twi-ny recommended events

COMMITTED: SHOCK CORRIDOR

Reporter Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) gets into more trouble than he bargained for in Samuel Fuller’s SHOCK CORRIDOR

ONE NITE ONLY: SHOCK CORRIDOR (Samuel Fuller, 1963)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Wednesday, March 4, $15, 7:30
Series runs March 4-29
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

On the surface, Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor is about a reporter’s unyielding determination to win a Pulitzer by playing a unique game of Clue: He gets his girlfriend and his publisher to help commit him to an insane asylum so he can get a big scoop by answering the question “Who killed Sloan with a knife in the kitchen?” But the tense psychological drama is actually about so much more, a treatise on the state of mid-twentieth-century America as well as the nature of storytelling itself. A former crime reporter, Fuller was inspired by Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House when making Shock Corridor, but his film is not so much an expose on the treatment of the mentally ill as an investigation into such prevalent societal ills as racism, war, communism, nuclear annihilation, and, er, nymphomania. Desperate for a big story, Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) gets a lesson in how to act insane from Dr. Fong (Philip Ahn); they’ve decided that Johnny’s “ailment” will be incest, and he must pretend that he is in love with his sister, a role that will be taken by his girlfriend, Cathy (Constance Towers), a burlesque performer who is uncomfortable with the whole plan. The only other person who knows of the scheme is Johnny’s editor, old-time newspaperman Swanee (Bill Zuckert). Once locked inside the mental hospital, Johnny seeks out the three witnesses to Sloan’s slaying: Stuart (James Best), who thinks he’s a Confederate general still fighting the Civil War; Trent (Hari Rhodes), a black man who believes he’s a white supremacist; and Boden (Gene Evans), a scientist who has reverted to being a child because of the misuse of nuclear power. Keeping a close watch on everything are two attendants, the amiable Wilkes (Chuck Roberson) and the mean-spirited Lloyd (John Craig), along with Dr. Cristo (John Matthews), who has a thing for electric shock therapy. As Johnny keeps getting closer to the truth, however, the cost might be his own sanity.

The multiple levels of the characterizations in Shock Corridor are best represented by a patient played by Larry Tucker who thinks he is Pagliacci, a fictional character in the Leoncavallo opera who is portrayed by a tenor named Canio. Like Pagliacci, Fuller’s Shock Corridor is built around stories within stories (within stories) and actors playing characters pretending to be someone else. The film, which evokes The Snake Pit while presaging Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, including an important use of gum, is shot by Stanley Cortez in noirish black-and-white, but Fuller adds several full-color dream sequences taken from footage he photographed for other projects, further blurring the lines between fiction and reality within the context of this original drama. As with so many of Fuller’s works, the film is highly influential, although more beloved and known by fellow filmmakers than mainstream audiences. And it does no favors for the treatment of the mentally ill, either on the doctor or patient side of things. But it’s all worth it for the amazing rain scene that will blow your mind. Shock Corridor is screening in a 35mm print on March 4 at 7:30, kicking off Nitehawk Cinema’s March Brunch “Committed” series, with a special guest to be announced. Yes, 7:30 pm is an odd time to have brunch, but maybe the programmer had temporarily lost his marbles. The series continues on March weekends — at the more normal brunch times of either 11:30 or 12 noon — with Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Suddenly, Last Summer, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and James Mangold’s Girl, Interrupted.

IT CAME FROM BALTIMORE — 40 YEARS OF CINEMA FROM THE CHARM CITY: PUTTY HILL

Matt Porterfield directs the cast in a scene from PUTTY HILL

PUTTY HILL (Matt Porterfield, 2011)
Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Eighth Ave.
Thursday, March 5, $10, 7:00
212-299-7777
www.puttyhillmovie.com
www.madmuseum.org

The city of Baltimore has not exactly been depicted kindly in film and on television, with such series as Homicide: Life on the Street, The Wire, and The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood focusing on the rash of drugs and violence that have devastated the community, while native son John Waters has shown its wackier side in such films as Polyester and Hairspray. Born and raised in a suburb just inside the Baltimore city line, writer-director Matt Porterfield (Hamilton, I Used to Be Darker) has taken a different view in his second feature film, Putty Hill. When financing for his coming-of-age drama Metal Gods fell through, he decided to keep the cast and crew together and instead shoot a cinéma verité story about the after-effects of a young man’s drug overdose on a tight-knit community inspired by the one he grew up in. Not much is revealed about Cory as his funeral nears and life goes on, with his younger brother, Cody (Cody Ray), playing paintball with Cory’s friends; his uncle, Spike (Charles Sauers), tattooing customers in his apartment; and Spike’s daughter, Jenny (Sky Ferreira), returning to her hometown for the first time in several years and hanging out with her old friends like nothing much has changed. Working off a five-page treatment with only one line of scripted dialogue, Porterfield and cinematographer Jeremy Saulnier capture people just going on living, taking Cory’s death in stride; Porterfield interviews much of the cast, who share their thoughts and feelings in relatively unemotional ways. Shot on a minuscule budget in only twelve days, Putty Hill uses natural sound and light, nonprofessional actors, and real locations, enhancing its documentary-like feel, maintaining its understated narrative and avoiding any bombastic or sudden, big revelations. It’s a softly moving film, a tender tale about daily life in a contemporary American working-class neighborhood. The film is screening at the Museum of Arts & Design on March 5 at 7:00, concluding the series “It Came from Baltimore: 40 Years of Cinema from the Charm City,” which previously showed such gems as Waters’s Pink Flamingos, Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, and David Simon’s The Corner.

PETER REGLI: RH NO. 320 (SNOW MONSTERS), 2015

Peter Regli hacks into Flatiron reality with twelve marble snowmen (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: Peter Regli
What: “RH No. 320 (Snow Monsters)”
Where: Flatiron Plaza, intersection of Fifth Ave., Broadway, and 23rd St.
When: Daily through March 13
Why: It’s been a monster of a winter, so Peter Regli’s “Snow Monsters” look right at home on Flatiron Plaza, a dozen marble snowmen hanging out in the shadow of the Flatiron Building next to Madison Square Park. This 320th installment of Regli’s Reality Hacking series, realized and pending public-space interventions that began back in 1995 in Zurich, follows such other New York City projects as 1999’s “Wall Clocks,” 2000’s “Walk/Talk” and “Post No Bills,” 2002’s “Tempo,” and 2009’s “Flag.” A collaboration between the Dominique Lévy Gallery, the New York City Department of Transportation Art Program, and the Flatiron 23rd Street Partnership, “Snow Monsters” invites curiosity not only because the snowmen look real from a distance (and remain in the exact same position no matter the weather) but because they are on a median that often is home to corporate-sponsored initiatives, but these sculptures are not selling anything, instead just helping New Yorkers pay closer attention to their surroundings and, as Regli says, helping to “put question marks into the everyday world. . . . I chose the snowman because of its Buddha-like nature. They appear briefly in the world, bring joy and evoke memories of childhood, then disappear again, melting away without complaint.”

THE STOOP SERIES — DIGITAL CITY: GOOGLE MAP HACKERS

Jennifer Maravillas, whose ongoing “71 Square Miles” project is part of “Mapping Brooklyn” exhibition, will be at BRIC for Stoop Series talk on March 3

Artist Jennifer Maravillas, whose ongoing “71 Square Miles” project is part of “Mapping Brooklyn” exhibition, will be at BRIC for Stoop Series discussion on March 3 (photo courtesy Jennifer Maravillas)

Who: Justin Blinder, Brian House, and Jennifer Maravillas
What: “The Stoop Series”
Where: BRIC House, 647 Fulton St., 718-683-5600
When: Tuesday, March 3, free, 7:00
Why: In conjunction with the new exhibition “Mapping Brooklyn,” a joint venture between BRIC and the Brooklyn Historical Society, exhibition artists Justin Blinder and Jennifer Maravillas and media artist Brian House will discuss the use of technology in their work, with a particular focus on Google Maps, as part of “The Stoop Series.” The exhibit, which also includes contributions from Aaron Beebe, Joyce Kozloff, Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin, and others, continues through May 3 at BRIC and September 6 at BHS. In addition, on March 14 and April 11, Chloë Bass will perform live as part of her “Mental Map” interactive installation; on March 28, Katarina Jerinic will lead “Visit to Erratic Monuments,” a walking tour between BRIC and BHS; and on April 2, BHS will host “Tales from the Vault! Wish You Were Here,” which looks at historical Brooklyn maps and tourism guides.

WIM WENDERS: PARIS, TEXAS

Harry Dean Stanton gives a staggering performance as a lost soul in PARIS, TEXAS

PARIS, TEXAS (Wim Wenders, 1984)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Monday, March 2, 3:45, and Wednesday, March 11, 6:15
Series runs March 2-17
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

Winner of both the Palme d’Or and the Critics Prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas is a stirring and provocative road movie about the dissolution of the American family and the death of the American dream. Written by Sam Shepard and adapted by L. M. Kit Carson, the two-and-a-half-hour film opens with a haggard man (Harry Dean Stanton) wandering through a vast, deserted landscape. A close-up of him in his red hat, seen against blue skies and white clouds, evokes the American flag. (Later shots show him looking up at a flag flapping in the breeze, as well as a graffiti depiction of the Statue of Liberty.) After he collapses in a bar in the middle of nowhere, he is soon discovered to be Travis Henderson, a husband and father who has been missing for four years. His brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell), a successful L.A. billboard designer, comes to take him home, but Travis, remaining silent, keeps walking away. He eventually reveals that he is trying to get to Paris, Texas, where he has purchased a plot of land in the desert, but he avoids discussing his past and why he walked out on his wife, Jane (Nastassja Kinski), and son, Hunter (Hunter Carson, the son of L. M. Kit Carson and Karen Black), who is being raised by Walt and his wife, Anne (Aurore Clément). An odd man who is afraid of flying, has a penchant for arranging shoes, and falls asleep at key moments, Travis sets out with Hunter to find Jane and make something out of his lost life.

Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) and Hunter (Hunter Carson) bond while searching for Jane in Wim Wenders road movie

Longtime character actor Stanton (Repo Man, Wise Blood) is brilliant as Travis, his long, craggy face and sad, puppy-dog eyes conveying his troubled soul and buried emotions, his slow, careful gait awash in loneliness and desperation. The scenes between Travis and Jane are a master class in acting and storytelling; Stanton and Kinski (Tess, Cat People) will break your heart over and over again as they face the hardest of truths. Wenders and regular cinematographer Robby Müller use a one-way mirror to absolutely stunning effect in these scenes about what is hidden and what is revealed in a relationship. Wenders had previously made the Road Movie Trilogy of Alice in the Cities, The Wrong Move, and Kings of the Road, which also dealt with difficult family issues, but Paris, Texas takes things to another level. Ry Cooder’s gorgeous slide-guitar soundtrack is like a requiem for the American dream, now a wasteland of emptiness. (Cooder would later make Buena Vista Social Club with Wenders. Another interesting connection is that Wenders’s assistant director was Allison Anders, who would go on to write and direct the indie hit Gas Food Lodging.) A uniquely told family drama, Paris, Texas is rich with deft touches and subtle details, all encapsulated in the final shot. (Don’t miss what it says on that highway billboard.) Paris, Texas is screening in a new digital restoration at MoMA on March 2 at 3:45 and March 11 at 6:15 as part of a two-plus-week Wenders retrospective in advance of the release of his latest film, the Oscar-nominated documentary The Salt of the Earth; the director will be on hand to introduce the March 2 screening. The series continues through March 17 with such other Wenders works as The American Friend, Wings of Desire, Until the End of the World, Tokyo-Ga, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, and other well-known gems and rare early shorts, with Wenders at the museum for Q&As and introductions at all screenings through March 7.

KILL ME LIKE YOU MEAN IT

Nathan Darrow stars as private investigator Ben Farrell in Stolen Chair noir parody (photo by Carrie Leonard)

Nathan Darrow stars as private investigator Ben Farrell in Stolen Chair film noir parody (photo by Carrie Leonard)

Fourth Street Theatre
83 East Fourth St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
Wednesday – Sunday through March 8, $25-$45, 7:00 or 8:00
www.stolenchair.org

Stolen Chair, which specializes in creating unique theatrical experiences (The Man Who Laughs, Potion), does it again with the film noir parody Kill Me Like You Mean It, an existential exploration of the very nature of storytelling, keeping its existential tongue in its existential cheek as it mines through the familiar clichés of the rich American genre while also searching for the meaning of existence. Written by company co-artistic director Kiran Rikhye and directed by cofounder Jon Stancato, the show follows private investigator Ben Farrell (Nathan Darrow), a former cop who is hired by Murder Monthly magazine publisher Lydia Forsythe (Natalie Hegg) to find her star writer, Tommy Dickie (David Skeist), who is in the midst of a series of stories about private investigator Bob Darrell, whose cases predict what will happen next to Farrell in real life. However, Dickie doesn’t appear to be missing at all, as Farrell finds him at home, where his bombshell sister, Vivian Ballantine (Sarah Skeist), hires Farrell to investigate Forsythe. “Truth is stranger than fiction,” Tommy says, to which Farrell retorts, “No. Truth is fiction.” Soon Farrell is trying to prevent Forsythe and Dickie from publishing a story in which Darrell dies, thinking that will lead to his own death as well.

PI Ben Farrell (Nathan Darrow) needs to twist a few arms to get information in KILL ME LIKE YOU MEAN IT (photo by Carrie Leonard)

There’s plenty of playful pulp throughout Kill Me Like You Mean It, which features appropriately dark, moody lighting by David Bengali and a jazzy score by Sean Cronin. There are an additional two sets of seats on either side of the stage, like a jury deliberating on the action unfolding in front of them in a courtroom drama while also providing different angles that evoke noir compositions. Various props are stored underneath the higher of the two, most memorably a bathtub, used for a riotous send-up of a memorable scene from Otto Preminger’s Laura; set changes, most prominently an inventive use of moving doors, are made by a pair of mysterious men with flashlights. Darrow, who plays the Underwood bodyguard Edward Meechum on House of Cards, is wonderfully deadpan spitting out absurdist takes on noir dialogue, keeping a straight face as he gets into splendid rat-a-tat-tat conversations. Vivian: “I’d like you to feel safe. Go on and search me.” Farrell: “What do you think I’ll find?” Vivian: “What would you like to find?” Farrell: “What do you think I’d like to find?” Vivian: “I think you’d like to find whatever you’re looking for.” Farrell: “What would you like me to be looking for?” Vivian: “Why don’t you find it and find out.” Stancato adds such other fun touches as running jokes about cigarettes and lighters, face slapping, and hats. The boundaries between fiction, reality, and yet another level of fiction even extend to the program, which is a mock edition of Murder Monthly that comes complete with an installment of Tommy Dickie’s serial and some old-fashioned ads, one of which is for a whiskey that audience members are offered a sample of upon entering the theater. Also in the program is a list of suggested movies to check out, ranging from Chinatown, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, and L.A. Confidential to The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, and D.O.A., prime viewing indeed. Be sure to arrive a little early to be serenaded by some noir-era crooning.

SEMELE

Chinese visual and performance artist makes his directorial debut with Canadian Opera Company production of SEMELE (photo by Michael Cooper)

Who: Zhang Huan and the Canadian Opera Company
What: Semele
Where: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 230 Lafayette Ave., 718-636-4100
When: March 4-10, $35-$170
Why: Chinese visual and performance artist Zhang Huan brings a distinctly Chinese look and feel to the Canadian Opera Company’s multimedia production of George Frideric Handel and William Congreve’s Semele, the Greek myth about the love affair between the god Jupiter and the mortal Semele, which does not make Jupiter’s wife, Juno, very happy. In his directorial debut, Zhang, who works in Shanghai and New York City, re-creates an authentic 17-ton, 450-year-old Ming Dynasty temple as part of the set, while also incorporating a Chinese dragon and sumo wrestlers. The opera is conducted by Christopher Moulds, with costumes by fashion designer Han Feng, and lighting by Willem Laarman based on Wolfgang Göbbel’s original design; coloratura soprano Jane Archibald plays Semele, with Colin Ainsworth as Jupiter and Hilary Summers as Juni/Ino. The three-hour opera will be performed March 4, 6, 8, and 10; Neil Kutner and Paul Bartlett will lead the master class “Semele: Behind the Scenes” on March 8 at 10:00 am at BAM Fisher ($45).