Director and writer Harrison Atkins (Lace Crater) joins for a discussion of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's rhapsodic 1947 drama, BLACK NARCISSUS starring Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, David Farrar and Sabu. Based on Rumer Godden's novel, BLACK NARCISSUS tells the story of Anglican nuns establishing a convent on a Himalayan mountaintop. Overwhelmed by the region's natural beauty and their own natural urges, the sisters begin to question their lives as nuns. Shot in stunning Technicolor by cinematographer Jack Cardiff, BLACK NARCISSUS is one of Powell and Pressburger's defining films, a thorny, surprisingly modern work on female devotion, repression, lust and madness. Join Mama Needs a Movie as it gazes into BLACK NARCISSUS, with some diversions into Annihilation, Paris Is Burning, declining horniness, Madeline, Silence, haircuts, Sister Wendy and much, much more!
BLACK NARCISSUS is available to stream with subscription to The Criterion Channel or Max, and can be streamed for free on Freevee, Tubi, and The Roku Channel.