twi-ny recommended events

ROCKS IN MY POCKETS

Signe Baumane examines her family history of suicide and depression in ROCKS IN MY POCKETS

ROCKS IN MY POCKETS: A CRAZY QUEST FOR SANITY (Signe Baumane, 2014)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Wednesday, September 3
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.rocksinmypocketsmovie.com

The recent suicide of Robin Williams shook the nation, once again pointing out that depression is no laughing matter. But Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based writer-director-producer-animator Signe Baumane takes a unique approach to depression and suicide in the darkly twisted animated film Rocks in My Pockets: A Crazy Quest for Sanity. Influenced by such animation giants as Jan Švankmajer and Bill Plympton in addition to Lithuanian-Polish illustrator Stasys Eidrigevicius and Russian animator Yuri Norstein, Baumane, a self-described “Master of Self Pity,” incorporates hand-drawn animation, papier-mâché constructions, and stop-motion animation in telling the story of her family’s long history of mental illness and suicide. Inspired by her own thoughts of ending it all, Baumane (Teat Beat of Sex), in her feature-length debut, divides the film into segments about her suicidal relatives. She narrates the tales of Indulis, an entrepreneur and failed counterfeiter with an “idea-generating brain”; Anna, a university graduate and secretary who falls in love with Indulis, her married boss; Miranda, who looks at the world as if everything were a work of art; Linda, a medical student with big dreams; Irbe, a lonely music teacher who hears voices in her head; and herself as they all experience various aspects of severe depression while facing the trials and tribulations of everyday life in a changing sociopolitical climate in Eastern Europe.

ROCKS IN MY POCKETS uses twisted humor to explore some very serious subjects

Despite the serious topics and events — and the regular appearance of nooses tempting the protagonists — Rocks in My Pockets is filled with clever jokes, imaginative visual puns, beautiful imagery, and a playful score by Kristian Sensini; Baumane refers to it as “a funny film about depression,” and that’s just what it is. The animated characters make their way through lush forests, across a real chess board, and past other colorful backgrounds as reality strikes them hard. The personal nature of the film is enhanced by Baumane’s own narration, in her thick Latvian accent. (Her mother attempted to talk her out of doing the narration, thinking it was a bad idea.) “I want to survive, but I don’t want to live,” Baumane says halfway through the film. “When my brain is idle, it starts eating itself.” Fearing that depression and suicide are part of her DNA, she’s unsure how she can get away from it — and prevent it from affecting future generations of her family. Winner of the International Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize at the 2014 Karlovy Vary Film Festival and financed in part by a Kickstarter campaign (where you can learn more about the making-of process), Rocks in My Pockets opens September 3 at the IFC Center, with Baumane taking part in Q&As following the 6:30 and 8:30 shows on Wednesday and Thursday, with more to be announced; in addition, original drawings from the film will be given away at select screenings.

FIFTY YEARS OF JOHN WATERS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU TAKE? DESPERATE LIVING

Peggy Gravel’s quaint suburban life is about to go to hell in John Waters’s DESPERATE LIVING

DESPERATE LIVING (John Waters, 1977)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Sunday, September 7, 6:30
Series runs September 5-14
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.com

A turning point in his career, John Waters’s Desperate Living is an off-the-charts bizarre, fetishistic fairy tale, the ultimate suburban nightmare. Mink Stole stars as Peggy Gravel, a wealthy housewife suffering yet another of her mental breakdowns. In the heat of the moment, she and the family maid, four-hundred-pound Grizelda Brown (Jean Hill), kill Peggy’s mild-mannered husband, Bosley (George Stover), and the two women end up finding refuge in one of the weirdest towns ever put on celluloid, Mortville, where MGM’s The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Toyland meet Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (with some Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, and Douglas Sirk thrown into the mix as well). “I ain’t your maid anymore, bitch! I’m your sister in crime!” Grizelda declares. Peggy and Grizelda move into the “guest house” of manly Mole McHenry (Susan Lowe) and her blonde bombshell lover, Muffy St. Jacques (Liz Renay). Mortville is run as a kind of fascist state by the cruel and unusual despot Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey), an evil shrew who enjoys being serviced by her men-in-leather attendants, issues psychotic proclamations, and is determined that her daughter, Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivian Pearce), stop dating her garbage-man boyfriend, Herbert (George Figgs). (Wait, Mortville has a sanitation department?) Camp and trash combine like nuclear fission as things get only crazier from there, devolving into gorgeous low-budget madness and completely over-the-top ridiculousness, a mélange of sex, violence, and impossible-to-describe lunacy that Waters himself claimed was a movie “for fucked-up children.”

John Waters’s DESPERATE LIVING is a celebration of camp and trash, an extremely adult and bizarre fairy tale

The opening scenes of Peggy’s meltdown are utterly hysterical. When a neighbor hits a baseball through her bedroom window and offers to pay for it with his allowance, she screams, “How about my life? Do you get enough allowance to pay for that? I know you were trying to kill me! What’s the matter with the courts? Do they allow this lawlessness and malicious destruction of property to run rampant? I hate the Supreme Court! Oh, God. God. God. Go home to your mother! Doesn’t she ever watch you? Tell her this isn’t some communist day-care center! Tell your mother I hate her! Tell your mother I hate you!” The sets and costumes are deranged — and perhaps influenced Pee-wee’s Playhouse — the relatively spare score is fun, and the acting is, well, appropriate. The first half of the film is better than the second half, but it’s still a delight to watch Waters, who wrote, directed, and produced the film, which was shot in a kind of lurid Technicolor by Charles Ruggero, take on authority figures (beware of Sheriff Shitface), gender identity, class structure, hero worship, beauty, race, crime, nudity, and, of course, at its very heart, love and romance. Desperate Living is screening September 7 at 6:30 as part of the spectacularly titled Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Fifty Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take?” The series runs September 5-14 and features all of Baltimore’s favorite son’s shorts and full-length movies, from Polyester and Pink Flamingos to Serial Mom and Hairspray, in addition to “Movies I’m Jealous I Didn’t Make,” eight films that Waters says are “extreme, astoundingly perverse, darkly funny, and, most importantly, supremely surprising films that turn me green with envy,” including David Cronenberg’s Crash, Mai Zetterling’s Night Games, William Friedkin’s Killer Joe, and George P. Cosmatos’s Of Unknown Origin.

JIM RENNERT: THINK BIG / PERSPECTIVE

Jim Rennert’s “Perspective” offers passersby a chance to reflect on their life and career (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Union Square Park
14th St. & Union Square East
17th St. & Broadway
Through October 31, free
www.nycgovparks.org/art
jim rennert slideshow

Sculptor Jim Rennert examines the fast-paced nature of corporate culture in his work, offering passersby the opportunity to take a step back and reconsider their goals and how to achieve them. A recent show at Project 3W57 featured small bronze sculptures of men in suits with such titles as “Decisions Decisions,” “Steady,” “Second Chance,” “A Reasonable Man,” and “Clean Slate.” That same businessman figure can now be found at opposite corners of Union Square Park, a pair of sculptures that Rennert, who was raised in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City, intends to bring to people a positive outlook on life. In the island off the southeast corner of the park is “Think Big,” a twelve-foot-tall man in a suit, his hands at his side, his mouthless face gazing up at the heavens, imagining the American dream that might still be within his reach. Meanwhile, in the pedestrian plaza just off the northwest end of the park, is “Perspective,” in which the businessman, only slightly larger than a Wall Street executive, is looking up at the sky, his hands clasped behind his back, considering what awaits him as people hurry past. Rennert, who uses the lost-wax casting method in creating his sculptures, sees the pieces as inspirational in nature while also being contemplative and reflective. “The work has evolved into developing a consistent character and creating an environment in which the interaction between the two brings in the viewer,” he explains in his artist statement. “This approach seems to allow the audience an opportunity to relate to the work in a very personal manner. While not everyone wears a suit, I feel the themes transcend to the everyman.” The sculptures, part of the New York City Department of Transportation’s Art Program, will continue peering up at the future through October 31.

PUBLIC WORKS: THE WINTER’S TALE

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
September 5-7, free, 8:00
www.publictheater.org

The Public Theater’s high-profile outdoor summer season might have come to a close when King Lear starring John Lithgow and Annette Bening ended its run on August 17 (following on the heels of Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe in Much Ado About Nothing), but there’s more free Shakespeare to be had this weekend when the Public Works community initiative program brings The Winter’s Tale to the Delacorte. Last year, the project was initiated with a musical version of The Tempest, directed by Lear deBessonet, choreographed by Chase Brock, and with music and lyrics by Todd Almond; that same trio is back with the Bard’s mysterious romance, featuring a wide-ranging cast that combines professional actors with members of community organizations from all five boroughs. “We believe that theater has a specific role to play; it always has,” Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis says in the above promotional video. “It’s a democratizing impulse, it’s an empowering impulse, it’s a participatory impulse, and what we’re trying to do is spread the glory of that so that everybody in the city has the chance to have that experience.” The musical, which will have some two hundred people onstage in total, stars Almond (Girlfriend, Melancholy Play) as Antigonus, Christopher Fitzgerald (Wicked, Young Frankenstein) as Autolycus, Isaiah Johnson (Peter and the Starcatcher, The Merchant of Venice) as Leontes, Lindsay Mendez (Wicked, Dogfight) as Hermione, and David Turner (Arcadia, Sunday in the Park with George) as the Clown, along with men, women, and children from the Children’s Aid Society, the DreamYard Project, the Fortune Society, the Brownsville Recreation Center, and Domestic Workers United. In addition, there will be group cameos by Sesame Street, the New York Theatre Ballet, DanceBrazil, Rosie’s Theater Kids, the Shinbone Alley Stilt Band, the Staten Island Lions, and AATMA Performing Arts. The show runs September 5-7, and free tickets are available the same day in Central Park and through the Public’s online virtual ticketing lottery or by advance donation of $75.

RACHEL FEINSTEIN’S “THE LAST DAYS OF FOLLY” PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL

“Rococo Hut” is one of three sculptural pieces that make up Rachel Feinstein’s “Folly” in Madison Square Park (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FOLLY
Madison Square Park
23rd to 25th Sts. between Madison Ave. & Broadway
Wednesday, September 3, free, 5:30 – 8:30
Exhibition continues through September 7
www.madisonsquarepark.org
folly slideshow

At first look, Rachel Feinstein’s site-specific “Folly” installation in Madison Square Park appears to be a trio of fragile ornamental structures, seemingly crudely made out of paper (they began life as handmade paper models), that could serve as backdrops for a high school play. Echoing fairy-tale-like nonfunctional garden decoration from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe as well as Nymphenburg porcelain, the three pieces — “Cliff House,” inspired by Ballets Russes sets; “Rococo Hut,” influenced by Marie Antoinette’s château Le Petit Triannon; and “The Flying Ship,” based on a Commedia dell’arte skit about Punchinello — are actually constructed from powder-coated aluminum. The works, which also give nods to Federico Fellini, Marlene Dietrich’s portrayal of Catherine the Great in The Scarlet Empress, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s real and imagined landscapes, might look like they could collapse at any moment — “Rococo Hut” features crooked steps, “The Flying Ship” uses a tree for balance, and “Cliff House” looks supremely unsafe — but they are sturdy enough to be home to a wide-ranging collection of performances on September 3. “The Madison Park Conservancy has given me the opportunity to marry my early interest in theater and performance with my later obsession with the handmade in one of the most spectacular settings. I picture ‘Folly’ as an empty Fellini-esque set dropped into the middle of a lush green wonderland in the historical Flatiron district of New York City,” the New York City-based Feinstein (“The Snow Queen”), who was born in Defiance, Arizona, and raised in Miami, said in a statement. “I have always been driven by the stark contrast between good and evil in old fairy tales. Having this setting, a hidden natural jewel situated within the tall skyscrapers of yesterday and today, will be the perfect backdrop for my theater, where the real people who occupy the park every day will stand in as Commedia dell’arte performers.”

Rachel Feinstein’s “Folly” will be home to a wide-ranging performance festival on September 3 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

On Wednesday, “The Last Days of Folly” will consist of My Barbarian performing its “Broke Baroque Suite”; a procession through the park led by artists Allison Brainard and Cara Chan; musical segues by Jarvis Cocker based on Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé for the Ballets Russes; Sofia Coppola directing six Joffrey Ballet School ballerinas dancing to Isao Tomita’s version of one of Claude Debussy’s Arabesques; a sound-and-movement piece from multidisciplinary artist Tamar Ettun; Little Did Productions’ magic lantern interpretation of parts of the Ramayana with Luke Santy on sitar and Jessica Lorence on vocals; an improvised dance by Lil Buck set to music by Paul Cantelon and cellist Wolfram Koessel; Kalup Linzy’s “Romantic Loner” and “One Life to Heal,” with live music by Mike Jackson; Molly Lowe’s nude costume incorporating numerous performers; a music set by Angela McCluskey and Cantelon, joined by Lil Buck and others; a puppet show from Shana Moulton; a new video work by Tony Oursler collaborating with Constance DeJong; a sound installation by Carlos Vela-Prado; and “Folly”-inspired fashion from Giles Deacon, Duro Olowu, Zac Posen, Narciso Rodriguez, Cynthia Rowley, Proenza Schouler, and Madeline Weinrib. We have no idea how this is all going to be squeezed into a mere three hours, but we can’t wait to find out.

SECOND OPINION: LAETRILE AT SLOAN-KETTERING

Science writer Dr. Ralph W. Moss tells the fascinating story of the battle over Laetrile in the 1970s in SECOND OPINION

SECOND OPINION (Eric Merola, 2014)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, August 29
212-529-6799
www.secondopinionfilm.com
www.cinemavillage.com

At the beginning of Eric Merola’s Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering, a 1970s news reporter says, “Dr. Robert Good, president of the Sloan Kettering Institute, one of the world’s biggest and richest cancer research centers, said Laetrile does not prevent cancer, nor cure cancer, nor stop cancer from spreading.” For the next seventy-five minutes, Ralph W. Moss, PhD, the public affairs science writer for the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center from 1974 to 1977, talks about what lay behind that statement and the furor that followed. He tells the captivating story of what went on behind the scenes as Laetrile, a form of amygdalin used in tumor treatment, was coveted by cancer patients but demonized by the medical establishment. The controversy over the drug, which was eventually banned in America, forced patients to go to Mexico in search of the palliative care medicine while the FDA, the National Cancer Institute, and several high-profile MSK doctors considered it to be quackery. MSK’s own top researcher, Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, had exciting success treating mice with the drug, hopeful that the positive effects would be proven in humans as well. But when Dr. Good, MSK vice presidents Dr. Lloyd J. Old and Dr. Chester Stock, and MSKCC president Dr. Lewis Thomas decided that Laetrile was not the future of cancer treatment, despite what some of them had previously stated in public, Moss was confused and distressed. Others were as well; the documentary reveals that the political dimension of the debate eventually brought even the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society into the fray. Moss eventually became a whistleblower, writing numerous books on the subject, including The Cancer Industry, Cancer Therapy: The Independent Consumer’s Guide to Non-Toxic Treatment & Prevention, and the brand-new Doctored Results: The Suppression of Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, which spurred the documentary.

Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura’s research on Laetrile was eventually rejected by Sloan Kettering leadership

Writer, director, producer, and coeditor Merola (Burzynski) lets Moss share his tale while sitting in a chair in the middle of a room at the Aldrich House in Providence, an odd if somewhat comforting choice, supplemented by archival footage and brief comments from Moss’s wife, Martha, son, Ben, and daughter, Melissa, in addition to Dr. Alex Pruchnicki, the only medical professional to come out in support of Moss without being anonymous. Merola also often cuts between two cameras, one a disorienting shot that shows the subject from the side, as if he had to try something different since the film is mostly talking heads. It’s quite an amazing story, and one that continues today, as labs around the world test and question the effectiveness of Laetrile. But watching Second Opinion, it’s hard not to wonder just what might have happened had MSKCC allowed Dr. Sugiura’s research to go on and the government given the drug more of a chance. The film is playing at Cinema Village, with Merola and Dr. Moss participating in Q&As following several screenings over the weekend, concluding with the 3:10 showing on August 31.

CROSSING THE LINE 2014

Fernando Rubio’s “Everything by My Side” takes place on seven beds in Hudson River Park as part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival

French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 8 – October 20, free – $35
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

One of the best multidisciplinary arts festivals every year, FIAF’s Crossing the Line is back for its eighth season, featuring another exciting lineup of dance, theater, music, installation, exhibitions, and hard-to-describe events. Cocurators Lili Chopra, Simon Dove, and Gideon Lester explain it thusly: “This year’s edition of Crossing the Line brings together fifteen extraordinary international artists and companies, each of them offering unique perspectives on the world we all share. We invite New Yorkers to explore their meticulous and deeply considered work, both the familiar and the unknown, and find inspiration, provocation, and pure pleasure.” Hosted by the French Institute Alliance Française and taking place there as well as several other locations, CTL offers numerous opportunities to “find inspiration, provocation, and pure pleasure.” Palais Galliera director Olivier Saillard gets seven former supermodels to open up in Models Never Talk, a world premiere at Milk Studios. Trajal Harrell continues his Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church with a week of special performances at the Kitchen. Justin Vivian Bond is joined by special guest Miguel Gutierrez for the one-night-only Love Is Crazy, consisting of songs and stories about love and romance.

Prune Nourry’s “Terracotta Daughters” will stand guard at 104 Washington St. for eighth edition of CTL

Patti Smith, her daughter, Jesse, and Soundwalk Collective examine the death of Nico in unique ways in Killer Road at FIAF. Swiss choreographer Gilles Jobin and German visual artist Julius von Bismarck use motion-sensor technology and lighting to delve into physics in Quantum at BAM Fisher. Jessica Mitrani and Pedro Almodóvar regular Rossy de Palma pay tribute to Nellie Bly in Traveling Lady at FIAF. The audience is encouraged to participate in Aaron Landsman’s free Republic of New York: Perfect City Discussions at Abrons Arts Center. Fernando Rubio’s Everything by My Side is a fifteen-minute rotating performance on seven beds in Hudson River Park. The works of French choreographer Xavier Le Roy will be re-created at MoMA PS1. Prune Nourry’s “Terracotta Daughters” exhibition at 104 Washington St. challenges gender roles in China and the world. Julie Béna’s site-specific “T&T Consortium: You’re Already Elsewhere” at the FIAF Gallery puts visitors into a fantastical setting. The star of the festival is Japanese electronic artist Ryoji Ikeda, whose Park Avenue Armory installation “The Transfinite” dazzled New York back in 2011; the mathematical mastermind will present the immersive, multimedia Superposition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a gallery exhibition at Salon 94, and “Test Pattern [Times Square],” which can be seen on nearly four dozen screens in Times Square as part of the “Midnight Moment” program each night in October from 11:57 pm to midnight. CTL is also one of the most affordable festivals, with nothing costing more than $35, so you have no excuse not to check out at least a few of these ultracool events.