Liza Double Feature: Liza with a Z + The Sterile Cuckoo
Liza with a Z Dir. Bob Fosse, 1972, 55 mins. U.S. DCP. With Liza Minnelli. In 1972, everything was coming up Liza. Just three months after the February release of Bob Fosse’s masterpiece Cabaret (which would earn her an Academy Award for her instantly legendary starring performance), Minnelli and Fosse reteamed for Liza with a Z . This concert for television, shot at New York’s Lyceum Theatre by Fosse and his Cabaret cinematographer Owen Roizman on eight 16mm cameras, edited by Alan Heim (who would go on to cut All That Jazz ), with music coordination by Marvin Hamlisch (three years before A Chorus Line ), is a monumental testament to the indefatigable spirit and musical gifts of this timeless, larger-than-life performer. From her tongue-twisting rendition of the title tune to the deliriously choreographed toe-tapper “Ring Them Bells” to the climactic Cabaret medley, Liza with a Z is an overwhelming showcase for her thrilling talents that won four Emmys. The Sterile Cuckoo Dir. Alan J. Pakula. 1969, 107 mins. U.S. 16mm. With Liza Minnelli, Wendell Burton, Tim McIntire. We’re pleased to pair Liza with a Z —Minnelli at her most fabulously in the spotlight—with her dramatic breakthrough role in Alan J. Pakula’s deeply moving, idiosyncratic late sixties love story, for which Minnelli earned an Best Actress Oscar nomination. She plays Mary Ann, aka “Pookie,” an emotionally forthright outcast who falls hard for fellow college student Jerry (Burton). As their romance deepens, so does her desperation. Pakula’s film reveals a core of melancholy beneath its initially comic exterior, while Minnelli is the main event in her first leading movie performance, announcing her gifts for embodying singularly quirky yet effortlessly layered women.