After spending a year at Harvard Law School, Philip Kaufman embarked in the early 1960s on a European trip that would ultimately lead him into the cinema. Inspired by the emerging New Waves in Europe, he returned to his native Chicago to direct two independent features of his own. The first of these films, Goldstein, is a quirky urban tale about a young sculptor whose pregnant girlfriend resolves to have an abortion and exit the relationship. Nonplused, the artist embarks on a journey through the streets of the city to find the titled character, a bearded prophet dressed like a silent-era tramp who rises up from the depths of Lake Michigan. The film itself had a no less miraculous entry into the world when it emerged at Cannes to share the coveted Prix de la Nouvelle Critique with Bertolucci’s Before the Revolution.