High Art
In a revelatory performance, Ally Sheedy stars in writer-director Lisa Cholodenko’s debut feature, a wry and incisive look at the politics of the New York art scene wrapped in the guise of an emotionally spiky queer romance. When Lucy Berliner (Sheedy), a once prominent photographer who has retreated into a life of heroin abuse with her faded-actress lover (Patricia Clarkson), is rediscovered by Syd (Radha Mitchell), an up-and-coming editor at a photography magazine, professional ambition and personal attraction become dangerously entwined. Stripping away art-world glamour to tell a seductive yet troubling story of complicated human connection, High Art stands as an essential work of both queer and 1990s independent cinema.
High Art was restored by the Academy Film Archive and the UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with the Sundance Institute. Funding provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Frameline, the Sundance Institute, and the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Lisa Cholodenko, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Audio commentary from 2004 featuring Cholodenko
- New conversation between Cholodenko and filmmaker Karyn Kusama
- New interviews with actors Ally Sheedy and Radha Mitchell and photographer JoJo Whilden
- Dinner Party (1997), a short film by Cholodenko
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic B. Ruby Rich
New cover by Anthony Gerace featuring photography by JoJo Whilden
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Lisa Cholodenko, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Audio commentary from 2004 featuring Cholodenko
- New conversation between Cholodenko and filmmaker Karyn Kusama
- New interviews with actors Ally Sheedy and Radha Mitchell and photographer JoJo Whilden
- Dinner Party (1997), a short film by Cholodenko
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic B. Ruby Rich
New cover by Anthony Gerace featuring photography by JoJo Whilden
Cast
- Ally Sheedy
- Lucy Berliner
- Radha Mitchell
- Syd
- Gabriel Mann
- James
- Patricia Clarkson
- Greta
- Bill Sage
- Arnie
- Anh Duong
- Dominique
- David Thornton
- Harry
- Tammy Grimes
- Vera
Credits
- Director
- Lisa Cholodenko
- Written by
- Lisa Cholodenko
- Produced by
- Dolly Hall
- Produced by
- Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte
- Produced by
- Susan A. Stover
- Associate producer
- Lori E. Seid
- Director of photography
- Tami Reiker
- Production designer
- Bernhard Blythe
- Editor
- Amy E. Duddleston
- Casting
- Billy Hopkins
- Casting
- Suzanne Smith
- Casting
- Kerry Barden
- Music supervision
- Tracy McKnight
- Music
- Shudder to Think
Trailer for High Art