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Studio 54

Studio 54

There’s a memorable moment in “Studio 54,” Matt Tyrnauer’s thrilling and definitive documentary about the fabled disco haven, in which the camera glides through the gilded lobby of the old theater the club was built in, approaching the doors, the beat throb-throb-throbbing in the muted distance. The camera then pushes through the doors and onto the dance floor, the music — it’s Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” the greatest disco song ever recorded — now turned up and transcendent, and for a moment we feel like we’re melting into the elation of the writhing horde.

Studio 54 opened 41 years ago (on April 26, 1977) and remained open for just 33 months, and the decades since have been filled with starry-eyed testimonials to what it was like to be there. For those of us who never went (and probably couldn’t have gotten in if we tried), “Studio 54” lets you taste a bit of the ecstasy. Tyrnauer, the director of “Valentino: The Last Emperor” and “Citizen Jane: Battle for the City,” is a next-generation classicist who, in this movie, assembles photographs and amateur film footage with kaleidoscopic dexterity. The film shows you the club from every angle, and seems to be gawking at every patron. It puts us right inside.

...“Studio 54” imprints us with an indelible portrait of the nightclub that became the apotheosis of the disco era: the freedom, the excess, the aristocracy, the pulsating pop glory. It was like a slice of ancient Rome on W. 54th St., so bedazzled by its delirium that it now looks almost innocent.

— Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Studio 54

Fri & Sat October 19 & 20, 2018, 7:30 PM, Muenzinger Auditorium

USA, 2018, in English, Color, 98 min • official site

recommend

Tickets

10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission. $7 w/UCB student ID, $7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.

Parking

Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.

RTD Bus

Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus

International Film Series

(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.

First Person Cinema

(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.

C.U. Film Program

(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil Grillo.

Celebrating Stan

Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.

C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.

Thank you, sponsors!
Boulder International Film Festival
Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

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