploit each other for their respective careers, while slowly falling in love with each other.

Plot Keywords:

Magazine | Photographer | Assistant Editor | Lesbian | Drugs

Awards:

7 wins & 14 nominations

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Radha Mitchell	...	Syd
Gabriel Mann	...	James
Charis Michelsen	...	Debby
David Thornton	...	Harry
Anh Duong	...	Dominique
Ally Sheedy	...	Lucy Berliner
Patricia Clarkson	...	Greta
Helen Mendes	...	White Hawk
Bill Sage	...	Arnie
Tammy Grimes	...	Vera
Cindra Feuer	...	Delia
Anthony Ruivivar	...	Xander
Elaine Tse	...	Zoe
Rudolf Martin	...	Dieter
Laura Ekstrand	...	Waitress

Also Known As:

L'art interdit (Canada: French title) (TV title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong sexuality, pervasive drug use and language.

Runtime:

101 min | Colombia:87 min

Country:

Canada | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo

Certification:

Australia:MA | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | New Zealand:R18 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

391 Productions

Trivia:

The character of Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy) was based on Nan Goldin's life and work.

Quotes:

Greta: I don't know. Maybe I will just go to China. I like China. We had fabulous... Opium there.

Movie Connections:

References "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1980)

Soundtrack:

Hot Gazpacho

A Tormented Extreme Close-Up

HIGH ART is remarkable not only for two of its lead performances, Ally Sheedy and Patricia Clarkson, but for the way it so closely observes its characters' lives. Director Cholodenko has found a way to tell her story that has a strong feel of authenticity. One important component of the film's realism is the set design. These are offices and, particularly, apartments that feel like people actually work or live there. Such authenticity may be nothing new, but the way Cholodenko moves people around in these spaces and they way the actors perform combine to ground in what seems a 'real world'. For those who have known, or been part of, the 'artistic scene' and its reliance on drug use, the numerous sequences set in Lucy's dimly-lit, cluttered living room will ring quite true.

Ally Sheedy, attractive, but now slightly hardened in appearance, has gotten deep inside the tormented world of Lucy Berliner. It's a character that will be hard to forget, and the kind of performance that does not seem at all like acting.

As Berliner's dissolute former lover, Greta, Patricia Clarkson gives the film its most colorful performance. This does seem like acting, but that is not at all a criticism: Greta is in fact a failed actress and a person whose descent into addiction and self-destruction must be theatrical at any cost.

Pretty, round-faced Radha Mitchell is not at the level of these two powerhouses, but her Syd is nicely understated and appropriately wistful.

Also very fine in the cast are impossibly handsome Bill Sage as a hanger-on and Tammy Grimes as Lucy's stern, distant mother.

HIGH ART depicts a world where some discuss the minute details of a photograph in the most abstruse terms of deconstruction or ambiguous 'art babble', while others grapple with the basic questions that haunt us all. It's an extreme close-up on the human condition.