this week in film and television

FRIEDKIN 70s: THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Popeye Doyle battles his inner demons and an international drug ring in New York City classic THE FRENCH CONNECTION

THE FRENCH CONNECTION (William Friedkin, 1971)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Saturday, May 4, 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30
Series runs May 2-7
212-415-5500
www.bam.org

William Friedkin’s Oscar-winning classic The French Connection is a whole lot more than just a car chase. But oh, what a car chase. Adapted by screenwriter Ernest Tidyman from a nonfiction book by Robin Moore, the gripping 1971 thriller is about obsession and paranoia, setting the stage for a decade filled with gritty, soul-searching films centered around troubled antiheroes. Way down on the list of actors to play Popeye Doyle, Gene Hackman won an Academy Award for his portrayal of the undercover detective willing to do anything to get his man. In this case, his targets are suave local hoodlum Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco) and elegant French drug kingpin Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), less-than-affectionately known as Frog One. Sure that a major international deal is about to go down, Doyle and his partner, Cloudy Russo (Roy Scheider), trail Boca and Charnier, highlighted by a marvelous cat-and-mouse game between Doyle and Charnier on the subway and then, of course, the car chase to end all car chases, as Doyle speeds underneath an elevated train in a Pontiac LeMans, determined to catch hit man Pierre Nicoli (Marcel Bozzuffi). Shot in muted browns and grays by Owen Roizman, who photographed such other New York City tales as The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Three Days of the Condor, and Tootsie, the film was inspired by real-life situations involving cops Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, both of whom appear in the film (but not as themselves). The French Connection is screening May 4 as part of the BAMcinématek series “Friedkin 70s,” which kicks off on May 2 with Sorcerer, followed on May 3 with Cruising, both of which will have showings that include a Q&A with Friedkin, who has just published his memoir, The Friedkin Connection (Harper, April 2013, $29.99). The series also includes The Boys in the Band, The Exorcist, and The Brink’s Job.

AJWS BENEFIT SCREENING: CALL ME KUCHU

David Kato fights for justice for members of the LGBT community in powerful CALL ME KUCHU

CALL ME KUCHU (Katherine Fairfax Wright & Malike Zouhali-Worrall, 2012)
Museum of Arts & Design, the Theater at MAD
2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Broadway
Monday, May 6, minimum donation $100 ($36 for AJWS Young Professionals), 6:00
800-838-3006
www.gc.ajws.org
www.callmekuchu.com

Every June, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities celebrate gay pride as millions of marchers and spectators come together in parades, marches, and other events in which no one has to hide their sexuality. Such is not the case in Uganda, where many believe that being gay should lead to being executed — and that not turning in a gay friend or relative should result in life in prison. In the heartbreaking yet stirring Call Me Kuchu, codirectors Katherine Fairfax Wright, who also served as editor and photographer, and Malike Zouhali-Worrall, who also produced the award-winning documentary, go deep inside the LGBT community in Kampala, meeting with such gay and lesbian LGBT activists as Naome Ruzindana, Stosh Mugisha, John “Longjones” Abdallah Wambere, and movement leader David Kato, the first openly gay man in Uganda, who risk their lives on a daily basis as they fight for freedom and battle against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a draconian measure being strongly pushed by Member of Parliament David Bahati that threatens the lives of anyone and everyone involved in homosexual acts. As white American evangelicals come to Uganda to support the so-called Kill the Gays legislation, expelled Anglican Church bishop Senyonjo becomes a staunch defender of the LGBT community, the only religious leader to do so. Meanwhile, Giles Muhame, managing editor of Uganda’s popular Rolling Stone newspaper, proudly explains his mission of outing gays on the front cover of his publication, hoping that they get arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged by the government. But the activists won’t let that stop them. “If we keep on hiding,” Kato says, “they will say we are not here.” When tragedy strikes, everything is put into frightening perspective. Call Me Kuchu is a powerful examination of personal freedom and individual sexuality, a film that delves into the scary nature of repression, homophobia, and mob violence in an unforgiving, bigoted society. The documentary, which was the closing-night selection of the 2012 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, is scheduled to open in theaters next month, but it is having a sneak preview on May 6 in a benefit for American Jewish World Service, an organization that “works to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world”; the event will include a cocktail reception followed by a screening of the film and a Q&A with Zouhali-Worrall, Fairfax Wright, AJWS president Ruth Messinger, and AJWS Africa program officer Gitta Zomorodi. Advance ticket sales are closing at 12 noon on Friday, but walk-ins are encouraged on Monday.

JACK FERVER: ALL OF A SUDDEN

Jack Ferver delves into Tennessee Williamsʼs SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER in new multidisciplinary piece (photo by Al Hall)

Abrons Arts Center Playhouse
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
May 2-4, $20, 8:00
212-598-0400
www.abronsartscenter.org
www.jackferver.org

In our May 2012 interview with the great Jack Ferver, he tantalizingly described what he was working on next, a piece entitled All of a Sudden. “It is loosely inspired by Tennessee Williamsʼs Suddenly, Last Summer and explores the similarities between the artist/dramaturg and the patient/therapist relationship,” he said. “ Of course, it was a play before the film, but having played Cleopatra this past year [in Me, Michelle], I feel I am being haunted by Liz in some way.” Ferver has previously brought his unique interpretation, melding dance, theater, confessional, psychoanalysis, and multimedia elements, to such disparate films as Notes on a Scandal, Poltergeist, Black Swan, and Return to Oz. This time he has set his sights on the steamy story about an institutionalized woman and her sordid southern family, which debuted on Broadway in 1958 and was made into a film the next year by Joseph L. Mankiewicz with an all-star cast that included Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Katharine Hepburn, Albert Dekker, and Mercedes McCambridge. Ferver collaborated with Joshua Lubin-Levy on the new show, which will be performed by the two men along with Jacob Slominski; music and sound design is by regular Ferver composer Roarke Menzies, with set design by Marc Swanson (Ferver’s Two Alike) and costumes by Reid Bartelme (Mon Ma Mes). Ferver has an endlessly inventive imagination that is thrilling to watch onstage; he’s never afraid to take chances as he opens up his heart and soul — and injects ample amounts of his wicked sense of humor — in fabulously entertaining and deeply personal ways. All of a Sudden runs May 2-4 at Abrons Arts Center, and you’d be doing yourself a great disservice if you missed it.

Update: Jack Ferver blurs the lines between audience and performer, creation and execution, and straight and gay in All of a Sudden, his latest multimedia work to use film as a way to tell a more personal story. This time Ferver focuses in on Tennessee Williams’s 1959 melodrama Suddenly, Last Summer, in which Catherine, a southern woman played by Elizabeth Taylor, is in a mental institution, being treated by a doctor (Montgomery Clift) who is trying to get her to remember a tragic event before her aunt (Katharine Hepburn) forces her to get a lobotomy. The show opens with Ferver, as Catherine, overemoting and Jacob Slominski, as the doctor, underemoting, as Joshua Lubin-Levy sits in a chair across the stage, carefully watching and taking notes. It soon becomes apparent that the three men are in the midst of creating the piece, which is far from done, discussing various elements and possible changes. At one point Slominski goes off to call his wife while Ferver and Lubin-Levy look at clips from Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s film on an old television set that mimics a theatrical dressing-room mirror, and later Ferver and Slominski break off into duets that include lots of kissing. They also at times directly address the audience, acknowledging that they are being viewed while still, in essence, rehearsing. It’s all great fun, but with more than a touch of seriousness to go with the humor. The set, designed by Marc Swanson, features a group of ropes dangling from above in one corner, evoking death and suicide, while Reid Bartelme’s costumes for Ferver are spectacularly beautiful, from ridiculously tight and tiny green body-hugging shorts to an elegant, sparkling red sequined dress. As always, Ferver adds an occasional level of discomfort to the fanciful proceedings, keeping the audience on edge, never knowing quite what is going to happen next as fantasy morphs into reality and back again, art and life becoming one and the same.

OSCAR DOTTER: NORDIC POP

Oscar Dotter’s “Nordic Pop” exhibit examines people’s role in the fate of the environment and the polar bear (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Gallery 151
132 West 18th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through May 3, free, 1:00 – 7:00
www.nordicpop.com

“If I Were a Polar Bear I’d Eat You,” declares the light-up sign luring visitors into Gallery 151 in Chelsea. Once inside, they’re surrounded by the multimedia exhibition “Nordic Pop” by New York City–based self-taught artist Oscar Dotter, an examination of climate change and the fate of the polar bear through paintings, sculptures, film, and installation. Incorporating such series as “The Dots” and “Abstract Polar,” along with a pair of life-size polar bears at the center, Dotter points a clear finger at humanity’s responsibility to protect nature — and how we’re failing in this purest of goals. In addition to the works, Dotter is selling “Nordic Pop” merchandise (buttons, shirts, skateboards, etc.) and holding a raffle ($20 donation) to win one of his paintings, with the proceeds going to the World Wildlife Fund and its mission to save the polar bear.

IDEAS CITY: UNTAPPED CAPITAL

Markus Kayser’s “SolarSinter” is part of “Adhocracy” exhibit opening at New Museum during Ideas City festival

The second biannual Ideas City festival takes place May 1-4, with more than one hundred programs featuring conferences, workshops, seminars, panel discussions, walking tours, live music and dance, interactive art installations, a street festival, and other events tackling urgent urban issues at home and around the globe. Following up on 2011’s Festival of Ideas for the New City, this year’s theme is “Untapped Capital,” exploring ways to better use available resources to provide better infrastructure and general societal needs. On May 1, the keynote address will be delivered by MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito at the Great Hall of the Cooper Union, who will examine the internet’s role in untapped capital. On May 2 at the Great Hall, four prestigious panels will examine “Ad Hoc Strategies,” “Waste,” “Play,” and “Youth,” with such impressive guests as Jeffrey Inaba, Emeka Okafor, Thaddeus Pawlowski, Nancy Lublin, Barry McGee, Charles Renfro, and Carlos Motta. On May 3, the Old School at 233 Mott St. will host a series of workshops, including “A Discussion about the Armed Forces and the Arts,” “Social Mirroring,” “Hack City,” “Wherefore Store and Designing for Future Economies,” and “Revitalizing Space — Unlocking Creativity,” while “Pitching the City: New Ideas for New York” will be held at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. Among the projects on view throughout the four-day presentation are the Uni Portable Library, “TrafficCom” by Tomorrow Lab and Change Admin, “In Art and Cooperation We Trust!” by Trust Art, and “The Plastic Bag Mandala” by what makes you move. On May 4, the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral will host “Music of the Invisible”; the talk and performance “Big Art in All Spaces” occurs at Dixon Place; Downtown Art will stage the roaming outdoor opera The Great Struggle for Cheap Meat; and First City Green will screen the multichannel video Urban Exquis III. Also on Saturday, Streetfest offers dozens of fascinating presentations downtown, including Art in Odd Places 2013: “NUMBER,” “Ask a Prisoner,” “Dance for DNA,” “Raw Candy Innovation,” “Sewer in a Suitcase,” “SUSTAIN: Steering Urban Sustainability through Action, Innovation & Networks,” “Truck Farm,” “Unboxed,” and “The Urban Habitat Project.” Home base for the festival is the New Museum, where you can catch “The Money Shot: Roundtable with Karen Finley” on May 3 at 1:00, “Performance Beyond the Limits: Short Works” with Erin Markey, Sally May, Brigham Mosley, and Tobaron Waxman on May 3 at 7:00, a screening of Robert Garcia and Kevin Couliau’s Doin’ It in the Park, followed by a Q&A with the director on May 4 at 8:00, “Change of State” video projections on the facade of the museum on Saturday night, and other special events.

DAY OF HEAVEN: THE NEW WORLD

THE NEW WORLD is part of daylong tribute to Terence Malick at BAM

THE NEW WORLD (Terrence Malick, 2005)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Sunday, April 28, 8:00
212-415-5500
www.bam.org

When The New World was released in 2005, it was only iconoclastic American auteur Terrence Malick’s fourth film in a forty-year career that also included the gems Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), and The Thin Red Line (1998). Now, following the success of 2011’s The Tree of Life and its polarizing follow-up, To the Wonder, the very next year, BAMcinématek is presenting a daylong tribute to Malick that is appropriately titled “Day of Heaven.” Spectacularly photographed by Malick’s longtime cinematographer, Emanuel Luzbeki, The New World reimagines the story of Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher) as an epic tale of unrequited desire, a fiercely passionate, if not completely accurate, love story for the ages. In 1607, a crew led by Captain Christopher Newport (Christopher Plummer) has landed in what will come to be known as Jamestown. The disgraced Smith, who was nearly hanged for mutiny, is ordered to meet with “the naturals” in order to develop a favorable relationship. But Smith falls deeply for Chief Powhatan’s (August Schellenberg) beautiful young daughter, who shares his feelings, leading to a dangerous love that threatens to leave death and destruction in its wake. Large stretches of the film feature no dialogue, instead consisting of gorgeously framed shots with gentle, poetic narration from Smith, Pocahontas, and, later, John Rolfe (Christian Bale). The scenes between Farrell and Kilcher nearly ignite the screen, their eyes burning into each other. Malick and Luzbeki focus on lush, rolling fields and rushing rivers that are more than just beautiful scenery; the gorgeous landscape of this new world is filled with promise, with hope, even though we know what eventually, tragically happens. The film bogs down considerably when Smith’s place in the newly named Rebecca’s life is taken over by Rolfe, but it all builds to a heart-wrenching conclusion. The New World is screening at BAM on April 28 at 8:00, preceded by Days of Heaven at 2:00 and The Thin Red Line at 4:15.

THE WEIMAR TOUCH: THE STRANGER

Orson Welles is a Nazi on the run in THE STRANGER

Orson Welles is a Nazi on the run in small-town America in THE STRANGER

THE STRANGER (Orson Welles, 1946)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, April 27, 2:00, and Sunday, April 28, 5:30
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

A mere warm-up to The Third Man, Orson Welles’s 1946 noir thriller, The Stranger, is still a gripping examination of postwar paranoia and Fascism. Welles, who directed the film to show studio heads that he could be a team player, stars as Dr. Charles Rankin, a seemingly bright and charming teacher who shows up in a small town and wins the heart of Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young), daughter of the town judge (Philip Merivale). However, right behind Rankin is Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson, somewhat reprising his role as insurance investigator Barton Keyes in Double Indemnity), who is hot on the trail of Nazi murderer Franz Kindler. What follows is a highly theoretical battle of wits between Wilson and Rankin/Kindler that is more than a little out of place in the simple perfection of small-town Harper, Connecticut. “The German’s dream world comes alive when he takes his place in shining armor beneath the banners of the Teutonic knights,” Rankin says during a family dinner reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt. “Mankind is waiting for the Messiah,” he continues, “but for the German, the Messiah is not the Prince of Peace. No, he’s . . . another Barbarossa . . . another Hitler.” In addition to philosophizing, Rankin is obsessed with trying to fix the clock in the town tower, with his efforts trying to control time leading to a memorable finale. Rankin is no Harry Lime — of course, who is? — but he’s yet another intriguing character in Welles’s pantheon of intriguing characters. There are several amateurish moments that bring the film down a notch from greatness, but The Stranger remains a compelling tale with more than its fair share of Wellesian delight. After years of late-night television airings of a dilapidated print, the film was restored about ten years ago and looks much better on the big screen, where it can be seen April 27 & 28 as part of MoMA’s “The Weimar Touch” series, which includes such other films as Jacques Tourneur’s Berlin Express, Max Ophuls’s Letter from an Unknown Woman, Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess, Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter, and Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, all of which relate visually or thematically to the German cinema of F. W. Murnau, Carl Th. Dreyer, G. W. Pabst, and Weimar Expressionism.