AMARGOSA
The Hollywood Reporter
by Michael Rechtshaffen
April 14-16, 2000

Back in the mid-1960s, dancer Marta Becket permanently left behind the Great White Way for the wide-open spaces of Death Valley, California, where at age 76 she still regularly performs her original dance/mime pieces in a lovingly restored opera house called Amargosa.

Todd Robinson's beautifully rendered oddball documentary of the same name, narrated by Mary McDonnell, pays fascinating homage to this reclusive eccentric in toe shoes.

Making the most out of director of photography Curt Apduhan's windswept, sun-parched visuals and Randy Miller's transcendentally reflective score, Robinson creates an ethereal dreamscape suitable for a ghost town haunted by so many lingering shadows that the kid from "The Sixth Sense" would feel right at home.

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