Nighthawks (Peck, 1978): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.15pm
This 35mm presentation is presented by the Funeral Parade Queer Society. You can full details of their screenings here.
BFI review:
Nighthawks took
shape around a teacher character who struggles to come out to his
friends and colleagues as he becomes newly acquainted with the
underground gay scene. It was the first British feature film explicitly
about contemporary gay life, made by out gay people and presenting a
powerful portrait of pre-AIDS London. Through it Peck met Paul Hallam, the Nighthawks co-writer who became an important collaborator and confidant.
The film was
superficially social-realist in shape, and yet the searching
point-of-view camera shots travelling down London’s tungsten-lit roads,
plus the strange, plastic, electronic music in the club scenes, lend the
work an eerie, almost sci-fi perspective. It powerfully evokes the
Ballardian London of the 1970s, a city emptying itself of people while
bracing for the onslaught of Thatcherism.
Will Fowler
Here (and above) is an extract.
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