30 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SCREENING!
Screening time:
Saturday, June 13, 8:30 PM
The Wachowskis | USA | 1996 | 104m
In celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Bound and the brand new 4K restoration of Speed Racer, we’re running a new retrospective series featuring three of Lana and Lilly’s masterpieces on Saturday nights throughout June. First up, it’s their debut feature and the quintessential BE GAY DO CRIME film of the 90s, BOUND.
Before they blew the world’s mind with The Matrix, Lana and Lilly Wachowski delivered a jolt of pure pulp pleasure with their hyperstylish debut, which puts a deliciously sapphic spin on a crackerjack caper premise. When butch plumber Corky (Gina Gershon) catches the eye of alluring femme Violet (Jennifer Tilly), little does she know she’s about to be drawn into both a torrid affair and a high-stakes heist that will pit the pair against the mob. With crackling dialogue, luscious neo-noir cinematography, and live-wire performances by Gershon, Tilly, and Joe Pantoliano, Bound is a genre-reimagining joyride that keeps both the tension and the erotic heat rising through each crazily careening twist.
The Wachowskis started their careers in the mid 90s as a screenwriting duo. After their first feature length script Assassins was produced by Richard Donner, who hired his own writer to re-draft the entire thing, they knew that if they were going to make it in this business, they’d have to direct the films themselves. Only a couple years later, they reappeared with Bound.
In her essay on the film, Mackenzie Wark wrote that “The cinematic material the Wachowskis play with in Bound comes from two related genres—film noir and the gangster film. These genres shape the viewer’s expectations, which the film will tease and tweak. Read as a gangster film: we expect Violet to be a pretty accessory to that genre’s obsession with male violence. Read as film noir: we’re expecting the femme fatale, who seduces, deceives, leads men astray, and pays in the end with her own death for daring to have an autonomous sexuality. Bound plays with those genre and gender expectations, and then offers a different theory of femininity.
Bound is an invitation to sense differently. Cinema is an art of vision and sound, but the Wachowskis make cinema that pushes the audience toward the senses that cinema touches only indirectly.” There are few debut features that arrive with such assured recalibrations of the form and we’re thrilled to be presenting this 4K restoration of the film on the big screen.
— Praise for Bound —
"The fact that the Wachowskis immediately went to stratospheric heights in their next film, The Matrix, means their debut has had the status of an afterthought even for diehard fans. Word was that Bound was only ever a stepping stone, its $6m budget – petty cash to any post-Matrix blockbuster – offered only to prove they could run a set. But watch the film now and you’ll find not only an immaculately crafted neo-noir, but also a skeleton key to the sisters’ entire career.” - James Robert Douglas, The Guardian
“I argue for Bound as perhaps the finest example of 20th century queer cinema.” - Cael M. Keegan, Author of “Contemporary Film Directors: Lana and Lilly Wachowski”
“I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if someone had told me that this was written and directed by two lesbians before I saw it or knew who did. A pure master class in creating, sustaining and constantly upping the tension and stakes from a stripped-down narrative. Almost all of Gina Gershon's acting is in her smirk and Jennifer Tilly's in her voice. Love it.” - Elizabeth Purchell, Queer Film Historian and Archivist
Tickets $12.00 ($11.40 at the door if available)
