Surviving Desire

Made for PBS' American Playhouse, Surviving Desire is a very short romantic comedy starring Martin Donovan and Mary Ward. He's an uninspired college literature professor. She's a kooky student, and the only member of Donovan's class who doesn't doze off during his lectures. The comedy relies upon ...more

Hal Hartley's short, sharp rumination on love, sex, and Dostoyevsky -- originally produced for public television -- ranks with his best work and still serves as perhaps the best introduction to the iconoclastic writer/director's unique, often intentionally stilted aesthetic. A good deal of the credit goes to Hartley's longtime leading man -- some might say his Jimmy Stewart -- the lanky, hangdog Martin Donovan. Donovan's gifts for deadpan comedy and interpreting Hartley's dense, encyclopedic ...more