The Cold Eye (My Darling, Be Careful)

Director: Babette Mangolte

1980 / 90min / DCP

Continuing her career-long investigation into the subjective camera in her first fictional narrative film, Mangolte’s semi-autobiographical The Cold Eye (My Darling, Be Careful), set in the ’70s New York bohemia of the filmmaker’s youth, unfolds entirely through the (sometimes wandering) point of view of its protagonist, Cathy, a young, insecure painter in the process of negotiating the city’s art world while developing her personal style and ideas about the role and responsibility of the artist. Per Mangolte, the title’s warning “could be addressing [Cathy] or you the spectator. The subjective camera set-up challenges your position as an impartial observer.”