Lions Love ( . . . and Lies)

Agnès Varda
United States, France, 1969
featuring

Viva, Jim Rado, Gerome Ragni, Shirley Clarke,

“The pressures here in Hollywood are so great, from all the dead people,” opines Andy Warhol superstar Viva in Agnès Varda’s experimental feature, shot in Los Angeles in 1968. The external pressures on our heroine at first seem to be few. Drifting naked in the pool, attended by swains Jim Rado and Jerry Ragni (the writers/singers of Hair), she has little more to do than recite pop aphorisms. But the atmosphere of hippie bliss is disrupted when the trio’s houseguest, filmmaker Shirley Clarke, arrives. Bracketed by performances of Michael McClure’s The Beard—with cameos by Eddie Constantine and Peter Bogdanovich, among others—Lions Love is a deliberately decadent riff on fantasy, immaturity, and violence: American culture, 1968. 

Juliet Clark
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Agnès Varda
Cinematographer
  • Stevan Larner
  • Lee Alexander
  • William Weaver
  • Rusty Roland
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 112 mins
Source
  • Janus Films
Preceded By

1960 July 8—All Roads Lead to Los Angeles

United States, 1960

A brand-new sports arena is readied for the Democratic National Convention, as the town buzzes with activity on behalf of the various candidates.

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • Digital
  • 1 mins
source
  • UCLA Film & Television Archive
Additional Info
  • Hearst Metrotone Newsreel

1960 July 15—Kennedy’s Victory

United States, 1960

All the drama and excitement at the Democratic National Convention, which marks the elevation of Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts as his party’s standard-bearer for the presidency.

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • Digital
  • 4 mins
  • UCLA Film & Television Archive
Additional Info
  • Hearst Metrotone Newsreel

1965 Aug 20—Los Angeles after the Rioting

United States, 1965

As the threats of further rioting diminish in the Watts region of Los Angeles, supplies are brought in to feed the 65,000 inhabitants of the devastated blocks.

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • Digital
  • 4 mins
source
  • UCLA Film & Television Archive
Additional Info
  • Hearst Metrotone Newsreel

1967 Sept 5—Treat for Watts Youngsters

United States, 1967

Two thousand four hundred youngsters from the once-riot-torn Watts area of Los Angeles leave for a two-week vacation at Camp Robers, a former Army base. For most of them, it’s their first real holiday, and they hope the outing will become a permanent summer arrangement.

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • Digital
  • 2 mins
source
  • UCLA Film & Television Archive
Additional Info
  • Hearst Metrotone Newsreel

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