Is it Safe? Mr. Robot, Homecoming and Eyes Wide Shut

Saturday, June 1, 2019

No movie genre better expresses the creeping dread of modern life than the paranoid thriller, a mode where the heroes are marginalized, truth is elusive, and justice is deferred or denied. The genre arose in the chaos of the 1960s and ’70s, and thrived for a period of about fifteen years, producing such classics as Blow-Up, Klute, The Parallax View, The Conversation, Marathon Man, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, and Blow-Out.

One of its most devoted disciples is Sam Esmail, a writer-director who has produced two TV series in a similar vein, USA’s Golden Globe® award winning hacker drama Mr. Robot and Amazon’s military conspiracy thriller Homecoming (adapted from the hit podcast). In “Is it Safe?”—named after the mysterious phrase repeated by the villain of Marathon Man—Esmail takes the Split Screens audience on a tour of the genre, from the distant past through the present day, and its influence on his own work. The event will end with a 35mm screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 masterwork, the ultra-paranoid Eyes Wide Shut.

In attendance: Sam Esmail

• Running Time 240 minutes

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.