Liquid Sky is a 1982 American independentscience fiction film directed by Slava Tsukerman and starring Anne Carlisle and Paula E. Sheppard.[1] It debuted at the Montreal Film festival in August 1982 and was well received at several film festivals thereafter.[2] It was produced with a budget of $500,000. It became the most successful independent film of 1983, grossing $1.7 million worldwide.[3]
A New Wave fashion show is to be held in a crowded Manhattan nightclub. Among the models are bisexual, cocaine-addicted Margaret and her similarly cocaine-addicted nemesis Jimmy. Margaret's drug-dealing girlfriend, Adrian, is constantly hassled by Jimmy because he does not have the money to pay for more drugs.
A small UFO lands on the roof of the penthouse apartment occupied by Margaret and Adrian. Jimmy accompanies Margaret home before the show, but he's actually trying to find Adrian's drugs. Margaret is being watched by a tiny, shapeless alien from inside the UFO. Margaret and Jimmy return to the club to participate in the show. During preparations, both agree to a photo shoot the following night on Margaret's rooftop. They are assured that there will be plenty of cocaine available at the shoot.
Jimmy's mother, Sylvia, a television producer, lives in the building across from Margaret's penthouse. German scientist Johann Hoffman has been secretly observing the aliens from the Empire State Building. Johann needs somewhere to continue his surveillance when the observation deck closes. He seeks help from the only person he knows in the U.S., college drama teacher Owen, who is on his way to meet a former student. Seeking a vantage point on his own, Johann stumbles into Sylvia's building. Sylvia, who has a free evening, invites him to her apartment for dinner. Across town, Katherine states her objection to the heroin use of her boyfriend, failed writer and addict Paul who retorts by mumbling something about Cocteau composing symphonies on opium.
Margaret is seduced by Owen, her former acting professor. Owen, after having sex with Margaret, appears dead, and she discovers a translucent crystal protruding from his head. She removes it, revealing no blood, and when completely free of the wound it evaporates into thin air. Adrian returns to the penthouse and discovers the body of Owen, but she is not bothered. Adrian decides to lead a hell-themed wake for Owen. In a bout of psychopathic narcissism Adrian mounts Owen's face and climaxes while Margaret bears witness while pleading for her to stop. A fight ensues and Adrian draws a switchblade on Margaret. They struggle over control of the knife and eventually give up their fight. Adrian then puts Owen's body in a cardboard box and drags it onto the roof where she comforts Margaret, saying they will leave the body behind and depart for Berlin, then she leaves to retrieve food for dinner.
While out at the liquor store Adrian is confronted by Johann, who attempts to warn her but is snubbed by a paranoid Adrian who is convinced Johann is a cop. While Margaret is alone in the apartment, Paul, Adrian's client, returns with a sleezy air about him. Paul had returned to seduce Margaret after walking out on a party held by Katherine when she insisted he pull himself together and help greet her business clients. The people who have sexual relations and reach orgasm with Margaret promptly die, with a crystal protruding from their head. Margaret realizes she can kill people by having sex with them. When Paul tries to rape her again in a fit of homophobic rage after finding out about her bisexuality, she vengefully kills him by forcing him to climax. Margaret turns to the tower outside her window, and as she speaks to this unknown entity that has evidently interceded twice now, she pleads with it "I can't have any more bodies". At that moment Paul's body disappears in a flash of bright light.
From Sylvia's apartment, Johann continues his observation between dinner and dodging Sylvia's attempts to seduce him. Adrian arrives home and they prepare a bland looking meal in aluminum pans on their bed. They are interrupted when the crew arrives at the apartment for the fashion shoot. During the shoot Margaret is taunted by Jimmy and the crew, so she forces him to have sex with her knowing it will kill him. Adrian, confronted by this anomalous death, antagonizes Margaret into having sex with her, to prove her wrong while playing into her egotistic complex of dominance over the submissive Margaret, who pleads with her not to. Margaret is then held down by the stylist and her companion while Adrian rapes Margaret, achieving climax and then disappearing, dead, like Paul and Jimmy before her. Margaret then unplugs all the lights, and applies glow make up while she rants about her identity, upbringing, society, and the culture of 1980's Manhattan. She then convinces the crew to go to the club where she encounters her first sexual assailant and convinces him back to her apartment, thrilled by her newfound deadly prowess. She has sex with the cocaine dealing, date rapist in an act of vengeance. After climaxing he dies like all the others, disappearing in a flash as her last 3 sexual assailants/partners did. She then looks to the window and speaks to the invisible entity "Indian" that she associates with the deaths, and she puts on a white gown. After witnessing the deaths through the window with Sylvia, Johann goes across the street to Margaret's apartment to rescue her from the alien killer.
Johann reveals that the alien is extracting the endorphins produced by the brain when an orgasm occurs. Margaret survives because she never experiences an orgasm. Margaret finally learns of the aliens from Johann, whom she stabs to death, something Sylvia witnesses through a telescope. Seeing the alien craft leaving, Margaret injects herself with heroin to induce a wild autoerotic orgasm to ensure the aliens take her with them. Sylvia and Katherine arrive at the apartment together and reach the penthouse in time to see Margaret vaporized and taken aboard by the aliens.
Liquid Sky was an adaption and formation from a previous script titled "Sweet Sixteen" from Director Slava Tsukerman. After not being able to fund the script, Tsukerman knew he needed to write a new script that would be producible. His wife, Nina V. Kerova, had been writing scripts based on a woman who could not orgasm.[5] He had an idea for a movie about aliens from outer space.[6] He and his wife started collaborating; because of language barriers and American speech, they hired friend & co-writer Anne Carlisle to help them write the script. After the three writers collaborated over dinner one night, the title "Liquid Sky" was born.[5]
Liquid Sky was produced and directed by Slava Tsukerman, who, prior to making Liquid Sky, had had a successful career as a documentary and TV film director in the USSR and Israel. The screenplay was written by Tsukerman, his wife and ubiquitous co-producer Nina V. Kerova, and Anne Carlisle, who also enacted the film's two leading roles. The director of photography, Yuri Neyman, a Russian émigré, was also the film's special effects expert. Anne Carlisle also wrote a novel based on the film in 1987.[7]
Liquid Sky was shot without any major actors, large funding, or even permits. It was shot in several downtown New York City locations.[14] "On Variety’s top-grossing film chart for over half a year, Liquid Sky was perhaps the most successful independent film of its day".[15]
Cinematography
Yuri Neyman, A.S.C., is both the cinematographer and special effects director for Liquid Sky. Director Slava Tsukerman, cinematographer Yuri Neyman, and Production Designer Marina Levikova worked closely together to create the distinct, unique cinematic look and vivid feel of Liquid Sky. The overall look and feel of the film was inspired by German Expressionism and Bertolt Brecht.[16] At the time, "punk" was not well known. The crew and cinematographer knew that they needed to "create" a feel and look for "punk". The cinematography in Liquid Sky is a form of expressionism. The film was shot to make you feel the emotions of the characters, expressed through powerful light, colors, contrast, composition, and movement. The reality of the cinematography is a world expressed and painted with emotion rather than practicality. All three department heads were successful filmmakers from the USSR who discovered filmmaking in their teenage years. The cinematography was well received by the community and filmmakers. In a 1984 February issue of American Cinematographer, reviewers of Liquid Sky cinematography were quoted as saying it is "the picture's asset" and "On its simplest level, it could be just as satisfying to be watched with its sound off, as a spectacular work of moving art." The magazine would go as far as to comment "New York has never been photographed better before."[17]
The film was shot on 35mm film and had an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It was re-released in 2017 with 4K master restore to digital.
Sound design
Clive Smith loading a floppy disk into the Fairlight CMI, 1982
To create unusual sounds by manipulating real-world sounds, director Slava Tsukerman chose to use a digital sampling synthesizer known as the Fairlight CMI. Brenda Hutchinson and Clive Smith were the music composers for the soundtrack.[18] During the process, Tsukerman brought over three or four classical music pieces that would be programmed into the Fairlight CMI. Much like a computer, every sound and every note would be programmed with a code. When composing, Tsukerman would tap a rhythm or hum a melody, and Hutchinson and Smith would play around with ideas on the Fairlight. Percussion sounds were used throughout the movie. Tsukerman often rejected re-recording a tape when not perfect, loving the rawness of the imperfections. He was quoted as saying "No, I like it. Let’s make it quick and dirty." During foley and sound design, materials such as wind chimes, metal, glass, and wood were used to create the sounds of the alien creatures. While composing, Smith never saw a visual from the film. He did not see his work integrated with the visuals until the premiere. He created music and sound solely from what Tsukerman communicated to him. He said that he and Hutchinson were the composers, but that Tsukerman had the vision.[19]
Reception
Critical reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93%, based on 27 reviews, and an average rating of 7.2/10.[20]
In a 2014 interview with The Awl, Slava Tsukerman confirmed that he intended to make a sequel, Liquid Sky 2;[21] with Anne Carlisle returning in the role of Margaret.[21]
Novelization
Anne Carlisle wrote a novel Liquid Sky based on the screenplay of the movie. It was published as a Dolphin (Doubleday) paperback in 1987.
See also
I Come in Peace, a 1990 science fiction film in which an alien extracts endorphins from humans by forcibly overdosing them on artificial heroin.
Related Research Articles
Bound is a 1996 American neo-noir erotic crime thriller film written and directed by the Wachowskis in their feature film directorial debut. It stars Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon and Joe Pantoliano. The film centers on Violet (Tilly), a gun moll who longs to escape her relationship with her mobster boyfriend Caesar (Pantoliano), enters into a clandestine affair with alluring ex-con Corky (Gershon), and the two women hatch a scheme to steal $2 million of Mafia money.
Three Men and a Baby is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Leonard Nimoy. It stars Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson as three bachelors as they attempt to adapt their lives to de facto fatherhood with the arrival of the love child of one of the men. The script was based on the 1985 French film Trois hommes et un couffin.
Unfaithful is a 2002 American erotic thriller film directed and produced by Adrian Lyne and written by Alvin Sargent and William Broyles Jr., adapted from the Claude Chabrol film The Unfaithful Wife (1969). Starring Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Olivier Martinez, Erik Per Sullivan, Chad Lowe, and Dominic Chianese, the film follows Edward (Gere) and Connie Sumner (Lane), a couple living in the suburbs of New York City whose marriage goes dangerously awry when the wife indulges in an affair with a stranger (Martinez) she encounters by chance.
The Speckless Sky is an album by Jane Siberry. It was Siberry's highest-charting album on the Canadian charts and contains her biggest Top 40 hit, "One More Colour". The album's second single, "Map of the World ", was also a hit on Canada's adult contemporary charts.
Sylvia May Laura Syms was an English stage and screen actress. Her best-known film roles include My Teenage Daughter (1956), Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award, Ice Cold in Alex (1958), No Trees in the Street (1959), Victim (1961), and The Tamarind Seed (1974).
Zoolook is the seventh studio album by French electronic musician and composer Jean-Michel Jarre, released in November 1984 by Disques Dreyfus. Much of the music is built up from samples of singing and speech in 25 different languages recorded and edited in the Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer. The album spawned two singles: the title track and "Zoolookologie".
The New York Ripper is a 1982 English-language Italian giallo film directed by Lucio Fulci. The film is about a police lieutenant who is tracking a sadistic killer who slashes women with a switchblade and straight-razors.
Romance in Manhattan is a 1935 American romantic comedy film directed by Stephen Roberts, starring Francis Lederer and Ginger Rogers, and released by RKO Radio Pictures.
Going Hollywood is a 1933 American pre-Code musical film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Marion Davies and Bing Crosby. It was written by Donald Ogden Stewart and based on a story by Frances Marion. Going Hollywood was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on December 22, 1933.
Anne Carlisle is an American artist, actress, performance artist, acting teacher, author, and model.
Mr. Ace is a 1946 American film noir starring George Raft and Sylvia Sidney involving a society woman who taps a gangster for his political support as she runs for Congress. The movie was written by Fred F. Finkelhoffe, directed by Edwin L. Marin, and photographed by legendary cinematographer Karl Struss.
Christiane F. is a 1981 German biographical drama film directed by Uli Edel. It depicts the descent of Christiane Felscherinow, a bored and depressed 13-year-old coming of age in mid-1970s West Berlin, to a 14-year-old heroin addict. Based on the 1978 non-fiction book Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, transcribed and edited from tape recordings by Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck, the film immediately acquired cult status and features David Bowie as both composer and as himself. In 2013, Felscherinow published her autobiography Christiane F. – My Second Life.
The Canary Murder Case is a 1929 American pre-Code crime-mystery film based on the 1927 novel of the same name by S.S. Van Dine. The film was directed by Malcolm St. Clair, with a screenplay by Wright, Albert Shelby LeVino, and Florence Ryerson. William Powell starred in the role of detective Philo Vance, with Louise Brooks co-starred as "The Canary"; Jean Arthur, James Hall, and Charles Lane also co-starred in other principal roles.
Vladislav "Slava" Mendelevich Tsukerman is a Russian film director of Jewish origin. He was born in the Soviet Union and emigrated in 1973 with his wife Nina Kerova to Israel. In 1976 he moved to New York City. He is best known for producing, directing, and writing the screenplay for the 1982 cult film Liquid Sky. He also directed the 2004 documentary Stalin's Wife and the 2008 film Perestroika. Today, he resides in New York City with his wife and producing partner Nina Kerova.
One for the Money is a 2012 American crime comedy film based on Janet Evanovich's 1994 novel of the same name. Directed by Julie Anne Robinson, the screenplay was written by Liz Brixius, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kirsten Smith. It stars Katherine Heigl, Jason O'Mara, Debbie Reynolds, Daniel Sunjata and Sherri Shepherd. The story revolves around Stephanie Plum, a broke and unemployed woman becoming a bail enforcement agent, going after a former high school crush who both skipped out on his payments and is a murder suspect.
"The Armory" is the second episode of the first season of the TNT science fiction drama Falling Skies, which originally aired June 19, 2011, alongside the pilot episode. The episode was written by Graham Yost and directed by Greg Beeman.
The Untamed is a 2016 Mexican science fiction horror film written and directed by Amat Escalante. It was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival, with Escalante winning the Silver Lion for his direction.
Bettina Gilois was a German-American screenwriter and author, known for her work on the HBO film Bessie, and Disney's Glory Road and McFarland, USA. Gilois won an Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Writing of a Television Movie and a Black Reel Awards of 2016 nomination for Bessie. She also won two Image Award nominations for Bessie and McFarland, USA. Gilois was a Humanitas Prize nominee in 2006 and a Black Reel Awards of 2007 nominee for Glory Road.
Arthouse science fiction is a combination of art and science fiction cinema.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
