this week in film and television

FILMS ABOUT NOTHING: RAN

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

RAN (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
Cabaret Cinema
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, January 28, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.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.

RAN is screening January 28 as part of the Rubin Museum’s Films About Nothing series, being held in conjunction with the exhibition “Grain of Emptiness: Buddhism-Inspired Contemporary Art” and will be introduced by British writer Anthony Gottlieb. The series continues February 4 with Antonio Monda introducing John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS, February 11 with Baz Lurhmann introducing FELLINI’S 8 1/2, and February 18 with Francine DuPlessix Gray introducing the 1938 period drama MARIE ANTOINETTE.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE: WRITERS ON FILM PRESENTS PAUL AUSTER

Paul Auster will present special screening of an American classic at Crosby Street Hotel

Crosby Street Hotel
79 Crosby St. between Prince & Spring Sts.
Monday, January 24, $35, 6:30
212-226-6400
www.crosbystreethotel.com

Throughout his career, Brooklyn-based author Paul Auster has written highly visual, cinematic novels, including THE NEW YORK TRILOGY (1985-87), LEVIATHAN (1992), and THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES (2005). He has also written several screenplays, including 1995’s SMOKE and BLUE IN THE FACE, 1998’s LULU ON THE BRIDGE (which he also directed), and the 1993 adaptation of his 1990 novel THE MUSIC OF CHANCE. The cinema plays a major role in THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS (2002), about the missing films of silent comedian Hector Mann, which led to Auster’s screenplay for THE INNER LIFE OF MARTIN FROST (2007). In his latest novel, SUNSET PARK (Henry Holt, November 2010, $25), about a group of people squatting in a house across from Green-Wood Cemetery, one of the main characters, Alice Bergstrom, is writing her dissertation on William Wyler’s classic post-WWII drama THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, allowing Auster to explore the film in great detail over the course of several long passages. Winner of eight Oscars, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Writing, and Best Supporting Actor, the film tells the story of three veterans returning home from the war and the difficulties they have readjusting to the American way of life, which they had just fought so valiantly for. On January 24, Auster will introduce a screening of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES as part of the Crosby Hotel’s “Under the Influence: Writers on Film” series. Following the screening, Auster will be interviewed by journalist and screenwriter Michael Maren, the host of the series, followed by a cocktail reception. The series continues April 11 with Jim Shepard discussing Werner Herzog’s AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1972) and June 3 with Jennifer Egan presenting Quentin Tarantino’s PULP FICTION (1994).

WEEKEND CLASSICS: MABOROSI

Makiko Esumi wants to know why in beautiful MABOROSI

MABOROSI (MABOROSHI NO HIKARI) (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 1995)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
January 21-23, 11:00 am
Series continues through March 27
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.kore-eda.com

After Yumiko’s husband mysteriously commits suicide, she gets remarried and moves to her new husband’s small seaside village home, where she begins to put her life back together. This stunning film is marvelously slow-paced, lingering on characters in the distance, down narrow alleys, across gorgeous horizons, with very little camera movement. The solid cast features Makiko Esumi, Akira Emoto, and the great Tadanobu Asano. MABOROSI is an amazing work from one of the leading members of Japan’s fifth generation, Hirokazu Kore-eda, who has gone on to make such treasures as NOBODY KNOWS and STILL WALKING. MABOROSI is screening at the IFC Center as part of the Weekend Classics series Milestone Films: 20 for 20, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the distribution company that continues to release and restore beautiful and important works. Upcoming films in the series include E. A. Dupont’s PICCADILLY, John Huston’s LET THERE BE LIGHT, and Manoel de Oliveira’s I’M GOING HOME.

THE HOUSEMAID

New maid Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon) is about to find out what horrors lurk behind closed doors in remake of Korean cult classic

THE HOUSEMAID (Im Sang-soo, 2010)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, January 21
www.ifccenter.com
www.lincolnplazacinema.com

As Im Sang-soo’s updated, reworked version of Kim Ki-young’s classic 1960 erotic thriller THE HOUSEMAID opens, restaurant worker Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon) is intrigued by a young woman’s suicide jump on the street right outside. It’s a rather ominous sign for Eun-yi, who then gets a job as a nanny for a rich businessman, Hoon (Lee Jung-jae), his pregnant wife, Hae-ra (Seo Woo), and their daughter, Nami (Ahn Seo-hyeon). When Hoon finds his way into her bed, Eun-yi is at first resistant, then surrenders to her master, much to the dismay of Mrs. Cho (Yoon Yeo-jeong), who has been running the household for years. And once Mrs. Cho tells Hae-ra’s mother, Mi-hee (Park Ji-young), precisely what’s going on, the real trouble starts. Im (THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG) infuses his tale of wealth, power, and sex with elements of horror and suspense, at times evoking Richard Donner’s THE OMEN as Mi-hee seeks to protect the family at all costs. Jeon, who was named Best Actress at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for her haunting work in SECRET SUNSHINE, is riveting as the conflicted young maid, caught in a web of shame, jealousy, betrayal, and ecstatic pleasure, going from childlike when playing with Nami to alluring when making passionate love with Hoon. Im’s fiftieth-anniversary reimagining of an influential Korean classic is a highly charged, potent melodrama with plenty of thrills, shocks, and surprises.

THE CONTENDERS 2010: EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP

Banksy reveals only so much of himself in new documentary

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (Banksy, 2010)
MoMA Film
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, January 22, 8:00
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.banksyfilm.com

In 1999, L.A.-based French shopkeeper and amateur videographer Thierry Guetta discovered that he was related to street artist Invader and began filming his cousin putting up his tile works. Guetta, who did not know much about art, soon found himself immersed in the underground graffiti scene. On adventures with such famed street artists as Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Ron English, and Borf, Guetta took thousands of hours of much-sought-after video. The amateur videographer was determined to meet Banksy, the anarchic satirist who has been confounding authorities around the world with his striking, politically sensitive works perpetrated right under their noses, from England to New Orleans to the West Bank. Guetta finally gets his wish and begins filming the seemingly unfilmable as Banksy, whose identity has been a source of controversy for more than a decade, allows Guetta to follow him on the streets and invites him into his studio. But as he states at the beginning of his brilliant documentary, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, Banksy—who hides his face from the camera in new interviews and blurs it in older footage—turns the tables on Guetta, making him the subject of this wildly entertaining film.

Guetta is a hysterical character, a hairy man with a thick accent who plays the jester in Banksy’s insightful comedy of errors. Billed as “the world’s first Street Art disaster movie,” EXIT, which is narrated by Welsh actor Rhys Ifans (DANNY DECKCHAIR) and features a soundtrack by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow sandwiched in between Richard Hawley’s declaratory “Tonight the Streets Are Ours,” is all the more exciting and intriguing because the audience doesn’t know what is actually true and what might be staged; although the film could be one hundred percent real and utterly authentic, significant parts of it could also be completely made up. Who’s to say that’s even Banksy underneath the black hood, talking about Guetta, who absurdly rechristens himself Mr. Brainwash? It could very well be Banksy’s F FOR FAKE, Orson Welles’s marvelous 1974 pseudo-documentary, or it could be on the straight and narrow from start to finish. No matter. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP is riotously funny, regardless of how you feel about street art, Banksy, and especially the art market itself (as the title so wryly implies).

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP is being screened at the Museum of Modern Art on January 22 as the conclusion to the series “The Contenders 2010,” a collection of influential and innovative international movies the institution believes will stand the test of time. Previous films in the series included Luca Guadagnino’s I AM LOVE, Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION, Roman Polanski’s THE GHOST WRITER, David Fincher’s THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Tom Hooper’s THE KING’S SPEECH, Debra Granik’s WINTER’S BONE, Lixin Fan’s LAST TRAIN HOME, and Lisa Cholodenko’s THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT.

THE WOODMANS

The tragic life of artist Francesca Woodman and her family is the focus of intriguing documentary (untitled photo by Francesca Woodman, 1977-78, Rome, courtesy Betty and George Woodman)

THE WOODMANS (C. Scott Willis, 2010)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
January 19 – February 2, 1:00, 2:50, 4:30, 6:20, 8:10, 10:00
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.kinolorber.com

There’s something inherently creepy about THE WOODMANS, C. Scott Willis’s documentary about a family of artists that opens tonight at Film Forum for a two-week run. For the first half of his debut theatrical release, Willis, an eleven-time Emmy winner who has spent most of his career working for television news organizations, speaks with successful ceramic sculptor Betty Woodman, who had a terrific retrospective at the Met in 2006; her less-well-known husband, painter and photographer George Woodman; and their son, video artist and professor Charles Woodman, focusing on the missing member of the family, photographer Francesca Woodman, who is heard from through excerpts from her diary and seen in her videos and photographs. For those who don’t know Francesca’s fate, Willis builds the tension like a mystery, although it’s obvious something awful occurred. THE WOODMANS gets even creepier once Willis reveals what happened to Francesca, a RISD grad who quickly made a name for herself in the late 1970s taking innovative and influential nude black-and-white photographs of herself. As the parents talk about their daughter’s life and career, Betty explains how she got pregnant more to experience childbirth than to actually be a nurturing mother, and George expresses his jealousy at how Francesca was so admired in the art world, outshining both her parents. That they tend to do so with a calm matter-of-factness contributes to the uncomfortable nature of the film. Willis will participate in a Q&A following the 8:10 screening on January 19.

STRANGER THAN FICTION: GREY GARDENS

Directors Albert Maysles and Muffie Meyer will be at the IFC Center to discuss their classic documentary about the Beales of East Hampton

GREY GARDENS (David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer, 1976)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Wednesday, January 19, $16, 8:00
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.mayslesfilms.com

One of the most influential documentaries ever made, GREY GARDENS looks at the bizarre lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie, in their dilapidated home in East Hampton. The elder Edie was the sister of Jackie Onassis’s father, so it was hard for the American public to believe that in the mid-1970s, relatives of Jackie O’s were living in such squalor. Little Edie bandies about in odd clothing, singing and dancing, believing that she can still resurrect her once-promising career as an entertainer. Meanwhile, her elderly mother cracks wise at her daughter while also remembering her own long-gone days as a singer. The women seem to be caught up in a world all their own, far from reality, but filmmakers Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer, and Ellen Hovde don’t judge them in any way; they just let them be as the women greet guests and grumble about whatever they can. Selected for the New York and Cannes Film Festivals, GREY GARDENS, which has also been turned into a fiction film and a Broadway musical, will be screened January 19 at the IFC Center at 8:00, with Albert Maysles and Meyer on hand to talk about this unique work.