Wednesday, February 26 @ 7:30 PM / NEIU — The Auditorium at NEIU — 3701 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Tickets: $10 at the door
LIGHT OF DAY
Directed by Paul Schrader • 1987
Writer-director Paul Schrader has achieved a rare feat, managing over the course of his 50+ year career to create work of uncompromising vision that is (for the most part) popular with both critics and mainstream audiences. Light of Day, his melodrama about working class siblings in a struggling rock band, feels a bit neglected in comparison to entries in his heavyweight filmography that are referenced again and again — particularly Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, and Hardcore — all cinematic touchstones steeped in alienation and a particular type of embedded American violence. Light of Day‘s claim to fame is that it almost starred Bruce Springsteen, but when Schrader approached him with a script entitled “Born in the U.S.A.,” Springsteen never read it, and the film languished for years as Schrader moved on to work on Mishima. The Boss wasn’t shy about snagging the title for his own purposes, and to make amends he penned the song “Light of Day” for the film once it was resurrected with a new title and the unlikely pairing of rock star Joan Jett and America’s favorite time traveler, Michael J. Fox. Shot in Cleveland and Illinois by Schrader’s frequent collaborator John Bailey, it’s a vivid yet sometimes desolate portrait of Rust Belt loneliness and struggling artists, and holds within it a heartbreaking performance from the late Gena Rowlands as the siblings’ deeply religious mother. Schrader was raised by strict Calvinists, and the experience left a mark that is almost always present in the aforementioned uncompromising Schrader-vision. Popular Cleveland band The Generators influenced the classic rock soundtrack and were the inspiration for the film’s fictional band. Keep your eyes peeled for cameos from a baby Trent Reznor and the Chicago suburbs. (RL)
107 min • Tri-Star Pictures • 35mm from Paramount
Preceded by: Music Video for Tom Petty’s “Into the Great Wide Open” (Julien Temple, 1991) – 7 min – 35mm
Co-presented with CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM
NEXT UP: INTERNATIONAL HOUSE on Wednesday, March 5 at NEIU