Manhattan Love Suicides (film)

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Directed byRichard Kern
Written byRichard Kern
Produced byRichard Kern
StarringBill Rice
David Wojnarowicz
Nick Zedd
Tommy Turner
Amy Turner
Manhattan Love Suicides
Directed byRichard Kern
Written byRichard Kern
Produced byRichard Kern
StarringBill Rice
David Wojnarowicz
Nick Zedd
Tommy Turner
Amy Turner
Music byJG Thirlwell
Wiseblood
The Dream Syndicate
Release date
  • 1985 (1985)
Running time
35 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Manhattan Love Suicides is a 1985 American underground comedy film series written, produced and directed by Richard Kern. It consists of four short films: Stray Dogs, Woman at the Wheel, Thrust in Me, and I Hate You Now.

Shot in Manhattan's Lower East Side in the mid-1980s, a turbulent time when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was at its height, and poverty, crime, violence, prostitution and drug consumption were running rampant in New York City, Kern's anthology film is a part of the Cinema of Transgression movement (a term coined by Nick Zedd who also appears in the Woman at the Wheel and Thrust in Me segments).[1] It was shot in Super 8mm film.[2]

The UK-based rock band The Manhattan Love Suicides took its name from the film.[3]

Stray Dogs

A love-sick fan stalks an artist and when he’s refused attention, he literally comes apart.

Woman at the Wheel

A woman takes each of her boyfriends —one poor and one rich— for a drive in her new car. Each argues with her and insists on taking the wheel. She beats one of them up, before crashing into a group of youths and, finally, a wall.

Thrust in Me

A woman reads Suicide, by French sociologist Émile Durkheim, and contemplates slitting her wrists in her NY apartment. Her boyfriend returns home to find her corpse in the bathtub and takes his sexual pleasure from it. Filmmaker Nick Zedd plays both the female and the male lead roles.

I Hate You Now

A drug peddler and his girlfriend severely disfigure themselves out of love and betrayal.

Cast

"Stray Dogs"
"Woman at the Wheel"
"Thrust in Me"
  • Nick Zedd
  • Don Houston as Pimp
"I Hate You Now"
  • Tommy Turner as Peddler
  • Amy Turner as Peddler's girlfriend

Background

References

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