twi-ny recommended events

THE CONFORMIST (IL CONFORMISTA)

Jean-Paul Trintignant tries to find his place in the world in Bernardo Bertolucci’s lush masterpiece, THE CONFORMIST

THE CONFORMIST (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
December 17-23, 1:00, 3:15, 5:30, 7:45, 10:00
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Based on the novel by Alberto Moravia, Bernardo Bertolucci’s gorgeous masterpiece, THE CONFORMIST, is a political thriller about paranoia, pedophilia, and trying to find one’s place in a changing world. Jean-Louis Trintignant (AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, Z, MY NIGHT AT MAUD’S) stars as Marcello Clerici, a troubled man who suffered childhood traumas and is now attempting to join the fascist secret police. To prove his dedication to the movement, he is ordered to assassinate one of his former professors, the radical Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), who is living in France. He falls for Quadri’s much younger wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda), who takes an intriguing liking to Clerici’s wife, Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), while Manganiello (Gastone Moschin) keeps a close watch on him, making sure he will carry out his assignment. THE CONFORMIST, made just after THE SPIDER’S STRATAGEM and followed by LAST TANGO IN PARIS, captures one man’s desperate need to belong, to become a part of Mussolini’s fascist society and feel normal at the expense of his real inner feelings and beliefs. An atheist, he goes to church to confess because Giulia demands it. A bureaucrat, he is not a cold-blooded killer, but he will murder a part of his past in order to be accepted by the fascists (as well as Bertolucci’s own past, as he makes a sly reference to his former mentor, Jean-Luc Godard, by using the French auteur’s phone number and address for Quadri’s). Production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro bathe the film in lush Art Deco colors as Bertolucci moves the story, told in flashbacks, through a series of set pieces that include an erotic dance by Anna and Giulia, a Kafkaesque visit to a government ministry, and a stunning use of black and white and light and shadow as Marcello and Giulia discuss their impending marriage. THE CONFORMIST is a multilayered psychological examination of a complex figure living in complex times, as much about the 1930s as the 1970s, as the youth of the Western world sought personal, political, and sexual freedom. In addition to this one-week presentation of a new 35mm print of THE CONFORMIST at Film Forum, MoMA has just begun a complete retrospective of Bertolucci’s career that runs through January 12, with such upcoming screenings as BEFORE THE REVOLUTION (December 17 and January 10), THE SPIDER’S STRATAGEM (December 17, introduced by Bertolucci, and January 2), 1900 (December 18 and January 8), TRAGEDY OF A RIDICULOUS MAN (December 18 and January 10), and THE LAST EMPEROR (December 19 and January 5).

UNSILENT NIGHT NEW YORK

Phil Kline and friends will fill the streets of New York City with unique Christmas sounds on Saturday night (photo by Tom Jarmusch)

Washington Square Park to Tompkins Square Park
Saturday, December 18, free, 7:00
www.unsilentnight.com

Since 1992, composer Phil Kline has been leading Unsilent Night, a parade of holiday celebrants carrying boomboxes playing specially designed music for the occasion. The nineteenth edition will take place this Saturday, as participants are encouraged to bring their own devices to play one of four randomly chosen mp3s that can be downloaded from the above website. Kline will be on hand to give out a handful of boomboxes, since he prefers people use cassettes or CDs because of the different kind of sound they emit, but iPods and the like are welcome to contribute to the cacophony. The event now occurs around the country as well as in Australia, Canada, and England. Born in Akron, Kline has played in experimental bands, composed music for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ethel, choreographer Wally Cardona, and photographer Nan Goldin, among many others, and is currently co-curating a free special program for the New York Festival of Song scheduled for May 3 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

AYALA GAZIT: WAS IT A DREAM

In “Was It a Dream,” photographer Ayala Gazit goes to Australia to find out about her half-brother, who committed suicide in 1996 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

SVA Gallery
209 East 23rd St. between Second & Third Aves.
Through December 18
Admission: free
212-592-2010
www.schoolofvisualarts.edu
www.ayalagazit.com

Born in Haifa in 1984, Ayala Gazit was twelve years old when her father told her that she had a half-brother named James in Australia from a brief relationship he had with an Englishwoman named Linda in London. Gazit wrote James a letter introducing herself, but they never met, as he committed suicide later that year. After being awarded the Tierney Grant in Photography as a senior at SVA, Gazit used the prize, which gives promising graduating photography students one year to create an exhibition, to go to Australia and find out about the half-brother she never knew. She met with James’s mother and siblings, went through the family album, and scouted out the neighborhood where James lived. What she discovered, in words and pictures, is on view through the weekend in the somber yet powerful “Was It a Dream,” at the SVA Gallery on East 23rd St. Gazit, who was an intelligence photographer in the Israeli military for two years, groups together portraits of members of both families along with haunting individual shots of landscapes where James lived and played. To further the idea of home, one corner includes two chairs and a table on which sits an ashtray with a partially smoked cigarette in it, as if something has been left unfinished. There are few smiles in Gazit’s photographs, mostly serious looks contemplating a life cut short and what might have been. The pictures are supplemented with Linda’s letter to Ayala’s father telling him about the suicide, Ayala’s letter to James, and a slideshow of older family photographs.

STEVEN BLUSH: AMERICAN HARDCORE

The Strand
828 Broadway at 12th St.
Wednesday, December 15, free, 7:00
212-473-1452
www.americanhardcorebook.com

Steven Blush has been part of the American hardcore scene since the early 1980s, promoting shows, starting music magazines, writing the definitive book on the subject, 2001’s AMERICAN HARDCORE: A TRIBAL HISTORY, and writing and producing the 2006 documentary of the same name. He is on tour now with the second edition of the book, having expanded every chapter and added a new one, stretching it from 328 to 408 pages with new art, new interviews, and new subjects. Blush will be at the Strand tonight with Dave Smalley (Dag Nasty, Descendents) and author Laura Albert, better known as controversial writer JT Leroy, discussing the past, present, and future of American hardcore, which Blush famously declared was dead in 1986. In celebration of the second edition of the book, Blush has given us one of the great holiday presents ever, a website that offers twenty-four hours of hardcore, consisting of 911 free, downloadable songs from familiar, forgettable, and hard-to-find groups, an unbelievable collection that you can find here.

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD

Tamra Davis examines the life of her friend Jean-Michel Basquiat in revealing documentary (photo courtesy of Lee Jaffe)

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD (Tamra Davis, 2010)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
December 15-21, 1:15, 3:15, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.jean-michelbasquiattheradiantchild.com

Director Tamra Davis (GUNCRAZY) transports viewers back to the 1980s New York art scene in the intimate documentary JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD, which is having a special return engagement at Film Forum by popular demand. In 1986, just as the career of street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was exploding, Davis filmed him being interviewed by designer Becky Johnson, a revealing portrait that she put away in a drawer for more than twenty years. Davis finally brings out that footage, making it the centerpiece of this new examination of the ambitious, influential artist and musician who experienced massive success before falling hard and fast and dying of a drug overdose at the age of twenty-seven in 1988. Davis, a friend of Basquiat’s, conducts new interviews with many of the people from his inner circle, including art dealers Jeffrey Deitch, Larry Gagosian, Annina Nosei, Tony Shafrazi, and Bruno Bischofberger; Basquiat’s girlfriends Suzanne Mallouk and Kelle Inman; close Basquiat friends Diego Cortez and Fab 5 Freddy; NEW YORK BEAT cable TV host Glenn O’Brien; and fellow artist Julian Schnabel, who directed Basquiat in DOWNTOWN 81. Davis has also dug up amazing footage from the 1980s of Basquiat that shows him to be a unique, driven figure who used whatever he could — from broken windowframes and doors he’d find on the street to immense canvases — to spread his art and world view, which began with drawings in which he identified himself as Samo, criticizing contemporary art as “the same old shit.” Ultimately, though, it was his relationship with Andy Warhol that was the beginning of the end. JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD is a dazzling document of a fascinating time and a cautionary tale of success that comes too fast, too soon.

THE 39 STEPS

Richard Hannay is on the run in Tony-winning play THE 39 STEPS

New World Stages
340 West 50th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Through January 16, $69.50-$149.50
Half-price tickets available at TKTS booths and by using CODE TNAMIGO2 at box office, www.broadwayoffers.com, or 212-947-8844
www.39stepsny.com

While Julie Taymor’s massive extravaganza SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK is dazzling (and confounding) preview audiences and endangering cast members at the Foxwoods Theatre on Broadway, a very different kind of thriller is playing its final weeks nearby. Patrick Barlow’s Tony- and Drama Desk-winning THE 39 STEPS, directed by Maria Aitken, opened in June 2005 in England, moved to Broadway in January 2008, and then settled in for an extended run at New World Stages that comes to an end January 16. Based on John Buchan’s 1915 novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 classic film, the production slyly plays off of Broadway’s penchant for overinflated technical gadgetry by going deliberately low-tech, with tongue firmly planted in cheek. John Behlmann stars as Richard Hannay, an erudite individual falsely accused of murder and forced to head out on the run. Kate MacCluggage plays all three female roles, including the mysterious Annabella Schmidt, the beautiful blonde femme fatale Pamela, and the lonely farm wife Margaret. But the show is stolen by Jamie Jackson and Cameron Folmar, who together play more than one hundred parts, making costume changes that seem impossible as they whirl back and forth across the stage in record time. Cast and crew wonderfully handle chases, shootouts, and other action scenes in inventive, playfully simplistic ways, energized by large doses of good humor and plenty of knowing winks. And yes, Sir Alfred does indeed make an appearance. THE 39 STEPS is an engaging, ingeniously presented comedy thriller that will have you howling with laughter.

In conjunction with the show, the downstairs bar is serving such special cocktails as the 39 Sips, the Vertigo, the Femme Fatale, the McGuffin, and the Hitchcock, which can all be savored inside the theater. And the December 15 evening performance will be followed by a talkback with screenwriter Steven DeRosa, author of WRITING WITH HITCHCOCK.

THE FRICK COLLECTION: 75th ANNIVERSARY — FREE!

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, “Regozijo (Mirth), (Album D. 4),” brush and ink and wash and chalk, ca. 1816-20 (courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America, New York)

The Frick Collection
1 East 70th St. at Fifth Ave.
Thursday, December 16, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Also: Tuesday – Sunday, $18 (free Sundays 11:00 am – 1:00 pm)
212-288-0700
www.frick.org

In 1913, wealthy industrialist Henry Clay Frick hired Carrère and Hastings to build him a five-million-dollar mansion on Fifth Ave. as a place to live as well as a public repository for his magnificent art collection after his death. Frick died in 1919, and his wife passed away in 1931, sending in motion plans to open the mansion and its art holdings to the public. In December 1935, the trustees opened the Frick Collection, where it quickly became recognized as one of the great collections and art spaces in the world. The Frick is celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary this week with a free day on Thursday, December 16, inviting everyone to marvel in its humble glory without having to pay an admission charge. Currently on view in the downstairs galleries is “The Spanish Manner: From Ribera to Goya” (through January 9), a splendid exhibition of thirty-two seventeenth- and eighteenth-century drawings and twenty-three drawings by Goya that display the imaginative skill of Spanish draftsmen. The first room contains such impressive sheets as Jusepe de Ribera’s red chalk “Studies of a Head in Profile,” which has a fantastical quality, as well as his less detailed, somewhat more abstract “Crucifixion of Saint Peter”; Antonio del Castillo y Saavedra’s emotional pen and ink “Four Heads of Man”; and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s delicate “Saint Felix of Cantalice Holding the Christ Child.” The second room is dedicated solely to Spanish master Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, who displays a wicked sense of humor and an exquisite use of brush, ink, wash, and chalk in such powerful works as “Tuti li mundi (Peepshow),” “Repentance,” and “Three Men Digging,” thought to be a sketch for the Frick’s painting “The Forge,” on view upstairs. In several drawings, Goya places his central figure right in the middle, either appearing to be suspended in midair, literally suspended, or without a background for context, including “Torture of a Man,” “A Man Drinking from a Wineskin,” “Beggar Holding a Stick in His Left Hand,” “Peasant Carrying a Woman,” and the delightful “Regozijo (Mirth).”

Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez, “King Philip IV of Spain,” oil on canvas, 1644 (the Frick Collection, New York)

In conjunction with the Spanish Manner exhibit, the Frick has a dossier presentation, “The King at War: Velázquez’s Portrait of Philip IV” (through January 23), which investigates Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez’s famous 1644 portrait of King Philip IV, detailing the history that brought the two together as well as a close look at the painting’s recent restoration, which uncovered some revealing facts about Velázquez’s process. (Don’t miss the short film in the nearby screening room.) As always, make sure to leave plenty of time to take in the Frick’s stunning permanent collection, a treasure trove of some of the greatest works of art of the last seven hundred years and more, from Gainsborough’s “The Mall in St. James’s Park” and Constable’s “Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Garden” to Turner’s “The Harbor of Dieppe” and Romney’s “Lady Hamilton as ‘Nature,’” from the Fragonard and refurbished Boucher rooms to Degas’s “The Rehearsal” and Manet’s “The Bullfight,” from El Greco’s “St. Jerome” and Vermeer’s “Girl Interrupted at Her Music” to Frans Hals’s “Portrait of an Elderly Man,” Hans Memling’s “Portrait of a Man,” and Hans Holbein the Younger’s “Sir Thomas More.” And then grab a seat at the garden fountain and start all over again.