Variety

A landmark independent film that challenged thinking around female sexuality on its 1983 release, we’re delighted to bring you this reissue of Bette Gordon’s Variety in a new 2K restoration derived from the original camera negative and overseen by Gordon herself.

Scripted by the late experimental novelist Kathy Acker, Variety follows Christine (Sandy McLeod), a bright and unassuming young woman, as she takes a job selling tickets at a pornographic theatre near Times Square. Developing an obsession with this erotic milieu that begins to consume her life, Christine finds her relationships with her boyfriend Mark (Will Patton) and Louie (Richard Davidson), one of the theatre’s patrons, profoundly changed.

Emerging from the underground NYC arts scene, Variety includes an impressive array of talent, including cinematography by Tom DiCillo (Living in Oblivion), performances by Luis Guzman (Boogie Nights), John Waters regular Cookie Mueller and photographer Nan Goldin, and a score by actor and musician John Lurie (Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law).

It’s a ground-breaking treatment of female voyeurism and desire, a transgressive and highly personal film, the major work of a director who continues to embody the essence of independent cinema and a love letter to a grimy, pre-Giuliani era of bygone New York.