The Moderns (1988)
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75% of critics liked it
(16 reviews) -
59% of users liked it
(844 ratings)
In the expatriate-littered Paris of the 1920s, painter Nick Hart (Keith Carradine) mingles with Ernest Hemingway (Kevin O'Connor) and other leading lights of the Lost Generation while palling around with gossip columnist Oiseau (Wallace Shawn), whose reportage has helped establish the… More In the expatriate-littered Paris of the 1920s, painter Nick Hart (Keith Carradine) mingles with Ernest Hemingway (Kevin O'Connor) and other leading lights of the Lost Generation while palling around with gossip columnist Oiseau (Wallace Shawn), whose reportage has helped establish the international reputation of the writers and artists who fled America for France after WWI. Older and less successful than many of his fellow painters, Hart relies on gallery owner Libby Valentin (Genevieve Bujold) to sell what she can of his work while he supports himself drawing cartoons for Oiseau's weekly column. In a café one day, Hart spies Rachel Stone (Linda Fiorentino) on the arm of her husband, Bertram (John Lone), a condom magnate and art patron who's trying to buy his way into society. It seems Hart and Rachel share a romantic past of which Stone is completely unaware. At the salon of writers Gertrude Stein (Elsa Raven) and Alice B. Tolkas (Ali Giron), Hart suffers a nasty run-in with the Stones and meets Nathalie de Ville (Geraldine Chaplin), a rich socialite who wants to steal three paintings from her estranged husband. Nathalie plies Hart with sexual favors and the promise of cash in exchange for his help in forging copies of the paintings. Although he's loath to follow in the footsteps of his father, a gifted forger, Hart acquiesces, and soon his rivalry with Stone and his involvement with the forgeries leads to death, destruction, and scandal in the art world. Bujold, Shawn, Chaplin, and Carradine are all regular collaborators of iconoclastic director Alan Rudolph, who filmed The Moderns in Montréal and would go on to lens the similarly intellectual Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
- Directed By
- Alan Rudolph
- Genres
- Drama, Art House & International, Comedy
R,
- In Theaters
- Jan 1, 1988 Wide
Critic Reviews
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Vincent Canby, New York Times
A movie that makes an afternoon with Gertrude and Alice more boring than a faculty tea.
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Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
It takes place at that enchanted moment in Paris when the Lost Generation created itself and then proceeded to create, promote, fabricate and publicize modern literature, art, music and attitudes.
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Rita Kempley, Washington Post
Everything is ersatz, even the surrealism in Alan Rudolph's 10th movie.
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Desson Thomson, Washington Post
Rudolph's weaknesses pale before the film's overriding textures: Toyomichi Kurita's cinematography exquisitely crosses color with sepia and blacks and whites.
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Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
A casually absurd, surprisingly playful look into the lives of American expatriates --Gertrude Stein's famous "lost generation" -- in post-World War I Paris.
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Cast
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Keith Carradine
as Nick Hart
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Linda Fiorentino
as Rachel Stone
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John Lone
as Bertram Stone
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Wallace Shawn
as Oiseau
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Geneviève Bujold
as Libby Valentin
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Geraldine Chaplin
as Nathalie de Ville
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Kevin J. O'Connor
as Ernest Hemingway
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Charlie Couture
as Charley
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Elsa Raven
as Gertrude Stein
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Ali Giron
as Alice B. Toklas
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Gailard Sartain
as New York Critic
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Michael Wilson
as Surrealist Poet
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Antonia Dauphin
as Babette
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Harry Hill
as Mr. Brown
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Didier Hoffman
as Priest
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Ranee Lee
as Black Chanteuse
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Beverley Murray
as Eve (Group Montparno)
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Meegan Lee Ochs
as Francis
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Michael Rudder
as Buffy Buckley
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Brooke Smith
as Abigail
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Marthe Turgeon
as Rose Selavy
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Timothy Webber
as Stone's Business Associate
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Bob Gould
as Blackie
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Pierre Chagnon
as Stone's Bodyguard #1
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Reynald Bouchard
as Chapelle
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Danielle Schneider
as Fille de Nuit
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Paul Buissonneau
as Alexandre (Group Montparno)
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Hubert Loiselle
as Art Critic
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David Stein
as Art Critic
- John Lane
