Introduced by Pat Kirkham
Live music by Donald Sosin
Dir. Charles Bryant. 1923, 74 mins. 35mm print. With Alla Nazimova, Mitchell Lewis. This film’s cult status owes much to the outlandish, highly stylized sets and costumes à la Aubrey Beardsley. Despite being a box-office failure, the film remains a landmark in cinema history, bridging the mainstream and the avant-garde. Its radical modernist aesthetic and deliberately exaggerated acting are a departure from the turn-of-the-century portrayals of Salomé as an overtly eroticized seductress. Pat Kirkham teaches design and decorative arts at the Bard Graduate Center.
Free with Museum admission.
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