this week in film and television

THE GREAT SILENCE

Jean-Louis Trintignant stars as a mute antihero in Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence

THE GREAT SILENCE (IL GRANDE SILENZIO) (Sergio Corbucci, 1968)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
March 30 – April 10
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

After half a century, Sergio Corbucci’s underseen masterpiece, The Great Silence, is finally being released in the United States, in a gorgeous fiftieth anniversary restoration screening at Film Forum. Corbucci’s revisionist spaghetti Western was shot by Silvano Ippoliti in the Dolomites in northeastern Italy, where luxurious white snow (actually shaving cream) goes on forever until it is stained with so much blood. French star Jean-Louis Trintignant plays a variation of the quiet hero who lets his guns do his talking; Trintignant, who did not speak English, is Silence, who, as a young boy, witnessed the merciless murder of his parents by bounty killers and is rendered mute with a knife to prevent his testimony. Years later, now an adult, Silence, with his unusual Mauser C96, roams the land in search of bounty killers, getting them to draw first so he can then fire back in self-defense, shooting off their thumbs so they can never use a gun again. It’s 1898, and hard times have come to Snow Hill, leading many average citizens to break laws just to put food on the table. Greedy banker Henry Pollicut (Luigi Pistilli) puts a price on their heads, wanted dead or alive, attracting various bounty killers, including the notorious Loco (German star Klaus Kinski), aka Tigrero, who never brings his targets in breathing, no matter how minor their crimes. Relatively hapless sheriff Gideon Burnett (Frank Wolff) is caught somewhere in the middle, as it’s Loco who is on the right side of the law and Silence who is walking a fine line about what’s legal. After Loco kills James Middleton, his widow, Pauline (Vonetta McGee), hires Silence to gain revenge, setting the stage for one of the most brutal endings in the history of cinema.

Klaus Kinski is a vicious bounty killer on the right side of the law in Corbucci masterpiece

The pairing of Trintignant, who had gained international fame in Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman, and Kinski, who had made such previous Westerns as Damiano Damiani’s A Bullet for the General and Sergio Leone’s For a Few Dollars More, has a dark magic, particularly since their characters are not clear representations of good vs. evil. Each one uses their eyes to intense dramatic effect, with Trintignant particularly effective since he doesn’t speak a word — just wait till you see him scream. In her film debut, McGee (Blacula, Repo Man) brings a stark sensitivity to Pauline; her interracial love scene was shocking for the genre, especially with Corbucci (Django, Navajo Joe) handling it in such a gentle way. Meanwhile, composer Ennio Morricone (Once Upon a Time in the West; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) delivers one of his most emotional and wide-ranging scores. Fifty years on, The Great Silence can still be read as a parable attacking rampant injustice in society while also subverting the Western genre itself, a dark and bleak tale about the hopelessness of life. (If the ending is too much for you, you can watch the absurdly ridiculous alternate happy ending made for some foreign markets here.)

PACINO’S WAY: SALOMÉ AND WILDE SALOMÉ

Al Pacino stars as an intense, leering King Herod in his adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé

Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, March 30
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com/film/salome
quadcinema.com/film/wilde-salome

In 2006, Oscar, Tony, and Emmy winner Al Pacino starred as the Tetrarch, King Herod, in a staged reading of Oscar Wilde’s controversial 1891 play, Salomé, at the Wadsworth Theatre in Los Angeles, directed by Oscar and Obie winner Estelle Parsons and featuring Kevin Anderson as Jokanaan (John the Baptist), Roxanne Hart as Herodias, and the little-known Jessica Chastain as the title character. During the limited run, Pacino was also working on two films, one a fuller version of the play with the actors performing without script in hand, the other a documentary of the making of it all. Both films, the 2011 Wilde Salomé and the 2013 Salomé, are opening March 30 in their first-ever dual New York City engagement (though not as a double feature), concluding the Quad series “Pacino’s Way.” (As a bonus, Pacino will introduce the 7:30 screening of Wilde Salomé on March 30.) Salomé is a dark interpretation of the Wilde tale, photographed with a large number of close-ups by Benoît Delhomme. Not surprisingly, the production is ruled by Pacino’s portrayal of King Herod, with all the requisite scenery chewing and camp, but Chastain, in her film debut, is mesmerizing as Salomé, Herod’s stepdaughter who, after dancing for the Tetrarch — Pacino’s intense gazing at Chastain’s burgeoning sexuality is more than a bit creepy as Herod’s wife stands firm next to him — demands the head of Jokonaan, who has been imprisoned in a watery dungeon. The milky white Chastain goes head-to-head with the grizzled Pacino, getting the best of him in the end. Aside from Salomé’s dance, the film is sedentary and visually repetitive; Herod is primarily seated on his throne, and most of the other characters, including Ralph Guzzo and Jack Stelin as the Nazarenes, Steve Roman as the Cappadocian, Joe Roseto as the Captain of the Guard, and Phillip Rhys as the Young Syrian, just hang around him. Only Anderson moves about, trapped below. Still, the film is ingrained with a powerful force, driven by Salomé’s yearnings.

Al Pacino and Jessica Chastain discuss a critical scene in Wilde Salomé

Curiously, Wilde Salomé, which at one time was called Salomaybe?, was released two years before the film of the play itself. It is modeled similarly to Pacino’s stellar 1996 directorial debut, Looking for Richard, in which the star explores the play, the character, and the Bard, with the help of such fellow actors as Sir John Gielgud, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Estelle Parsons, Winona Ryder, and Aidan Quinn. Wilde Salomé, which won the Queer Lion and the Glory to the Filmmaker Awards at the Venice Film Festival, is somewhat more audacious, if also not as satisfying as Richard. “This is about a journey I’m gonna take,” Pacino says. “I have an idea for a movie that intermixes the life of Wilde and the life of the play and the life of me trying to make the play. . . . So we went in search of the man who wrote something so personal as Salomé.” Not hiding from the camera, Pacino confesses, in a near fit of rage, “I got too much to do!” He is also seen agonizing over a difficult situation while wolfing down a white-bread sandwich. The documentary follows Pacino from the Wadsworth Theatre in Los Angeles to Masada in Israel to Europe, where he visits places where Wilde lived and worked. He talks about Wilde’s destructive relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, better known as Bosie, as well as with his wife and children. Pacino freely admits his obsession with all things Wilde, wanting to know everything he possibly can about the poet and playwright’s spirituality, what drove him to write the way he did and make so many damaging life choices. Among those who discuss Wilde’s influence are Tom Stoppard, Gore Vidal, Tony Kushner, and Bono, who also provides the closing song with U2. Pacino is like a kid in a candy store whenever he discovers something new about Wilde; it’s too bad that there isn’t more of that in the film. Instead, there are far too many scenes taken directly from Salomé, which is particularly annoying if you are planning on seeing both films at the Quad. But it still is exciting watching the genius actor on a quest to understand the genius of Wilde.

DANH VO SELECTS: THE EXORCIST

The Exorcist is screening at the Guggenheim in conjunction with Danh Vo exhibition

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Saturday, March 31, free with museum admission, 5:00
Exhibition continues Friday – Wednesday through May 9
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org

In conjunction with Danh Vo’s revelatory Guggenheim exhibition, “Take My Breath Away,” the Vietnamese-born Danish artist has curated “Danh Vo Selects,” consisting of screenings of films that have meaning to him. When he was a child, his mother made him watch horror movies because she was too scared to watch them alone. The series concludes on March 31 at 2:30 with Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s 1999 Rosetta — “I confess my brain was gang-raped by the films of Jean-Pierre Dardenne and his brother, Luc. Rosetta and her phallic drive to secure a job (and therefore a place in society) is burned into my mind,” Vo says about the film — followed at 5:00 by William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, which plays an important role in the exhibit. Vo has titled several works, in which he combines sculptural fragments from different time periods into a new piece (inspired by Regan’s ability to spin her head all the way around), after lines spoken by Regan when she is possessed by the demon. The film “was shown to Vo by his horror-film-obsessed mother at the age of seven, when it no doubt made a terrifyingly indelible impression,” exhibition curator Katherine Brinson notes. “The film’s interrogation of religious faith and doubt, its depiction of the appropriated and dislocated body, and its themes of parental nurture and neglect can all be similarly traced in the artist’s work.” He also gave them unusual titles just so curators and critics would have to mention them. Thus, Your mother sucks cocks in Hell; Dimmy, why you did this to me?; and Shove it up your ass, you faggot! combine Roman marble from the first to second century with French Early Gothic oak. In addition, Lick me, lick me consists of part of a Greek-marble Apollo in a wooden crate, and another work features a wall of mirrors engraved with more quotes, as if they’re being spoken directly to the viewer. I’ve seen The Exorcist three times; twice it scared the hell out of me, but the middle time the audience and I laughed our heads off, as if it were a comedy. Which of course it’s not. As a bonus, on May 8 at 7:00 and 9:30, the experimental California band Xiu Xiu will present “Deforms the Unborn,” a new, extended song inspired by demonic possession in general and Vo’s use of The Exorcist specifically.

WHAT THE FEST!?

Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge opens What the Fest!? at IFC Center on March 29

IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
March 29 – April 1
212-924-7771
www.whatthefestnyc.com
www.ifccenter.com

If you’re the kind of moviegoer who likes to be challenged by outrageous genre films and undiscovered gems that provide unique experiences, What the Fest!? might be just the festival you’ve been looking for. Creative director Maria Reinup and executive director Raphaela Neihausen have put together four days of programming at IFC Center meant to make you go, “What the —” The festival consists of ten films never before screened in New York City in addition to a sneak preview of the upcoming series The Terror starring Jared Harris, who will be on hand to talk about the project with executive producers Soo Hugh and David Kajganich. Opening night features the science lecture “Death by Thousand Bites” by biology professor Simon Garnier, followed by Coralie Fargeat’s debut thriller, Revenge, and a reception. Among the other presentations are the world premiere of Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Dana, followed by a Q&A with director Frank Henenlotter, comics legend Mike Dana, and producers Anthony Sneed and Mike Hunchback; the Scandinavian Gothic tale Valley of Shadows, followed by a Q&A with cowriter and director Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen; The Endless, a twist on cults, followed by a Q&A with stars and codirectors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead; the Indonesian smash hit Satan’s Slaves, Joko Anwar’s horror remake; and the restoration of Marek Piestrak’s Estonian adventure flick Curse of Snakes Valley. What the Fest!? concludes Sunday night with Jenn Wexler’s teen-punk The Ranger, followed by a Q&A with Wexler and producer and costar — and low-budget master — Larry Fessenden.

TICKET ALERT: AN EVENING WITH MEL BROOKS

Mel Brooks is back for a return engagement of his one-man show at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center

Who: Mel Brooks
What: Film clips and reminiscences by a comedy legend
Where: Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, One East 65th St. at Fifth Ave., 212-507-9580
When: Wednesday, May 9, $99, 7:00
Why: “Look, I really don’t want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you’re alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you’re quiet, you’re not living. . . . You’ve got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colorful and lively.” So says the noisy and colorful and lively Brooklyn-born Melvin Kaminsky, better known as comedy legend Mel Brooks. The ninety-one-year-old Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony winner, the genius behind such films as Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, The Producers, and Silent Movie, is returning to the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center with his one-man show, an evening of anecdotes, film clips, stand-up, and personal stories from his life and career. The $150 reserved seats are sold out, but there are still $99 general admission tickets for this rare chance to see and hear Brooks in person, in a unique venue that directly relates to one of his most-memed quotes: “I may be angry at God or at the world, and I’m sure that a lot of my comedy is based on anger and hostility. It comes from a feeling that as a Jew and as a person, I don’t fit into the mainstream of American society. Feeling different, feeling alienated, feeling persecuted, feeling that the only way you can deal with the world is to laugh — because if you don’t laugh, you’re going to cry and never stop crying — that’s probably what’s responsible for the Jews’ having developed such a great sense of humor. The people who had the greatest reason to weep learned more than anyone else how to laugh.”

SCREENING & LIVE EVENT: WAYS OF SOMETHING

Eva Papamargariti created the visuals for minute #18 of the first episode of Lorna Mills’s Ways of Something (courtesy of the artist and TRANSFER)

WAYS OF SOMETHING (Lorna Mills, 2014-15)
Museum of the Moving Image, Bartos Screening Room
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, March 25, $15 (includes museum admission), 5:30
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

In his seminal 1972 book and BBC television series Ways of Seeing, British writer, critic, and artist John Berger explored how we encounter artistic images, from European oil paintings to advertisements and color photography. Regarding publicity images, Berger, who passed away in January 2017 at the age of ninety, said, “I believe that in many respects, these images continue that tradition. I’ve been critical of many things in that tradition, of our culture, of some of the values which it celebrates and I have illustrated my arguments by using the modern means of reproduction.” A kind of update of Walter Benjamin’s 1935 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Ways of Seeing looks at paintings by Leonardo, Botticelli, Van Gogh, Hals, Caravaggio, Ingres, Rubens, and others as well as commercials, taking on issues of surveillance, gender, religion, sexuality, nudity, voyeurism, class, envy, identity, and glamour in society since the Renaissance. It is more than just a primer about art; it is an ingenious guide for how to experience all that we see every day, and it is still remarkably relevant in the digital age and the advent of social media, YouTube, and the selfie.

In 2014-15, Canadian new media artist Lorna Mills (Abrupt Diplomat, At Play in the Fields of the Lord) reimagined Berger’s show by creating four episodes that use Berger’s original narration, highlighted by his slight slurring of his “R”s, but had new visuals made by more than a hundred artists, who were responsible for one minute each; they also designed the subtitled captioning of everything that is said during their sixty seconds. Among the participating artists were Jaakko Pallasvuo, Dafna Ganani, Matthew Williamson, Marisa Olson, Eva Papamargariti, Faith Holland, Alfredo Salazar-Caro, Andrea Crespo, Jesse Darling, Morehshin Allahyari, Shana Moulton, Amy Lockhart, Luke Painter, and Mills herself. The artists incorporate film and video, archival footage, computer animation, and futuristic graphic design that replaces the original images; some of the artists digitally manipulate the works being discussed, but most transport viewers to high- and low-tech fantastical worlds. On March 25 at 5:30, Mills (minute #24 of episode four), Papamargariti (minute #18 of episode one), Allahyari (minute #14 of episode #4), Salazar-Caro (minute #24 of episode one), and Holland (minute #29 of episode one) will be at the Museum of the Moving Image for a screening of Mills’s series, followed by a discussion and a Q&A. Be sure to check out “The GIF Elevator” as well, an installation that last year featured Mills’s Yellowwhirlaway and is currently showing work by Dain Fagerholm.

COME TOGETHER: MUSIC FESTIVAL AND LABEL MARKET

come together

MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Saturday, March 24, each session $10, both $15, 12 noon – 6:00, 6:00 – 9:00
718-784-2084
www.moma.org

The second annual Come Together: Music Festival and Label Market takes place March 24 at MoMA PS1, a joint venture between the museum and the late, lamented Other Music record shop. More than seventy-five labels will be in Long Island City, selling and sharing awesome music. There will be live performances by Laetitia Tamko’s Vagabon, Hailu Mergia, and Dead Moon, which will also be the subject of an archival exhibition; the New York premiere of The Potential of Noise (Reto Caduff & Stephan Plank, 2017), about sound designer and producer Conny Plank; “The Creative Independent,” a workshop with Brandon Stosuy, Katie Alice Greer, and Jenn Pelly; a sound design experimental workshop with Marco Gomez (False Witness); DJ sets by Yo La Tengo, phoneg1rl b2b NK Badtz Maru, Sal P, and Duane Harriott; a multisensory listening experience with Suzi Analogue’s Never Normal Soundsystem and wearable audio technology company SUBPAC; the multimedia lecture “A Cosmic and Earthly History of Recorded Music According to Mississippi Records” with Eric Isaacson; clips of live music performed at Other Music between 1995 and 2016; loops of prank calls by Longmont Potion Castle in the elevator; an interactive reading and listening room in honor of Mexican Summer’s tenth anniversary; the performative, interactive thrift-store installation “Jimmy’s Thrift of New Davonhaime” by Azikiwe Mohammed; and a zine-making workshop with Suffragette City. Among the other participating labels are 4AD, Cantaloupe Music, Captured Tracks, Daptone, Glassnote, Goner, Luaka Bop, Matador, New Amsterdam, New World, Ninja Tune, Nonesuch, Northern Spy, Rough Trade, Sacred Bones, Sub Pop, Third Man, and XL Recordings. Tickets to the fair are $10 for the 12 noon to 6:00 session and $10 for the 6:00 to 9:00 extended programming; you can get into both for $15.