Filmbar70 presents Altered States

On Tuesday, March 13 at the Roxy Bar and Screen in London Bridge, detonate the brain, shred the synapse and de-evolve to the time when the human consciousness was but a glint in the primordial soup's eye. Filmbar70 proudly pays tribute to the iconoclastic Ken Russell with a screening of the monumentally psychedelic 'Altered States'.
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We've throw our hat (and the whole bloody kitchen sink) into the ring of Russell Forever, a season dedicated to the wayward genius of British cinema, with a Filmbar favourite that truly reflects Ken's attitude and scorched earth policy. Featuring a visionary railing against mundane banalities of life and a doomed, romantic quest to transgress the barriers of taste and decorum in order to reveal an essential 'truth', 'Altered States' is 100% Russell -- overblown yet meticulous, vulgar yet intelligent, preposterous yet absorbing. His first Stateside commitment may have been late to the psychedelic party, but represents the last hurrah of American leftfield / mainstream cinema, and fully unleashes his propensity for verbal and visual pyrotechnics. And, most incredibly, William Hurt is not boring in it.
We're also delighted to present 'Bartók', one of the Monitor series of great composers, broadcast in 1964. This subsequently rarely screened doc concerns the Hungarian Béla Bartók, an early 20th Century composer whose work may seem strikingly modern, yet in actuality is deeply rooted in tradition. A major influence on Bernard Herrmann (just compare the score of 'Psycho' to Bartók's 2nd string quartet), Bartók's fusion of the avant-garde and folk still reverberates in the concert halls of today.
So, get your float on at the Roxy Bar and Screen and fire up the neurotransmitter as we take you on a very wild trip indeed.