this week in film and television

MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL QUOTE-A-LONG

Monty Python fiinds the Holy Grail of comedy in classic flick

Monty Python finds the Holy Grail of comedy in quotable classic romp

MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, 1975)
Videology Bar & Cinema
308 Bedford Ave.
Saturday, November 28, 9:30
718-782-3468
videologybarandcinema.com
www.pythonline.com

In 1975, a comedy troupe consisting of five Oxford and Cambridge grads and an American animator, the six best known for their absurdist sketches, teamed up to make the most quotable, and perhaps all-time-funniest, film to ever come from across the pond, and you can join in the fun on November 28 as Videology in Williamsburg hosts the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Quote-a-Long. In the relentlessly hysterical film, King Arthur (Graham Chapman) leads his ne’er-do-well Knights of the Round Table — Sir Lancelot the Brave (John Cleese), Sir Robin-the-Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir-Lancelot (Eric Idle), Sir Bedevere the Wise (Terry Jones), and Sir Galahad the Pure (Michael Palin) — on a quest to find the Holy Grail, as ordered by God himself (voice of Chapman, cartoon of cricket legend W. G. Grace). So off they go, visiting strange castles with even stranger knights, answering silly questions to get across a bridge, seeking advice from a mad wizard, battling a cute little killer rabbit, and searching for shrubbery. The wild romp, in which the Pythons never meet a joke too high-brow or low-brow, helped warp the minds of several generations and continues to result in much rejoicing in living rooms and movie theaters around the world.

The Pythons play multiple roles throughout the hysterical romp, with such particularly riotous turns as Cleese as the Black Knight (“It’s just a flesh wound.”), Tim the Enchanter (“So! Brave knights! If you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth.”), and a French taunter (“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”), Gilliam as Patsy (“Camelot!” “It’s only a model.”), the Bridgekeeper (“What . . . is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?”), and the animator (“Ughck!”), Idle as the Dead Collector (“Who’s that then?” “I dunno, must be a king.” “Why?” “He hasn’t go shit all over him.”) and Roger the Shrubber (“Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say ‘Ni’ at will to old ladies.”), Palin as Dennis (“Oh, king, eh? Very nice. And how’d you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.”) the chief Knight Who Says “Ni” (“One that looks nice. And not too expensive.”) and Jones as Prince Herbert (“One day, lad, all this will be yours.” “What, the curtains?”). Python regulars Connie Booth and Carol Cleveland appear as well, the former as a witch who is facing being burned at the stake (“She turned me into a newt.” “A newt?” “I got better.”), the latter as twins Zoot and Dingo (“Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Zoot! Oh, she is a bad person, and she must pay the penalty!”). Study up, because you won’t want to be embarrassed while surrounded by Pythonians at Videology who know every single word of this outrageously entertaining classic.

TODD HAYNES — THE OTHER SIDE OF DREAMS: FAR FROM HEAVEN

Todd Haynes’s FAR FROM HEAVEN reveals the dark underside of suburbia

FAR FROM HEAVEN (Todd Haynes, 2002)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Friday, November 27, 2:00, and Sunday, November 29, 6:30
Series continues through November 29
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.org

Douglas Sirk and Thomas Mann would be proud. In Todd Haynes’s wonderfully retro Far from Heaven, Oscar-nominated Julianne Moore is amazing as 1950s housewife Cathy Whitaker, who thinks she has the perfect idyllic suburban life — until she discovers that her husband (Dennis Quaid) has a secret that dare not speak its name. Mr. & Mrs. Magnatech they are not after all. When she starts getting all chummy with the black gardener (Dennis Haysbert), people start talking, of course. Part Imitation of Life and All That Heaven Allows, part Death in Venice, and oh-so-original, Haynes’s awesome achievement will have you believing you’re watching a film made in the 1950s, propelled by Elmer Bernstein’s excellent music, Edward Lachman’s remarkable photography, and Mark Friedberg’s terrific production design. Far from Heaven is screening at the Walter Reade Theater on November 27 at 2:00 and November 29 at 6:30 in the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Todd Haynes: The Other Side of Dreams,” with DP Lachman on hand for a Q&A following the latter show. The series, being held in conjunction with the release of Haynes’s latest film, Carol, continues through November 29 with Haynes pairing his films with works that directly influenced him, bringing together thematically (but not as double features) Safe and Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life, his Mildred Pierce miniseries and Alan J. Pakula’s Klute, Poison and Rainer Werner Fassbender’s Fox and His Friends, Velvet Goldmine and Nicolas Roeg’s Performance, and Far from Heaven and Max Ophüls’s The Reckless Moment, among other duos.

TURKEYS FOR THANKSGIVING: SORCERER

Roy Scheider goes on an existential voyage of the soul in William Friedkin’s SORCERER

SORCERER (William Friedkin, 1977)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Saturday, November 28, 2:00, 4:30, 9:50
Series runs November 20-29
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

In the mid-1970s, Chicago-born director William Friedkin was riding high, earning an Oscar for The French Connection and another nomination for The Exorcist, two huge critical and box-office successes. For his next film, he decided to reimagine a seminal work that had had a profound influence on him, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s haunting 1953 suspense thriller, The Wages of Fear. “It turned out to be the most difficult, frustrating, and dangerous film I’ve ever made, and it took a toll on my health as well as my reputation,” Friedkin wrote in his 2013 memoir, The Friedkin Connection. Friedkin’s adaptation of Clouzut’s classic, itself based on a novel by Georges Arnaud, follows four unlikable men — a thief (Roy Scheider), a hit man (Francisco Rabal), an embezzler (Bruno Cremer), and a terrorist (Amidou) — hiding out under fake identities in a depressed, nowhere village in South America. When a nearby oil well catches fire, the company needs four men to drive two rickety trucks more than two hundred miles over treacherous terrain to deliver cases of rotting, highly unstable dynamite that will be used to blow the whole thing up and put out the fire. Oil man Corlette (Ramon Bieri) is sending two trucks — dubbed “Lazaro” and “Sorcerer” — because he thinks only one, if any, will make it through. The journey includes a harrowing twelve-minute scene as the men try to navigate a dilapidated rope bridge in a rainstorm as well as a psychedelic trip through a fantastical landscape (shot in the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico).

Harrowing bridge crossing is one of the most suspenseful scenes ever caught on film

What began as a dream project — Friedkin was pretty much given carte blanche by the studio, and he initially had his ideal cast lined up, consisting of Steve McQueen, Marcello Mastroianni, Lino Ventura, and Amidou — quickly turned into a nightmare as the cast changed, location problems flared up, a cinematographer had to be fired because of improper lighting, a narc forced Friedkin to get rid of some drug-using crew members, “Marvin the Torch” had to be called in to help with an explosion, and malaria ran rampant, as did the budget. When the film was finally released in June 1977, it got lost in all the Star Wars hoopla, resulting in a critical and box-office failure that shattered Friedkin, whose next three films were The Brink’s Job, Cruising, and Deal of the Century. But Friedkin has always stood behind Sorcerer: “I had persevered to make a film that I would want to see,” he wrote in his memoir, “a relentless existential voyage that would become my legacy.” After fighting for the rights to the film, he supervised a digital restoration that confirms the film as a towering achievement, a gripping, intense work of suspense that digs deep into the soul. Scheider, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The French Connection and then was extremely upset when Friedkin refused to cast him as Father Damien in The Exorcist, gives an extraordinary performance as Jackie Scanlon, a New Jersey Irish gang member now going by the name Juan Dominguez, ready to do whatever it takes to get out of the hell he is in. Friedkin and editor Bud Smith cut the film to match Tangerine Dream’s electronic score — the German group wrote the music to the script, without seeing a single frame of the finished product — creating a stinging pace that never lets up. The digital restoration, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, reestablishes Friedkin’s Sorcerer legacy, as critics and audiences reevaluate it as a remarkable triumph after all these years. The title is still terrible and the final scene highly questionable, but Sorcerer is an unforgettable, powerfully realistic work of magic. It’s screening on November 28 in the BAMcinématek series “Turkeys for Thanksgiving,” which runs November 20-29 and consists of fourteen films that were considered disasters when they were first released but might actually be gems in retrospect. Then again, they might still be bombs, so you might have a (wish)bone to pick with some of the selections, which include Elaine May’s Ishtar, Steven Spielberg’s 1941, Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, Charlie Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux, Francis Ford Coppola’s Heaven’s Gate, and, most surprisingly, The Wizard of Oz.

TURKEYS FOR THANKSGIVING: HEAVEN’S GATE

Isabelle Huppert and Kris Kristofferson waltz their way through HEAVEN’S GATE

HEAVEN’S GATE (Michael Cimino, 1980)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Thursday, November 26, 7:00, and Friday, November 27, 2:30
Series runs November 20-29
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

When I was a kid in school, one of the first movies I ever reviewed was Heaven’s Gate, Michael Cimino’s brazenly overbudget famous Hollywood disaster. Incensed that professional film critics were obsessed with the meta surrounding the making of the epic Western instead of simply taking it for what it was, I was determined to treat it like any other movie, forgetting about all the behind-the-scenes gossip and tales of financial gluttony. And what I found back then was that it was a noble failure, a bold exercise in genre that had its share of strong moments but ultimately fell apart, leaving me dissatisfied and disappointed but glad I had seen it; I did not want my three-plus hours back. In fact, I probably would have checked out the rumored five-hour version if it had been shown, hoping it would fill in the many gaps that plagued the official theatrical release. More than thirty years later, Cimino’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning sophomore effort, The Deer Hunter, has returned in a 216-minute digital restoration supervised by Cimino, and it does indeed shed new light on the unfairly ridiculed work, which is still, after all this time, a noble failure. Inspired by the 1882 Johnson County War in Wyoming, the film stars Kris Kristofferson as Jim Averill, a Harvard-educated lawman hired by a group of immigrants, called “citizens,” whose livelihood — and lives — are being threatened by a wealthy cattlemen’s association run by the elitist Frank Canton (Sam Waterston). The association has come up with a kill list of 125 citizens, offering fifty dollars for each murder, a plan that has been authorized all the way up to the president of the United States. Leading the way for the cattlemen is hired killer Nate Champion (Christopher Walken), who has a particularly fierce aversion to the foreign-speaking immigrants. With a major battle on the horizon, Averill and Champion also fight for the love of the same woman, the luminous Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert), a successful madam who soon finds herself in the middle of the controversy.

Christopher Walken sets his sights on immigrants in epic Western

Heaven’s Gate is beautifully photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond, the first half bathed in sepia tones, with many shots evoking Impressionist painting. The narrative, which begins in Harvard in 1870 before jumping to 1890 Wyoming, moves far too slowly, with underdeveloped relationships and characters that don’t pay off in the long run, especially John Hurt as Billy Irvine, who wanders around lost throughout the film. Using a gentle rendition of Strauss’s “The Blue Danube” as a musical motif, Cimino creates repetitive scenes that start too early and go on too long, choosing style over substance, resulting in too much atmosphere and not enough motivation. The all-star cast also includes Joseph Cotten, Jeff Bridges, Brad Dourif, Richard Masur, Eastwood regular Geoffrey Lewis, Terry O’Quinn, Tom Noonan, and Mickey Rourke, but most of them are wasted in minor roles that are never fully developed. Whereas the film began by calling to mind such works as Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, John Ford’s My Darling Clementine, and Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller, it devolves into Sam Peckinpah-lite as rape and violence take center stage, along with silly plot twists and clichéd dialogue, much of which is hard to make out. However, all of that does not add up to one of the worst movies ever made, despite its inclusion on many such lists. It even feels oddly relevant today, as America continues to debate immigration laws. But in the end it’s just a film that tried too hard, focusing on the wrong things. Back in 1980, I wanted to see the supposed five-hour version; now I think I’d prefer to see a two-hour Heaven’s Gate that would just get to the point. It’s sharing the coveted Thanksgiving Day slot with Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra in the BAMcinématek series “Turkeys for Thanksgiving,” which runs November 20-29 and consists of fourteen films that were considered disasters when they were first released but might actually be gems in retrospect. The two films are screening on November 26 and 27; among the other “turkeys” are Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, Robert Altman’s Popeye, Peter Bogdanovich’s At Long Last Love, and David Lynch’s Dune.

FILM SOCIETY FREE TALKS: RON HOWARD

Ron Howard will discuss his new movie, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on November 22

Who: Ron Howard
What: Film Society of Lincoln Center Free Talk
Where: Film Society of Lincoln Center, Amphitheater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave., 212-875-5610
When: Sunday, November 22, free, 5:00
Why: Ron Howard visits the Film Society of Lincoln Center on November 22 for a free talk about his upcoming epic, In the Heart of the Sea. The film, which opens in theaters December 11, tells the story of the real nautical events that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby-Dick. The cast features Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Brendan Gleeson, Michelle Fairley, and Ben Whishaw as Melville. Howard, who has previously directed such films as Splash, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, and Frost/Nixon, will bring along clips and trailers for this special conversation. (Free tickets are given out one per person starting at 4:00.)

NOBUHIKO OBAYASHI — A RETROSPECTIVE: BOUND FOR THE FIELDS, THE MOUNTAINS, AND THE SEACOAST

Nobuhiko Obayashi shines a light on wartime Japan in unusual coming-of-age drama

BOUND FOR THE FIELDS, THE MOUNTAINS, AND THE SEACOAST (NO YUKI YAMA YUKI UMIBE YUKI) (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1986)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, November 21, $12, 4:00
Series continues through December 6
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Over the opening credits of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast, the sweet sound of children singing can be heard over machine-gun blasts and explosions, immediately setting the tone for this unusual, highly stylized war-set drama. “It was a time of mischief in Japan. Even in wartime,” it says at the end of the black-and-white credits, before cutting to a shot of the red-and-white Japanese flag blowing in the wind. Kids slowly march to school to the beating of a drum, except for Sotaro Sudo (Yasufumi Hayashi), who skips down narrow streets by himself, wearing a pseudo-military outfit and carrying a pair of binoculars to help him spy on what’s going on. When he spots someone in the teacher’s (Jô Shishido) office who he’s never seen before, he wonders to himself, “She looks too young to be an adult, but too old to be a child.” That sets the stage for the rest of the film, in which Obayashi follows a group of boys and girls as they battle among themselves, experience bullying and budding sexuality, and grow up a little too fast, serving as a microcosm of twentieth-century Japan. “It is clear that reality and lies can divide people. We should not quarrel too hastily,” the teacher says. Sotaru becomes enamored with the young woman, Kawakita (Riki Takeuchi), whose younger brother, Sakae Osugi (Junichirô Katagiri), is new in school. “Please don’t be violent,” Kawakita tells Sakae, but it isn’t long before he may not have any other choice, especially when their parents (Taru Minegishi and Toshie Negishi) consider selling her into prostitution to pay off their mounting debts.

Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast is a fanciful fairy tale that has fun playing with Japanese storytelling conventions, mixing genres while utilizing over-the-top comic-book surrealism. Obayashi, who gained international fame for his cult hit House, instills this unique coming-of-age story with scenes that not only evoke cartoony manga panels but also the films of Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Shuji Terayama. Not one for subtlety, he intercuts several drawings of animals from an odd kind of textbook that Sotaru carries with him, making humorously metaphorical comparisons between humans and beasts. Though often silly and patently absurd, Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast has an infectious, irresistible charm that will pull you right in even as you contemplate how ridiculous so much of it is. The film, adapted by screenwriter Nobuo Yamada from Haruo Satô’s novel A Time of Mischief, was made into black-and-white and color versions; the former no longer exists, but the latter is having a rare screening November 21 at 4:00 in the Japan Society series “Nobuhiko Obayashi: A Retrospective,” which continues through December 6 with such other Obayashi films as I Are You, You Am Me; Sada; The Discarnates; and his latest, the three-hour epic Seven Weeks, in addition to a special conversation and audience Q&A with Obayashi, moderated by series curator Aaron Gerow, on November 21 at 1:00 ($12).

DEMOCRATS

Douglas Mwonzora and Paul Mangwana try to find common ground when drafting Zimbabwe’s new constitution in DEMOCRATS (photo courtesy of Upfront Films)

DEMOCRATS (Camilla Nielsson, 2014)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
November 18 – December 2
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Danish filmmaker Camilla Nielsson’s gripping thriller of a documentary, Democrats, is how unsurprising all of the revelations are, how we all have become inured to the pervasive power of the dictatorships that control so much of the world. Following the controversial 2008 reelection of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe, who had been in power since 1980, when the country officially gained its independence from the British-led Rhodesia, Mugabe’s ruling party, ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front), and election runner-up Morgan Tsvangirai’s opposition party, MDC-T (Movement for Democratic Change), agreed to form an inclusive coalition government and collaborate on a new constitution, to be drafted by COPAC, a committee co-chaired by former minister of information Paul Mangwana of ZANU-PF and human rights lawyer and parliament member Douglas Mwonzora of MDC-T. On the advice of Danish journalist Peter Tygesen, Nielsson requested access to the intense negotiations, and what she was given was an amazing, exclusive behind-the-scenes look into the process. Over the course of twelve shoots of between one and three weeks from 2010 to 2013, Nielsson alternately follows Mangwana and Mwonzora as they take their case to the people of Zimbabwe, traveling to rural communities and cities as their teams organize nearly six thousand town-hall-style meetings. Mangwana is a big, jolly fellow who believes Mugabe and his government are untouchable, that they will do anything and everything they can to maintain their leadership status. “Be seen as a man of peace. Even if you are not,” he brazenly says to the camera, adding, “The game of politics is pretending.” Meanwhile, Mwonzora, a much more deliberate man, explains, “We never imagined that a black man could suppress his own people.” As he makes his way across Zimbabwe, Mwonzora supports fighting back using pen and brains, not violence, imploring people to “tell us how much power we should have.” Amid claims of illegal busing and harassment by military veterans and the secret police on behalf of Mugabe, the entire constitution-making process is on the verge of falling apart, but the absurdity reaches a whole new level when the safety and freedom of Mangwana and Mwonzora are threatened.

Mangwana and Mwonzora find their own personal safety and freedom threatened in DEMOCRATS (photo courtesy of Upfront Films)

Nielsson (Good Morning Afghanistan, The Children of Darfur) and editor Jeppe Bødskov tell the eye-opening story like a fictional police procedural, with scenes beautifully shot by cinematographer Henrik Bohn Ipsen, underscored by composer Kristian Eidnes Andersen’s subtle score that keeps the tension mounting. Of course, Democrats is not a fictional police procedural but the very real tale of a young nation’s desperate attempt to end the suffocating rule of a military dictatorship determined to keep all of its power, despite its lip service in support of a new constitution. “Democracies in Africa . . . It’s a difficult proposition. Because always the opposition will want much more than what it deserves,” Mugabe is shown saying at the beginning of the film. But as Ernest Nyamukachi, Mwonzora’s personal assistant, says, “Everywhere you are you are afraid.” (Most of the dialogue is in English, with occasional forays into various Zimbabwe languages, sometimes within the same sentence.) In her director’s statement, Nielsson notes, “We in the West sometimes have a hard time understanding why it is so difficult to create a viable democracy in other parts of the world. The democratic values we ourselves accept in a democracy as a matter of course . . . are not taken for granted everywhere on the globe. Democrats is a sort of a primer, a form of basic research, into how difficult it is to create democracy.” What is happening in Zimbabwe might be extremely hard to swallow, but it makes for one hell of an important film. Named Best Documentary Feature at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, Democrats begins a two-week run at Film Forum on November 18, with Nielsson in person at the 7:10 show opening night.