New York City, 1980s. A struggling, deadbeat musician named Julius has fallen on hard times. With no guitar, band or paying gigs, he cooks up a get-rich-quick scheme — to find the legendary, yet elusive guitar-maker Elmore Silk. Considered one of the greatest luthiers in the business, Silk’s disappearance from the scene has only made his work more coveted by musicians and executives looking to make a buck off his name. Julius agrees to track the man down and sets out on the road. Meant to be a simple journey upstate, Julius stumbles down a long, winding road full of dead-ends and wrong turns towards an eventual revelatory conclusion in the Canadian wilderness.
One of the great cult classics of the 1980s and starring character actors Kevin J O’Conner (There Will Be Blood) and Harris Yulin (Scarface), the supporting cast features real-life music legends Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Joe Strummer, Dr. John, David Johansen, Arto Lindsay and more. Likened to “a wry, laid-back Heart of Darkness” by Chicago Reader, the 1987 movie combines the keen eye of legendary photographer Robert Frank (Cocksucker Blues) with novelist and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer’s mythic American prose to produce the quintessential road movie.
Called “Frank’s ultimate work” by The Village Voice, top critics feted the now-cult classic, with The Washington Post saying, “The big surprise in Candy Mountain is how much fun it is. Co-directors Frank and Wurlitzer take the dated road movie (concept) off its bricks, gussy it up and keep it chugging along. And you get sweeter on Candy with every passing mile” and The New York Times writing, “Candy Mountain… seems to be a small, quirky film, but it easily assumes the weight, ambition and success that many larger films aim for and miss.”
This year the art world will be celebrating Frank, who broke new ground with his candid, poignant images of American life in the mid-20th century. Among the events and exhibitions to be held, celebrating his radical approach to image making that forever changed the course of photography and film are Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue, the first-ever solo exhibition of his work to be presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Get more information on the movie HERE.
