Leaving August 1

Directed by Jack Hazan | 106 mins | 1973
Jack Hazan’s intimate and innovative film about English-born, often California-based artist David Hockney and his work honors its subject through creative risk-taking. The improvisatory narrative-nonfiction hybrid features Hockney—a wary participant—as well as his circle of friends, and captures the agonized end of the lingering affair between Hockney and his muse, an American named Peter Schlesinger. Both a time capsule of hedonistic gay life in the 1970s and an honest yet tender depiction of gay male romance that dispenses with the then-current narratives of self-hatred and self-pity, the film is also provides an invaluable view of art history in action and a record of artistic creation that is itself a work of art. A Metrograph Pictures release.