Screening

About Altered States

Rating:

R R

Year Released:

1980

Genres:

Drama, Horror

Metadata:

Directed by Ken Russell

The talent behind Altered States represents what is perhaps the unlikeliest of creative collaborations. Controversial, boundary-pushing British director Ken Russell (Tommy, Women in Love) teams up with celebrated playwright/screenwriter/television dramatist Paddy Chayefsky (Network, Marty) and a very young William Hurt (Broadcast News, A History of Violence) for this psychedelic sci-fi horror film about a psychologist’s obsessive aspiration to discover all levels of human consciousness. Russell’s hyperkinetic approach to visuals, Chayefsky’s typically stylized dialogue, and Hurt’s dedicated performance make for a supremely odd and intensely affecting journey into the nightmarish boundaries of the mind and humanity's relationship with the history of the universe. (35mm.)