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BEFORE The Gong show, BEFORE England's Got Talent, BEFORE American Idol, BEFORE America's Got Talent, BEFORE The Voice...there was SHOWBOAT 1988—THE REMAKE (91 1/2 minutes, B&W/Color, ©1978 L.L. Productions).
The second film of the Rick Schmidt trilogy (A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER, and EMERALD CITIES fill the bill),1988 is about a huge audition for the remake of the classic American musical "Showboat." For three nights, July 22-24, 1975, hundreds of San Francisco’s most bizarre talent turned up, while actor ED NYLUND, a real-life librarian and musicologist, tried to enact his dream of bringing "the stench of death" to the musical comedy form. As he narrates real-life stories of his childhood failures, the viewer can better understand any auditioner’s leap for glory.
1st PRIZE – ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL. Additional Fests: ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL, LONDON FILM FESTIVAL, FLORENCE FILM FESTIVAL (Italy), FIGUEIRA DA FOZ (Portugal), US FILM FESTIVAL (Honorable Mention).
Village Voice "Choice of the Week" / J. Hoberman. TV premiere: CHANNEL FOUR , UK.
Co-Written/Directed by Rick Schmidt. Produced by Schmidt and Joe DiVincenzo. Co-written by Schmidt, William Farley (CITIZEN, OF MEN AND ANGELS, PLASTIC MAN, I WANTED TO BE A MAN WITH A GUN, etc.), Nicholas Kazan (AT CLOSE RANGE, REVERSAL OF FORTUNE, MATILDA, etc.), and Henry Bean (INTERNAL AFFAIRS, DEEP COVER, THE BELIEVER (Sundance Grand Prize), etc.
CAST: Ed Nylund, Dick Richardson and Carolyn Zaremba (each of whom stars in one of the trilogy films), Willie Boy Walker (a "Schmidt regular"also appeared in EMERALD CITIES, MORGAN'S CAKE, AMERICAN ORPHEUS, CRASH MY FUNERAL, THE FIFTH WALL, BEAR DANCE), Joe DiVincenzo, Richard Marcus (TREMORS, 24, etc.), Skip Covington, Bruce Parry, Kelly Brock Boen, Jon Carroll (SF Chronicle Columnist), Marian Bad, and feminist/UCSB Professor Constance Penley (NASA/Trek, Porn 101).
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“1988 recounts the fictitious tale of a middle-aged librarian’s attempts to finance and remake the film musical “Showboat” in contemporary terms. The auditions are arranged on a San Francisco stage, and range from incredible to merely bizarre.”
— VARIETY
“The big hit of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, it’s easy to see why. The film has carved a unique nitch for itself, somewhere between FREAKS and Fellini’s 8 1/2. It’s as though someone forgot to lock the studio door and Luis Bunuel and William Burroughs sneaked in and began a hatchet job on Hollywood."
— David Harris, THE BOSTON PHOENIX
“Laugh more than you’ve ever laughed before…one of the hits of the festival."
— Rotterdam International Film Festival
“1988 in its cumulative preposterous flummery is a spirited outcry for people to throw off the covert and overt forms of oppression and be themselves. Beneath the film’s Quixotic humor and surprisingly touching pathos stands the surrealist belief that art is never more important than life. An outrageous tour-de-force.”
— Vic Skolnick, CINEMA ARTS CENTRE
“(SHOWBOAT) 1988-THE REMAKE stops waiting for the moment and makes the moment.”––Lauren Berlant, “THE FEMALE COMPLAINT” (DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS), Chair, University of Chicago, LGBTQ STUDIES PROJECT
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Featuring performances by rock star Sylvester, bluesman J.C. Burris (ALBUM; “ONE OF THESE MORNINGS”), Jesus Christ Satan, Billy Barksdale, Darryl Wagner, Ral-Pheno, Jeff Wizig, Linda Montano (Nun(, The Pointless Sisters, many others.
<https://vimeo.com/124897112>
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(1988-THE REMAKE transcript)/subtitle list)(<https://subslikescript.com/movie/1988_The_Remake-75609>).
My name is Thomas Steel.
I'm the attorney for
the makers of the film
that you're about to
see, "Showboat 1988."
This film originally
contains several references
to a film called "Showboat"
and to a novel by the same name
by Edna Ferber.
When (beep) heard
about Showboat 1988,
they sent letters and telegrams
saying that their property
rights in the original
"Showboat" had suffered
by virtue of this parody.
This caused the distributor
to drop the film
and the cancellation
of several showings.
Now the law of
copyright infringement
is extremely unclear.
It says basically that
a person making a parody
can take no more from the
original than is necessary
to conjure up the
image of that original.
The problem is, that a film
maker seldom knows in advance
how much the court will
say is necessary to
conjure up the image
of the original.
If you cross that shadowy line,
you can be liable for
copyright infringement.
The problem also is that
the holders of the copyright
on films such as
"Showboat" are ordinarily
large corporations
such as (beep).
And a film maker can't
afford to defend his right
to parody in the face of
the unlimited resources
of those corporations.
The only way that the
makers of this film
could distribute it was
by total censorship.
Removing all references to
the earlier film "Showboat"
and thus avoiding further
threats by (beep).
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“The film loses nothing as a result of his self-censorship, in fact gains by this addition of political dimension, thereby dramatizing the predicament of the independent filmmaker in the industry-dominated film world. This black satire has all of a sudden acquired a biting edge."
– Carmen Vigil, SF Cinemateque
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READ MORE THOUGHTS ON “1988”: "The Female Complaint" by Lauren Berlant, Chair, LG Studies Project, U. of Chicago, covers the LGBTQA aspects of the film: books.google.com/books?id=q8nVOAO8-NkC&pg=PA265&lpg=PA265&dq=berlant+showboat+1988+female+complaint&source=bl&ots=4iJ9ZEwymP&sig=8QY4rUaHHqTQwPQZQiiZtbDc4pw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZo6GwoMzNAhVNzGMKHQOmBqoQ6AEIOjAE#v=onepage&q=berlant%20showboat%201988%20female%20complaint&f=false
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