twi-ny recommended events

SHOWTIME AT 92Y: NURSE JACKIE

Edie Falco will discuss the upcoming season of NURSE JACKIE at the 92nd St. Y on March 29

92nd St. Y, Buttenwieser Hall
1395 Lexington Ave. at 92nd St.
Thursday, March 29, $29, 8:15
212-415-5500
www.92y.org
www.sho.com

Ever since Deadwood concluded its run in 2006 and The Sopranos ended the next year, HBO has been locked in a heated battle with Showtime as the pay-cable network with the best original series. For every True Blood and Boardwalk Empire, HBO has also suffered through John from Cincinnati and now Luck, which has been put out of its misery following the death of three horses involved in the production. Meanwhile, Showtime has been raising the bar with its own series, including Dexter, Shameless, Weeds, Californication, and Homeland. This spring the cable network has joined forces with one of New York City’s most enduring cultural institutions for “Showtime at 92Y,” offering an inside look at three returning series, all premiering April 8, with a trio of special programs at the 92nd St. Y. On March 29, Emmy winner Edie Falco, who plays the complicated, drug-addicted title character in the New York-set drama Nurse Jackie, will be joined by fellow cast members Merritt Wever (junior nurse Zoey Barkow) and Tony nominee Bobby Cannavale (as a new hospital administrator), along with creators Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem, to discuss the show and its upcoming fourth season. On April 9, three-time Emmy winner and Oscar and Tony nominee Laura Linney, who stars in The Big C as Cathy Jamison, a teacher, wife, and mother desperate to enjoy life as she battles cancer, will be part of a panel with Oliver Platt (husband Paul Jamison), John Benjamin Hickey (brother Sean Tolke), Gabriel Basso (son Adam Jamison), Oscar nominee Gabourey Sidibe (live-in student Andrea Jackson), and executive producer Jenny Bicks to talk about the show’s third season. And on April 27, Tony and Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Jeremy Irons, will delve into his scenery-chomping role as Pope Alexander VI in Neil Jordan’s deliciously debauched historical fiction drama The Borgias, which is about to begin season number two. All three discussions at the 92nd St. Y will be moderated by New York Times, IndieWire, and Daily Beast film and television writer Caryn James.

15 FOR 15 — CELEBRATING RIALTO PICTURES: ARMY OF SHADOWS

Lina Ventura gives a wonderfully subtle performance as a resistance fighter in Jean-Pierre Melville’s ARMY OF SHADOWS

L’ARMÉE DES OMBRES (ARMY OF SHADOWS) (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Monday, March 26, 3:15
Series runs through March 29
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

Based on the novel by Joseph Kessel (Belle de Jour), Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 WWII drama Army of Shadows got its first U.S. theatrical release some thirty-five years later, in a restored 35mm print courtesy of Rialto Pictures and supervised by the film’s cinematographer, Pierre Lhomme, who shot it in a beautiful blue-gray palette. The film centers on a small group of French resistance fighters, including shadowy leader Luc Jardie (Paul Meurisse), the smart and determined Mathilde (Simone Signoret), the nervous Jean-François (Jean-Pierre Cassel), the steady and dependable Felix (Paul Crauchet), the stocky Le Bison (Christian Barbier), the well-named Le Masque (Claude Mann), and the unflappable and practical Gerbier (Lino Ventura). Although Melville, who was a resistance fighter as well, wants the film to be his personal masterpiece, he is too close to the material, leaving large gaps in the narrative and giving too much time to scenes that don’t deserve them. He took offense at the idea that he portrayed the group of fighters as gangsters, yet what shows up on the screen is often more film noir than war movie. However, there are some glorious sections of Army of Shadows, including Gerbier’s escape from a Vichy camp, the execution of a traitor to the cause, and a tense Mission Impossible–like (the TV series, not the Tom Cruise vehicles) attempt to free the imprisoned Felix. But most of all there is Ventura, who gives an amazingly subtle performance that makes the overly long film (nearly two and a half hours) worth seeing all by itself. Army of Shadows is screening March 26 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “15 for 15: Celebrating Rialto Pictures” series honoring the fifteenth anniversary of the art-house distributor founded by Film Forum programmer extraordinaire Bruce Goldstein.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: ENTER SHIKARI

British electro-punks Enter Shikari are blowing out venues around the world in support of their third album, A Flash Flood of Colour (Hopeless, January 2012), the follow-up to 2007’s Take to the Skies and 2009’s Common Dreads. On the new disc, guitarist Liam “Rory” Clewlow, bassist Chris Batten, drummer Rob Rolfe, and lead singer and keyboardist Roughton “Rou” Reynolds blast their way through such songs as “Sssnakepit,” “Hello Tyrannosaurus, Meet Tyrannicide,” “Arguing with Thermometers” (the video for which pays homage to the Beastie Boys classic “Sabotage”), and the opening double shot of “System . . .” and “. . . Meltdown.” Not just hardcore screamers — although they’re rather adept at that — Enter Shikari also mixes in power pop, techno, heavy metal, electronic noise, and, dare we say it, melodic balladry. They’ll be at Irving Plaza on April 6, playing with At the Skylines and Letlive.

LAST CHANCE: THE RADICAL CAMERA

Ruth Orkin, “Times Square, from Astor Hotel,” gelatin silver print, 1950 (© Estate of Ruth Orkin)

NEW YORK’S PHOTO LEAGUE, 1936-1951
Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
Saturday, March 24, free, 11:00 am – 5:45
Sunday, March 25, $12, 11:00 am – 5:45 pm
Through 212-423-3337
www.thejewishmuseum.org

This is the last weekend to see the Jewish Museum’s expertly curated show “The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League, 1936-1951.” For fifteen years, a talented group of artists took to the streets of New York City and other locations, transforming the very nature of documentary photography. Led by Sid Grossman, who encouraged them to use their heart and soul when choosing what and how to shoot, these photographers captured images of peace demonstrations, children playing, crime scenes, and political rallies as well as artfully framed shots of the buildings, subways, and shadows of the city. The exhibition follows the league from their beginnings through their battles during the Red Scare, when they were accused of promoting a socialist and communist agenda. In Jack Manning’s “Elks Parade” (1939), hundreds of people line the fire escapes and rooftop of a building in Harlem to watch the festivities going on below. In Ruth Orkin’s “Boy Jumping into Hudson River” (1948), a boy seems to be suspended in midair as he plunges toward the water. A worker looks out from behind the storefront window in Berenice Abbott’s “Zito’s Bakery, 259 Bleecker St.” (1937). A child stares straight into the camera as the bottom of his jacket floats in the wind in Jerome Liebling’s “Butterfly Boy, New York” (1949). A woman in high heels walks past a timepiece embedded in the ground — which can still be found at the corner of Broadway and Maiden Ln. — in Ida Wyman’s “Sidewalk Clock” (1947). And the world seems to be turning upside down in Fred Stein’s “42nd Street Subway Exit” (1945). There are also photos by Grossman, Walter Rosenblum, Sonia Handelman Meyer, David Vestal, Erika Stone, Weegee, Morris Engel, Lisette Model, Aaron Siskind, and many other men and women. The display ends with a digital grid that arranges the photos by location on a movable map, as well as a documentary film that features interviews with several of the artists, including Rebecca Lepkoff, who is now in her mid-nineties and still active, with the solo show “Life on the Lower East Side” currently on view through the end of the month at the Tenement Museum. You can also find a handful of additional Photo League pictures at the Howard Greenberg Gallery.

MOVING IMAGE MASTER CLASS: SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

Philip Seymour Hoffman doesn’t quite understand what’s happening to him in SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, March 25, free with museum admission, 6:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.sonyclassics.com/synecdocheny

In films such as Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999), Adaptation. (Spike Jonze, 2002), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney, 2002), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004), writer Charlie Kaufman has created bizarre, compelling alternate views of reality that adventurous moviegoers have embraced, even if they didn’t understand everything they saw. Well, Kaufman has done it again, challenging audiences with his directorial debut, the very strange but mesmerizing Synecdoche, New York. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as the bedraggled Caden Cotard, a local theater director in Schenectady mounting an inventive production of Death of a Salesman. Just as the show is opening, his wife, avant-garde artist Adele Lack (Catherine Keener), decides to take an extended break in Europe with their four-year-old daughter, Olive (Sadie Goldstein), and Adele’s kooky assistant, Maria (Jennifer Jason Leigh). As Caden starts coming down with a series of unexplainable health problems (his last name, by the way — Cotard — is linked with a neurological syndrome in which a person believes they are dead or dying or do not even exist), he wanders in and out of offbeat personal and professional relationships with box-office girl Hazel (a nearly unrecognizable Samantha Morton), his play’s lead actress, Claire Keen (Michelle Williams), his therapist, Madeleine Gravis (Hope Davis), and Sammy (Tom Noonan), a man who has been secretly following him for years. After winning a MacArthur Genius Grant, Caden begins his grandest production yet, a massive retelling of his life story, resulting in radical shifts between fantasy and reality that will have you laughing as you continually scratch your head, hoping to stimulate your brain in order to figure out just what the heck is happening on-screen.

Evoking such films as Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 and City of Women, Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories, and Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries as well as the labyrinthine tales of Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar, Synecdoche, New York is the kind of work that is likely to become a cult classic over the years, requiring multiple viewings to help understand it all. The film is screening March 25 at the Museum of the Moving Image and will be introduced by production designer Mark Friedberg, who will be leading a Moving Image Master Class at 3:00 ($20) with chief curator David Schwartz. In addition, Hoffman is currently appearing in Mike Nichols’s new Broadway version of Death of a Salesman, the show he is putting together in Synecdoche, New York.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: PAULA CARINO

Pianos
158 Ludlow St.
Monday, March 26, $8, 9:00
212-505-3733
www.paulacarino.com
www.pianosnyc.com

“I am lucky in love / I don’t need your comfort or care / I am so lucky in love / even when life is unfair / Yeah, don’t tell me life is unfair,” Paula Carino sings on “Lucky in Love,” from her excellent 2010 album, Open on Sunday, which she financed through Facebook fan donations and released on her own label, Intellectual House o’ Pancakes Records. We’re not about to tell the singer-songwriter, yoga teacher, blogger, and pop-culture columnist that life is unfair, but we don’t mind saying that if life were indeed fair, Carino would be a star. The multitalented musician has been a fixture on the New York City music scene for the better part of a decade, whether playing solo shows at the Parkside Lounge on the Lower East Side or at Freddy’s Backroom in Brooklyn (or twi-ny’s tenth-anniverary party at Fontana’s) with her backing band, which she has given such names as the Better Mind Your Own Business Bureau, the Virtually Spotless, and the Scurvy Merchants. Carino, who lately has been studying counseling psychology while working on a new album, appears to have finally arrived at a permanent appellation for her group: the Good Evening Friends, as in the Frankie Laine and Johnny Ray duet and the classic vaudeville sign-off. Carino and TGEF, featuring Nancy Polstein on drums, David Benjoya on guitar, and Andy Mattina on bass, will play their first gig under that name at Pianos on March 26 at 9:00, preceded by Jett Brando at 8:00 and followed by Teeth and Tongue at 10:00, Dope Dod at 11:00, and Rocky Business at midnight.

DEATH OF A SALESMAN

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Linda Emond hope for better days in DEATH OF A SALESMAN (photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th St.
February 13 – June 2
deathofasalesmanbroadway.com

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman stakes its claim once again as the Great American Play in Mike Nichols’s poignant new version, running at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre through June 2. Winner of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize, Death of a Salesman is about nothing less than the death of the American dream. Willy Loman (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a traveling salesman who has just returned to his New York City home after an aborted attempt at a sales trip to New England. A sixty-three-year-old man who has worked for the same company for thirty-six years, Loman has been beaten down, left out of the booming post-WWII economy and lagging behind changing times. He is consoled by his gentle, stalwart wife, Linda (Linda Emond), who reminds him that both of his grown sons are back in their room upstairs, sleeping soundly. The older Biff (Andrew Garfield) has yet to find himself, having recently spent time on a farm in Texas despite grand hopes, while the younger Hap (Finn Wittrock) is a ladies’ man with big dreams of going into business with his brother. Over the course of a single day, the Lomans are forced to face some hard, cold truths about themselves and their uncertain future. Hoffman is magnificent as Loman, his barren eyes haunted by his lack of success, his body hunched over, dragging around a briefcase filled with meaningless items he has been hawking for decades — items that are never specified, because it doesn’t matter; they could be anything. All he wants is to be able to complete the payments on an appliance before it breaks, to have at least one of his sons make something of his life, to own something of value. Willy is overwhelmed by flashbacks and memories that remind him of what could have been, drifting in and out of conversations with his brother Ben (John Glover), an adventurer who struck it rich in Alaska, and with a younger Biff as he prepares for the football game that will likely earn him a college scholarship.

Father and son search for common ground in Miller masterpiece (photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

Hoffman — who played a theater director staging a unique version of Death of a Salesman in Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York — is not made up to look much older than he actually is, yet he embodies the wear and tear that has ravaged Loman’s body, mind, and spirit. At forty-four, Hoffman is not the youngest actor to take on the iconic role; Loman originator Lee J. Cobb was a mere thirty-seven, while Dustin Hoffman was forty-six, George C. Scott forty-seven, Brian Dennehy sixty, and Fredric March fifty-three in the 1951 film. But Hoffman plays old marvelously, his Loman an everyman for whom age is not the central problem. Nichols has brought back Death of a Salesman at a critical juncture in American history, when the separation between the haves and the have-nots keeps widening amid mortgage failures and bank bailouts, ripping an ever-widening hole in the fabric of the nation. But Hoffman’s Loman (low man) is no mere victim seeking sympathy; he has been complicit in his family’s downfall, making bad choices that has thwarted them every step of the way. Filled with complexity, depth, and sparkling dialogue, Miller’s masterpiece feels as fresh and relevant as ever.