Big City Dick:Richard Peterson’s First Movie

Wednesday, August 16, 2006 – 7:30pm **Filmmaker in Attendance**
USA
2004. Directors: Scott Milam, Todd Pottinger, Ken Harder.

“A found epic about an indefatigable American original” (Scott Foundas, Variety).

Eccentric, larger than life, possibly autistic and a huge Johnny Mathis fan, Richard Peterson is a Seattle legend. Ten years in the making, Big City Dick
is a captivating journey into the life of Peterson, and is the latest
installment in the Frames of Mind summer series on outsider musicians.

Richard Peterson is the bald-headed bear of a man with a gap-toothed
smile and a speech impediment who is known and loved by anyone
attending Seattle Seahawks games as the larger-than-life
trumpet-playing street musician outside the stadium. He has produced
several albums worth of his own unmistakable brand of lounge music
(best title: Love on the Golf Course ), inspired equally by
the musical stylings of his idol Johnny Mathis and “The Golden Age of
Television Music.” Peterson also claims a coterie of “personality
buddies”: friendships he has forged (and in some cases forced) with an
array of prominent media types. This network includes Jeff Bridges (who
he successfully wooed by serenading him with the music cues from
Bridges’s dad’s show Sea Hunt) and, yes, Johnny Mathis, who
breaks his reclusive silence to speak on camera about his No. 1 fan.
(Poignantly, Peterson confesses later that his celebrity pals are
replacements for his “not-talking father,” who never loved him.). Colour, DVD. 1206 mins.

“This movie may actually make you a nicer and more charitable person; how many films can do that?“

(Scott Weinber, efilmcritic)

Frames of Mind is a monthly film event run utilizing film and video
to promote professional and community education on issues pertaining
to mental health and illness.

Post-screening discussion with Todd Pottinger, co-director of Big City Dick, which premiered at the 2004 Slamdance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Film.

Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky,
Director of Continuing Medical Education and Professional Development,
Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia.

The Media Sponsor of Frames of Mind is CiTR 109.1FM