Program – Tygers of Wrath

In college, I took an "experiential" course in art and religion. I hated it, and shared my dissatisfaction with the professor. She listened, and replied, "Ahh, the sinister path to enlightenment." I never got it. Here're a couple of movies that violate the conventions of their respective genres, that frustrate the viewer looking for a merely entertaining flick, that take the sinister path to enlightenment.

Jim Jarmusch's "Dead Man" is an unusual movie in a lot of ways. Johnny Depp begins by playing his typical passive naïf , then gains more energy as he spends two thirds of the movie in the process of dying. Lots of cameos by lots of movie stars. A love it or hate score by Neil Young. William Blake quotes throughout.

The conceit of Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" is to transport the classic noir detective Philip Marlowe into Los Angeles some twenty five years after his time -- Marlowe's peculiar code of chivalry butting against a very different world. In his own time, Marlowe never fit in, but the 1970s drive him to cross to the dark side as he would never have done in the old days.