A Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) and an abandoned child (Jackie Coogan) form a family in THE KID
THE KID (Charlie Chaplin, 1921)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Sunday, May 5, $7, 11:00 am
Series continues through August 11
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
Charlie Chaplin’s first feature, The Kid, was a breakthrough for the British-born silent-film star, a touching and tender sixty-eight-minute triumph about a poor soul getting a second chance at life. When a baby arrives at his doorstep, a Tramp (Chaplin) first tries to ditch the boy, but he ends up taking him to his ramshackle apartment and raising him as if he were his own flesh and blood. Although he has so little, the Tramp makes sure the child, eventually played by Jackie Coogan, has food to eat, clothes to wear, and books to read. Meanwhile, the mother (Edna Purviance, Chaplin’s former lover), who has become a big star, regrets her earlier decision and wonders where her son is, setting up a heartbreaking finale. In addition to playing the starring role, Chaplin wrote, produced, directed, and edited the film and composed the score for his company, First National, wonderfully blending slapstick comedy, including a hysterical street fight with an angry neighbor, with touching melodrama as he examines poverty in post-WWI America, especially as seen through the eyes of the orphan boy, played beautifully by Coogan, who went on to marry Betty Grable, among others, and star as Uncle Fester in The Addams Family. Chaplin’s innate ability to tell a moving story primarily through images reveals his understanding of cinema’s possibilities, and The Kid holds up as one of his best, alongside such other silent classics as 1925’s The Gold Rush and 1931’s City Lights. The Kid is screening on May 5 at 11:00 am as part of the Film Forum Jr. series for kids and families and will be preceded by a Little Rascals short and a Chaplin Dress-Alike Contest; the series continues May 12 with Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much and May 19 with François Truffaut’s Small Change.
If director Ryan Gielen’s Turtle Hill, Brooklyn feels real, that’s because it was written and produced by real-life partners Brian W. Seibert and Ricardo Valdez, who star as on-screen couple Will (Seibert) and Mateo (Valdez), and takes place in their Sunset Park apartment, in a neighborhood they have redubbed “Turtle Hill” for this gentle, understated slice-of-life drama. It’s Will’s thirtieth birthday, and Mateo is getting ready to throw a big party in their backyard patio. But when Will’s sister unexpectedly shows up early in the morning and suddenly discovers that her brother is gay — and is clearly not okay with that kind of lifestyle — Will and Mateo start examining themselves and their relationship as friends start arriving for the celebration, where there’s lots of food and drink as well as discussions about politics, same-sex marriage, immigration, drugs, discrimination, and America itself, none of which comes off as pedantic. Things, however, threaten to become volatile when a gym trainer stops by, exciting Will and unnerving Mateo. Shot with a handheld camera by Andrew Tank Rivara, the film invites the audience into the party, as if they are guests as well, surrounded by friends and family. (Indeed, many of the guests are friends of Seibert and Valdez’s.) It’s a welcoming atmosphere filled with believable situations and characters, even though Seibert and Valdez have explained that the plot is not autobiographical. And the film avoids the potential pitfalls of pushing a gay agenda by simply allowing the story to play out organically, resulting in an involving tale about two people in love, facing a pivotal moment in their lives together. A film festival hit across the country, Turtle Hill, Brooklyn, which won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at 2011’s NewFest, opens May 3 at the Quad, with Gielen, Seibert, and Valdez participating in Q&As following the 7:00 and 9:00 screenings on Friday and Saturday.
Olivier Assayas’s autobiographical coming-of-age tale Something in the Air is a fresh, exhilarating look back at a critical period in twentieth-century French history. In this sort-of follow-up to his 1994 film about 1970s teenagers, Cold Water, which starred Virginie Ledoyen as Christine and Cyprien Fouquet as Gilles, Something in the Air features newcomer Clément Métayer as a boy named Gilles and Lola Créton (
