Peter Bogdanovich died on January 6th 2022 at the age of 82. As a director, Bogdanovich was an integral part of the New Hollywood of the 1970s, and as a critic and historian, his interviews with master filmmakers such as Howard Hawks, John Ford and Orson Welles helped sustain interest in their work for subsequent generations. A lifelong passionate cinephile, Peter Bogdanovich was a key inspiration for The Badlands Collective, and we were proud to celebrate his life and career with a 35mm screening of his 1979 film Saint Jack at the ICA.

An adaptation of the novel by Paul Theroux (which Cybill Shepherd won the rights to in a lawsuit against Playboy), Saint Jack was filmed in Singapore in 1978, with Bogdanovich using a dummy script to fool the authorities into allowing the production to go ahead, and it remains the only American feature to be entirely shot in that country. Ben Gazzara gives one of his signature performances as Jack Flowers, a small-time hustler and pimp who dreams of one day operating his own brothel but faces external pressures from local gangs and the CIA. Charismatic, laid-back and cynical, Jack is a man who operates with certain values, and through Jack’s encounters with the various men and women who enter his orbit, Saint Jack explores what it takes to try and be a moral man in an amoral world.

In the early 1970s, Bogdanovich built his reputation on a series of films intoxicated with a love of classic American cinema, but after three expensive flops he left Hollywood, and Saint Jack feels like the work of a man liberated. Eschewing the elaborate plotting of his prior work, Bogdanovich crafted a loose and sophisticated character study, which is rich in atmosphere thanks to Robby Müller’s vivid cinematography. Saint Jack may be seen as an atypical entry in this director’s filmography, but it’s also one of his very best films, unique in its observation of people and place, dryly funny while weary and dangerous, and we were delighted to present it on a rarely seen 35mm archive print.

You can view a PDF version of our programme booklet from the event here: https://www.badlands-collective.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/saint-jack-booklet-02b-web.pdf