{"product_id":"hal-hartleys-amateur-t-shirt","title":"Hal Hartley's Amateur T-Shirt","description":"\u003ch1\u003eHAL HARTLEY'S AMATEUR T-SHIRT\u003c\/h1\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eSex, violence, amnesia and salvation in Hal Hartley’s fractured New York\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA man wakes in a New York alley with no memory of who he is. A former nun believes she may be a nymphomaniac despite being a virgin. A woman who has every reason to hate the amnesiac would rather see him dead than restored to his former life. From that arrangement, Hal Hartley builds \u003cem\u003eAmateur\u003c\/em\u003e, a crime story in which identity is unstable, morality is negotiable and almost everybody speaks as though they have already spent several hours thinking about the absurdity of their situation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReleased in 1994, \u003cem\u003eAmateur\u003c\/em\u003e arrived during the remarkable run that established Hartley as one of the most distinctive figures in American independent cinema. Following \u003cem\u003eThe Unbelievable Truth\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eTrust\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSimple Men\u003c\/em\u003e, the film retained his familiar deadpan rhythms while expanding into something closer to a European-inflected thriller. The cast itself reflected that shift. Hartley regular Martin Donovan played the mysterious Thomas Ludens, while French star Isabelle Huppert appeared as Isabelle, the ex-nun attempting to support herself by writing pornography. Elina Löwensohn, another recurring Hartley collaborator, played Sofia, the woman connected to Thomas’s forgotten past.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\"\u003e\"I'm not afraid of dying; I'm afraid of pain.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThomas’s amnesia provides the film with its central problem. The person he appears to be after losing his memory bears little resemblance to the man described by those who knew him before. Hartley turns what could have been a conventional mystery into a question about whether character is something permanent or simply the accumulated result of memory, experience and reputation. If a violent man genuinely cannot remember being violent, is he still the same man? \u003cem\u003eAmateur\u003c\/em\u003e repeatedly approaches such questions, only to interrupt them with assassins, pornography, corporate crime and characters whose philosophical certainty rarely survives contact with events.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe film also marked one of Hartley’s most conspicuous encounters with international art cinema. Huppert’s precise, controlled performance fits unexpectedly well within his world of clipped speech and emotional displacement. Her Isabelle is simultaneously devout and profane, practical and ridiculous, convinced that divine intervention has given her a role in Thomas’s fate. Donovan, meanwhile, plays amnesia less as confusion than as an unnerving vacancy, allowing the film gradually to reveal the distance between Thomas as he is and Thomas as he was.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLöwensohn’s Sofia supplies another perspective entirely. A former pornographic performer whose history with Thomas is considerably darker than Isabelle initially understands, she gives the film much of its underlying danger. Hartley had already worked with Löwensohn on \u003cem\u003eTheory of Achievement\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSimple Men\u003c\/em\u003e, and her unusual screen presence became an important part of the director’s early-1990s cinematic world. Around the central trio gathers an assortment of accountants, criminals and hired men who seem to have wandered into the film from a hard-boiled thriller and then discovered that nobody has given them the correct behavioural instructions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat collision of genres is central to \u003cem\u003eAmateur\u003c\/em\u003e. It contains the machinery of a crime thriller but refuses to behave like one. Violence can arrive abruptly, menace can become comedy without warning, and declarations about religion, sex or morality are delivered with the same dry gravity as discussions about money and bookkeeping. Beneath the surface eccentricity, however, sits a recognisably Hartley concern: people attempting to construct coherent identities in circumstances that make coherence almost impossible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThree decades later, \u003cem\u003eAmateur\u003c\/em\u003e remains one of the clearest examples of the strange territory Hartley occupied during the peak of the American independent-film movement: recognisably New York, unmistakably personal and resistant to the usual distinction between comedy, crime film, romance and philosophical argument.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e💬 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs)\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eQ1: Where was Hal Hartley’s Amateur filmed?\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMuch of \u003cem\u003eAmateur\u003c\/em\u003e was filmed in New York City, with Manhattan providing the urban setting for Thomas’s increasingly complicated attempt to reconstruct his identity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eQ2: Was Amateur Isabelle Huppert’s first American film?\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo. Huppert had previously worked in American cinema, including Michael Cimino’s \u003cem\u003eHeaven’s Gate\u003c\/em\u003e. Her appearance in \u003cem\u003eAmateur\u003c\/em\u003e nevertheless became one of her notable collaborations with an American independent filmmaker.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eQ3: Did Elina Löwensohn appear in other Hal Hartley films?\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYes. Löwensohn worked with Hartley several times, including \u003cem\u003eTheory of Achievement\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSimple Men\u003c\/em\u003e, becoming one of the performers closely associated with his early work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hellwood Outfitters","offers":[{"title":"Small \/ Black","offer_id":44066861187107,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small \/ White","offer_id":44066861219875,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ Black","offer_id":44066861252643,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium \/ White","offer_id":44066861285411,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ Black","offer_id":44066861318179,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large \/ White","offer_id":44066861350947,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"XLarge \/ Black","offer_id":44066861383715,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"XLarge \/ White","offer_id":44066861416483,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"2XLarge \/ Black","offer_id":44066861449251,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"2XLarge \/ White","offer_id":44066861482019,"sku":"HO2167","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"3XLarge \/ Black","offer_id":44066861514787,"sku":"HO2167","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"3XLarge \/ White","offer_id":44066861547555,"sku":"HO2167","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"4XLarge \/ Black","offer_id":44066861580323,"sku":"HO2167","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"4XLarge \/ White","offer_id":44066861613091,"sku":"HO2167","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1877\/6123\/files\/elinaamateurtshirt_2.jpg?v=1792671297","url":"https:\/\/hellwoodoutfitters.com\/products\/hal-hartleys-amateur-t-shirt","provider":"Hellwood Outfitters","version":"1.0","type":"link"}