this week in film and television

NOSFERATU: A SYMPHONY OF HORROR / NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE

F. W. Murnau’s 1922 version of NOSFERATU is a German expressionist classic

NOSFERATU: A SYMPHONY OF HORROR (NOSFERATU, EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS) (F. W. Murnau, 1922)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, November 4, $12.50, 7:30
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

In F. W. Murnau’s classic horror film, Max Schreck stars as Count Orlok, a creepy, inhuman-looking Transylvanian who is meeting with real estate agent Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) in order to buy a house in Germany. Hutter soon learns that the count has a taste for blood, as well as lust for his wife, Ellen (Greta Schröder), whom he has left behind in Germany. When Count Orlok, a bunch of rats, and a group of coffins filled with Transylvanian earth head out on a ship bound for Wisborg, the race is on to save Ellen, and Germany. Murnau’s Nosferatu is set in an expressionist world of liminal shadows and fear, as he and cinematographers Fritz Arno Wagner and Günther Krampf continually place the menacing Orlok in oddly shaped doorways that help exaggerate his long, spiny fingers and pointed nose and ears. Unable to acquire the rights from Bram Stoker’s estate to adapt the Gothic horror novel Dracula into a film, writer Henrik Galeen (The Golem, The Student of Prague) and director Murnau (Sunrise, The Last Laugh) instead made Nosferatu, paring down the Dracula legend, changing the names of the characters, and tweaking the story in various parts. Upon its 1922 release, they were sued anyway, and all prints were destroyed except for one, ensuring the survival of what became a defining genre classic. In 1979, German auteur Werner Herzog (Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo) paid tribute to the earlier film with Nosferatu the Vampyre, a near scene-by-scene homage to Murnau’s original but with Stoker’s character names restored, as the book was by then in the public domain. Hans Erdmann’s complete score no longer exists, so numerous musical compositions have accompanied screenings and DVD/VHS releases over the years; at Film Forum, pianist Steve Sterner will offer his take on November 4 at 7:30.

Werner Herzog pays tribute to Murnau classic with his 1979 remake of NOSFERATU

NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (NOSFERATU: PHANTOM DER NACHT) (Werner Herzog, 1979)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Through Thursday, November 7, $12.50
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Nearly sixty years after Murnau battled the Stoker estate, Herzog remade Nosferatu with an all-star cast featuring Bruno Ganz as real estate agent Jonathan Harker, Isabelle Adjani as his wife, Lucy, and Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula. Shot in flat colors by Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein and set to a score by German electronica band Popol Vuh, Herzog’s Nosferatu follows the same path as Murnau’s, as Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to have the count sign a contract, discovers that Dracula likes blood and sleeps in a coffin, then tries to save his wife when the count and thousands of (purportedly mistreated) rats sail to Wismar, renewing fears of plague. Kinski plays the count as a sad, lonely figure who no longer belongs in the modern world. He’s desperate for human contact, and his castle has seen much better days. Kinski often seems to be shot in black-and-white, surrounded by color, as if he were from another time, except for his shockingly red lipstick. It’s a virtuoso performance that is significantly more nuanced than Schreck’s, which is a more direct take on the character. Both films are gems; Film Forum is showing a new 35mm print of the rare German-language version of Herzog’s remake through November 7; on November 4 you can see them both, with separate paid admission.

I DON’T KNOW: THE WOMEN

Mrs. Stephen Haines (Norma Shearer) learns the awful truth in George Cukor’s THE WOMEN

Mrs. Stephen Haines (Norma Shearer) discovers some awful truths in George Cukor’s THE WOMEN

CABARET CINEMA: THE WOMEN (George Cukor, 1939)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, November 1, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

One of the cattiest movies ever made, The Women is a screwball comedy that has the distinction of not having a single man in it; it was even written by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin, based on Clare Booth’s 1936 Broadway play, and helmed by George Cukor, who is often considered “the women’s director.” Set in Manhattan, the film follows the intrigue and gossip surrounding a group of socialite women who yap yap yap all day long while shopping in ritzy stores, eating in fancy restaurants, and getting their nails done in high-end salons. Their attention is suddenly turned to the sweetly innocent Mary Haines (Norma Shearer) when it is believed that her husband, Stephen, is having an affair with conniving perfume salesperson Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford). Mary’s supposed best friends, Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell), Edith Potter (Phyllis Povah), and Peggy Day (Joan Fontaine), at first keep the story from her, but as the facts continue to pile up, Mary considers heading to Reno to get a quickie divorce, even as her mother (Lucile Watson) tells her to just live with the deception, as most women do. In Reno, Mary stays at a ranch with other wives trying to get out of their marriages, including a boisterous, oft-wed countess (Mary Boland), a tough-talking chorus girl (Paulette Goddard), and a few surprises. As the women discuss life and love, wealth and poverty, heartache and motherhood — Mary is desperate to protect her daughter, also named Mary (Virginia Weidler), from the nasty proceedings — relationships twist and turn, loyalty is questioned, and the possibility of true love is clouded in doubt.

An all-star cast discuss what went wrong with their marriages in THE WOMEN

The Women is a riotous, fast-paced romp that flies by despite clocking in at more than two hours. The opening title sequence sets the stage, with each of the main characters represented by a different animal: deer (Mary), leopard (Crystal), black cat (Sylvia), monkey (the countess), hyena (Miriam), sheep (Peggy), owl (Mary’s mother), cow (Edith), doe (Mary’s daughter), and horse (Lucy). The narrative mixes slapstick humor and tender moments with scenes of backstabbing bravado. Dennie Moore nearly steals the show as fabulously gossipy manicurist Olga, who unwittingly sets the main plot in motion and is responsible for painting many of the characters’ nails in the critical color Jungle Red. (Among the other highlights are an exercise class at the spa and the maid spying on a heated argument between Mary and Stephen.) The cast also features Hedda Hopper as gossip columnist Dolly Dupuyster, Butterfly McQueen as Crystal’s assistant, Lulu, and Marjorie Main as Lucy, who runs the Reno divorce ranch. Although the film was primarily shot in black-and-white, it has an oddball Adrian fashion show in Technicolor that feels out of place, and some of the ideas regarding a woman’s freedom versus her dependence on men don’t quite hold up, but The Women is still one of the greatest Hollywood pictures ever told from the perspective of the fairer sex. Amazingly, Cukor’s film did not receive a single Oscar nomination, having come out the same year as Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Gone with the Wind, Ninotchka, Love Affair, Dark Victory, The Wizard of Oz, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The Women is screening November 1 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “I Don’t Know” — “about what we don’t know, or choose not to know” — and will be introduced by Justin Vivian Bond. The festival continues November 8 with John Kelly introducing Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt and November 15 with Rachel Dratch introducing Peter Brook’s Lord of the Flies.

TRIBUTE TO LOU REED: LOU REED’S BERLIN

Museum of the Moving Image pays tribute to the late, great Lou Reed with special BERLIN screening on November 2

LOU REED’S BERLIN (Julian Schnabel, 2007)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, November 2, $12, 7:30
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.loureed.com/inmemoriam

In December 2006, Lou Reed resurrected his 1973 masterwork, Berlin, a deeply dark and personal song cycle that was a critical and commercial flop upon its initial release but has grown in stature over the years. (As Reed sings on the album’s closer, “Sad Song”: “Just goes to show how wrong you can be.”) The superbly staged adaptation, directed by Academy Award nominee Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), took place at Brooklyn’s intimate St. Ann’s Warehouse, featuring Rob Wasserman and longtime Reed sideman Fernando Saunders on bass, Tony “Thunder” Smith on drums, Rupert Christie on keyboards, and guitarist extraordinaire Steve Hunter, reunited with Lou for the first time in three decades. The band is joined onstage by backup singers Sharon Jones and Antony, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and a seven-piece orchestra (including cello, viola, flute, trumpet, clarinet, and flugel). Amid dreamlike video montages shot by Schnabel’s daughter, Lola, depicting Emmanuelle Seigner as the main character in Berlin, as well as experimental imagery by Alejandro Garmendia, Reed tells the impossibly bleak story of Caroline, a young mother whose life crashes and burns in a dangerously divided and debauched Germany. “It was very nice / It was paradise,” Reed sings on the opening title track, but it’s all downhill from there. “It was very nice / It was paradise” might also now serve as a kind of epitaph for one of the most important poets of the last fifty years. Berlin is having a special screening November 2 at 7:30 at the Museum of the Moving Image in honor of Reed, who passed away on October 27 at the age of seventy-one.

TWI-NY TALK: AMY NICHOLSON / ZIPPER

LOCAL COLOR — ZIPPER: CONEY ISLAND’S LAST WILD RIDE (Amy Nicholson, 2012)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Wednesday, October 30, 9:30
718-384-3980
www.zipperfilm.com
www.nitehawkcinema.com

This past August, Amy Nicholson’s compelling, bittersweet documentary Zipper: Coney Island’s Last Wild Ride opened to wide acclaim during an extended run at the IFC Center. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the 2012 DOC NYC festival, Zipper follows the fate of Eddie Miranda’s Zipper amusement park ride as a microcosm of the controversial rezoning and commercialization plans that threaten to change Coney Island forever. In her director’s statement, Nicholson, a longtime marketing creative director in New York City who has taken the film, her third documentary, all over the country, explains, “I have two ambitions for Zipper. First, to expose how and why the ‘poor people’s Riviera’ became the prize in a fight between a billionaire developer and a billionaire mayor. Second, to remind the world of Coney Island’s true character, so that other great cultural icons might be valued more for their sense of place than for their real estate.” Her next stop is Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, where she’ll take part in a Q&A following a special “Local Color” screening on October 30 at 9:30. As an added bonus, each attendee gets a free Coney Island beer. In anticipation of the Nitehawk event, Nicholson recently discussed with twi-ny the Zipper, the advertising business, the future of Coney Island, and more.

twi-ny: What was the genesis of the Zipper project?

Amy Nicholson: Believe it or not, I was looking for the Jumble in the Daily News when I came across an article about the Zipper leaving Coney Island and my heart sank. I loved that ride as a kid; it’s the quintessential crazy carnival contraption and the perfect symbol of all that’s great about a place like Coney Island. Originally I was just going to do a short homage to the Zipper, but I got sucked into the politics of why Eddie Miranda and a lot of other small operators were leaving. The more I looked into it, the bigger it got.

twi-ny: What kind of personal connection did you have with Coney Island prior to starting the project? How would you say it has changed since then?

Amy Nicholson: I have lived in New York since the late ’80s and my best friend and I would go down to Coney Island on hot summer nights and just hang out and people watch. It’s really the best place in the world to soak up that beach/carnival/melting pot atmosphere. As Joey says in the film, “Once you get the sand in your shoes….”

(Sidebar about riding the Zipper in Coney: Eddie’s Zipper was an older hydraulic model, which meant it used a lot of oil. If the temperature was hot during the day — and cooler at night — the Zipper would spin a lot more aggressively as the oil cooled. The loader, Freddie, and I made a pact to ride on the last night after the very last shot, but when he chickened out, so did I. Apparently the conditions were perfect for making the Zipper spin like crazy that day and he said there had been a lot of barfing!)

twi-ny: How would you say it has changed since the late ’80s?

Amy Nicholson: Coney Island is a really addicting place for so many reasons. I can never sum it up as well as the guys do in the last scenes of Zipper. But I can tell you for certain that’s been the biggest change. The complexion of the place is very different now and not in a good way. There are still a few of the old guard there, but the rest is either an empty lot or new construction that feels soulless. The new rides are nice, but Coney Island is well on its way to being sterilized.

twi-ny: Has anything changed in the rezoning/development fight since the film was released?

Amy Nicholson: When the film leaves off at the end of 2009, Bloomberg was just reelected to a third term. A deal was made with Thor Equities to purchase about half of their property for around $100 million, and the city leased newly created parkland to a single operator. Since then, Thor has built one retail building and Central Amusements International has brought in new rides, primarily in areas where there were rides before the fight began. There have been some nice improvements, but there are still plenty of empty lots and none of the promised affordable housing or hotels have materialized. Nor is Coney Island year-round — the reason the public was told the rezoning had to happen. We are also coming up on the one-year anniversary of Sandy, which did some horrific damage, but almost all of the rides and games survived. The final super[title] of the film that states what the resolution was after all the years of battling still stands.

ZIPPER director Amy Nicholson celebrates documentary at Coney Island History Project

twi-ny: How do you think documentaries like yours can make a difference in such battles?

Amy Nicholson: I think documentaries like mine not only serve as a record of history, but I hope they exposed the truth about how politics and the constant need for growth can change cities far too quickly and not necessarily for the better. As a regular citizen, you would have had to follow the story for six years, digging around, attending meetings, and asking questions. It’s a lot to ask for a busy public, and in the end, the public process is pretty much a joke. So on the most basic level, you can watch Zipper and see the whole story unfold in seventy-seven minutes and at least walk away with a basic understanding of why there’s an Applebee’s in Coney Island now.

twi-ny: You’ve shown the film all over the country. How do audiences in other cities react to such a New York story? Coney Island has a unique legend, but most of those people have probably never been there.

Amy Nicholson: The film speaks to people everywhere because there has been such an increase in development like this where cities decide to proactively stimulate economic growth with developer incentives. The easiest way to do that is to change the zoning. Right now, Los Angeles is doing exactly what New York did with a huge zoning overhaul. It hasn’t escaped anyone’s attention that small businesses everywhere are being displaced by chains.

And then there are the sweetest older people everywhere we go who attend the screenings and they just want to relive a little bit of their Brooklyn childhood. When we get compliments on how well we captured the feeling of the place, that’s when I think we’ve been successful. That’s the best.

twi-ny: You’ve spent a lot of years in advertising. What kind of impact do you think that has on your filmmaking style, as well as the film’s promotion?

Amy Nicholson: Well, in this case it gave me a fairly keen understanding of the attempted branding of both Coney Island and Brooklyn. (In the case of Brooklyn, the city has been far too successful!) It definitely gave me the radar to know when I was being sold something. I could feel it in the interviews, and twice I found “talking points” left behind in the rooms we were in. As far as how it applies to the marketing of the film, I can’t take all the credit. Coney Island was the most amazing place visually. And I had help. That best friend who I went to Coney with on hot summer nights is also an amazing designer. We just did our best attempt to bring it to life.

twi-ny: You’ve previously made Beauty School and Muskrat Lovely. Do you have any plans yet for your next film?

Amy Nicholson: I have to recover financially from this one first (we could not get funding), but I have a few ideas rolling around in my head. Stay tuned….

NEXT WAVE THEATER: NOSFERATU

Grzegorz Jarzyna adds to the vampire legend in multimedia NOSFERATU running this week at BAM (photo by Stefan Okolowicz)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
October 30 – November 2, $20-$65
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Halloween is quickly upon us, so arts organizations across the city are turning to horror to try to scare the hell out of us this week. Over at BAM, you can catch the frightening “Puppets on Film” series, which includes Godzilla, Aliens, and the terrifying The Great Muppet Caper; Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot and The Lodger, the latter with live music by Morricone Youth; and the twelfth annual BAMboo!, a free, child-friendly block party with music, candy, games, workshops, and more. But the strangest of them all is likely to be TR Warszawa and Teatr Narodowy’s multimedia production of Nosferatu, inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula — which was also the inspiration for F. W. Murnau’s 1922 horror classic, Nosferatu, a film that had to change its title, character names, and plot details because the Stoker family would not authorize the rights. Written and directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna, who brought Thomas Vinterberg’s Dogme 95 film The Celebration to mesmerizing life as Festen at St. Ann’s Warehouse last year, Nosferatu has an original score by John Zorn, with sets and costumes by Magdalena Maciejewska, lighting by Jacqueline Sobiszewski, and video design by Bartek Macias. The cast consists of Sandra Korzeniak, Katarzyna Warnke, Wolfgang Michael, Jan Englert, Jan Frycz, Krzysztof Franieczek, Marcin Hycnar, Lech Łotocki, and Adam Woronowicz. The show runs October 30 through November 2 at the BAM Harvey; on November 1 at 6:00 in the Hillman Attic Studio ($15), New Yorker journalist Joan Acocella will give the related talk “On Vampires.” In addition, Film Forum is showing Werner Herzog’s remake Nosferatu the Vampyre through November 7, with a bonus screening of Murnau’s original on November 4 at 7:30.

MUMIA: LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY

MUMIA: LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY examines the life and career of controversial African American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal

MUMIA: LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY (Stephen Vittoria, 2013)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St.
October 25-31
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.mumia-themovie.com

In Stephen Vittoria’s overly reverential documentary Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary, actors, activists, journalists, writers, and others celebrate the life and career of the former Wesley Cook, who changed his name to Mumia Abu-Jamal and helped found the Philadelphia wing of the Black Panther Party. The two-hour film begins with right-wing media mouths and the owner of Geno’s Steaks decrying the left’s embracing of Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1982 of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Denied access to Abu-Jamal in prison, Vittoria uses staged re-creations, archival footage, radio interviews, and such actors as Giancarlo Esposito, Ruby Dee, and Peter Coyote reading from his many books in order to portray him as a dedicated and talented journalist who became a feared target of FBI head J. Edgar Hoover and controversial Philly mayor Frank Rizzo, ultimately being set up for a murder he did not commit. Vittoria does not delve into the details of the case, instead exploring the man himself, with stories from Abu-Jamal’s sister Lydia Barashango, comedian and activist Dick Gregory, wrongly incarcerated boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, philosopher Cornel West, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alice Walker, fellow investigative journalist Juan Gonzalez, radical activist Angela Davis, and radio host Amy Goodman, who has broadcast numerous phone interviews with Abu-Jamal, whose 1982 death sentence was commuted to life in prison last year. Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary is completely one-sided, showing anyone against the golden-throated Abu-Jamal to be crazy as the filmmakers glorify its subject. However, it does reveal the City of Brotherly Love to be a frightening hotbed of violence and racism, even if that is not necessarily news. “Philadelphia has a veneer of liberalism and this whole Quaker mystique,” explains Temple associate professor and journalist Linn Washington. “The reality is it has been this ruthlessly racist city — really from its inception.” Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary works better when it examines the social history of the civil rights movement and the Black Panthers as covered by Abu-Jamal but falters when it treats his writings as if they were Shakespearean soliloquies. Vittoria, producer Noelle Hanrahan, and attorney Rachel Wolkenstein will be at the Quad to participate in Q&As following the 8:15 screenings on October 25 and 26, and King Downing and other former Black Panthers will take part in a Q&A following the 1:10 show on October 27.

FILM FORUM JR.: BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

The Monster (Boris Karloff) is getting ready to meet his mate in FRANKENSTEIN sequel

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (James Whale, 1935)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Sunday, October 27, $7, 11:00 am
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

At the start of James Whale’s Frankenstein, actor Edward Van Sloan, who plays Dr. Waldman in the film, steps out from behind a curtain and tells the audience that what they are about to see “is one of the strangest tales ever told. It deals with the two great mysteries of creation; life and death. I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So, if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now’s your chance to uh, well — we warned you!” Instead of staying away, people flocked to the theaters, making Frankenstein such a hit that Universal produced a sequel, although it took longer than expected. At the beginning of Whale’s 1935 follow-up, Bride of Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Elsa Lanchester) tells Percy Bysshe Shelley (Douglas Walton) and Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), “The publishers did not see that my purpose was to write a moral lesson, the punishment that befell a mortal man who dared to emulate god,” letting them know that there was more to her story, picking up where the first movie left off. The Monster (Boris Karloff again, billed only by his last name) has survived the fire, and he is on the loose. Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive, reprising his role as the godlike creator) has survived as well and is ready to finally marry his sweetheart, Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson, taking over for an ill Mae Clarke).

The Bride (Elsa Lanchester) has a few things to say about her resurrection in Whale sequel

But their plans are interrupted by the arrival of the extremely strange and menacing Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), who thinks that the Monster deserves a mate. Meanwhile, the Monster is traipsing through the woods, finding a friend in a blind violin-playing hermit (O. P. Heggie) and learning how to speak as he tries to avoid capture by the determined Burgomaster (E. E. Clive). Whale, who initially did not want to direct the sequel, has a ball with the film, infusing it with religious imagery, including having the Monster lifted up on a cross in a graveyard, and campy humor, particularly when Dr. Pretorius shows off his collection of rather silly miniature creatures to Dr. Frankenstein. Karloff, who was billed above the title, takes the Monster to another level, achieving sympathy as he learns more about what he is and comes to understand such feelings as longing and loneliness. Una O’Connor is a hoot as the loudmouth Minnie, practically serving as a one-woman Greek chorus. The scene in which the Monster waits for and then meets his mate (Lanchester, who is listed in the credits only as Mary Shelley) is a genuine cinema classic, layered with depth and meaning. While the first film was, and still is, shocking and horrifying, just as Van Sloan warned, the second is actually stranger, more satisfying, and, at its heart, more human. Interestingly, Bride of Frankenstein, which experienced various types of censorship back in the mid-1930s, is screening on October 27 at 11:00 am as part of the Film Forum Jr. series for kids and families and will be preceded by Ub Iwerks’s 1937 cartoon Skeleton Frolics for Halloween week; the series continues November 3 with Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, appropriately during election week, and later will show George Seaton’s 1947 Miracle on 34th Street on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.