The Scenic Route

As a teenager, Sergei Eisenstein signed his drawings with "Sir Gay". Mark Rappaport sees clear signs of his sexual preferences throughout the Russian’s film oeuvre. Numerous asides illustrate how Hollywood productions likewise frequently played with nods and winks and typical motifs from gay culture.

A video essay tribute to actresses from Anna Stein to Anna Karina. A tribute to actresses, approaching their presence in and out the screen, humanizing the icons. From the Ukrainian Anna Stein to the French Anna Karina, we can see some close-up faces that marked the history of the cinema, and whose demand is more relevant than ever.

An adroit expansion on the notion of a "blue" movie, Mark Rappaport's early short BLUE STREAK contrasts the rarified realm of classical composition with an unspoken assortment of words predisposed to human sexuality, all layered over footage of a room filled with naked women and men. At the intersection of high art and low art, Rappaport skillfully dissects the absurdity of such distinctions and brings notions otherwise undiscussed in polite society to the forefront.

In Mark Rappaport: The TV Spin-off, the filmmaker conducts a guided tour of his work that explains everything... and nothing. Rappaport shows himself to be the cinematic equivalent of Penn and Teller.

Joan Crawford's close-up in Humoresque. Michelangelo's David and Boticelli's "Birth of Venus". Stendhal was overwhelmed by the cultural overstimulation in Florence, which Graziella Magherini described scientifically in 1979 as Stendhal syndrome. Mark Rappaport describes his fascination for the Austrian actor Turhan Bey, who made a career in exotic roles in Hollywood in the 1940s. A very personal essay about the effect of close-ups, the canvas idols of the dream factory and the role of their admirers and fans.

In Rappaport’s dazzling and bizarre feature-length debut, he focuses on states of imaginative possession and dispossession, demonstrating how impossible it is to separate fantasies, dreams, and realities.

Mark Rappaport's creative bio-pic about actress Jean Seberg is presented in a first-person, autobiographical format (with Seberg played by Mary Beth Hurt). He seamlessly interweaves cinema, politics, American society and culture, and film theory to inform, entertain, and move the viewer. Seberg's many marriages, as well as her film roles, are discussed extensively. Her involvement with the Black Panther Movement and subsequent investigation by the FBI is covered. Notably, details of French New Wave cinema, Russian Expressionist (silent) films, and the careers of Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and Clint Eastwood are also intensively examined. Much of the film is based on conjecture, but Rappaport encourages viewers to re-examine their ideas about women in film with this thought-provoking picture.

Max Ophuls is the legendary director and two of his favorite actors are James Mason and Danielle Darrieux. Mason and Darrieux were each in several Ophuls projects but were never together in an Ophuls movie, although they should have been. What might that movie have been like? It's anybody's guess (but cinephiles can dream, can't they?). Somewhere between a historical essay and a speculative one.

Stars of the 1940s and 1950s, were they cast for their mutual affinities or for their commercial appeal? If and when they were re-starred years later, did the magic still work? Did sparks still fly? The movie business, a machine that manufactured romance and desire at the same time that it documented the process of aging. A meditation on youth and beauty, aging and box office.