alr

Times Square

Screening on Film
Directed by Allan Moyle.
With Robin Johnson, Trini Alvarado, Tim Curry.
US, 1980, 35mm, color, 111 min.
Print source: Moving Image Archives at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts

Inspired by a girl's diary found in a secondhand couch, Times Square draws together several common themes in punk cinema: teenage runaways, mental illness, and of course, punk music. Shot in the dirty neon-lit streets of Times Square, the film authentically captures the spirit of an infamously sketchy space lost to Mayor Giuliani's "cleanup." Under pressure from his producer, Moyle had to sublimate his characters' overt lesbianism into suggestive subtext – witness the song "Your Daughter is One" – and adjust the music with hopes of producing a blockbuster soundtrack album. The opposing creative forces collide jarringly at times, yet the crazy combination also makes for an unusual and sweet celebration of defiant teenage girls.

Part of film series

Read more

American Punk

Other film series with this film

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Psychedelic Cinema

Read more

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Read more
sepia photo of Artie Freedman in silhouette with a video camera at show

Boston Punk Rewound / Unbound. The Arthur Freedman Collection

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Read more
a mausoleum that looks like a miniature Spanish cathedral, next to a variety of others, against an evening sky

The Night Watchman by Natalia Almada

Read more
a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf

Read more
a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

Le Dépays + Sans soleil

Read more
Peter Sellers wearing a large hat with "ME" embroidered on it, and gripping a Pilgrim-like collar

Carol for Another Christmas