Black and white photo of Joan Didion reclining on a couch with a cigarette in her hand

Program Series

Can’t Get That Monster Out of My Mind: Joan Didion and Cinema

Copresented by the Hammer Museum and the UCLA Film & Television Archive

Cinema, and Hollywood in particular, casts a long shadow across the writings of Joan Didion. This series seeks to measure its reach in a variety of ways, considering her work as a screenwriter and her influences, as well those directors who share a subject with Didion but diverge, sometimes dramatically, from her unflinching perspective.

Series curated and program notes by Thomas Beard

Visit the exhibition Joan Didion: What She Means before the films. On screening nights, galleries will be open until 7:30 p.m.

Photo credit: Mary Lloyd Estrin, 1977

Still from the film "Play It As It Lays" (1972)

Play It As It Lays

This adaptation of Joan Didion’s Hollywood novel offers a hypnotic, distinctive, and underappreciated vision of L.A. anomie.

Tue Oct 25 2022 7:30 PM

Still from the film "The Panic in Needle Park" (1971)

The Panic in Needle Park

Adapted for the screen by Joan Didion, this harrowing chronicle of addiction marked the debut of a young Al Pacino.

Thu Nov 3 2022 7:30 PM

Still from the film "The Third Man" (1949)

The Third Man

Carol Reed’s tenebrous thriller, about a writer investigating a friend’s death in postwar Vienna, was a favorite of Joan Didion.

Sat Nov 12 2022 7:30 PM

Still from the film "The Searchers" (1956)

The Searchers

In this keystone of director John Ford’s inquiry into the psychosis of American racism, John Wayne gives one of his finest performances.

Tue Nov 15 2022 7:30 PM

Still from the film "The Night of the Iguana" (1964)

The Night of the Iguana

An adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play about the unraveling of a defrocked clergyman working as a tour guide in Mexico.

Fri Nov 18 2022 7:30 PM

Sill from the film "The Wild Angels" (1966)

The Wild Angels, with Roger Corman

This exploitation vehicle about an outlaw motorcycle club helped inaugurate the biker film as a genre. Live intro by director Roger Corman!

Tue Nov 29 2022 7:30 PM

Still from the short film "Black Panthers" (1968)

Didion and the Counterculture

Short films by Agnès Varda, Kenneth Anger, and Ralph Arlyck, plus a Newsreel doc, offer contrasting vibe reports on 1960s counterculture.

Sun Dec 4 2022 7:00 PM

Still from the short film "Water and Power" (1989)

Water and Power and Freeways

Babette Mangolte's meditation on the SoCal landscape alongside Pat O’Neill's classic of L.A. experimental filmmaking.

Sat Dec 17 2022 7:30 PM