Presented by Cinématographe! Intro from Cinématographe’s Justin LaLiberty!

Michael (Nicolas Cage, Wild at Heart), a discharged marine turned drifter, ends up in Red Rock, Wyoming in search of honest work. Wayne (J.T. Walsh, Breakdown), a local bar owner, offers Michael the dishonest work of carrying out a hit on his wife Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle, The Last Seduction) after mistaking him for the actual hitman, “Lyle, from Dallas”, that he hired to murder his spouse. Before Michael can split town with his downpayment, he runs into the real Lyle (Dennis Hopper, Blue Velvet) and, from there, all hell breaks loose.

Directed and co-written by John Dahl (Kill Me Again), RED ROCK WEST is an endlessly twisty slice of distinctly American neo-noir set in the heartland of the United States. Featuring stellar performances from all three leads and a nearly repellent mean-streak, Dahl’s film is an often forgotten jewel of 90s crime cinema. – Cinématographe

35mm print from the Chicago Film Society collection at the University of Chicago Film Studies Center.

Taking its name from the Lumière Brothers invention of the same name, Cinématographe is a new sub-label from Vinegar Syndrome that seeks to fill gaps in the canon of American cinema. Offering a mix of auteur driven studio films produced during the New Hollywood era of the late 1960s and 70s all the way through the indie boom of the 1980s and 90s, Cinématographe explores the wide breadth of American moviemaking, spanning numerous genres and scales of production.

“It’s the kind of movie made by people who love movies, have had some good times at them, and want to celebrate the very texture of old genres like the western and the film noir.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times