twi-ny recommended events

VILLAGE HALLOWEEN PARADE: THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS

It’ll be party time Friday night at the forty-first annual Village Halloween Parade

Friday, October 31, 7:00 – 11:00
Sixth Ave. South & Spring St. to 16th St.
Admission/participation: free, but donations accepted
www.halloween-nyc.com

With the growing popularity of the Mermaid Parade and the Gay Pride March, the Village Halloween Parade might have lost its unique stature, but there’s still nothing quite like this annual tradition. The theme of the forty-first annual event is the Garden of Earthly Delights, so an endless pageantry of pleasure should be on display as hundreds of puppets, more than fifty music and dance groups, and just plain folk dress up and make their way from Sixth Ave. and Spring St. to Sixteenth St., led by Grand Marshal Whoopi Goldberg. As artistic and producing director Jeanne Fleming and master puppeteer Alex Kahn explain, “Although one often associates Halloween with things Infernal, this year’s Halloween Parade is headed to Paradise, or more specifically the Garden of Earthly Delights. Join us as we unearth the layers of Hieronymus Bosch’s timeless altarpiece, exploring the precarious borderland Garden between the primeval terrors of wilderness and the modern confines of civility. . . . It is a place of infinite possibilities and permutations contained within a finite and intimate space. Gardens are also places of forbidden delights and forgotten joys hidden away behind ivied walls and locked gates.” All costumed souls are invited to participate in the parade; just follow the very specific instructions here. And be on the lookout for the raising of the giant puppets, a treat not unlike the blowing-up of the balloons for the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

THE GREAT INVISIBLE

Tugboat captain Latham Smith participated in the massive cleanup needed after explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico

THE GREAT INVISIBLE (Margaret Brown, 2014)
Village East Cinema
181-189 Second Ave. at 12th St.
Opens Wednesday, October 29
212-529-6799
www.villageeastcinema.com
www.takepart.com

Shortly after the fatal Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on April 20, 2010, dumped more than two hundred million gallons of BP oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Alabama native and award-winning documentarian Margaret Brown (The Order of Myths, Be Here to Love Me: A Film about Townes Van Zandt) returned to the Gulf Coast, where she was raised, in order to make a very personal film about the disaster. But she ended up with so much more in The Great Invisible, a powerful, infuriating exploration of the tragedy and its lingering effects on the environment and local communities in Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. Showing that the calamity is far from over, Brown speaks with survivor Douglas Brown, the chief mechanic on the rig who talks poignantly about what happened, sharing footage he took of the rig prior to the explosion; survivor Stephen Stone, a roustabout on the rig who now suffers from PTSD; attorney Keith Jones, whose son, Gordon, was one of the eleven workers killed in the explosion, and is now leading the fight to get justice for the victims in court; Latham Smith, a tugboat captain who was called in to help with the cleanup; oil and gas industry veteran Bob Cavnar, author of Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout; Roosevelt Harris, who volunteers for the Hemley Road Church of Christ Mobile Food Pantry, delivering food and emotional support to families whose livelihoods have been impacted by the disaster; a group of oil industry executives chatting among themselves; and Kenneth Feinberg, the dispute resolution specialist in charge of administering the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Victim Compensation Fund, which has not exactly made much of a difference. BP refused to participate in the film.

Residents of Hardluck City seem resigned to their fate in THE GREAT INVISIBLE

Residents of Hardluck City are facing a bleak future in THE GREAT INVISIBLE

Brown supplements the film with devastating footage of the oil spill itself, maps that detail the breadth of the disaster, clips from congressional hearings that have gone nowhere, and news reports that have gotten fewer and fewer more than four years after the explosion. “Generally, it takes some kind of a traumatic event to change people’s behavior,” Cavnar says. “I’d hoped that the Deepwater Horizon was going to raise everybody’s consciousness, but it didn’t. And that’s the tragedy.” Winner of the Grand Jury prize at the SXSW Film Festival, The Great Invisible is the kind of documentary that you hope will raise people’s consciousness, especially that of the oil industry itself and the government, but, as the film shows, that appears to be highly unlikely as wealthy corporations once again trump regular citizens. The Great Invisible opens October 29 at the Village East; Brown will participate in Q&As after screenings on October 29 & 30 at 7:40 and November 1 at 2:00.

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE

Jean-Luc Godard’s GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE speaks for itself

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (ADIEU AU LANGAGE) (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Francesca Beale Theater, 144 West 65th St., 212-875-5050
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St., 212-924-7771
Opens Wednesday, October 29
212-875-5050
www.kinolorber.com

After the New York Film Festival advance press screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s 3D Goodbye to Language, a colleague turned to me and said, “If this was Godard’s first film, he would never have had a career.” While I don’t know whether that might be true, I do know that Goodbye to Language is the 3D flick Godard was born to make, a 3D movie that couldn’t have come from anyone else. What’s it about? I have no idea. Well, that’s not exactly right. It’s about everything, and it’s about nothing. It’s about the art of filmmaking. It’s about the authority of the state and freedom. It’s about extramarital affairs. It’s about seventy minutes long. It’s about communication in the digital age. (Surprise! Godard does not appear to be a fan of the cell phone and Yahoo!) And it’s about a cute dog (which happens to be his own mutt, Miéville, named after his longtime partner, Anne-Marie Miéville). In the purposefully abstruse press notes, Godard, now eighty-three, describes it thusly: “the idea is simple / a married woman and a single man meet / they love, they argue, fists fly / a dog strays between town and country / the seasons pass / the man and woman meet again / the dog finds itself between them / the other is in one / the one is in the other / and they are three / the former husband shatters everything / a second film begins / the same as the first / and yet not / from the human race we pass to metaphor / this ends in barking / and a baby’s cries.” Yes, it’s all as simple as that. Or maybe not.

Jean-Luc Godard has fun with 3D in GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE

Godard divides the film into sections labeled “La Nature” and “La Métaphore,” cutting between several ongoing narratives, from people reading Dostoyevsky, Pound, and Solzhenitsyn at an outdoor café to an often naked man and woman in a kitchen to clips of such old movies as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Snows of Kilimanjaro to Lord Byron and the Shelleys on Lake Geneva. Did I say “narrative”? It’s not really a narrative but instead storytelling as only Godard can do it, and this time in 3D, with the help of cinematographer Fabrice Aragno. Godard has a blast with the medium, which he previously used in a pair of recent shorts. He has fun — and so do we — as he toys with the name of the film and the idea of saying farewell (he plays with the French title, Adieu au langage, forming such puns as “Ah, dieu” and “Ah, dieux,” making the most of 3D layering); creates superimpositions and fast-moving shots that blur the image, making the glasses worthless; changes from sharp color to black-and-white to wild pastel-like bursts of red, blue, and green; evokes various genres, with mystery men in suits and gunshots that might or might not involve kidnapping and murder; and even gets a kick out of where he places the subtitles. These games are very funny, as is the voiceover narration, which includes philosophy from such diverse sources as Jacques Ellul (his essay “The Victory of Hitler”) and Claude Monet (“Paint not what we see, for we see nothing, but paint that we don’t see”). And for those who, like my colleague, believe the film to be crap, Godard even shows the man sitting on the bowl, his girlfriend in the bathroom with him, directly referencing Rodin’s The Thinker and talking about “poop” as he noisily evacuates his bowels. So, in the end, what is Godard saying farewell to? Might this be his last film? Is he saying goodbye to the old ways we communicated? Is he bidding adieu to humanity, leaving the future for the dogs, the trees, and the ocean? Does it matter? A hit at Cannes, Goodbye to Language opens October 29 at the IFC Center and Lincoln Center after screening at the New York Film Festival earlier in the month. You can check out the NSFW French trailer here.

FILMMAKER IN FOCUS — NURI BILGE CEYLAN: CLIMATES

CLIMATES is part of MoMA focus on Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan

CLIMATES (IKLIMLER) (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2006)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Thursday, October 30, 7:30, and Wednesday, November 5, 4:00
Series runs October 29 – November 5
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.nbcfilm.com
www.moma.org

Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and a selection of the New York Film Festival, Climates is a beautifully elegiac look at a desperate relationship set in modern-day Turkey. The film opens with Isa (writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan) and Bahar (Ebru Ceylan, Nuri’s real-life wife) visiting desert ruins. As he walks among ancient pillars, taking photos, she watches him from a distance; the silence is deafening. Later, on a beach, they agree to part ways; while he heads back into the arms of Serap (Nazan Kesal), a friend’s lover, she takes a job on a faraway television program, set in the bitter cold and snow. But Isa still can’t get the younger Bahar out of his mind. Climates features long scenes of little dialogue, with cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki alternating extreme close-ups with gorgeous, nearly empty landscapes, shot in HD digital video, with a haunting piano-based score. Ceylan’s follow-up to Distant, which won the 2003 Jury Grand Prix at Cannes, Climates is a wrenching, challenging tale that will leave audiences emotionally exhausted. Climates is being shown at MoMA on October 30 at 7:30 and November 5 at 4:00 as part of the “Filmmaker in Focus” look at Ceylan, who will introduce the the October 30 screening with actor Mehmet Eryilmaz. The week-long festival runs October 29 to November 5 and also includes Ceylan’s latest film, Kis uykusu (Winter Sleep), in addition to 2011’s Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia), 2008’s Üç maymun (Three Monkeys), 2002s Uzak (Distant), 1999’s Mayis sikintisi (Clouds of May), and 1997’s Kasaba (The Small Town).

NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR

Théâtre de la Ville production of Luigi Pirandello absurdist classic will search for the meaning of existence in Brooklyn (photo by Jean-Louis Fernandez)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
October 29 – November 2, $20-$75
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.theatredelaville-paris.com

“Unfortunately, there always has to be a third, unavoidable element that intrudes between the dramatic author and his creation in the material being of the performance: the actor,” playwright, novelist, and poet Luigi Pirandello wrote in his 1908 essay “Illustrators, Actors, and Translators.” That tenet is central to one of his most famous works, 1921’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, which is being presented at the BAM Harvey Theater October 29 to November 2 by Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, last at BAM in October 2012 with another absurdist classic, Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinocéros, Described by the playwright, who was born in Agrigento, Italy, in 1867, as a comedy “without acts or scenes,” Six Characters questions the very nature of its own being as a dramatic work as a half dozen abandoned characters appear onstage in need of a new author to define their existence. Adapted and translated by François Regnault and directed by Théâtre de la Ville head Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, with set and light design by Yves Collet, music by Jefferson Lembeye, and costumes by Corinne Baudelot, this production once again stars Hugues Quester, who won the Critics’ Award for Best Actor for his performance in the play back in 2001. In conjunction with the show, BAM is teaming up with the Onassis Cultural Center NY for the discussion “On Truth (and Lies) in Authorship,” with Demarcy-Mota and host Simon Critchley, being held on October 30 at 6:00 at BAM Fisher Hillman Studio ($15), as part of the Hellenic Humanities Program.

SPECIAL HALLOWEEN LAUNCH: “BEAUTIFUL YOU” BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK

powerHouse Arena
37 Main St. at Water St., Brooklyn
Friday, October 31, $30, 7:00
718-666-3049
www.powerhousearena.com
www.chuckpalahniuk.net

In Burnt Tongues: An Anthology of Transgressive Stories, which he edited with Richard Thomas and Dennis Widmyer, Chuck Palahniuk writes in his introduction, titled “The Power of Persisting,” “The worst thing you could do is read this book and instantly enjoy every word. This book, the book you’re holding, I hope you gag on a few words — more than a few. May some of the stories scar and trouble you. Whether you like or dislike them doesn’t matter; you’ve already touched these words with your eyes, and they’re becoming part of you. Even if you hate these stories, you’ll come back to them because they’ll test you and prompt you to become someone larger, braver, bolder.” Palahniuk could have just as well been referring to his own novels, intense tales that can provoke scarring and trouble, delighting and offending fans, often simultaneously. In works such as Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey, Haunted, Invisible Monsters, and Fight Club, Palahniuk dares readers to keep turning pages even as the plots and characters he depicts go places no book has ever gone before. Palahniuk’s public events also go places no author has gone before, as he is known for throwing fake body parts into a costumed audience, as he did at New York Comic Con a few years back. (Chuck actually retweeted our posting of photos from that NYCC event, a seminal moment in our existence on Earth.)

On Halloween, Palahniuk will be celebrating the release of his latest novel, Beautiful You (Doubleday, October 2014, $25.95), with a gathering at the powerHouse Arena in DUMBO, where it is demanded that fans come dressed in pajamas, referencing the new book, significant portions of which take place in the bedroom, “where a billion husbands are about to be replaced.” Palahniuk will also have an opening act, Fred Venturini, whose story “Gasoline” is featured in Burnt Tongues. Writing about last week’s San Francisco stop on the Better than Sex Tour, Burnt Tongues contributor Brandon Tietz explained, “There’s a proven formula for a Chuck Palahniuk reading, and he broke it down for me step-by-step: intro, candy toss, story reading, glowing beach ball rave, etc.,” in addition to a Q&A and a severed-arm giveaway. “Best. Reading. Ever,” he concluded. Tickets for the powerHouse extravaganza are $30 and include a presigned copy of Beautiful You. We can’t wait.

MET MUSEUM PRESENTS MALI NOW: BASSEKOU KOUYATÉ

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Thursday, October 30, $35-$45, 7:00
212-570-3949
www.metmuseum.org
www.bassekoukouyate.com

Malian ngoni master Bassekou Kouyaté and his band, Ngoni ba, will conclude the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Mali Now” series with an acoustic concert October 30 in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. The group has released three albums, 2007’s Segu Blue, 2009’s Grammy-nominated I Speak Fula, and the latest, last year’s Jama Ko, which was recorded during the 2012 coup d’état and includes such dramatic songs as “Ne Me Fatigue Pas,” “Wagadou,” and “Segu Jajiri.” The Garana-born Kouyaté, who has been playing the ngoni, also known as a spike lute, since he was twelve, has performed with Taj Mahal, Toumani Diabate, Paul McCartney, Damon Albarn, and others. “Mali Now” previously featured a concert by Salif Keita and a three-part talk by Henry Louis Gates Jr. on the cultural, historical, and political legacy and future of the African nation. If you haven’t been following the influx of terrific Malian music over the last few years, highlighted by Tinariwen, the Touré family, Oumou Sangaré, Salif Keita, and Amadou and Mariam, this show at the Met is a great place to start.