Doomed Love

“A witty send-up and a wise abstraction of the melodrama, combining elements of romantic mythology – songs, images, words and movements – to ask the question: where does myth end and life begin? Bill Rice ‘stars’ as a frustrated professor of romantic literature who reaches the end of his rope and resolves to be reunited with his deceased true love. When his attempt to hang himself fails, he finds renewed hope in the form of a nurse at his doctor’s office; newly married and still in love, she is nevertheless intrigued by his morbid romanticism. The action takes place on gigantic, expressionistic sets painted by artists Amy Sillman and Pamela Wilson; movements are exaggerated by being reduced to a minimum, and the dialogue, written by James Neu, calls up the romantic phraseology of the ages – from literature to TV – strung together into a musical refrain and set to Evan Lurie’s score.” -PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE