Institute History
Description
As Robin Wood astutely remarks, "The protagonist of Mickey One is, like Billy the Kid and Bonnie and Clyde, a character with a fully developed popular image and a very uncertain sense of the relationship between this image and his real self: Mickey One is not even the real name of the down-on-his-luck nightclub comedian Warren Beatty plays in the film, but a pseudonym he has coined from an unknown Pole The exact Identity of his pursuers remains equally undefined
Charles Higham, in his excellent analysis of the film, says. "This extraordinary Kafkaesque work is far more effective than Orson Welles' version of The Trial, which provided its basic inspiration. Warren Beatty symbolizes American youth in the 1960s, trapped and on the run. Penn creates more vividly than in any other film the pulverizing weight of a mechanical world. He shows Beatty fleeing across immense junkyards where cars are crushed flat and dropped from the teeth of cranes, streets where furtive figures creep Into alleyways for shelter, and strange little huts where bizarre figures lurk trying to lure him In. The last scene is extraordinary It shows the 'K'-like protagonist in a boite with a single spotlight pinning him down like a dying butterfly:
We are screening a brand-new 35-mm print which has been restored and preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Sunday Jan 23 6:00 pm
Prospector Square Theatre
Sunday Jan 30 11:40 am
Holiday Village Cinema III
$7.00