Part of the Ackland Film Forum Fall 2022 series “Art and Artifice” co-organized by the UNC Film Studies Program and the Ackland Art Museum.

ABOUT THE SERIES: 

Art and Artifice

In movies we allow our imaginations to touch the realities of our world. The films that impact us most are often those that are not true, but could be. Artists, behind and in front of the camera, give us license to dream and fear. In this series, we explore films that engage and expand the idea of creativity. From sculptors to dressmakers, performers to survivors, these films all ask what it means to create art in the cinema.

The series is presented by the Ackland Art Museum and UNC Film Studies, part of the Department of English and Comparative Literature, in connection with Houseguests: American Art from the Art Bridges Collection Loan Partnership.

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Blake Edwards, Victor/Victoria (1982, US)

One of the first mainstream Hollywood films to frankly discuss the complexity of gender and sexuality, Blake Edwards’s Victor/Victoria is a backstage musical that continually calls into question what it means to perform. Set in Paris in the 1930s, Julie Andrews plays the titular role, an actor and singer who finds her breakout role as a female impersonator. Because she’s the presumed lover of an aging, openly gay, theater stalwart, Caroll “Toddy” Todd (played by Robert Preston, best known as the star of The Music Man), no one suspects that she’s a woman, even the men who are pursuing her. Based on a 1933 German film, Victor/Victoria is a delight to watch, with a lively script and some spectacular musical numbers.