2007 "Afternoon/Evening with..." Events

An Evening with Peter Bogdanovich

Friday, March 30 at 6:30 pm
PAPER MOON followed by Q&A
Tickets are $18 - Purchase tickets

Truly an American Visionary, Peter Bogdanovich will be honored with the Florida Film Festival American Visionary Award on Friday, March 30, 2007. The evening will include an archival 35mm print screening of PAPER MOON at 6:30 PM followed by the award presentation and a Q&A with the director. Tickets are $18.

The romantic films of the 1930s and '40s influenced director Bogdanovich in PAPER MOON, a masterpiece influenced by the filmmaking of those periods—a classic comedy drama that resembles the films of John Ford or Sam Wood. Moses Pray (Ryan O'Neal) is a happy-go-lucky con man traveling throughout the Midwest during the Great Depression conning widows into buying Bibles. Stopping in a small town for a friend's funeral, he is persuaded to deliver the deceased's precocious 10-year-old daughter, Addie Loggins (Tatum O'Neal, Ryan's real-life daughter), to her aunt's home. The resemblance between Moses and Addie—who never knew her father—is uncanny, and the two are soon acting like father and daughter as they travel the back roads of heartland America. Despite his initial misgivings, Moses is delighted to find that Addie is a boon to business, catching on quickly and adding her own twists to his favorite cons. Madeline Kahn stars as Trixie Delight, a ladyfriend Moses meets along the way, a situation that brings out Addie's possessive side. Bogdanovich convincingly recreates the feel and look of the 1930s with his nostalgic look at life on the open road. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay; both Kahn and the 11-year-old O'Neal were nominated for Best Supporting Actress, which O'Neal won.

The small-town drama The Last Picture Show earned eight Oscar nominations and made Peter Bogdanovich the hottest young film director of 1971. Bogdanovich got his start as a critic, historian and eager film buff; he wrote about (and cultivated friendships with) Howard Hawks, Orson Welles and other leading directors before moving behind the camera himself. The 1972 screwball comedy What's Up, Doc?, Paper Moon and Mask (1985) are among his many achievements. Bogdanovich's many books about film include The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock (1963), Pieces of Time (1973), and the Hollywood character studies Who the Devil Made It? (1997) and Who the Hell's In It? (2004). His 1990 film Texasville was a sequel to The Last Picture Show; both films were based on novels by Larry McMurtry. His 2002 film The Cat's Meow was based on the mysterious death of Hollywood pioneer Thomas Ince. In recent years, Bogdanovich took a recurring acting role in the TV series The Sopranos, playing a psychiatrist who treats psychiatrist Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco). Currently, Bogdanovich is finishing a documentary on the career of Rock and Roll legend Tom Petty and editing the final unfinished Orson Welles film.

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