this week in film and television

THE HITCHCOCK 9: THE RING

The bell is sounding for the start of BAM series featuring nine early silent films by Alfred Hitchcock, beginning with THE RING

THE RING (Alfred Hitchcock, 1927)
BAMcinématek, BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
Saturday, June 29, $25, 3:00
Series runs June 29 – July 3
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

When one thinks of Alfred Hitchcock, such psychological thrillers as North by Northwest, Psycho, Vertigo, Notorious, and Rear Window come to mind, not The Manxman, Easy Virtue, The Pleasure Garden, and The Farmer’s Wife. But it is these early, British silent films that are the focus of BAM’s exciting new series, “The Hitchcock 9.” The program runs June 29 through July 3 and features brand-new DCP restorations of nine romantic melodramas made by the Master of Suspense, each one shown in the Harvey Theater on the new Steinberg Screen, with live musical accompaniment. The series begins with 1927’s The Ring, a tantalizing tale of a love triangle set in the world of boxing, a favorite sport of Hitchcock’s. When Bob Corby (Ian Hunter) shows up at a county fair and takes a liking to Mabel (Lillian Hall-Davis), who sells tickets to see her fiance, “One-Round” Jack Sander (Carl Brisson), battle all comers for a cash prize, Corby decides to get in the ring with Sander to impress Mabel; little do they know that Corby is a professional. Soon the two men are also fighting outside the ring, to win the heart of their beloved. Comic relief is supplied by Gordon Harker as Jack’s trainer, who makes some very funny faces throughout. One can see Hitchcock’s visual style emerging in The Ring, as he employs little dialogue in favor of dramatic montages, ghostly superimpositions, and shadowy lighting. The film also deals with issues of class and financial success, themes that will become prevalent in much of Hitchcock’s work. Produced at Elstree Studios and the first film to be released by Gainsborough Pictures, The Ring will be screened at BAM on June 29 at 3:00, with a live score performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

WIZARD WORLD COMIC CON NYC EXPERIENCE

WALKING DEAD stars will be at Basketball City this weekend for Wizard World

Basketball City, Pier 36
299 South St.
June 28-30, $40-$55
www.wizardworld.com

First an East Coast edition of the immensely popular San Diego Comic Con pulled into the Javits Center, where it now annually sells out well in advance. Now a version of Wizard World magically arrives, flying into downtown’s Basketball City on Pier 36 this weekend. The three-day celebration of all things fantasy and science fiction features an all-star lineup of heavy hitters participating in Q&As and/or signing autographs and posing for photos (for between $40 and $80 each), including Patrick Stewart, Stan Lee, Henry Winkler, Anthony Michael Hall, Denis O’Hare, James Marsters, Michael Rooker, CM Punk, Wil Wheaton, Ray Park, Pam Grier, Norman Reedus, and others, with a major focus on The Walking Dead. Among the special programs are a retrospective of National Cartoonist Society Hall of Famer Stan Goldberg’s career, a meet-and-greet and Q&A with Lee, “Vampire Lore and Other Urban Myths and Legends” with Dr. Rebecca Housel, “Drawing and Composing Covers for Dramatic Effect” with Neal Adams, “Will Eisner’s A Contract with God at 35” moderated by Danny Fingeroth, “Mastering the Universe” with animator Tom Cook, and the Official Wizard World Comic Con Costume Contest and Party.

OZU: LATE AUTUMN

Nobuo Nakamura, Ryuji Kita, and Shin Saburi play a trio of matchmaking yentas in Ozu’s LATE AUTUMN

LATE AUTUMN (AKIBIYORI) (Yasujirō Ozu, 1960)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Tuesday, June 25, 1:00, 3:20, 8:00
Series runs through June 27
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Yasujirō Ozu revisits one of his greatest triumphs, 1949’s Late Spring, in the 1960 drama Late Autumn, the Japanese auteur’s fourth color film and his third-to-last work. Whereas the black-and-white Late Spring is about a widowed father (Chishu Ryu) and his unmarried adult daughter (Setsuko Hara) contemplating their futures, Late Autumn deals with young widow Akiko Miwa (Hara again) and her daughter, Ayako (Yoku Tsukasa). At a ceremony honoring the seventh anniversary of Mr. Miwa’s death, several of his old friends gather together and are soon plotting to marry off both the younger Akiko, whom they all had crushes on, and twenty-four-year-old Ayako. The three businessmen — Soichi Mamiya (Shin Saburi), Shuzo Taguchi (Nobuo Nakamura), and Seiichiro Hirayama (Ryuji Kita) — serve as a kind of comedic Greek chorus, matchmaking and arguing like a trio of yentas, while Akiko and Ayako maintain creepy smiles as the men lay out their misguided, unwelcome plans. Mamiya makes numerous attempts to fix Ayako up with one of his employees, Shotaru Goto (Keiji Sada), but Ayako wants none of it, preferring the freedom and independence displayed by her best friend, Yoko (Yuriko Tashiro), who represents the new generation in Japan. At the same time, their matchmaking for Akiko borders on the slapstick. Based on a story by Ton Satomi, Late Autumn, written by Ozu with longtime collaborator Kôgo Noda, is a relatively lighthearted film from the master, with sly jokes and playful references while examining a Japan that is in the midst of significant societal change in the postwar era. Kojun Saitô’s Hollywood-esque score is often bombastically melodramatic, but Yuuharu Atsuta’s cinematography keeps things well grounded with Ozu’s trademark low-angle, unmoving shots amid carefully designed interior sets. Late Autumn is downright fun to watch, and you can see it on June 25 at Film Forum as part of its three-week Ozu series, which continues through June 27 with screenings of such other works as An Autumn Afternoon, That Night’s Wife, the double feature A Hen in the Wind and Ohayo, and Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? In addition, on June 26 at 11:00 am, Film Forum will host a free memorial tribute to Japanese cinema expert, critic, director, and curator Donald Richie, who died in Tokyo in February at the age of eighty-eight; speakers include Ian Buruma, Daryl Chin, Emilie de Brigard, Lucille Carra, Bruce Goldstein, Peter Grilli, Laurence Kardish, Stephen Prince, Mary Richie, and Paul Schrader. (Late Autumn will be having encore screenings July 24-25 as part of Film Forum’s “Reprise Presentation” of eight of the films through July 25.)

DOCUMENTARY IN BLOOM: HOMEGOINGS

Isaiah Owens takes a very personal approach to being a Harlem funeral director in new documentary, HOMEGOINGS

HOMEGOINGS (Christine Turner, 2013)
Maysles Institute
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
June 24-30, $10 suggested donation, 7:30 (June 27 at 4:00 only)
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org
www.homegoings.com

Ever since he was a boy growing up on a farm in South Carolina, Isaiah Owens, the son of a sharecropper, has been burying the dead, beginning with small animals. As a teenager, he moved to New York City to train to become a funeral director, and for the last forty years, he has run the Owens Funeral Home in Harlem, where he continues to be a longtime pillar of the community, known for the great care and consideration he gives each family as they deal with the loss of a loved one. His company motto is “Where Beauty Softens Your Grief,” and that is evident throughout Christine Turner’s new documentary, Homegoings. Turner followed Owens over the course of four years as he and his staff — his wife, son, daughter, and mother all work in the family business — set up funerals for such clients as Walter Simons, whose octogenarian grandparents died within two days of each other; Queen Petra’s children, who want something special for their mother, including a horse and carriage; and Linda “Redd” Williams-Miller, who is planning her funeral in advance, wanting to get every detail right. And details are what Owens is all about, not only working hard to make sure the deceased look their best in their coffin but guaranteeing that every aspect of the funeral is handled with great thought and humanity. Owens narrates the documentary, sharing his views on life and death as well as the history of mourning in the African-American community. He is an inspiring man who is not what most people expect in funeral directors, who are often portrayed as being dark and morose. Williams-Miller says that homegoings should be “a happy occasion,” and Owens is ready, willing, and able to ensure that the experience is precisely what each individual family wants and needs. Homegoings, which was made in conjunction with PBS’s POV program and features an original score by Daniel Bernard Roumain, is having its U.S. theatrical premiere June 24-30 at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem, not very far from the Owens Funeral Home itself, as part of guest curator Livia Bloom’s continuing “Documentary in Bloom” series. The hour-long film will be preceded by StoryCorps Shorts: A Tenth Anniversary Program, a twenty-minute collection of animations the Rauch Brothers have made with the organization that has been amassing an oral history of America for a decade. The June 25 and 28 screenings of Homegoings will be followed by a Q&A with Turner and members of the cast, with a reception as well on June 28.

ART SEEN: THE COOL SCHOOL

THE COOL SCHOOL takes a look at the influential L.A. art scene of the 1950s and 1960s

THE COOL SCHOOL (Morgan Neville, 2007)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Sunday, June 23, 11:15 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com

While postwar modern art was exploding in New York in the 1950s, a small, close-knit group of artists were coming together in Los Angeles, exploring abstract expressionism in a tiny gallery called Ferus. Mixing archival footage with new interviews — shot in black and white to maintain the old-time, DIY feel — director Morgan Neville delves into the fascinating world of the L.A. art scene as seen through the Ferus Gallery, which was founded in 1957 by Walter Hopps, a medical-school dropout who looked and acted like a Fed, and assemblage artist Ed Kienholz. “The work was really special,” notes Dennis Hopper, enjoying a cigar with Dean Stockwell. “And there [were] a lot of really, really gifted artists that really have to be looked at again.” Among those artists were Wallace Berman, Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, John Baldessari, and Larry Bell. (All of them participate in the documentary except for Berman, who died in 1976.) In addition to featuring up-and-coming West Coast painters, sculptors, and conceptual artists, Ferus also hosted a Marcel Duchamp retrospective as well as early shows by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, and other East Coast favorites. For nearly ten years, Hopps, Kienholz, and crafty businessman Irwin Blum kept Ferus going until various personality clashes led to its demise. The film includes an engaging roundtable from 2004 in which Neville brought many of the artists together to discuss what Ferus meant to them — and the art world in general. Behind a jazzy score, Neville also speaks with collectors, curators, and critics, putting it all into perspective. The Cool School, narrated by actor and photographer Jeff Bridges, is a fun-filled trip through a heretofore little-known part of postwar American art. The film is screening June 23 at 11:15 am as part of the Nitehawk Cinema’s monthly series “Art Seen” along with Paul McCarthy’s The Black and White Tapes, artist works by Kelly Kleinschrodt and Alexa Garrity, and Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman’s brilliant video bio A Brief History of John Baldessari, narrated by Tom Waits. The series continues July 20-21 with Neil Berkeley’s Beauty Is Embarrassing.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL: TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE

Real-life sisters Dior and Oumoul Kâ play fictional sisters facing a family crisis in TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE

TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE (GRAND COMME LE BAOBAB) (Jeremy Teicher, 2012)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Sunday, June 23, 7:00 & 9:30
212-924-7771
www.tallasthebaobabtree.com
www.ff.hrw.org

The 2013 Human Rights Watch Film Festival comes to a close on June 23 with Jeremy Teicher’s heart-wrenching Tall as the Baobab Tree, an involving, powerful, yet gentle drama about a Senegalese family trapped by tradition in a modernizing world. Real-life sisters Dior and Oumoul Kâ star as Coumba and Debo, close siblings who live in the tiny rural village of Sinthiou Mbadane (where they actually are from). When their older brother, Silèye (Alpha Dia), falls out of a baobab tree and breaks his leg, their father (Mouhamed Diallo) doesn’t have enough money to pay for the necessary medical care so he instead sends Coumba out to do Silèye’s job of herding the cows and decides to sell off eleven-year-old Debo to suitors for marriage. Their mother (Mboural Dia) is unwilling to stand up to her husband, so Coumba hatches a plan in which her friend Amady (Cheikh Dia), who has a crush on her, will watch the herd for her secretly while she heads into the city and gets a job until she makes enough money to help Silèye heal and prevent Debo from having to marry so young. Unfortunately, not everything goes quite as planned. But through it all, no matter how difficult things get, all of the characters maintain their faith, praising peace and continually saying, “God is great.”

Teicher came up with the idea for Tall as the Baobab Tree when he was a student working on This Is Us, a documentary for the nonprofit organization CyberSmart Africa in which the children of Sinthiou Mbadane created brief digital stories about their lives. Teicher, who directed Tall as the Baobab Tree and cowrote it with Alexi Pappas, chose to focus on the very real African problem of forced marriage of young girls between the ages of eight and twelve, collaborating closely with the nonprofessional actors selected from the village, allowing their own stories to meld together, blending fact and fiction. Another central issue is the importance of education, particularly for girls, as Debo clearly would rather follow in Coumba’s footsteps and prepare for university instead of becoming a child bride. The narrative unfolds slowly and calmly, with no overemotional, melodramatic moments or any soapbox preaching, while the tender mood is enhanced by cinematographer Chris Collins’s lush photography and Salieu Suso’s Kora-based score. Presented in conjunction with the African Film Festival and Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, Tall as the Baobab Tree, the first feature ever filmed in the Puular language, is screening June 23 at the IFC Center at 7:00, followed by a discussion with Teicher and Human Rights Watch African division deputy director Rona Peligal, and again at 9:30, introduced by Teicher.

AUTO-CINEMA: HOLY MOTORS

Léos Carax’s HOLY MOTORS is a dazzling tribute to Paris, cinema, and the art of storytelling

HOLY MOTORS (Léos Carax, 2012)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Saturday, June 22, 4:30, and Monday, June 24, 6:45
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
www.holymotorsfilm.com

French writer-director Léos Carax (Boy Meets Girl, Mauvais Sang) has made only five feature films in his thirty-plus-year career, a sadly low output for such an innovative, talented director, but he has now given birth to his masterpiece, the endlessly intriguing, confusing, and exhilarating Holy Motors. His first film since 1999’s POLA X, the new work is a surreal tale of character and identity, spreading across multiple genres in a series of bizarre, entertaining, and often indecipherable set pieces. Holy Motors opens with Carax himself playing le Dormeur, a man who wakes up and walks through a hidden door in his room and into a movie theater where a packed house, watching King Vidor’s The Crowd, is fast asleep. The focus soon shifts to Carax alter ego Denis Lavant as Monsieur Oscar, a curious character who is being chauffeured around Paris in a white stretch limo driven by the elegant Céline (Édith Scob). Oscar has a list of assignments for the day that involve his putting on elaborate costumes — including revisiting his sewer character from Merde, Carax’s contribution to the 2009 omnibus Tokyo! that also included shorts by Michel Gondry and Bon Joon-ho — and becoming immersed in scenes that might or might not be staged, blurring the lines between fiction and reality within, of course, a completely fictional world to begin with. It is as if each scene is a separate little movie, and indeed, Carax, whose middle name is Oscar, has said that he made Holy Motors after several other projects fell through, so perhaps he has melded many of those ideas into this fabulously abstruse tale that constantly reinvents itself. The film is also a loving tribute to Paris, the cinema, and the art of storytelling, with direct and indirect references to Franz Kafka, E. T. A. Hoffman, Charlie Chaplin, Lon Chaney, Eadweard Muybridge, Georges Franju, and others. (Scob, who starred in Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, at one point even pulls out a mask similar to the one she wore in that classic thriller.) The outstanding cast also features Kylie Minogue, who does indeed get to sing; Eva Mendes as a robotic model; and Michel Piccoli as the mysterious Man with the Birthmark. Holy Motors is screening June 22 & 24 as part of the Anthology Film Archives series “Auto-Cinema,” consisting of films that take place primarily inside cars, exploring human consciousness in ways that are less claustrophobic than one might imagine; the weeklong festival also includes Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry and 10, David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis and Crash, Saul Levine’s Driven (with Katha Washburn), and a shorts program with works by Alfred Leslie and Frank O’Hara, Bette Gordon and James Benning, Paul Kos and Marlene Kos, Morgan Fisher, and Andrew T. Betzer.