Salomé

35mm print. With Alla Nazimova, Mitchell Lewis. This film’s cult status owes much to the outlandish, highly stylized sets and costumes à la Aubrey Beardsley. Despite being a box-office failure, the film remains a landmark in cinema history, bridging the mainstream and the avant-garde. Its radical modernist aesthetic and deliberately exaggerated acting are a departure from the turn-of-the-century portrayals of Salomé as an overtly eroticized seductress. Pat Kirkham teaches design and decorative arts at the Bard Graduate Center.

Free with Museum admission.