The screening is followed by a Q&A with director Nancy Savoca and producer Richard Guay.
A masterpiece of 1990s American independent cinema, Nancy Savoca’s Household Saints is also really hard to summarize, as it packs a universe or two into its small section of New York City. It’s there that Italian-American butcher Joseph (Vincent D’Onofrio, in one of his best roles) wins his wife Catherine (Tracey Ullman, fabulous) in a card game, much to the chagrin of his ever-disapproving mother (Judith Malina). The movie gradually becomes about the couple’s deeply spiritual, thoroughly Catholic daughter (Lili Taylor). Based on Francine Prose’s novel, and written by Savoca with her producer (and husband) Richard Guay, the film’s expansive worldview takes in romantic love, parental devotion, religious commitment, and community life, always with a darkly comic undertow. Savoca and Taylor definitely connected on a filmmaking level, creating this film and Dogfight back-to-back (along with Guay who co-wrote and co-produced both films), two of the brightest gems of ’90s film. ~SM