Alex Cox is an unruly soul. From his first radioactive rollick, Repo Man (1984), an unrelenting rebellion has bruised his films. It's not limited to Cox's dizzy and anarchic punk aesthetic-beyond that turbulent surface are subversive swipes at dominant culture, the evils of empire, and even the very underpinnings of cinema. Since his early success with the roentgen-registering Repo Man and that epic of the addled, Sid and Nancy (1986), Cox has stuck to his guns, literally. Each film is like a shoot-out with civilization: Walker (1987) with its anti-imperialist altercations; Highway Patrolman (1991) where honor is the road less taken; or Death and the Compass (1992), a dire vision of superstition replacing order. If Cox has a soft spot, it's for cinema itself. His films are shot through with sly references and signature send-offs. Straight to Hell (1987), with cameos by sub-pop celebs like Elvis Costello and Courtney Love, cross-dresses as a spaghetti western, a particular Coxian genre fetish. Resourceful and resilient, Cox continues to apply his anarchic wit and stylistic subterfuge to microfeatures that find an uneasy place within commercial cinema. With a dirty dozen films behind him, Cox is still cocksure about one thing: the revolution will not be monetized.
As part of our ongoing series Afterimage: Filmmakers and Critics in Conversation, we are delighted that renowned critic J. Hoberman will join Alex Cox to discuss his films following the screening of Walker on Saturday, October 6. Until recently, Hoberman was the lead film critic at the Village Voice. Hoberman is also the guest curator of our series An Army of Phantoms, based on his recent book on the same name.