Virginia Film Festival

In advance of the release of his newest film, Eddington, visionary director Ari Aster (Midsommar, Beau is Afraid) programmed this screening of one of his favorite Westerns. Describing Clint Eastwood’s classic, Aster writes:

One of the best screenplays ever written, by the great David Webb Peoples.

Original title: The Cut-Whore Killings! Who the hell talked Clint out of that??

This one feels like the perfect update on Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. And it basically stands alone in the totality of its view on the genre and its portrait of early America. The brilliant cast of characters includes the starry-eyed biographer/mythmaker, the kid who dreams of adventure (having read the myths), the ego-mad sheriff, the charlatan from England whose reputation is a house of cards, the doom-haunted black man, the thick-skinned prostitutes who have their limits, and the soul-sapped gunslinger facing the grave. And every performance is glorious. Especially Hackman!

I so love the opening text and the final epitaph. Just perfect.

Want to be among the first audiences to see Eddington, before it opens wide on Friday, July 18?
Join us for a sneak preview on Monday, July 14, courtesy of A24.