this week in film and television

BAMcinématek: MACBETH

BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Monday, December 13, $12, 7:00
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Back in March and April of 2008, BAM presented director Rupert Goold’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s MACBETH, a multimedia production from the Chichester Festival Theatre starring Patrick Stewart as the embattled title character. We called it “bold, boisterous, and very loud . . . Stewart is a solid if unspectacular and unconventional Macbeth, giving noogies, poking playfully at ties, and pointing with pickles — and he seems to make one helluva killer ham sandwich.” The show later moved to Broadway and was filmed for broadcast on public television. The 161-minute film, which also stars Kate Fleetwood as Lady Macbeth and Michael Feast as Macduff, will be screened at BAM on Monday night, introduced by Stewart, who is currently on Broadway in a revival of David Mamet’s A LIFE IN THE THEATRE.

TAKEMITSU: RAN

The Fool (Peter) sticks by Hidetaro (Tatsuya Nakadai) as the aging lord descends into madness in Kurosawa masterpiece RAN

RAN (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Sunday, December 12, 1:00, 4:00, 7:00
Monday, December 13, 1:00, 4:00
Series continues through December 16
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Inspired by the story of feudal lord Mori Motonari and Shakespeare’s KING LEAR, Akira Kurosawa’s RAN is an epic masterpiece about the decline and fall of the Ichimonji clan. Aging Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai) is ready to hand over his land and leadership to his three sons, Taro (Akira Terao), Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu), and Saburo (Daisuke Ryû). But jealousy, misunderstandings, and outright deceit and treachery result in Saburo’s banishment and a violent power struggle between the weak eldest, Taro, and the warrior Jiro. Hidetaro soon finds himself rejected by his children and wandering the vast, empty landscape with his wise, sarcastic fool, Kyoami (Peter), as the once-proud king descends into madness. Dressed in white robes and with wild white hair, Nakadai (THE HUMAN CONDITION), in his early fifties at the time, portrays Hidetaro, one of the great characters of cinema history, with an unforgettable, Noh-like precision. Kurosawa, cinematographers Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saitô, and Masaharu Ueda, and Oscar-winning costume designer Emi Wada bathe the film in lush greens, brash blues, and bold reds and yellows that marvelously offset the white Hidetaro. Kurosawa shoots the first dazzling battle scene in an elongated period of near silence, with only Tôru Takemitsu’s classically based score playing on the soundtrack, turning the film into a thrilling, blood-drenched opera. RAN is a spectacular achievement, the last great major work by one of the twentieth century’s most important and influential filmmakers. Film Forum is screening RAN as part of its two-week tribute to Takemitsu, which concludes this week with DODES’KA-DEN (Akira Kurosawa, 1970), EMPIRE OF PASSION (Nagisa Oshima, 1978), BALLAD OF ORIN (MELODY IN GREY) (Masahiro Shinoda, 1977), BAD BOYS (Susumu Hani, 1961), and SHE AND HE (Susumu Hani, 1963).

THE CONTENDERS 2010: THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg are a couple of high-profile whiz kids in David Fincher’s THE SOCIAL NETWORK

THE SOCIAL NETWORK (David Fincher, 2010)
MoMA Film
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Tuesday, December 14, 8:30
Series continues through January 22
Tickets: $10, 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
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com

One of the most widely praised films of 2010, THE SOCIAL NETWORK is being screened at the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday night as part of the series “The Contenders 2010,” a collection of influential and innovative international movies the institution believes will stand the test of time. MoMA has already shown such works as Luca Guadagnino’s I AM LOVE, Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION, Roman Polanski’s THE GHOST WRITER, and Mads Brügger’s THE RED CHAPEL, and upcoming films include Yael Hersonski’s A FILM UNFINISHED, Mark Romanek’s NEVER LET ME GO, and Banksy’s EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP. In THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Jesse Eisenberg stars as computer whiz kid Mark Zuckerberg as he develops what became Facebook while attending Harvard. The film is told primarily in flashback as Zuckerberg is being sued for having allegedly stolen the idea from the Winklevoss twins (both played by Arnie Hammer). Zuckerberg is depicted as a spiteful, mean-spirited, self-indulgent person trying to prove to his ex-girlfriend (Erica Albright) that he will amount to something. Justin Timberlake is outstanding as the fast-moving, smooth-talking Sean Parker, the founder of Napster who loves living the high life. For a young man who created a social media platform where people collect friends, Zuckerberg made a lot of enemies on his way to the top. The film was written by Aaron Sorkin (A FEW GOOD MEN, THE WEST WING), who makes an appearance as an ad executive meeting with Zuckerberg, and directed by David Fincher, who has made such other terrific films as FIGHT CLUB, ZODIAC, and THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Eisenberg (THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, ADVENTURELAND) will participate in a Q&A following the MoMA screening.

SHADOWS OF THE RISING SUN: CINEMA AND EMPIRE

Harrowing war drama kicks off weekend series at Japan Society

FIRES ON THE PLAIN (NOBI) (Kon Ichikawa, 1959)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, December 10, $12, 7:30
Series runs through December 12
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Kon Ichikawa’s FIRES ON THE PLAIN is one of the most searing, devastating war movies ever made. Loosely based on Shohei Ooka’s 1952 novel and adapted by Ichikawa’s wife, screenwriter Natto Wada, the controversial film stars Eiji Funakoshi as the sad sack Tamura, a somewhat pathetic tubercular soldier on the island of Leyte in the Philippines at the tail end of World War II. After being released from a military hospital, he returns to his platoon, only to be ordered to go back to the hospital so as not to infect the other men. He is also given a grenade and ordered to blow himself up if the hospital refuses him, which it does. But instead of killing himself, Tamura wanders the vast, empty spaces and dense forests, becoming involved in a series of vignettes that range from darkly comic to utterly horrifying. He encounters a romantic Filipino couple hiding salt under their floorboards, a quartet of soldiers stuffed with yams trying to make it alive to a supposed evacuation zone, and a strange duo selling tobacco and eating “monkey” meat. As Tamura grows weaker and weaker, he considers surrendering to U.S. troops, but even that is not a guarantee of safety, as the farther he travels, the more dead bodies he sees. FIRES ON THE PLAIN is a blistering attack on the nature of war and what it does to men, but amid all the bleakness and violence, tiny bits of humanity try desperately to seep through against all the odds. And the odds are not very good.

FIRES ON THE PLAIN begins Japan Society’s weekend-long Shadows of the Rising Sun: Cinema and Empire series, comprising a quartet of Chinese and Japanese films that examine Japan’s futile attempts at creating an empire through war. The impressive lineup includes the New York premiere of Koji Wakamatsu’s CATERPILLAR, being screened on Saturday night at 7:00; Jiang Wen’s 2000 Cannes Grand Prize winner, DEVILS ON THE DOORSTEP, scheduled for Sunday at 4:00; and Nagisa Oshima’s 1983 WWII drama MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE, starring David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tom Conti, and Takeshi Kitano, on Sunday at 7:00. FIRES ON THE PLAIN is also part of Japan Society’s Zen & Its Opposite: Essential (& Turbulent) Japanese Art House festival of monthly classics, which continues January 11 with Nobuo Nakagawa’s HELL and February 18 with Kihachi Okamoto’s SWORD OF DOOM.

FILMS ABOUT NOTHING: THE SEVENTH SEAL

Death (Bengt Ekerot) is not exactly holding out the red carpet in Bergman classic

THE SEVENTH SEAL (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Cabaret Cinema
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, December 10, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

It’s almost impossible to watch Ingmar Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL without being aware of the meta surrounding the film, which has influenced so many other works and been paid homage to and playfully mocked. Over the years, it has gained a reputation as a deep, philosophical paean to death. However, amid all the talk about emptiness, doomsday, the Black Plague, and the devil, THE SEVENTH SEAL is a very funny movie. In fourteenth-century Sweden, knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) is returning home from the Crusades with his trusty squire, Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand). Block soon meets Death (Bengt Ekerot) and, to prolong his life, challenges him to a game of chess. While the on-again, off-again battle of wits continues, Death seeks alternate victims while Block meets a young family and a small troupe of actors putting on a show. Rape, infidelity, murder, and other forms of evil rise to the surface as Block proclaims “To believe is to suffer,” questioning God and faith, and Jöns opines that “love is the blackest plague of all.” Based on Bergman’s own play inspired by a painting of Death playing chess by Albertus Pictor (played in the film by Gunnar Olsson), THE SEVENTH SEAL, winner of a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, is one of the most entertaining films ever made. (Bergman fans will get an extra treat out of the knight being offered some wild strawberries at one point.) The film is screening on December 10 as part of the Rubin Museum’s Cabaret Cinema series Films About Nothing, being held in conjunction with the exhibition “Grains of Emptiness,” and will be introduced by former Vogue editor in chief Joan Juliet Buck. (The series continues December 17 with Lisa Birnbach introducing Robert Redford’s 1980 dysfunctional family drama ORDINARY PEOPLE.)

PASS THE BLUTWURST, BITTE

La MaMa Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
Thursday – Sunday through December 19
Tickets: $25-$30
212-475-7710
www.lamama.org

In 1928, Austrian painter Egon Schiele died at the age of twenty-eight. Perhaps not coincidentally, visual artist John Kelly is retiring his masterwork, a dance-theater piece about Schiele’s life and career, in its twenty-eighth year. PASS THE BLUTWURST, BITTE was first performed in a very different, much shorter version back at the Pyramid Club in 1982. The constantly evolving piece earned Kelly an Obie for its 1986 run at Dance Theater Workshop, then was revived in an expanded version at La MaMa in 1995. As part of La MaMa’s fortieth anniversary season, founder and artistic director Ellen Stewart convinced Kelly to once again bring back BLUTWURST, which is now running at the Ellen Stewart Theatre through December 19. Kelly has vowed that this will be the last time he ever performs the show, which in its fourth version features several new dances and videos. It’s a thrilling production about art and love that pits the bohemian lifestyle against a repressive culture, told in brilliant and unique ways. The rubbery-limbed Kelly marvelously embodies the sharp, angular Schiele, accompanied by a pair of Alter Egons (Luke Murphy and Eric Jackson Bradley) as he first woos free-spirited Wally Neuzil (Tymberly Canale), whom he meets in a café chugging beer and eating sausage, as his muse and mistress, and later the more traditional Edith (MacKenzie Meehan), who soon becomes his wife. Kelly alternates between silent-movie-like vignettes, set dance pieces, and short Expressionistic film segments, including a marvelous one in which he incorporates glass, his own drawing, and one of Schiele’s most famous self-portraits. The scenes between Schiele and Wally are particularly effective, as Kelly and Canale nearly melt into each other despite Schiele’s social awkwardness. Kelly has kept the show decidedly low-tech, with lo-fi music played on an old record player, the videos choppy and old-fashioned, and Huck Snyder’s sets sparse and intimate. BLUTWURST, which also garnered Kelly an NEA American Masterpieces Award, is playing Thursdays through Sundays through December 19.

Although you don’t have to know anything about Schiele’s extraordinary work to fall in love with the show, we suggest you do just a bit of homework before you go; you can find numerous images and an excellent essay on Schiele online from his New York dealer, Galerie St. Etienne, and several of his works are usually on view at the Neue Galerie. In addition, “Schiele-Kelly,” a collection of new photographs of Kelly posing as Schiele as well as ephemera from the show’s history, continues December 9-12 at La MaMa La Galleria at 6 East First St.

TAKEMITSU: KWAIDAN

Tōru Takemitsu “wanted to create an atmosphere of terror” in Masaki Kobayashi’s quartet of ghost stories

KWAIDAN (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Friday, December 10, 1:00, 6:30
Series continues through December 16
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Masaki Kobayashi paints four marvelous ghost stories in this eerie collection that won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. In “The Black Hair,” a samurai (Rentaro Mikuni) regrets his choice of leaving his true love for advancement. Yuki (Keiko Kishi) is a harbinger of doom in “The Woman of the Snow.” Hoichi (Katsuo Nakamura) must have his entire body covered in prayer in “Hoichi, the Earless.” And Kannai (Kanemon Nakamura) finds a creepy face staring back at him in “In a Cup of Tea.” Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, KWAIDAN is one of the greatest ghost story films ever made, four creepy, atmospheric existential tales that will get under your skin and into your brain. The score was composed by Tōru Takemitsu, who said of the film, “I wanted to create an atmosphere of terror.” He succeeded.

Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu will be celebrated in film and music in New York City this month

KWAIDAN is screening as part of Film Forum’s two-week salute to composer Tōru Takemitsu (1930-96), who scored KWAIDAN and more than one hundred other films, including such diverse works as Teshigahara’s ANTONIO GAUDI, PITFALL, THE FACE OF ANOTHER, and WOMAN IN THE DUNES, Nagisa Oshima’s THE CEREMONY, Masahiro Shinoda’s CHINMOKU and PALE FLOWER, Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s HIMATSURI, Kon Ichikawa’s ALONE ON THE PACIFIC, Masaki Kobayashi’s YOUTH OF JAPAN, HARAKIRI, and SAMURAI REBELLION, and Akira Kurosawa’s RAN and DODES’KA-DEN, all of which are part of the series. The music of Takemitsu will also be celebrated this month at the JapanNYC Festival, with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Saito Kinen Orchestra in a presentation of Takemitsu’s “November Steps,” with Yukio Tanaka on biwa and Kifu Mitsuhashi on shakuhachi, at Carnegie Hall on December 15 (in addition to Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique), a concert featuring traditional hōgaku instruments at the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia University on December 16, and a tribute concert at Zankel Hall on December 17 curated by his daughter, Maki Takemitsu, with jazz performances of his film scores performed by guitarists Kazumi Watanabe and Daisuke Suzuki, accordionist coba, and percussionist Tomohiro Yahiro.