Anthology Film Archives

Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives

ROSEMARY HOCHSCHILD

March 21 – March 24

This series pays tribute to actress Rosemary Hochschild, who passed away last summer. Hochschild was born and raised in South Africa, and upon her arrival in New York quickly became one of the emblematic figures in 1970s and 80s underground cinema. She appeared in films by Lawrence Weiner, Marion Cajori, Scott B, and Chris Kraus, and later popped up briefly in features such as BORN IN FLAMES (1983) and DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985). But her most important and memorable roles occurred in the work of Michael Oblowitz and Bette Gordon – she starred in Oblowitz’s No Wave classics MINUS ZERO (1979) and KING BLANK (1983), and in Bette Gordon’s early feature, EMPTY SUITCASES (1981), among others. This series includes each of these Michael Oblowitz and Bette Gordon films, as well as the greatest of her late roles, as the eponymous QUEEN OF HOLLYWOOD BLVD in the 2017 neo-noir by her son, Orson Oblowitz.

“Rosemary Hochschild had Presence with a capital P – both off-screen and on, she was a magnet, a flame, a comet traveling through space, a charmer, a lover, a mother, a healer, a girl with a gift for giving to others, a wife, a best friend who we all wanted to claim, a dancer and prancer, a mischievous prankster, even a gangster, an icon, between Rosemary and her characters there was the promise that the SELF was the performance, she was full of adventure, the first to jump in, she didn’t let go, and she wanted to win, but of all the great gifts, it was her gap-toothed deep hearty laugh, god that laugh, deep from her soul, I still hear that laugh, and so does the audience who will forever remember that laugh – authentic, mischievous, enduring. Her laugh was as intoxicating as Mae West’s walk. Rosemary took on strong-willed female characters as did Barbara Stanwick, and she was good at being bad, like Gloria Graham. But there is nobody like Rosemary. In her ultimate role as Mary, in her son Orson’s movie THE QUEEN OF HOLLYWOOD BLVD, Hochschild is the ultimate glamourous tough broad, who runs her strip club with an iron fist. She could go toe-to-toe with Ben Gazzara’s Cosmo, and she would be the one to walk away, gloriously living on the screen and in our hearts forever.” –Bette Gordon

“Rosemary had a light surrounding her she was for me … THE UNIVERSAL ENIGMA – as much as Anna Magnani was for Cocteau and Rossellini in the film THE HUMAN VOICE. How could all that brokenness and dedication and determination and desire fit into one human heart? For a few years from 1977 to 1984 Rosemary reigned supreme in New York like her friends Cookie Meuller and Tina L’Hotsky.” –Amos Poe

Michael Oblowitz and Bette Gordon will be here in person to present selected screenings, and to share memories and stories about Rosemary Hochschild’s life and work.

Upcoming Screenings

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