Cyril Tuschi seeks to uncover the truth behind Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his controversial imprisonment in compelling documentary (courtesy of Kino Lorber)
KHODORKOVSKY (Cyril Tuschi, 2011)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
November 30 – December 13 (extended through December 22)
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.kinolorber.com/khodorkovsky
On October 25, 2003, Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested for tax fraud and has been in prison ever since. The controversial story of the eight-billion-dollar man is told in German director Cyril Tuschi’s political-thriller documentary Khodorkovsky. Combining Michael Moore’s rugged determination to meet with GM CEO Roger Smith in Roger & Me with a police-procedural narrative, Tuschi (Slight Changes in Temperature and Mind) desperately tries to speak with the imprisoned Khodorkovsky, but for most of the film he only gets to communicate him through letters while instead talking with his first wife, his mother, his son, former business partners, spies, and various politicians, some of whom share illuminating details about the life and career of the seemingly equally loved and despised socialist-turned-capitalist and others who adamantly refuse to say anything about the onetime head of the Yukos oil company, perhaps out of fear of retribution. Khodorkovsky is alternately shown to be a philanthropic businessman who founded the Open Russia Foundation charitable project and a ruthless tyrant whose giant ego resulted in his publicly butting heads with former Russian president Vladimir Putin, the reason why many think he is in jail — and might never get out. Tuschi supplements the film with black-and-white constructivist animation of Khodorkovsky, placing him firmly in between socialism and capitalism as he seeks to lead Russia into a new age. Featuring music by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and narration by Jean-Marc Barr and Harvey Friedman, Khodorkovsky paints a fascinating portrait of contemporary Russia as well as of one of its most enigmatic and mysterious figures. Tuschi and Khodorkovsky’s son Pavel will be at Film Forum on November 30 to talk about the documentary and its subject following the 7:50 screening.
Raoul Walsh’s film noir classic White Heat might have been nominated for a mere single Oscar, losing for Best Motion Picture Story (losing to The Stratton Story), but it quickly came to be considered one of the greatest gangster pictures ever made. The 1949 film stars James Cagney as Cody Jarrett, a devout criminal married to the beautiful moll Verna (Viriginia Mayo) but still deeply (and unhealthily) attached to his mother (Margaret Wycherly). While doing time for a train robbery gone wrong, Jarrett finds out that his gang has been taken over by his former flunkie Big Ed Somers (Steve Cochran), who also seems to have taken over Verna as well. Jarrett decides he must break out of jail, setting the stage for an unforgettable climax. Walsh (High Sierra, They Died with Their Boots On) doesn’t concentrate just on the action, of which there is plenty, instead focusing on Jarrett’s troubled psyche as he blindly seeks revenge. White Heat will be screening November 30 – December 2 at 1:30 as part of MoMA’s continuing “An Auteurist History of Film” series, which also features such upcoming gems as Yasujiro Ozu’s Banshun (Late Spring), Carol Reed’s The Third Man, Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, and John Ford’s Wagon Master.
In 1979, Woody Allen and master cinematographer Gordon Willis made love to New York City architecture in gorgeous black and white in the stunning opening section of Manhattan set to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” Allen’s latest, Midnight in Paris, begins with Allen and cinematographer Darius Khondji getting intimate with the City of Light in lush color, scanning familiar Parisian landmarks to Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love.” In this beautifully shot love letter to Paris, Owen Wilson stars as Gil Pender, a Hollywood hack screenwriter working on his first novel, about a nostalgia dealer. He and his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams), are vacationing in Paris with her parents, the wealthy, ultraconservative John (Kurt Fuller) and Helen (Mimi Kennedy), who think their daughter can do much better. Gil and Inez bump into their friends Carol (Nina Arianda) and Paul (Michael Sheen), the latter a pedantic know-it-all who begins many an observation with “If I’m not mistaken” and whom Gil can’t stand. Gil is hoping Paris will get his creative juices flowing, and that’s exactly what happens late one evening when he is walking the streets alone at midnight and is invited into an old-fashioned car and taken to what appears to be a throwback party — until he meets F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston and Alison Pill), Cole Porter (Yves Heck), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), and fashion designer and Picasso muse Adriana (Marion Cotillard). Suddenly he feels more at ease in the swinging ’20s than the 2010s, heading out each night to the same spot, hoping to hang out more with the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo), and, most importantly, Adriana. Nostalgia for the past and the promise of the future collide as Gil searches deep inside himself, trying to discover just what it is that he wants and needs out of life. Combining elements of such previous films as The Purple Rose of Cairo, Alice, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex*, and Everyone Says I Love You with a rather standard Twilight Zone-esque setup and a nod to his mid-’60s Lost Generation joke — in which he hangs out with Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Picasso, and Stein talking about art and literature, with a series of punch lines involving Allen getting punched in the mouth — Midnight in Paris is a charming, if at times overwrought and just plain silly, romantic fantasy that evokes Allen’s own fondness for nostalgia and the past. As more and more famous artists keep showing up, it gets more than a tad ridiculous, although it is also kinda fun. Midnight in Paris, which opened the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, follows four Allen films set in London (Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra’s Dream, and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), one in Barcelona (Vicky Christina Barcelona), and only one in New York (Whatever Works) as Allen continues to travel the world after experiencing a dwindling audience and scandal back home. Wilson is excellent as the nostalgic writer, playing him with an edgy uncomfortablilty that makes him endearing, and Cotillard is sexy and alluring as the quintessential artistic muse. And in an inspired bit of casting, French first lady Carla Bruni plays a tour guide who butts heads with the smarmy Paul when discussing Rodin’s “The Thinker.”