twi-ny recommended events

CMJ MUSIC MARATHON & FILM FESTIVAL

Drink Up Buttercup will be back for more groovy fun at CMJ (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Multiple venues
October 19-23
Full Festival Badge: $495; CMJ Play Pass: $149; Film Festival Pass: $50
Individual tickets available
www.cmj2010.com

We’re happy to see many of our favorites among the more than 1,200 bands slated to perform at this year’s CMJ Music Marathon, running October 19-23 — in addition to hundreds of new bands we can’t wait to check out. (Well, we’re going to try to see as many as we can anyway.) There’s an interesting bunch of older dudes as well who will be playing with the younger kids. The festival also features film premieres, panel discussions, and other special events. Over the course of the next two weeks, twi-ny will keep firing early warning shout-outs to our first-out-of-the-gate contenders for don’t-miss status. Even if you can’t afford a festival badge, limited tickets are available to the general public for most shows, but they’re going to go fast, so you better hurry. Here is a sneak peak at twenty to watch out for, all of whom you’ve read about it previously on This Week in New York.

Asobi Seksu / Bear Hands / Das Racist / Dean & Britta / Drink Up Buttercup / the Fleshtones / Four Tet / the Golden Filter / Jean Grae / Heavy Cream / Howlies / Hypernova / Justin Townes Earle / Oberhofer / the Pains of Being Pure at Heart / Robbers on High Street / Savoir Adore / Screaming Females / Surfer Blood / We Are Country Mice

VOLLMOND (FULL MOON)

Pina Bausch’s VOLLMOND is a wet and wild experience (photo by Laurent Philippe)

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Through October 9, $25 – $85 (October 1 performance reviewed)
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.pina-bausch.de

Returning to BAM for the first time since the sudden death of their founder and artistic director, Pina Bausch, in June 2009, Tanztheater Wuppertal is dazzling audiences in Brooklyn with the U.S. premiere of the 2006 evening-length piece VOLLMOND (FULL MOON). A large rock sits alone on a sparse black stage above a shallow, barely visible river of water. The first half of the 150-minute show is an utter delight as the twelve-member company enacts vignettes of love, romance, and the playful battle between the sexes, the men dressed in dark pants and button-down shirts, the women in elegant evening gowns and high heels. They flirt, kiss, and tell jokes, occasionally giving way to sparkling solos by the diminutive Rainer Behr and Ditta Miranda Jasjfi and others. Water, the elixir of life, is at the center of it all, whether the men are pouring drinks for the women or they all go for a swim in the river, rain crashing down in a breathtaking display.

Women dominate the battle of the sexes in VOLLMOND (photo by Jan Szito)

But the second half takes a darker turn, as costumes dim and tend toward black, the kissing and jokes replaced by violence and pain, the high tides of the full moon now pulling more turbulent currents to the surface. The first three solos are performed by the troupe’s older members, new co-artistic director Dominique Mercy (who has been with the company since Bausch took it over in 1973), longtime comic relief Nazareth Panadero, and the lithe, rail-thin Julie Anne Stanzak, their movements sharper and less fluid than those of the younger dancers. Where wooden sticks were earlier used to create a cool thwooshing sound, now they are weapons. Instead of filling a wineglass with a drink, a man now shoots a plastic cup off a woman’s head using a water pistol. The music also borders on the morose, including Cat Power’s eerie “Werewolf.” But soon the sexes are back in each other’s arms for a wet and wild finale. Bausch’s unique melding of dance, theater, comedy, and music is in abundant evidence throughout VOLLMOND, another terrific crowd pleaser from one of the world’s most gifted talents. Athough no one takes the customary choreographer’s bow after the show, Bausch’s presence is felt all night long. At one point, Panadero brings out a chair and warns a man away from it, stating that even ghosts need to sit down; everyone in the theater instantly understands whom she is talking about. Discussion and speculation over the future of Tanztheater Wuppertal swirl around whether it can go on without Bausch; VOLLMOND is a must-see on its own merits, but even more so considering the possibility that it could be the company’s last stand in New York.

CinémaTuesdays: HOLLYWOOD LOVES FRENCH CINEMA

Richard Gere begs audiences to take another look at his 1983 remake, BREATHLESS

French Institute Alliance Française
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
October 5-26, $10, separate admission for each screening
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

Continually bereft of original ideas, Hollywood producers are constantly mining through foreign films they can remake in English for their next big hit. One of their favorite targets is France, which has led to such American movies as THREE MEN AND A BABY, COUSINS, TRUE LIES, THE BIRDCAGE, and DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS. All this month, the French Institute Alliance Française’s excellent CinémaTuesdays program is taking a look at this fruitful and fruitless relationship, screening four French classics alongside four American remakes. The series begins October 5 with screenings of the fiftieth anniversary restoration print of Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal 1960 Nouvelle Vague stunner À BOUT DE SOUFFLÉ and Jim McBride’s 1983 version of BREATHLESS; let’s just say that Richard Gere and Valérie Kaprisky are no Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. On October 12, Jean Renoir’s BOUDU SAUVÉ DES EAUX (BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING) can be directly compared to its Hollywood offspring, Paul Mazursky’s quirky 1986 comedy DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS. The most fascinating pairing is Henri-Georges Clouzot’s harrowing 1953 drama LE SALAIRE DE LA PEUR (THE WAGES OF FEAR) and William Friedkin’s surprisingly gripping 1977 remake, SORCERER, with Roy Scheider doing an outstanding job playing the torturous Yves Montand role as a driver who must go through hell to try to get a shipment of nitroglycerine to its intended destination. The series concludes with a couple of lesser-known films, Marcel Carné’s LE JOUR SE LÈVE (DAYBREAK, 1939), starring the elegant Jean Gabin, and Anatole Litvak’s 1947 remake, THE LONG NIGHT, with Henry Fonda in the lead role. Please note that separate admission is required for each screening; unfortunately, these are not double features.

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg star in Jean-Luc Godard’s anarchic, iconic BREATHLESS (courtesy Rialto Pictures/StudioCanal)

BREATHLESS (À BOUT DE SOUFFLE) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
French Institute Alliance Française
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, October 5, $10, 12:30 & 7:00
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

The fiftieth-anniversary restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s Nouvelle Vague classic, BREATHLESS, will leave audiences, well, breathless. Godard’s first feature-length film, buoyed by an original treatment by François Truffaut and with Claude Chabrol serving as technical adviser, is as much about the cinema itself as it is about would-be small-time gangster Michel Poiccard (an iconic Jean-Paul Belmondo), an ultra-cool dude wandering from girl to girl in Paris, looking for extra helpings of sex and money and having trouble getting either. Along the way he steals a car and shoots a cop as if shooing away a fly before teaming up with Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg) and heading out on the run. Godard references William Faulkner and Dashiell Hammett, Humphrey Bogart and Sam Fuller as Michel and Patricia make faces at each other, discuss death, and are chased by the police. Anarchy prevails, both in Belmondo’s character and the film as a whole, which can go off in any direction at any time. Godard himself shows up as the man who identifies Michel, and there are also cameos by New Wave directors Jean-Pierre Melville and Jacques Rivette. The beautiful restoration, supervised by the film’s director of photography, Raoul Coutard, also includes a brand-new translation and subtitles that breathe new life into one of cinema’s greatest treasures.

THE MUSIC OF FELA KUTI

The music of Fela Kuti will be performed at free concert at St. Ann’s Warehouse on October 4

St. Ann’s Warehouse
38 Water St.
Monday, October 4, 6:30 (doors open at 6:00)
Admission: free
www.brooklynbridgepark.org
www.felaonbroadway.com

FELA! has been a runaway Broadway hit, celebrating the life and career of influential Nigerian singer and activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti. On October 4, FELA! star Sahr Ngaujah will perform a free concert version in St. Ann’s Warehouse (moved from Brooklyn Bridge Park because of the weather), backed by the Broadway band, which includes members of Brooklyn’s Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. The musical, which was nominated for eleven Tony awards, features such Kuti songs as “Sorrow, Tears and Blood,” “Zombie,” “Shuffering & Shmiling,” “I.T.T. (International Thief Thief),” and “Coffin for Head of State.” Doors open at 6:00 and the concert begins at 6:30, but you’re going to have to get there a lot earlier to guarantee yourself a decent seat.

UNSILENT FILM SERIES: BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN

Matt Darriau’s Paradox Trio will play a live score to Eisenstein’s classic BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN at (le) poisson rouge

(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Sunday, October 3, $10-$12, 10:00 pm
212-228-4854
www.lepoissonrouge.com

Sergei M. Eisenstein’s classic BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN has had its fair share of scores over the years, and on Sunday night it will be getting the Paradox Trio treatment as part of (le) poisson rouge’s Unsilent Film Series. Matt Darriau, Brad Shepik, Rufus Cappadocia, and Seido Salifoski will be playing such instruments as the kaval, the gaida, Balkan strings, and dumbeks to Eisenstein’s dramatic tale of revolution in Russia. In addition, Vision Fugitive composers Elias (Constantopedos), Lydia (Ainsworth), and Shruti (Kumar) will play live to scenes from René Laloux’s 1973 animated film LA PLANÈTE SAUVAGE (FANTASTIC PLANET).

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)
Sergei M. Eisenstein’s BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN might be a seminal silent classic that changed the nature of filmmaking, but it is also still a vastly entertaining movie regardless of its cinematic influence and worldwide importance. Divided into five episodes — Men and Maggots, Drama at the Harbour, A Dead Man Calls for Justice, The Odessa Staircase, and The Rendez-vous with a Squadron — the film tells the based-on-fact story of a mutiny on board a sailing vessel, the result of unfair treatment of the workers, a microcosm of the Russian Revolution of 1905 that later led to the bigger revolution of 1917. The film is like an editing primer, its approach to montage causing its own revolution at the time, particularly during the unforgettable Odessa Steps sequence, in which Eisenstein’s cuts manipulate the action in powerful, emotional ways that were new to cinema. The film also features the best mustaches in the history of movies.

ARTISTS ON ARTISTS

Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon will speak on the career of multimedia artist and rock writer Dan Graham as part of the Dia Foundation’s Artists on Artists series (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Dia: Chelsea
535 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Monthly Mondays at 6:30
Admission: $6
212-989-5566
www.diaart.org

Upon the opening of the excellent Dan Graham retrospective “Beyond” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in early 2009 (and later seen here at the Whitney), Graham sat down for a conversation with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon. Gordon continues that rather interesting relationship on November 8 when she talks about admitted Sonic Youth fan Graham’s life and career as part of the Dia Foundation’s Artists on Artists series. Since 2001, Dia has been sponsoring fascinating lectures in which one artist discusses the work of another artist, offering unique ruminations on creativity, influence, and the art world in general. The fall season got under way September 13 with Daniel Lefcourt speaking on Imi Knoebel. Next up is Peter Halley on Franz Erhard Walther on October 18, followed by Gordon on Graham on November 8 and Joachim Koester on Sol LeWitt on December 13. The series then continues into 2011, with Abraham Cruzvillegas on Robert Smithson on February 14, Laylah Ali on Joseph Beuys on March 21, and Josephine Meckseper on Hanne Darboven on April 4. (Although some are already sold out, there will be a first-come, first-served waiting list the night of the event.)

THE HEIST: TOPKAPI

Peter Ustinov provides the comic relief in Dassin caper classic

TOPKAPI (Jules Dassin, 1964)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Sunday, October 3, 1:00, 4:10, 7:20
Series runs through October 21
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

We’re suckers for heist films. Just give us THE HOT ROCK (Peter Yates, 1972), THE ANDERSON TAPES (Sidney Lumet, 1972), THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (John Huston, 1950), THE KILLING (Stanley Kubrick, 1956) — heck, even THE BRINK’S JOB (William Friedkin, 1978) — and we’ll settle in for a great coupla hours. But the king of them all just might be Jules Dassin’s ultrahip TOPKAPI, about a group of multicultural thieves who plan to steal the world’s most priceless emerald from a bejeweled dagger in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The movie is worth seeing just for Ms. Mercouri herself, who opens the film by talking right to us, luring us in with her alluring sex appeal and endless charm. And oh, those clothes, especially the emerald green outfit with her nails painted to match. Maximilian Schell, Peter Ustinov, Robert Morley, and others join in for the elaborate plan that has been ripped off in so many movies ever since. And we were happy to see that they really got things right, shooting on location in Turkey, because we’ve been to Topkapi Palace, and the Topkapi dagger is indeed breathtaking. We deleted a quarter star because some of the scenes with Ustinov are a bit long and awkward, but the rest is simply marvelous. TOPKAPI is screening with Nick Park’s WALLACE & GROMIT IN THE WRONG TROUSERS (1993), part of Film Forum’s awesome series “The Heist,” which includes all of the aforementioned flicks and more, continuing through October 21.