Last Movies
Stanley Schtinter, 2023

Presented by Stanley Schtinter

Last Movies is a film programme, durational artwork and book; as its creator Stanley Schtinter writes, it is “a dedication to the absence of choice, to chance. If there is any bias in the cast-list it is a bias coded into the telling of the first century of cinema (that I parasitise); the result, a forensic of the last earthly dance of a star, and the pause they took (if indeed they did) to catch a movie.”

Last Movies explores the subject of the final films watched by a selection of 20th-century luminaries. Delving into the lives and ultimate viewings of figures ranging from Franz Kafka to John F. Kennedy to Kurt Cobain to members of the Heaven’s Gate cult, the project maps a strange and surprising cultural history from a seemingly arbitrary scatter plot.

Completing a five-month residency at the ICA in London, Close-Up presents what is probably the most innovative of Schtinter’s Last Movies programmes, and certainly the most cutting: the unfinished films, inasmuch as the viewer died during their presentation. The final “unfinished” film in the programme will be unannounced until the day itself – never before screened in the UK.

Charlie Parker (d. 1955)
Stage Show, Dorsey Bros., 1955, 1 min

Boris Vian (d.1959)
I Spit on Your Grave, Michel Gast, 1959, 5 min

Lee Harvey Oswald (d.1963)
War Is Hell, Burt Topper, 1961, 15 min

Sergio Leone (d. 1989)
I Want to Live!, Robert Wise, 1958, 30 min

Mel Calman (d. 1993)
Carlito’s Way, Brian De Palma, 1994, 70 min

Stanley Kubrick (d. 1999)
Eyes Wide Shut (Trailer), Stanley Kubrick, 1999, 1 min

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For more information on the book accompanying the Last Movies programme please visit: https://tenementpress.com/Last-Movies