The Cinematheque

“I tried to make a film about things that are very sad, but with a lot of joy.”

Laurie Anderson

Initially approached to make a film about her ​“philosophy of life,” visionary multimedia artist Laurie Anderson created a rich, dreamlike mediation on loss and love, primarily starring her beloved rat terrier, Lolabelle. Narrated by Anderson and dedicated to her late husband, musician Lou Reed, the documentary muses about trauma and grief, relationships with loved ones, and life’s fragility—all with a poetic, rather sublime intonation. Super 8 footage and original art and animation are interspersed with Anderson’s profound yet relatable series of reflections.

“Heart of a Dog is as immediate as a paragraph by Kerouac, as disarmingly playful as a Cole Porter melody, as rhapsodically composed as a poem by Whitman, and a thing of rare beauty.”

Film Society of Lincoln Center