Plazadrome COCKFIGHTER 35mm/Cockfight: A Fable of Failure book signing with Kier-La Janisse

Thursday, September 19th - Plazadrome Presents: Cockfight: A Fable of Failure book signing with Kier-La Janisse/Monte Hellman’s COCKFIGHTER (1974) screening. Join us for a unique book signing/film screening event at The Plaza Theatre celebrating the release of the new book "Cockfight: A Fable of Failure”. Author/film historian Kier-La Janisse will be on hand prior to the screening with limited copies of her new book for sale in the lobby of The Plaza Theatre. SCHEDULE 8PM - book signing with author Kier-La Janisse in person 9pm – Monte Hellman’s COCKFIGHTER (1974) introduced by Kier-La Janisse ABOUT THE BOOK There is no shortage of loaded — and often gendered — symbolism in the sport of cockfighting. And this becomes a starting point for author Kier-La Janisse (who broke new ground in film criticism with her 2012 book House of Psychotic Women) to investigate the themes of obsession, competition, mobility and nobility that dominate the hyper-masculine world of Monte Hellman’s existential and controversial film, Cockfighter(1974), based on the 1962 novel by crime writer Charles Willeford (Miami Blues). Infamously touted as the only movie that producer Roger Corman ever lost money on, Cockfighter stars character actor Warren Oates as Frank Mansfield, a career cocker who has taken a vow of silence until he can win the Cockfighter of the Year Award. Surrounded by fellow cockfighters played by Harry Dean Stanton, Ed Begley, Jr, Steve Railsback, Richard B. Shull and even author/screenwriter Charles Willeford himself, the film traverses the underground cockfighting world of the Deep South, with a highly detailed documentation of this unique subculture brought vividly to life by esteemed cinematographer Nestor Almendros. Densely illustrated and featuring interviews with director Monte Hellman, producer Roger Corman and several surviving cast and crew members, Janisse’s study explores the many mythologies that intersect in Cockfighter, approaching the story and its backdrop through a variety of lenses, using a combination of cultural criticism, production history and even personal anecdotes, as the author delves into the contradictory world of cockfighting in the American South. At its core it is a story about work, honor, conviction and finding religion and beauty in strange places. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kier-La Janisse is a film writer, publisher, producer, acquisitions executive for Severin Films and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. She is the author of House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (2012/2022) and A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi (2007) and has been an editor on numerous books including Warped & Faded: Weird Wednesday and the Birth of the American Genre Film Archive (2021) and Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s (2015). She wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021), and produced the acclaimed blu-ray box sets All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror (2021) and The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle(2023). She has been a programmer for the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, co-founded Montreal microcinema Blue Sunshine, founded the CineMuerte Horror Film Festival (1999-2005) in Vancouver, was the Festival Director of Monster Fest in Melbourne, Australia and was the subject of the documentary Celluloid Horror (2005). FILM SYNOPSIS A man who trains fighting cocks vows to remain silent until one of his birds wins a championship. Shot in multiple locations in and around Atlanta and rural Georgia in the late 1970s, COCKFIGHTER is often referred to as the only movie celebrated film producer Roger Corman ever lost money on. Adapted from Charles Willeford’s (Miami Blues) 1962 novel of the same name, director Monte Hellman transformed the story of a small-town Georgia man caught up in the illegal sport of cockfighting into an existential modern western and a complex character study of a broken man on a mission. Featuring one of the greatest casts of character actors and scene stealers ever assembled (Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton, Ed Begley, Jr, Steve Railsback, Millie Perkins, and Richard B. Shull) COCKFIGHTER is authentic, bleak, and sometimes hard to watch due to the sequences featuring real-life cockfights. Box office totals alone don’t represent the true power of this now revered film, as it has gained a cult following over the four decades since its release and remains one of the greatest films ever shot in the state of Georgia. Print Courtesy of The Academy Film Archive.DramaPT1H23MR2024-09-19

Warren Oates

Richard B. Shull

Harry Dean Stanton

Ed Begley Jr.

Troy Donahue

Millie Perkins

Monte Hellman

Roger Corman

Plazadrome COCKFIGHTER 35mm/Cockfight: A Fable of Failure book signing with Kier-La Janisse"Plazadrome COCKFIGHTER 35mm/Cockfight: A Fable of Failure book signing with Kier-La Janisse"

Showtimes

September 19, 9:00 pm