The Moderns *** (1988, Keith Carradine, Linda Fiorentino, John Lone, Geneviève Bujold, Geraldine Chaplin) – Classic Movie Review 11,556

Director Alan Rudolph’s 1988 film The Moderns is an offbeat, civilised, romantic movie about Americans in 1920s Paris, with a miscast Keith Carradine out of his depth as art faker Nick Hart, an ex-patriate American artist living in Paris, but with John Lone and Linda Fiorentino providing ample compensation as an industrialist couple, Bertram and Rachel Stone.

Soon Nick (Carradine) and Rachel (Fiorentino) are rekindling their old flame, as they mix with the likes of Ernest Hemingway (Kevin J O’Connor), Gertrude Stein (Elsa Raven), Picasso, and Alice B Toklas (Ali Giron). And soon Nick is torn between Rachel and Nathalie de Ville (Geraldine Chaplin), who hires him to forge her paintings.

Rudolph’s glorious looking (it is shot by Japanese cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita), stylish, seductive film is part entertaining soap opera and part witty reflection on life, love and art.

The acting of Lone (as Bertram Stone), Fiorentino (as Rachel Stone) and the Rudolph rep company is impressive in an arty but accessible and enjoyable picture.

The cast are Keith Carradine, Linda Fiorentino, Geneviève Bujold, Geraldine Chaplin, Wallace Shawn, John Lone, Kevin J O’Connor, Elsa Raven, Ali Giron, Gailard Sartain, Michael Wilson, Robert Gould, and Charlélie Couture.

It is written by Alan Rudolph and Jon Bradshaw. It takes place in 1926 Paris at the time of the so-called ‘Lost Generation’ and at the peak of so-called ‘modernist literature’.

Films directed by Alan Rudolph: Premonition (1972), Nightmare Circus (1974), Welcome to L A (1976), Remember My Name (1978), Roadie (1980), Endangered Species (1982), Return Engagement (1983), Songwriter (1984), Choose Me (1984), Trouble in Mind (1985), Made in Heaven (1987), The Moderns (1988), Love at Large (1990), Mortal Thoughts (1991), Equinox (1992), Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), Afterglow (1997), Breakfast of Champions (1999), Trixie (2000), Investigating Sex (2001), The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002) and Ray Meets Helen (2017).

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,556

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