twi-ny recommended events

NYFF57 RETROSPECTIVE: HE WALKED BY NIGHT

Richard Basehart hides in the shadows in noir procedural He Walked by Night

HE WALKED BY NIGHT (Alfred L. Werker, 1948)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Howard Gilman Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday, October 1, 9:00
Festival runs September 27 – October 13
www.filmlinc.org

Alfred L. Werker’s 1948 noir police procedural, He Walked by Night, might not be extremely well known, but its influence was pervasive. The plot is relatively straightforward: A small-time thief and electronics expert who goes by the name Roy Martin (Richard Basehart) kills a police officer in cold blood and the LAPD mobilizes into action to first uncover the murderer’s identity and then capture him. Capt. Breen (Roy Roberts) assigns Sgt. Marty Brennan (Scott Brady) and Sgt. Chuck Jones (James Cardwell) to the case; they regularly meet with Lee Whitney (Jack Webb), who runs the Crime Investigation Lab, the 1940s equivalent of a modern-day forensic scientist. The detectives catch a break when electronics dealer Paul Reeves (Whit Bissell) contacts them after finding out a man he’s been doing business with has been bringing him stolen equipment. Martin is always one step ahead of the police, avoiding capture with a cool confidence, but as Whitney comes up with an innovative way to figure out what Martin looks like, the heat is turned up.

He Walked by Night influenced Jack Webb (far right) to make Dragnet

Written by John C. Higgins and Crane Wilbur, He Walked by Night features narration by Reed Hadley that sounds like it came right out of the police dispatcher’s files — and predates Dragnet by one year. In fact, this film, inspired by the true story of Erwin “Machine Gun” Walker, directly led to Webb making Dragnet, first as a radio show beginning in 1949 and then as a television series two years later, with Webb as executive producer and starring as the straitlaced Sgt. Joe Friday. (You can’t help but laugh when Capt. Breen calls for a “dragnet” to be cast.) Basehart (La Strada, Moby Dick) is cool and collected as the killer, especially in a scene in which he operates on himself after getting shot, channeling Anthony Quinn as Juan Martínez in The Ox-Bow Incident. And the grand finale in the underground LA storm drains influenced the scenes in the Vienna sewers in Carol Reed’s 1949 classic The Third Man. An uncredited Anthony Mann (Border Incident, Cimarron) directed several key scenes, and Hungarian cinematographer John Alton (An American in Paris, Elmer Gantry) bathes the film in cunning shadows. The film is screening October 1 at 9:00 in the Retrospective section of the New York Film Festival, which focuses on the work of cinematographers in such films as The Godfather: Part II, The Grapes of Wrath, and Street Angel.

NYFF57 RETROSPECTIVE: THE PASSION OF ANNA

Andreas Winkelman (von Sydow) and Anna Fromm (Liv Ullmann) seek love, companionship, and the truth in Ingmar Bergman’s The Passion of Anna

THE PASSION OF ANNA (Ingmar Bergman, 1969)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Howard Gilman Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Wednesday, October 2, 6:30
Festival runs September 27 – October 13
www.filmlinc.org

The New York Film Festival’s Retrospective tribute to cinematographers continues October 2 with The Passion of Anna, the conclusion to Ingmar Bergman’s unofficial island trilogy that began with Hour of the Wolf and Shame, each work filmed on Fårö island and starring Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow as a couple. Bergman throws caution to the wind in the film, the Swedish title of which is the more direct and honest The Passion. The 1969 film was made while Bergman and Ullmann’s personal relationship was ending, and it shows. The film opens with Andreas Winkelman (von Sydow) trying to repair his leaking roof. A divorcé, he lives by himself on the island, treasuring his isolation as he smokes his pipe and goes about his basic business. But when Anna Fromm (Ullmann) stops by to use his phone, he gets swept up into Anna’s drama — her husband and child were recently killed in an accident that left her with a bad leg — and that of her best friends, Elis Vergerus (Erland Josephson) and his wife, Eva (Bibi Andersson). Suddenly Andreas is going to dinner parties, taking in a puppy, and getting involved in the mysterious case of a rash of animal killings, which some are blaming on off-kilter local resident Johan Andersson (Erik Hell). And the more his privacy is invaded, the worse it all could become.

For the first time, Bergman, a perfectionist of the highest order, allowed improvisation in several scenes. He gives each actor a few minutes to describe their characters during the film, breaking the fourth wall, while also adding his own narration. “Has Ingmar Bergman made a picture about his cast, or has his cast made a picture about Ingmar Bergman?” the original American trailer asks. Cinematographer extraordinaire Sven Nykvist (The Sacrifice, Persona) uses a handheld camera while switching between black-and-white and color, occasionally focusing on dazzling silhouettes and close-ups that are challenged by the stark reds of a blazing fire and Anna’s hat and the bold blues of the sky and Anna’s penetrating eyes, all splendidly edited by Siv Lundgren. Bergman tackles such regular subjects as God, infidelity, dreams, war, and loneliness with a slow build that threatens to explode at any moment. The film is also very much about the search for truth, both in real life and cinema. It might be called The Passion of Anna, but there is an overarching coldness that pervades everything. The finale is sensational, the scene going out of focus until virtually nothing is left. The Passion of Anna is screening on October 2 at 6:30 at the Howard Gilman Theater; the NYFF57 Retrospective sidebar runs through October 10 with such other visual dazzlers as Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, and Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

SATOSHI MIYAGI: ANTIGONE

The Park Ave. Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall has been transformed into the Styx-like Sanzu River for breathtaking version of Antigone (photo © Stephanie Berger)

Park Avenue Armory
Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Through October 7, $35-$175
Artist talk with Satoshi Miyagi and Carol Martin, October 4, $15, 6:30
armoryonpark.org

Satoshi Miyagi’s lush Antigone at the Park Ave. Armory is likely to be the most stunning and graceful adaptation of Sophocles’s classic Greek tragedy you’ll ever experience. Originally presented in a courtyard in a fourteenth-century palace in France to open the 2017 Avignon Festival, the hundred-minute production has been adjusted for the armory’s massive Wade Thompson Drill Hall. The work uses almost exactly half the drill hall space, taking place on a long, shallow eighteen-thousand-gallon pond at the far end of the hall, with the audience sitting in rising rafters before it. Miyagi, who previously staged a different version of the twenty-five-hundred-year-old play in 2004, has now infused it with Buddhist meditations on ritual and death. As the audience is being seated, characters in white kimono-like dress are standing like ghosts in the water, surrounded by several large cairns. (The elegant set is by Junpei Kiz, the sublime costumes by Kayo Takahashi, and the fab hair and makeup by Kyoko Kajita.) The main actors come out and gleefully announce that they are a troupe from the small city of Shizuoka about to put on Antigone, identifying who they are portraying and playfully giving an English-language summary of the story. At the end of the intro, the charming Micari, who plays the title character, exclaims, “We invite you to see what happens next. Enjoy the show!”

What happens next is exquisite. Miyagi combines elements of traditional Noh, kabuki, and bunraku theater to create a brilliant retelling of the well-known tale, with the main characters each portrayed by two actors, one who speaks the dialogue (in Japanese, with English supertitles) while kneeling in the water, the other who lyrically moves about the space and interacts with the rest of the cast. The priest (Tsuyoshi Kijima) floats in on a small raft with paper lanterns; he stops to give shiny white wigs to the protagonists. The sons of Oedipus, Eteocles (Morimasa Takeishi) and Polyneices (Keita Mishima), have killed each other in battle, the former fighting for King Creon (Kouichi Ohtaka; Kazunori Abe), the latter leading a revolt. Creon has declared that Eteocles is to get a hero’s funeral while Polyneices will be treated as a traitor, his body left to rot and decay in the desert — and that anyone who attempts to give him an honorable burial will be stoned to death.

Antigone (Micari) declares her freedom from the rules of the state in lush Satoshi Miyagi production (photo © Stephanie Berger)

Oedipus’s daughters, Antigone (Micari; Maki Honda) and Ismene (Asuka Fuse; Yuumi Sakakibara), disagree on how to proceed: While Ismene does not want to challenge Creon’s decree, Antigone is determined to follow the law of the gods and do right by Polyneices. “One sought to destroy us. One fought to defend us,” Ismene says about her brothers. “The dead are all the same. We send them off with the same rites,” Antigone argues. “That will not do. The death of a hero is different than that of a traitor,” Ismene answers. Antigone: “The difference doesn’t extend past death.” Ismene: “An enemy is an enemy even after death.” Antigone: “I was not born to hate. I was born to love.” Antigone, who is betrothed to Creon’s son, Haemon (Yoneji Ouchi; Daisuke Wakana), buries Polyneices and is turned in by a guard (Katsuhiko Konagaya; Tsuyoshi Kijima) who witnessed her illegal act. Creon then has to decide the fate of his would-be daughter-in-law as both Haemon and the blind prophet Tiresias (Takahiko Watanabe; Soichiro Yoshiue) demand mercy.

Antigone features a thrilling percussion score by Hiroko Tanakawa. Koji Osako’s extraordinary lighting design puts small lights in front of the moving actors, casting huge shadows on the wall that hover over everything like the gods looking down on humanity while evoking shadow puppet theater. Translated by Shigetake Yaginuma, the narrative, which resonates with regard to current global political situations (particularly in Japan, Greece, and America), centers on themes of gender and power. “As long as I live, no woman shall impose her will,” Creon says. “Never let a woman triumph over you,” he tells his son, who is torn between his love of Antigone and his duty to his father. Early on, Ismene explains to Antigone, “I cannot act in defiance of the state.” But Antigone refuses to acknowledge the government above the gods. “I do not fear the king,” she declares. “The law of the gods is what is most precious. . . . In the eyes of the king, mine must seem the actions of a stupid woman. But in my eyes, the king is foolish.”

Haemon (Yoneji Ouchi) is torn between love for this betrothed and responsibility to his father in Antigone (photo © Stephanie Berger)

Throughout the show, the chorus (Ayako Terauchi, Fuyuko Moriyama, Haruka Miyagishima, Kenji Nagai, Mariko Suzuki, Miyuki Yamamoto, Moemi Ishii, Momoyo Tateno, Naomi Akamatsu, Ryo Yoshimi, Shunsuke Noguchi, Yu Sakurauchi, Yukio Kato, Yuya Daidomumon, Yuzu Sato) slowly wanders across the Styx-like Sanzu River, which leads the dead to the afterlife, mostly silent except for the sounds of their feet gliding on the water and occasional musical verses, including, “Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man. . . . Never without resources, he has devised escapes from desperate plagues. Only against Death shall he call for aid in vain.” Miyagi, who with the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center has also staged Medea, Mahabharata, and Peer Gynt among other classics, is emphasizing the notion that death is the great equalizer, that people should not be basing their earthly deeds on how it will impact what may or may not occur when the end comes. It’s not about heaven and hell or good vs. evil, the living and the dead or the rich and the poor; his Antigone is set in an ambiguous time and place that could be anywhere and everywhere, a breathtaking display of philosophy and artistry that, at its core, is about the basic decency of love, honor, and respect. Do whatever you can to see it, even if you have to defy your own personal gods of schedules and emails.

NYFF57 SPOTLIGHT ON DOCUMENTARY: FREE TIME

Manfred Kirchheimer’s Free Time is having its world premiere this weekend at the New York Film Festival

FREE TIME (Manfred Kirchheimer, 2019)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Francesca Beale Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Sunday, September 29, 6:15
Festival runs September 27 – October 13
www.filmlinc.org

Eighty-eight-year-old Manfred Kirchheimer will be at Lincoln Center’s Francesca Beale Theater tonight to screen and discuss his latest work, the subtly dazzling Free Time, which had its world premiere yesterday in the Spotlight on Documentary section of the fifty-seventh annual New York Film Festival. The German-born, New York-raised Kirchheimer has taken 16mm black-and-white footage he and Walter Hess shot between 1958 and 1960 in such neighborhoods as Hell’s Kitchen, Washington Heights, Inwood, Queens, and the Upper East Side and turned it into an exquisite city symphony reminiscent of Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, and James Agee’s classic 1948 short In the Street, which sought to “capture . . . an image of human existence.” Kirchheimer does just that, following a day in the life of New York as kids play stickball, a group of older people set up folding chairs on the sidewalk and read newspapers and gossip, a worker disposes of piles of flattened boxes, laundry hangs from clotheslines between buildings, a woman cleans the outside of her windows while sitting on the ledge, a fire rages at a construction site, and a homeless man pushes his overstuffed cart.

Kirchheimer and Hess focus on shadows under the el train tracks, gargoyles on building facades, smoke emerging from sewer grates, old cars stacked at a junkyard, and grave markers at a cemetery as jazz and classical music is played by Count Basie (“On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “Sandman”), John Lewis (“The Festivals,” “Sammy”), Bach (“The Well Tempered Klavier, Book 1 — Fugue in B flat minor”), Ravel (Sonata for Violin & Cello), and others, with occasional snatches of street sounds. The title of the film is an acknowledgment of a different era, when people actually had free time, now a historical concept with constant electronic contact through social media and the internet and the desperate need for instant gratification. Kirchheimer, whose Dream of a City was shown at last year’s festival and whose poetic Stations of the Elevated was part of the 1981 fest (but not released theatrically until 2014), directed and edited Free Time and did the sound, and it’s a leisurely paced audiovisual marvel. The only unfortunate thing is that is only an hour long; I could have watched it for days. The film is screening September 29 at 6:15, preceded by the fifteen-minute Suite No. 1, Prelude, Nicholas Ma’s tribute to his father, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, with both Kirchheimer and Ma participating in a Q&A afterward.

CONTEMPORARY ARAB CINEMA: FOR SAMA

Waad al-Kateab documents daily life under constant bombardment in Aleppo in For Sama

FOR SAMA (Waad al-Kateab & Edward Watts, 2019)
BAMfilm, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Saturday, September 28, 7:00
Series runs September 27 – October 2
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.forsamafilm.com

“You’re the most beautiful thing in our life, but what a life I’ve brought you into. You didn’t choose this. Will you ever forgive me?” Waad al-Kateab asks in the extraordinary documentary For Sama. In 2012 during the Arab Spring, Waad, a marketing student at Aleppo University, joined the protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. She started taking photos and cell-phone video, then got a film camera as she became a citizen journalist, documenting the escalating conflict, trying to find moments of joy amid the brutal, senseless murders of innocent men, women, and children. She met and fell in love with heroic doctor Hamza al-Kateab, who was determined to keep his hospital running as the bombings got closer. Waad and Hamza got married, and on January 1, 2016, she gave birth to a healthy girl, Sama.

The film, directed by Waad (who also served as cinematographer and producer) and Edward Watts (Escape from ISIS), is a poignant, unflinching confession from mother to daughter, explaining in graphic detail what the families of Aleppo are going through as Russian and Syrian forces and Islamic extremists maintain a constant attack. “We never thought the world would let this happen,” Waad explains as the body count rises — which she intimately shows, not shying away from shots of bloodied victims being brought into the hospital, a pile of dead children, or a desperate attempt to save the life of a mother and a newborn after an emergency caesarean. “I keep filming. It gives me a reason to be here. It makes the nightmares feel worthwhile,” Waad says.

She captures bombings as they happen, films families huddled inside their homes while machine guns can be heard outside, talks to a child who says he wants to be an architect when he grows up so he can rebuild Aleppo. Because she is a woman, Waad gains access to other women that would not be available to a male filmmaker as they share their stories of love and despair. Waad and Hamza plant a lovely garden to bring color to the dank, brown and gray city. A snowfall covers the turmoil in a beautiful sheet of white. The pitter-patter of rain offers a brief respite. But everything eventually gets destroyed as Waad and Hamza struggle with the choice of leaving with Sama or staying to continue their critical roles in the rebellion, she depicting the personal, heart-wrenching images of war — in 2016, her Inside Aleppo reports aired on British television — he tending to the ever-increasing wounded. “The happiness you brought was laced with fear,” Waad tells Sama in voiceover narration. “Our new life with you felt so fragile, as the freedom we felt in Aleppo.”

Winner of the Prix L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary at Cannes among other awards, For Sama is screening September 28 at 7:00 in the BAM series “Contemporary Arab Cinema” and will be followed by a Q&A and book signing with journalist Sam Dagher, author of Assad or We Burn the Country. The series runs September 27 to October 2 and includes such other Arab films as Sameh Zoabi’s Tel Aviv on Fire, Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud’s Fatwa, and Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum.

NYFF57: 2019 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL

Actor/Writer/Director/Producer EDWARD NORTON on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ drama “MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (photo by Glen Wilson)

Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn is the closing-night selection of the fifth-seventh New York Film Festival (photo by Glen Wilson)

Film Society of Lincoln Center
September 27 – October 13
www.filmlinc.org/nyff2019

The fifty-seventh New York Film Festival gets under way today with the opening selection, Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, a crime drama starring Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Robert De Niro. The festival continues through October 13 with other Main Slate films by Olivier Assayas, the Dardenne brothers, Arnaud Desplechin, Pedro Almodóvar, Kyoshi Kurosawa, and Agnès Varda, among others, with Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story the centerpiece and Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn closing things out; the screenings are held at Alice Tully Hall, the Walter Reade Theater, and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Documentaries include looks at rare-book sellers, Merce Cunningham, surgical transitioning at Mount Sinai Hospital, Roy Cohn, incarcerated students, and Oliver Sacks.

A stellar lineup of revivals is highlighted by Luis Buñuel’s L’age d’or, William Wyler’s Dodsworth, Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man, and Bert Stern’s Jazz on a Summer’s Day, while Retrospectives boasts such films as Michel Gondry’s Dave Chapelle’s Block Party, Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven, John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath, and Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, focusing on cinematographers. NYFF57 also will host talks, Directors Dialogues, short films, the virtual reality and immersive Emergence section, and Projections, consisting of works that challenge what cinema can be. Below are more than a dozen programs to watch out for.

Saturday, September 28
On Cinema: Martin Scorsese (The Irishman), Alice Tully Hall, 4:15

Saturday, September 28, 8:45
and
Thursday, October 3, 6:00
Man Slate: First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019), followed by Q&As with Kelly Reichardt, John Magaro, and Orion Lee, Alice Tully Hall

Sunday, September 29
On Cinema: Pedro Almodóvar (Pain and Glory), Walter Reade Theater, 3:15

Monday, September 30
Producers on Producing: Hosted by Producers Guild of America, with Emma Tillinger Koskoff and David Hinojosa, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Tuesday, October 1
In Conversation with Nadav Lapid, , Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Wednesday, October 2
Lynne Ramsay’s Brigitte, screening followed by a Q&A with Lynne Ramsay and Brigitte Lacombe, Francesca Beale Theater, free, 1:00

In Conversation with the Dardenne Brothers, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Thursday, October 3
In Conversation with Michael Apted, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Thursday, October 3, 12:00 – 6:00, 9:00 – 11:00
and
Saturday, October 5
Culture Capture: Terminal Adddition (the New Red Order — Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, Jackson Polys, 2019), Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free

Thursday, October 3, 6:15
and
Sunday, October 5, 12:15
Spotlight on Documentary: 45 Seconds of Laughter (Tim Robbins, 2019), North American premiere followed by Q&As with Tim Robbins, Walter Reade Theater / Howard Gilman Theater

Friday, October 4
In Conversation with Kelly Reichardt, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Friday, October 4, 12:00 – 6:00, 9:00 – 11:00
and
Sunday, October 6, 12:00 – 6:00, 9:00 – 11:00
Free Amphitheater Loops: A Topography of Memory (Burak Çevik, 2019), Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free

Saturday, October 5
Special Events: The Cotton Club Encore (Francis Ford Coppola, 1984), followed by a Q&A with Francis Ford Coppola, Alice Tully Hall, 2:30

Film Comment: Filmmakers Chat, with Luise Donschen, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Pietro Marcello, Corneliu Porumboiu, and Justine Triet, moderated by Nicolas Rapold, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Saturday, October 5, 2:15
and
Sunday, October 6, 1:30
Projections: The Tree House (Minh Quý Trương, 2019), North American premiere followed by Q&Ad with Minh Quý Trương, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center

Saturday, October 5, 5:30
and
Monday, October 7, 8:30
Spotlight on Documentary: 63 Up (Michael Apted, 2019), followed by Q&As with Michael Apted, Walter Reade Theater / Francesca Beale Theater

Sunday, October 6
Screenwriting Master Class with Olivier Assayas, Howard Gilman Theater, 12:00

Making Uncut Gems, with Josh and Benny Safdie, Ronald Bronstein, Sebastian Bear McClard, Daniel Lopatin, and Jen Venditti, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Sunday, October 6, 5:30
and
Monday, October 7, 9:00
Main Slate: The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio, 2019), followed by Q&As with Marco Bellocchio and Pierfrancesco Favino, Alice Tully Hall

Monday, October 7
Denis Lenoir in Conversation with Kent Jones, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 4:00

Writing New York: Hosted by Writers Guild of America, East, with JC Chandor, Geoffrey Fletcher, Elisabeth Holm, Gillian Robespierre, and Steven Zaillian, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Tuesday, October 8
Directors Dialogues: Bong Joon Ho (Parasite), Francesca Beale Theater, 6:00

We [heart] Agnès, with Rosalie Varda, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Wednesday, October 9
Film Comment: Festival Wrap, with Nicolas Rapold, K. Austin Collins, Nellie Killian, Michael Koresky, and Amy Taubin, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:00

Thursday, October 10
Directors Dialogues: Mati Diop (Atlantics), Francesca Beale Theater, 8:30

Revivals: Dodsworth (William Wyler, 1936), introduced by Kenneth Lonergan and followed by a Q&A with Catherine Wyler and Melanie Wyler, Alice Tully Hall, 8:45

Thursday, October 10, 3:15 – 9:00
Friday, October 11, 5:30 – 9:00
Saturday, October 12, 1:00 – 9:00
and
Sunday, October 13, 1:00 – 9:00
Convergence: Holy Night (Casey Stein & Bernard Zeiger, 2019), Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center lobby, free

Friday, October 11
Holy Night: Meet the Makers, with Casey Stein and Bernard Zeiger, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 7:30

Saturday, October 12
The Raven: Meet the Makers, with Lance Weiler, Ava Lee Scott, Nick Fortungo, and Nick Childs, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, free, 3:00

BRAZILIAN MODERN: THE LIVING ART OF ROBERTO BURLE MARX

“Gardens are works of art, and have to be treated as such,” Roberto Burle Marx (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Gardens are works of art, and have to be treated as such,” the multitalented Roberto Burle Marx said (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx
Through Sunday, September 29, $10-$28
718-817-8700
www.nybg.org

This is the last weekend to see one of the most beautiful exhibits of the summer, “Brazilian Modern: The Living Art of Roberto Burle Marx.” The New York Botanical Garden’s wide-ranging survey of the life and career of São Paulo-born landscape architect and conservationist Roberto Burle Marx is the Bronx institution’s largest botanical exhibition in its history, consisting of plants, painting, sculpture, photographs, quotations, ephemera, and more. The installation is highlighted by a glorious, swirling black-and-white mosaic walkway and Modernist Garden, designed by Burle Marx protégé Raymond Jungles, that leads to a living wall fountain and the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, which is filled with native Brazilian plants and other species. Marx, who passed away in 1994 at the age of eighty-four, brought back many of them from his extensive travels.

“As far as I’m concerned, there are no ugly plants,” Roberto Burle Marx, “Function of the Garden” lecture (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Blue signs identify Brazilian native plants from Neoregelia and Clusia grandiflora to Aechmea blanchetiana and Philodendron Burle Marx. “One must bring nature into the reach of man and, above all, take man back to nature,” he said in his “Gardens and Landscape” lecture. The display, curated by Edward J. Sullivan, Ph.D., also features a water garden with Bismarck palms, Amazonian water lilies, a dazzling wall of staghorn ferns, a room of Marx’s abstract paintings and tapestries and intricate environmental drawings, a detailed timeline, and an interactive look at the Sítio, which served as his home, a studio, and a salon, where he met with major landscape architects and artists.

“Nature is a complete symphony, in which the elements are all intimately related — size, form, color, scent, movement, etc. . . . . It is . . an organization endowed with an immense dose of spontaneous activity, possessing its own modus vivendi with the world around it,” Roberto Burle Marx, 1962 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

It’s a pleasure to spend hours with Burle Marx, who appears to have been a friendly man with a vivacious thirst for art in every facet of his life. Interestingly, not much is known about his family situation, despite Dr. Sullivan’s attempts to gather information from those who knew him. But what is known is upbeat and positive, as depicted in photos of him with his thick white hair and bushy mustache and through his many quotes.

“The garden is, it must be, an integral part of civilized life: a deeply felt, deeply rooted, spiritual, and emotional experience,” Roberto Burle Marx, “The Garden as a Form of Art,” 1962 lecture (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

On Saturday from 1:00 to 4:00, Artes Brasileiras will present live music, while on Sunday the Silva Dance Company will perform at the same time and the Cinema Brasileiro! film series will screen Joao Vargas Penna’s 2018 documentary Landscape Film: Roberto Burle Marx. Do whatever you can to make sure you experience this one-of-a-kind exhibition about a one-of-a-kind artist and environmentalist.