this week in film and television

TURNING

Antony and the Johnsons and Charles Atlas celebrate sexual identity and personal freedom in beautifully poignant TURNING

TURNING (Charles Atlas, 2012)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, November 16
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.turningfilm.com

In 2004, musician and composer Antony Hegarty and film and video pioneer Charles Atlas premiered their multimedia collaboration, Turning, at the Whitney Biennial. The performance featured Antony and the Johnsons playing songs in front of a large screen on which Atlas projected live multiple images of a parade of “beauties” who one at a time slowly turned on a circular platform, standing tall and proud. The production went on an international tour, which Atlas and Antony document in a beautiful, intimate film version that made its U.S. premiere November 11 as part of the DOC NYC festival and now opens theatrically on November 16 at the IFC Center. Atlas, a former filmmaker-in-residence with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and director of the widely hailed The Legend of Leigh Bowery, takes viewers behind the scenes as the cast rehearses, puts on their costumes and makeup, gets pep talks from Antony, and opens up about their lives. Throughout the film, the women — Julia Yasuda, Catrina Delapena, Honey Dijon, Joie Iacono, Joey Gabriel, Kembra Pfahler, Nomi Ruiz, Stacey Marks, Johanna Constantine, Eliza Douglas, and Morisane Sunny Shiroma, who come from very different backgrounds and professional disciplines — share their poignant, emotional stories, addressing deeply personal issues of androgyny, transsexuality, and other aspects of sexual and gender identity. The soundtrack features Antony and the Johnsons — violinist Maxim Moston, cellist Julia Kent, bassist Jeff Langston, guitarist and violinist Rob Moose, drummer Parker Kindred, pianist Thomas Bartlett, horn player Christian Biegai, and accordionist Will Holshouser — performing such hauntingly evocative songs as “Everything Is New,” “For Today I Am a Buoy,” “Kiss My Name,” “Twilight,” and “Spiralling” as the women celebrate the freedom to be themselves in a defiant, public way. “Are you a boy / Are you a girl,” Antony, himself a former member of the underground avant-garde LGBT performance troupe Blacklips, repeats in “I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy.” In the subtly powerful Turning, such labels don’t matter as a group of women face their future with confidence and hope. Antony, Gabriel, Ruiz, Honey Dijon, Shiroma, Douglas, Marks, and Connie Fleming will be on hand for the 7:45 screening on November 16, Atlas and Constantine will attend the 7:45 screening on November 17, Atlas and MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach will be at the 7:45 screening on November 18, and Antony and performance artist Marina Abramović will be at the IFC Center for the 7:45 screening on November 20.

CASTLES IN THE SKY: MIYAZAKI, TAKAHATA & THE MASTERS OF STUDIO GHIBLI

Hayao Miyazaki’s MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO wonderfully captures the joys and fears of being a child

IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
November 16 – December 20
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.studioghibli.net

Last winter, we implored you to set up camp at the IFC Center and see as many films as you possibly could in the exciting series “Castles in the Sky: Miyazaki, Takahata & the Masters of Studio Ghibli,” a month-long collaboration with the GKIDS’ New York International Children’s Film Festival. Well, you’re getting another chance, as the series is back for a return engagement. From November 16 to December 20, the IFC Center will be presenting fifteen of the studio’s eighteen animated works, all but one in 35mm prints, by Hayao Miyazaki (including Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Ponyo, and others), Isao Takahata (My Neighbors the Yamadas, Pom Poko, the U.S. premiere of Only Yesterday), Hiroyuki Morita (The Cat Returns), Tomomi Mochizuki (the North American premiere of Ocean Waves), and Yoshifumi Kondo (Whisper of the Heart). Most of the films will be shown in both the dubbed English-language version (with various familiar and famous voices) as well as in the far superior original Japanese, with the former scheduled during the afternoon and the latter at 6:00 and later. The Tokyo studio, which was founded in 1985 by Miyazaki, Takahata, and producer Toshio Suzuki, is world renowned for its gorgeous, painterly animation style, elaborate soundtracks, unique characters, and clever, charming story lines that give a fascinating view of childhood fear and wonder and that work for both kids and adults.

GREGORY CREWDSON: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

Gregory Crewdson carefully composes his next photograph in BRIEF ENCOUNTERS (courtesy Zeitgeist Films)

GREGORY CREWDSON: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS (Ben Shapiro, 2012)
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center: Francesca Beale Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
November 16-22
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.gregorycrewdsonmovie.com

From 2002 to 2008, Gregory Crewdson created a sensational body of work he called “Beneath the Roses,” consisting of intricately arranged large-scale photographs that capture the mysterious underside of small-town, middle-class America. Filmed primarily in the Western Massachusetts community where his family spent their summers while he was growing up, the photographs, all taken at twilight, are powerful, emotional still shots that look like they’re from a movie, usually involving solitary figures on the street or in a tense room, staring out, often with a car nearby, its door or trunk flung open, compelling viewers to come up with their own narrative of what they’re seeing. For ten years, Ben Shapiro followed Crewdson around as he worked on that series and others, and he details the Park Slope-born photographer’s unique creative process in the vastly entertaining and informative documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters. Crewdson, who shoots only at twilight, is obsessive about the shot he gets, agonizing first over the setting itself, then going over every little detail, from the turn of a character’s head to the proper amount of leg to reveal, with a crew that includes a director of photography, a production designer, a casting director, and other jobs usually more associated with film. “My pictures are about a search for a moment — a perfect moment,” he explains. “To me the most powerful moment in the whole process is when everything comes together and there is that perfect, beautiful, still moment. And for that instant, my life makes sense.”

Gregory Crewdson, “Untitled (The Madison),” from “Beneath the Roses,” archival pigment print, 2007 (© Gregory Crewdson)

Crewdson also talks about his past as he drives around Pittsfield searching out locations or looks through a photo album, discussing how he was influenced by his psychologist father and a trip they made to see a Diane Arbus exhibition at MoMA in 1972, when Crewdson was ten. Among those who share their thoughts about Crewdson are writers Russell Banks and Rick Moody, photographer Laurie Simmons, Aperture editor in chief Melissa Harris, and Crewdson’s director of photography, Richard Sands. Shapiro also travels to Rome with Crewdson for his 2010 “Sanctuary” series, taken at the abandoned Cinecittà studio in Rome, furthering his interest in film. Just as it’s fascinating to spend time exploring Crewdson’s photographs, it’s equally fascinating spending time with the man himself, a complex, bigger-than-life character with an intriguing outlook on his medium as well as the world at large. Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters just finished an abbreviated run at Film Forum because of Hurricane Sandy, but the Film Society of Lincoln Center has picked it up and will screen it at the Francesca Beale Theater from November 16 to 22, with Crewdson participating in a Q&A with writer-director Noah Baumbach following the 7:15 show on Friday night.

DOC NYC — AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY

Ai Weiwei lets the camera follow him everywhere in revealing documentary about art and activism

NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL — AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY (Alison Klayman, 2011)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Tuesday, November 13, $16.50, 9:15
212-924-7771
www.docnyc.net
aiweiweineversorry.com

“I consider myself more of a chess player,” Ai Weiwei says at the beginning of Never Sorry, Alison Klayman’s revealing documentary about the larger-than-life Chinese artist and dissident. “My opponent makes a move, I make a move. Now I’m waiting for my opponent to make the next move.” Over the last several years, Ai has become perhaps the most famous and controversial artist in the world, primarily since he participated in the design of Beijing National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, for the 2008 Summer Olympics, then denounced the Games on political grounds. Ai gives director, producer, and cinematographer Klayman, making her first full-length film, remarkable access to his personal and professional life as he gets physically abused by Chinese police, prepares to open major exhibits in Munich and London, and visits with his young son, Ai Lao, the result of a tryst with Wang Fen, an editor on his underground films. Klayman speaks with Ai Weiwei’s devoted wife, Lu Qing, an artist who publicly fought for his freedom when he disappeared in 2011; his mother, Gao Ying, who spent time in a labor camp with her dissident-poet husband, the late Ai Quing; and such fellow Chinese artists and critics as Chen Danqing, Feng Boyi, Hsieh Tehching, and Gu Changwei, who speak admiringly of Ai’s dedication to his art and his fearless search for the truth. A round man with a long, graying bear, Ai is a fascinating, complicated character, a gentle bull who openly criticizes his country because he loves it so much. He is a social media giant, making documentaries that are available for free on the internet and revolutionizing the way Twitter and the blogosphere are used. Ai risks his own freedom by demanding freedom for all, calling for government transparency before and after he is secretly arrested, not afraid of the potential repercussions. And he is also a proud cat lover — more than forty felines regularly roam around his studio — eagerly showing off one talented kitty that has a unique way of opening a door. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry shows Ai to be an honorable, supremely principled human being who has deep respect for the history of China and a fierce determination to improve its future, no matter the personal cost. The film completed its extended run at the IFC Center on November 8, but it will have an encore screening there on November 13, with Klayman on hand, as part of the DOC NYC festival, a week of nonfiction screenings that also includes such works as Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi’s 5 Broken Cameras, with Michael Moore in attendance; Rob Fruchtman and Lisa Fruchtman’s Sweet Dreams, with the directors and special guests participating in a discussion; and Mary Kerr’s Radioman, with the iconic New York character there to talk about himself and the film.

(To find out more about Ai Weiwei’s art, specifically his recent projects in New York City, please follow these links: “Sunflower Seeds,” “Circle of Animals: Zodiac Heads,” “Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993,” and “1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei.”

DOC NYC: TURNING

Antony and the Johnsons and Charles Atlas celebrate sexual identity and personal freedom in beautifully poignant TURNING

NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: TURNING (Charles Atlas, 2012)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Sunday, November 11, $20, 9:30
www.docnyc.net
www.turningfilm.com

In 2004, musician and composer Antony Hegarty and film and video pioneer Charles Atlas premiered their multimedia collaboration, Turning, at the Whitney Biennial. The performance featured Antony and the Johnsons playing songs in front of a large screen on which Atlas projected live multiple images of a parade of “beauties” who one at a time slowly turned on a circular platform, standing tall and proud. The production went on an international tour, which Atlas and Antony document in a beautiful, intimate film version that is making its U.S. premiere November 11 as part of the DOC NYC festival before opening theatrically on November 16. Atlas, a former filmmaker-in-residence with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and director of the widely hailed The Legend of Leigh Bowery, takes viewers behind the scenes as the cast rehearses, puts on their costumes and makeup, gets pep talks from Antony, and opens up about their lives. Throughout the film, the women — Julia Yasuda, Catrina Delapena, Honey Dijon, Joie Iacono, Joey Gabriel, Kembra Pfahler, Nomi Ruiz, Stacey Mark, Johanna Constantine, Eliza Douglas, and Morisane Sunny Shiroma, who come from very different backgrounds and professional disciplines — share their poignant, emotional stories, addressing deeply personal issues of androgyny, transsexuality, and other aspects of sexual and gender identity. The soundtrack features Antony and the Johnsons — violinist Maxim Moston, cellist Julia Kent, bassist Jeff Langston, guitarist and violinist Rob Moose, drummer Parker Kindred, pianist Thomas Bartlett, horn player Christian Biegai, and accordionist Will Holshouser — performing such hauntingly evocative songs as “Everything Is New,” “For Today I Am a Buoy,” “Kiss My Name,” “Twilight,” and “Spiralling” as the women celebrate the freedom to be themselves in a defiant, public way. “Are you a boy / Are you a girl,” Antony, himself a former member of the underground avant-garde LGBT performance troupe Blacklips, repeats in “I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy.” In the subtly powerful Turning, such labels don’t matter as a group of women face their future with confidence and hope. Antony and Atlas will be in attendance at the November 11 screening at the SVA Theatre to talk about the film, which will be followed by a free after-party, open to the general public, at the Bowery Electric, highlighted by a live performance by Nomi.

DOC NYC: DAVID BROMBERG UNSUNG TREASURE

David Bromberg talks about his life and sings the blues in illuminating new documentary

NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: DAVID BROMBERG UNSUNG TREASURE (Beth Toni Kruvant, 2012)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Sunday, November 11, $16.50, 4:45
www.docnyc.net
www.goodfootageproductions.com

The delightful new documentary David Bromberg Unsung Treasure sings the well-deserved praises of a rather unusual character — a white, Jewish bluesman from ritzy Tarrytown, New York. For more than forty years, masterful guitarist and songwriter David Bromberg has been singing his entertaining brand of the blues and bluegrass, either solo, with his Big Band, or with the Angel Band. A consummate musician, engaging raconteur, and outstanding live performer, he trained with the Rev. Gary Davis before going on to play with such superstars as Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, George Harrison, Jerry Jeff Walker, and a litany of others. A big man with an ever-present beard, mustache, and glasses, Bromberg is an utterly charming figure, speaking honestly and openly about his life and career, often mentioning how deeply he was affected by the way he was raised and how that helped instill the blues in him. Beth Toni Kruvant (The Right to Be Wrong, Heart of Stone) traces his early years through wonderful archival footage and old photographs, then delves into his departure from playing music in the late 1980s and 1990s, when he and his wife, singer Nancy Josephson, moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where he established a well-respected violin-making business and worked tirelessly to help resuscitate the city. But in 2007, Bromberg began a comeback with the solo record Try Me One More Time, followed last year by Use Me, featuring collaborations with a diverse group of musicians, including Vince Gill, Dr. John, and Keb’ Mo’, who appear in the film and talk about the affable, engaging Bromberg with great affection. Unsung Treasure is indeed about an American unsung treasure, a gregarious, giving, and humble man who plays the blues like nobody’s business.

David Bromberg Unsung Treasure is screening November 11 at 4:45 at the SVA Theatre, with Kruvant and Bromberg in attendance, as part of DOC NYC, a weeklong celebration of nonfiction film at SVA and the IFC Center comprising more than seventy documentaries, along with panel discussions and master classes. Among the other music films are Artifact, about Jared Leto’s band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and their battle with their record label; Drew DeNicola & Olivia Mori’s Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, with Big Star member Jody Stephens on hand to talk about the highly influential band with the film’s directors and producer as well as record producer John Fry; Greg Whiteley’s New York Doll, about punk bassist turned Mormon librarian Arthur “Killer” Kane; and Andy Grieve and Lauren Lazin’s Can’t Stand Losing You, a look at the life and career of Police drummer Andy Summers, with Summers, Grieve, and producer Norman Golightly participating in a discussion.

DOC NYC: MEN AT LUNCH

NEW YORK’S DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL: MEN AT LUNCH: THE UNTOLD STORY OF A CITY’S LEGEND (Seán Ó Cualáín, 2012)
Saturday, November 10, SVA Theater, 333 West 23rd St., $16.50, 7:30
Wednesday, November 14, IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St., $16.50, 3:15
DOC NYC festival continues through November 15
212-924-7771
www.menatlunchfilm.com
www.docnyc.net

Seán Ó Cualáín puts one of the most iconic photographs ever of New York City under the microscope in the interesting yet too often slipshod documentary Men at Lunch. In 1932, a photographer snapped a picture of eleven construction workers having lunch while sitting atop a girder on what would become the sixty-ninth floor of the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center. The men are casually talking, having a smoke, and holding white cardboard lunchboxes while dangling their feet some 850 feet in the air, a bustling city below them, Central Park sprawled out behind them. Narrated by Fionnula Flanagan (Ulysses, Waking Ned Devine), the film delves into who the men might be, attempts to figure out whether it was indeed Charles C. Ebbets who took the photo, and seeks to put the picture into the social and cultural context of the depression and the wave of immigration, focusing on the Irish (the film is an Irish production), many of whom went into the construction industry. “This is a photograph in which every element of photography and of New York City kind of come together with spectacular panache,” filmmaker Ric Burns says. But while Ó Cualáín employs captivating archival footage as he tries to solve the photograph’s many mysteries, he extends the focus too far, biting off more than he can chew in a mere seventy minutes, as a handful of talking heads and Niall Murphy’s text make grand statements about the human condition in the twentieth century that are too often a reach, then spends too much time with a pair of Irish characters who believe they are related to two of the men in the picture. Still, the part of the film that zeroes in on the taking of the photograph is absolutely fascinating. Men at Lunch is making its U.S. premiere at the DOC NYC festival November 10 at the SVA Theatre and November 14 at the IFC Center, with Ó Cualáín on hand at the first screening to talk about the film.