Willie & Phil
Willie & Phil | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Directed by | Paul Mazursky |
Written by | Paul Mazursky |
Produced by | Paul Mazursky |
Starring | Michael Ontkean Margot Kidder Ray Sharkey |
Cinematography | Sven Nykvist |
Edited by | Donn Cambern |
Music by | Claude Bolling |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
|
Running time | 115 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $5.5 million[1] |
Box office | $4,400,000[2] |
Willie & Phil is a 1980 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Mazursky and starring Michael Ontkean, Margot Kidder, and Ray Sharkey.
Plot[]
The film is set in late 1970s New York, amidst the counterculture chic of that era. Willie, a high school English teacher who plays jazz piano, and Phil, a fashion photographer, meet coming out of the Bleecker Street Cinema, where Jules et Jim has just been shown, and become friends. They both fall in love with Jeannette, a girl from Kentucky.
Cast[]
- Michael Ontkean - Willie Kaufman
- Margot Kidder - Jeannette Sutherland
- Ray Sharkey - Phil D'Amico
- Jan Miner - Maria Kaufman
- Tom Brennan - Sal Kaufman
- Julie Bovasso - Mrs. D'Amico
- Louis Guss - Mr. D'Amico
- Kathleen Maguire - Mrs. Sutherland
- Kaki Hunter - Patti Sutherland
- Kristine DeBell - Rena
- Jerry Hall - Karen
Critical responses[]
The film was reviewed by Pauline Kael in The New Yorker. "It could be that the theme of Jules et Jim, which preoccupies Mazursky - woman as the source of life and art, and woman as destroyer - is just what he can't handle. The ad for Willie & Phil does bring out the film's latent subject: we see the open mouth of a giant goddess who is holding two men in the palm of her hand. They reach up to her with their offerings - one with a bottle of wine, the other with a bunch of flowers. She may be breathing life into these dwarf suitors or preparing to devour them along with their gifts. Either way, she's a source of awe and terror. All through the picture, Mazursky has been trying to demystify what he experiences as mystifying. This movie is a little monument to screwed-up notions of what women are."[3]
References[]
- ^ Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History, Scarecrow Press, 1989 p259
- ^ "Willie & Phil (1980) - Box Office Mojo". www.boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved June 10, 2018.
- ^ Pauline Kael Taking It All In ISBN 0-7145-2841-2
External links[]
- 1980 films
- English-language films
- 1980 comedy films
- 1980 drama films
- 1980s romantic comedy-drama films
- 20th Century Fox films
- American films
- American romantic comedy-drama films
- Fictional duos
- Films directed by Paul Mazursky
- Films set in New York City
- Films set in the 1970s
- Films shot in New York City