Time Travel: The Sticky Fingers of Time

Science Fiction Against the Margins, a PST ART: Art & Science Collide film series is presented by UCLA Film & Television Archive in partnership with UCLA Cinema & Media Studies Program.

In-person: filmmaker Hilary Brougher; author and head of Archive Research and Study Center Maya Montañez Smukler.

La Jetée

France, 1962

A prisoner in a post-apocalyptic future proves a suitable candidate for an experiment in time travel conducted by his jailers because of his fixation on an enigmatic memory from his childhood: the face of a woman on the jetty at Orly airport. Told entirely through still photographs and voice narration — with the exception of one captivating moment — Chris Marker’s melancholic masterpiece explores the natures of time, cinema, memory, death and love within an endlessly fascinating structure.—Paul Malcolm

DCP, color, b&w, in English, 28 min. Director/Screenwriter: Chris Marker. With: Jean Négroni, Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich.

Barbosa

Brazil, 1988

The historic upset that was the 1950 World Cup Final between Brazil and Uruguay is the focal point of one of science fiction’s most obsessed time travelers in Jorge Furtado and Ana Luíza Azevedo’s short. A devastating loss for the Brazilians — the game was the inaugural event in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã Stadium, itself a purpose-built symbol of national pride — it was also a personal turning point for the film’s narrator, an 11-year-old in the crowd who felt his own hopeful future slip away with his team’s loss. Leaving aside completely the wonder of his time machine, he yearns to set things right only to discover that regret — personal and national — can sometimes form an infernal loop.—Paul Malcolm

DCP, color, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 14 min. Directors: Jorge Furtado, Ana Luíza Azevedo. Screenwriters: Giba Assis Brasil, Ana Luíza Azevedo, Jorge Furtado. With: Antônio Fagundes, Pedro Santos, Zé Victor Castiel.

The Sticky Fingers of Time

U.S., 1997

“Time has five fingers — one is the past, two is the present, three is the future, and four is for what could have been, and five for what yet could be”: this opening dialogue from The Sticky Fingers of Time provides the framework for writer-director Hilary Brougher’s cinematic debut.

The New York-based story centers around 1950s bisexual hard-boiled fiction writer Tucker Harding (played by the pitch-perfect Terumi Matthews, best known for playing Madonna in two television productions). Tucker is mysteriously transported to the 1990s and meets hopelessly struggling writer Drew (Nicole Zaray). This meeting sets off an intricate time-travel storyline that plays like a non-linear murder mystery with an interesting mix of themes: mid-century H-bomb hysteria, ’90s arthouse angst and queer/lesbian chic power dynamics.

Brougher deftly handles the film’s low-budget limitations with a character-driven script, savvy tongue-in-cheek humor and no reliance on special effects for its science fiction elements (unlike the many exposition-heavy time-travel films churned out by the studios during this period). In addition to the appealing chemistry between the two female leads, the then mostly unknown cast delivers engaging performances, particularly Belinda Becker as Ofelia, and James Urbaniak as the morally ambiguous “time freak” Isaac (Urbaniak would go on to great success as a character actor on television, and in such film productions as Henry Fool, American Splendor and Oppenheimer). Anita Gates of the New York Times stated in her 1997 review, “Overall this is a satisfying film, offering the true joy of time travel: the opportunity for a fresh look at our culture, our moment in time.” With its quirky and confidently queer 1990s sensibilities, this noir-adjacent gem is ripe for rediscovery as we travel forward almost 30 years from its release.—Todd Wiener

DCP, b&w and color, 81 min. Director/Screenwriter: Hilary Brougher. With: Terumi Matthews, Nicole Zaray, James Urbaniak.