this week in film and television

THE MIDDLE AGES ON FILM — SHAKESPEARE: THRONE OF BLOOD

Washizu (Toshirô Mifune) and his wife, Asaji (Isuzu Yamada), reimagine Shakespeare’s MACBETH in Kursosawa classic THRONE OF BLOOD

THRONE OF BLOOD, AKA MACBETH (KUMONOSU JÔ) (Akira Kurosawa, 1957)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Thursday, November 21, 9:15; Sunday, November 24, 3:45; and Sunday, December 1, 5:30
Series runs November 20 – December 1
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

Akira Kurosawa’s marvelous reimagining of Macbeth is an intense psychological thriller that follows one man’s descent into madness. Following a stunning military victory led by Washizu (Toshirô Mifune) and Miki (Minoru Chiaki), the two men are rewarded with lofty new positions. As Washizu’s wife, Asaji (Isuzu Yamada, with spectacular eyebrows), fills her husband’s head with crazy paranoia, Washizu is haunted by predictions made by a ghostly evil spirit in the Cobweb Forest, leading to one of the all-time classic finales. Featuring exterior scenes bathed in mysterious fog, cinematographer Asakazu Nakai’s interior long shots of Washizu and Asaji in a large, sparse room carefully considering their next bold move, and composer Masaru Sato’s shrieking Japanese flutes, Throne of Blood is a chilling drama of corruptive power and blind ambition, one of the greatest adaptations of Shakespeare ever put on film Throne of Blood is screening November 21, November 24, and December 1 as part of the Anthology Film Archives series “The Middle Ages on Film: Shakespeare,” consisting of ten cinematic adaptations of several of the Bard’s history plays, set in the Middle Ages, including Laurence Olivier’s Henry V, Roman Polanski’s Macbeth, Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight, and Peter Brook’s King Lear. The twelve-day festival was curated in collaboration with professor and scholar Martha Driver, who notes, “Through film, Shakespeare’s Middle Ages are not lost but revived and revitalized in translation. And much of what we think we know about the medieval period has been shaped by Shakespeare, the plays and film adaptations living on in our memories more vividly perhaps than the history books’ accounts.”

BRUCE WEBER: CHOP SUEY

Bruce Weber focuses in on Peter Johnson and others in cinematic hodgepodge

CHOP SUEY (Bruce Weber, 2001)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Wednesday, November 20, 7:00
Series continues through November 21
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.bruceweber.com

Fashion photographer Bruce Weber, who directed the seminal Chet Baker doc Let’s Get Lost a quarter century ago, made this fun hodgepodge of still photos, old color and black-and-white footage, and new interviews and voice-over narration back in 2001. You might not know much about Frances Faye, but after seeing her perform in vintage Ed Sullivan clips and listening to her manager/longtime partner discuss their life together, you’ll be searching YouTube to check out a lot more. The film also examines how Weber selects and treats his male models, who are often shot in homoerotic poses for major designers (and later go on to get married and have children). As a special treat, Jan-Michael Vincent’s extensive full-frontal nude scene in Daniel Petrie and Sidney Sheldon’s 1974 Buster and Billie is on display here, as are vintage clips of Sammy Davis Jr., adventurer Sir Wilfred Thesiger, former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, and Robert Mitchum singing in a recording studio with Dr. John. The film is about model Peter Johnson and Weber as much as it is about the cult of celebrity; Weber gets to chime in on Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra, Arthur Miller, and dozens of other famous names and faces. Though an awful lot of fun, the film is disjointed, lacking a central focus, and the onscreen titles, end credits, and promotional postcards are chock-full of typos — perhaps emulating a Chinese takeout menu, hence the film’s title? Chop Suey is screening November 20 at 7:00 as part of Film Forum’s “Bruce Weber” series and will be preceded by Weber’s twelve-minute 2008 short, The Boy Artist; the series continues through November 21 with a 35mm print of Let’s Get Lost, 1987’s Broken Noses, about former Olympian boxer Andy Minsker, 2004’s A Letter to True, a tribute to Weber’s dog, and a compilation of shorts, videos, commercials, and works in progress.

THE GREAT BEAUTY

Toni Servillo is spectacular as an Italian writer looking back on his life in Paolo Sorrentino’s THE GREAT BEAUTY

THE GREAT BEAUTY (LA GRANDE BELLEZZA) (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)
Lincoln Plaza Cinema
1886 Broadway at 63rd St.
Opened Friday, November 15
212-757-2280
www.janusfilms.com/thegreatbeauty
www.lincolnplazacinema.com

Told with the surreal flair of Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and 8½ , the dark, witty cynicism of Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories and Deconstructing Harry, and the psychological intricacies of Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty is a masterful epic about an Italian writer looking back at his life as he turns sixty-five, and not liking what he sees. Toni Servillo gives a sparkling deadpan performance as Jep Gambardella, a deeply sarcastic and intentionally hypocritical journalist in Rome who scored a huge success with his first novel, The Human Apparatus, but has been unable to write a follow-up for decades, instead spending his time attending wild parties, sleeping with woman after woman, and sharing his unique views on the sociocultural, political, and religious nature of modern-day Rome. He is surrounded by sycophants, jealous writers, a mysterious neighbor, a culinary cardinal, bizarre performance artists, an aging stripper, a magician, and many more hangers-on (played by Isabella Ferrari, Roberto Herlitzka, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Verdone, Massimo De Francovich, Pamela Villoresi, and others who appear to have come straight from a Fellini set), but the only person who truly understands him is his diminutive editor, Dadina (Giovanna Vignola). “You’re a spectacular woman,” he tells her. “You’ve had the career you deserve.” She responds, “But you haven’t had the career you deserve.”

Director Paolo Sorrentino and star Toni Servillo discuss a scene in THE GREAT BEAUTY

Written by Sorrentino with Umberto Contarello, who previously collaborated on Sorrentino’s first English-language film, This Must Be the Place, The Great Beauty is a visual and aural delight from start to finish, featuring gorgeous cinematography by regular Sorrentino DP Luca Bigazzi, glorious sets by Stefania Cella, dazzling art direction by Ludovica Ferrario, and a lovely melancholy score by Lele Marchiteli. Sorrentino (Il Divo: The Spectacular Life of Giulio Andreotti, The Consequences of Love, both of which also starred Servillo) gives tremendous care to every shot, imbuing each moment with its own poetry and meaning, often focusing on the vast cityscape of Rome; the sky, where birds are migrating; and water, whether slowly moving rivers, historic fountains, or ritzy swimming pools. But the key element in the film, which is Italy’s official entry for the 2014 Academy Awards, is Servillo’s steady, intelligent, yet sad face, his eyes seeing a lot more than just what’s in front of him. It’s an epic performance in an epic film.

Nominated for one Academy Award: Best Foreign Language Film (Italy)

THE CONTENDERS 2013: GRAVITY

Space debris from a Russian satellite threatens an American shuttle crew in GRAVITY

GRAVITY (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Tuesday, November 19, 7:00
Series continues through January 16
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.moma.org
www.gravitymovie.warnerbros.com

Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity is a breathtaking thriller that instantly enters the pantheon of such classic space fare as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and The Right Stuff. While medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is fixing a computer glitch outside the shuttle Explorer, veteran astronaut and wisecracker Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), on his final mission before retirement, is playing around with a new jetpack and Shariff (voiced by Paul Sharma) is having fun going on a brief spacewalk. But disaster strikes when debris from a destroyed Russian satellite suddenly comes their way, killing Shariff and the rest of the crew and crippling the shuttle, leaving Stone and Kowalski on their own in deep space, their communication with Mission Control in Houston (voiced by Ed Harris, in a nod to his participation in Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff) gone as well. Kowalski is cool and calm, listening to country music as he tries to come up with a plan that will get them to the International Space Station, but the inexperienced Stone is running out of oxygen fast as she tumbles through the emptiness, Earth in the background, so close yet so far. Written by Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También, Children of Men) with his son Jonás, Gravity is spectacularly photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki, the master behind numerous works by Cuarón and Terrence Malick (The New World, The Tree of Life), among others. Lubezki and his team even created a new LED light box to increase the film’s realism, which is nothing less than awe-inspiring and mind-bending as it takes place in real time. Despite the vastness of space, Gravity often feels claustrophobic, particularly as Stone struggles to get a breath or attempts to operate a foreign module.

Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) try to remain together in Alfonso Cuarón’s masterful space epic

Close-ups of Stone and Kowalski reveal reflections of the shuttle and Earth, emphasizing the astronauts’ dire situation as they engage in a very different kind of pas de deux. Gravity also succeeds where directors like James Cameron often fail, as a solid, relatively unsentimental and unpredictable script accompanies the remarkable visuals, which evoke both harrowing underwater adventures as well as dangerous mountain-climbing journeys. (Cuarón also manages to bring it all in in a terrifically paced ninety minutes.) Cuarón and Lubezki favor long takes, including an opening shot lasting more than thirteen minutes, immersing the viewer in the film, further enhanced by being projected in IMAX 3D, which is not used as merely a gimmick here. Stephen Price’s score increases the tension as well until getting melodramatic near the end. Clooney is ever dapper and charming and Bullock is appropriately nervous and fearful in their first screen pairing, even though they only make contact with each other through bulky spacesuits, their connection primarily via speaking. Cuarón, who also edited Gravity with Mark Sanger, has made an endlessly exciting film for the ages, a technological marvel that should have a tremendous impact on the future of the industry. Gravity is screening November 19 at 7:00 as part of MoMA’s annual series “The Contenders” and will be followed by a discussion with both Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón. “The Contenders,” which consists of exemplary films that MoMA believes will stand the test of time, continues this month with Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said, John Wells’s August: Osage County, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, and Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight.

THE LINE KING’S LIBRARY: AL HIRSCHFELD AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Al Hirschfeld’s long relationship with the New York Public Library is explored in exhibit at Lincoln Center

Al Hirschfeld’s long relationship with the New York Public Library and the arts is celebrated in exhibit at Lincoln Center

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
40 Lincoln Center Plaza
Exhibition continues through January 4
Film screening: Bruno Walter Auditorium, 111 Amsterdam Ave., Monday, November 18, free, 6:00
212-642-0142
www.nypl.org/lpa

Twelve years ago, New York celebrated the life and eighty-plus-year career of legendary artist Al Hirschfeld with a major retrospective at the Museum of the City of New York and an exhibit of his celebrity caricatures at the New York Public Library’s main branch; in addition, Abrams released two books of his work, one focusing on New York, the other on Hollywood, and Hirschfeld made appearances to promote the publications. Nearly eleven years after his passing in January 2003 at the age of ninety-nine, the New York Public Library is honoring Hirschfeld again with a lovely exhibit at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, “The Line King’s Library: Al Hirschfeld at the New York Public Library.” Visitors can first stop by a re-creation of Hirschfeld’s work area, complete with his drawing table and barber chair, which is on permanent view at the library entrance. The exhibition is straight ahead, consisting of more than one hundred color and black-and-white drawings and lithographs, posters, books, letters, video, newspaper and magazine clippings, and various other ephemera, divided by the discipline of Hirschfeld’s subjects: theater, music, dance, and film, in addition to a section on those artists who influenced the man known as the Line King.

Oscar-winning documentary on Al Hirschfeld screens for free at NYPL on November 18

“My contribution is to take the character — created by the playwright and acted out by the actor — and reinvent it for the theater,” Hirschfeld once explained, and the evidence is on the walls, including works depicting Jack Lemmon in Tribute, Lee J. Cobb in Death of a Salesman, Christopher Plummer in Macbeth, Jessica Tandy and Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady, Alan Cumming in Cabaret, and Jackie Mason in The World According to Me, among so many more. There are also caricatures of Marcel Marceau, S. J. Perelman, George Bernard Shaw, Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Dizzy Gillespie, Katharine Hepburn, and a dazzling, rarely shown 1969 print of Martha Graham. Another highlight is the original drawing for “Broadway First Nighters,” along with a key identifying the dozens of celebrities gathered in a packed room, and paraphernalia from Hirschfeld’s musical comedy Sweet Bye and Bye, a collaboration with Perelman, Vernon Duke, and Ogden Nash. And for those fans who have spent years trying to find all the inclusions of “Nina” in Hirschfeld’s drawings, “Nina’s Revenge” features his daughter holding a brush and smiling, the names “Al” and “Dolly” (for Dolly Haas, her mother and Hirschfeld’s second wife) in her long hair. In conjunction with the exhibition, there will be a free screening of the Oscar-winning 1996 documentary The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story, introduced by the director, Susan W. Dryfoos, on November 18 at 6:00 in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

DOC NYC: THE SQUARE

Ahmed Hassan fights for a better future for Egypt in THE SQUARE

SHORT LIST: THE SQUARE (AL MIDAN) (Jehane Noujaim, 2013)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Sunday, November 17, 11:15 am
Festival runs November 14-21
212-924-7771
www.docnyc.net
www.thesquarefilm.com

“During the early days, we agreed to stay united no matter what,” Ahmed Hassan tells those around him in Jehane Noujaim’s powerful and important documentary The Square. “When we were united, we brought down the dictator. How do we succeed now? We succeed by uniting once again.” But Ahmed, one of several Egyptian revolutionaries who Noujaim follows for two years in the film, finds that it is not that easy to bring everyone together, as the government leaders continue to change and factions develop that favor the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Putting her own life in danger, Noujaim (The Control Room, Startup.com) is right in the middle of it all as she shares the stories of Ahmed, a young man who is determined to see the revolution through until peace and justice prevail; Magdy Ashour, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who must choose between his own personal beliefs and that of his power-hungry organization; and Khalid Abdalla, the British-Egyptian star of The Kite Runner and United 93 who becomes an activist like his father, serving as the revolution’s main link to the international community through the media and by posting videos. In The Square, a 2013 New York Film Festival selection, Noujaim also introduces viewers to human rights lawyer Ragia Omran, protest singer Ramy Essam, and filmmaker Aida El Kashef, none of whom are willing to give in even as the violence increases.

Massive crowds of Egyptians occupy Tahrir Square to demand freedom and democracy in THE SQUARE

Documentary offers an inside look at the occupation of Tahrir Square by Egyptians demanding freedom and democracy

In the documentary, Noujaim includes footage of televised political speeches and interviews that contradict what is actually happening in Tahrir Square as elections near. Reminiscent of Stefano Savona’s Tahrir: Liberation Square, which played at the 2011 New York Film Festival, The Square makes the audience feel like it’s in Tahrir Square, rooting for the revolutionaries to gain the freedom and democracy they so covet. The film also features several stunning shots of the massive crowds, most memorably as thousands of men kneel down in unison to pray to Mecca. Among its many strengths, The Square personalizes the revolution in such a way as to reveal that a small group of people can indeed make a difference, although sometimes they just have to keep on fighting and fighting and fighting. The Square is screening November 15 at 1:45 at the IFC Center as part of the annual DOC NYC fest in the “Short List” category, which consists of films expected to make an impact come awards season; among the other “shortlisted” documentaries, all of which have already been released theatrically, are Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, Morgan Neville’s 20 Feet from Stardom, Dawn Porter’s Gideon’s Army, and Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell.

DOC NYC: THE PUNK SINGER

Riot grrrl Kathleen Hanna opens up about her life in intimate documentary (photo courtesy of Pat Smear)

SONIC CINEMA — THE PUNK SINGER: A FILM ABOUT KATHLEEN HANNA (Sini Anderson, 2013)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eight & Ninth Aves.
Saturday, November 16, 7:15
Festival runs November 14-23
212-924-7771
www.thepunksinger.com
www.docnyc.net

A cofounder of the riot grrrl movement, Kathleen Hanna was an outspoken feminist as she toured the world with Bikini Kill and then Le Tigre starting in 1991. But it all came to a mysterious halt in 2005 when the Portland, Oregon, native suddenly went on what became a long hiatus for undisclosed health reasons. Director Sini Anderson gets to the heart of the matter in the intimate, revealing documentary The Punk Singer: A Film About Kathleen Hanna. Incorporating rousing archival footage and photographs along with new interviews, Anderson, in her feature debut, gets Hanna to open up about her life and career, discussing such influences as Kathy Acker and Gloria Steinem as well as the serious health problem that kept her out of the public eye for five years. Hanna also talks about her childhood, a sexual assault that happened to her best friend, her photography and fashion work in college, her zine writing, and the formation of her bands, along the way always pushing her message. “We didn’t give a shit,” she says about the beginnings of Bikini Kill. “We weren’t making money; we knew we were never going to make money. And it was really important that we made our music. We were on a mission. We were going to do what we did whether we got attention or not.” Anderson also speaks with such former and current Hanna bandmates as Johanna Fateman, JD Samson, Kathi Wilcox, and Tobi Vail, musical icons Joan Jett and Kim Gordon, Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein, and Hanna’s husband, Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz; many are interviewed in the back of a snazzy van during a Hanna tribute concert at the Knitting Factory in 2010.

Kathleen Hanna gets her message out with Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and the Julie Ruin

Anderson weaves in plenty of music clips that display Hanna’s powerful stage presence, including snippets of such songs as “Rebel Girl,” “White Boy,” “Distinct Complicity,” “Hot Topic,” “Deceptacon,” and “Aerobicide” from Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and the Julie Ruin. The Punk Singer is a gripping portrait of a fearless, talented woman who continues to do whatever it takes to get her message out. “What is the story of my life?” Hanna says near the end. “I have no fucking idea.” But now, thanks to Anderson, we do, even if that story is still being written. The Punk Singer is having its New York City premiere November 15 at 9:45 at the SVA Theatre as part of the “Sonic Cinema” section of this year’s DOC NYC festival, with Hanna on hand to talk about the film. DOC NYC, which seeks to “curate [by] guiding audiences toward inspiring work,” runs November 14-21 at the IFC Center and the SVA Theatre; among the other “Sonic Cinema” selections are Rodrigo H. Vila’s Mercedes Sosa: Voice of Latin America, Trevor Laurence and Simeon Hutner’s Harlem Street Singer, Joe Angio’s Revenge of the Mekons, and Jeremy Xido’s Death Metal Angola.