this week in film and television

FIRST SATURDAYS: LADIES’ NIGHT

Salma Hayek stars as artist Frida Kahlo in Julie Taymor’s biopic, screening as part of the free First Saturdays program at the Brooklyn Museum on December 4

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Saturday, December 4, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org
In conjunction with its “Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958-1968” exhibit, the Brooklyn Museum is handing over its monthly First Saturdays program to the ladies on December 4. Canadian singer Carole Pope will perform, Julie Taymor’s 2002 biopic, FRIDA, will screen at 5:30, performance artist Shelly Mars will present THE HOMO BONOBO PROJECT, the Hands-On Art workshop will take on the sculpture of Joyce Wieland, DJ Laylo will keep things moving at the always hopping dance party, Misako Rocks will talk about her DETECTIVE JERMAIN manga series, and CHERYL will give a multimedia performance.

FRIDA (Julie Taymor, 2002)
Saturday, December 4, 5:30
Free tickets available at Visitor Center beginning at 5:00
www.miramax.com/frida
Salma Hayek is terrific as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in this uniquely creative biopic from Julie Taymor. Kahlo’s tumultuous twenty-five-year relationship with muralist and communist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) is the centerpiece of the film, which comes alive with bright colors, Elliot Goldenthal’s Oscar-winning score, splendidly bizarre animation from the Brothers Quay, and a fun group of supporting actors that includes Antonio Banderas, Ashley Judd, Valeria Golino, Edward Norton, and Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky. Kahlo documented her difficult life on canvas, and Taymor uses those paintings in engaging and dramatic ways.

NIGHT MOVES: CLAUDE CHABROL & ARTHUR PENN

LE BEAU SERGE kicks off Lincoln Center tribute to Claude Chabrol and Arthur Penn

Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
December 3-9, $12 ($9 weekday matinees, three-film pass $27)
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

On the surface, it might seem like the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s dual tribute to Claude Chabrol and Arthur Penn is merely one of coincidence and timing: French auteur Chabrol died on September 12 at the age of eighty, while American director Penn passed away on September 28 at the age of eighty-eight. Both made their first film in 1958, Penn with THE LEFT-HANDED GUN, starring Paul Newman as Billy the Kid, Chabrol winning the Prix Jean Vigo for LE BEAU SERGE. But while Chabrol went on to direct more than fifty films, through 2009’s INSPECTOR BELLAMY, Penn made a mere fourteen, the last being the 1989 cable TV movie INSIDE. In fact, the careers of both men were inextricably linked through the French New Wave, Chabrol being one of its earliest proponents, Penn among the first non-Europeans to adapt its highly stylized, antiestablishment aesthetic. Lincoln Center will be screening eight works by Chabrol and seven by Penn December 3-9, including the former’s STORY OF WOMEN, LA FEMME INFIDÈLE, and LES BONNES FEMMES and the latter’s LITTLE BIG MAN, NIGHT MOVES, and THE MIRACLE WORKER.

Faye Dunaway and Clyde Barrow go on a violent bank-robbing rampage in American classic BONNIE AND CLYDE

BONNIE AND CLYDE (Arthur Penn, 1967)
Friday, December 3, 6:30, & Thursday, December 7, 3:10
Arthur Penn changed the course of Hollywood — and world cinema — in 1967 with BONNIE AND CLYDE, a film previously offered to such Nouvelle Vague luminaries as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Cowritten by David Newman (SUPERMAN I-III) and Robert Benton (KRAMER VS. KRAMER), the film mythologizes the true story of depression-era bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, played magnificently by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. At its heart, BONNIE AND CLYDE is a passionate yet unusual love story, filled with close-ups of the gorgeous Dunaway, who is first seen naked, running to her bedroom window confident and carefree, more a modern 1960s woman than a poor 1930s small-town waitress. Meanwhile, Barrow might know how to shoot a gun, but he’s a dud in bed; “I ain’t much of a lover boy,” he tells Bonnie early on, so their passion plays out in fast-moving car chases and shootouts rather than under the covers (while also playing off of Beatty’s already well-deserved reputation as a ladies’ man). They pick up an accomplice in gas-station attendant C. W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard) and are soon joined by Clyde’s brother, Buck (Gene Hackman), and his wife, Blanche (Estelle Parsons), and continue their rampage as heroic, happy-go-lucky hold-up artists, leading up to one of the most influential and controversial endings ever put on celluloid, an unforgettable finale of violent and poetic beauty. Penn, editor Dede Allen, and cinematographer Burnett Guffey redefined the gangster picture with their creative use of slow motion, long takes, and crowded shots, defying Hollywood conventions in favor of unique and innovative storytelling devices, allowing the film to work on multiple levels. Coscreenwriter Benton will participate in a Q&A following the December 3 screening.

CHELSEA ART WALK: WEST 24th St.

Wandering through Chelsea galleries can often be a long, hit-or-miss affair, but you can make a direct strike right now by taking advantage of the excellent shows along 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves. Abelardo Morell’s “The Universe Next Door” continues through December 11 at Bryce_Wolkowitz (505 West 24th St.), consisting of the Cuban photographer’s latest camera obscura pigment ink prints in which he turns rooms into pinhole cameras, projecting the outside world onto interior walls, resulting in such beautiful, unique images as “View of the Manhattan Bridge — April 20th / Afternoon” and “View of Florence Looking Northwest Inside Bedroom.” (Morell’s concurrent “Groundwork” exhibition, in which he utilizes a lightproof tent and periscope, is at Bonni Benrubi on East 57th St. through January 8.) Israeli-born Elad Lassry’s small C-prints of people, animals, and unusual objects in solidly painted frames will line the walls of Luhring Augustine (531 West 24th St.) through December 18, while his latest 35mm projection, of a woman and a California king snake, is shown in the back room. (Lassry is also part of MoMA’s current New Photography 2010 installation, through January 11.) German photographer Michael Wolf takes on issues of privacy and surveillance in “iseeyou,” at Bruce Silverstein (535 West 24th St.) through December 24, blowing up pixelated images he appropriated from Google Street Views and showing them along with such previous series as “Transparent City,” “Architecture of Density,” and “Tokyo Compression”; in the back gallery, Wolf has curated “City Views,” eleven voyeuristic shots of people on rooftops and in windows taken by André Kertész in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mika Rottenberg, “Squeeze” (video still), single-channel video installation, 2010 (courtesy Mary Boone Gallery)

For her latest immersive video environment, Argentine native Mika Rottenberg has installed “Squeeze” at Mary Boone (541 West 24th St.) through December 18, a usually crowded white room showing a twenty-minute film loop of a bizarre Rube Goldberg-like global factory of lettuce workers, misted butts, wall tongues, a large oracle, red ponytails, and other oddnesses creating a work of art that will never be seen by the public (be sure to read the document on the wall). And German artist Anselm Kiefer revisits his controversial 1969 show, “Occupations,” a series of photographs of him giving the Hitlergruß in historic sites throughout Europe, in “Next Year in Jerusalem” at the Gagosian Gallery (555 West 24th St.) through December 18, a massive new exhibit of vitrines of all sizes containing myriad elements that together appear to have gone through intense devastation, including clothing, typewriters, pieces of an airplane and a boat, broken glass, thorn bushes, snakeskin, burned books, metal cages, and other items. Several of the vitrines refer to such Bible stories, locations, and characters as Jacob’s Ladder, Lilith, and Mount Tabor. It’s a dizzying and overwhelming sight that evokes powerful emotions and memories.

BREATHLESS (À BOUT DE SOUFFLE)

BREATHLESS is back for a return engagement at Film Forum (courtesy Rialto Pictures/StudioCanal)

BREATHLESS (À BOUT DE SOUFFLE) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Through December 7, 1:00, 2:50, 4:40, 6:30, 8:20, 10:10
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

The fiftieth-anniversary restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s Nouvelle Vague classic, BREATHLESS, will leave audiences, well, breathless. Godard’s first feature-length film, buoyed by an original treatment by François Truffaut and with Claude Chabrol serving as technical adviser, is as much about the cinema itself as it is about would-be small-time gangster Michel Poiccard (an iconic Jean-Paul Belmondo), an ultra-cool dude wandering from girl to girl in Paris, looking for extra helpings of sex and money and having trouble getting either. Along the way he steals a car and shoots a cop as if shooing away a fly before teaming up with Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg) and heading out on the run. Godard references William Faulkner and Dashiell Hammett, Humphrey Bogart and Sam Fuller as Michel and Patricia make faces at each other, discuss death, and are chased by the police. Anarchy prevails, both in Belmondo’s character and the film as a whole, which can go off in any direction at any time. Godard himself shows up as the man who identifies Michel, and there are also cameos by New Wave directors Jean-Pierre Melville and Jacques Rivette. The beautiful restoration, supervised by the film’s director of photography, Raoul Coutard, also includes a brand-new translation and subtitles that breathe new life into one of cinema’s greatest treasures. Although many of the restored movies that play at Film Forum do so immediately prior to DVD release, no DVD is currently planned for this version of BREATHLESS, so if you missed it when it ran earlier this year, you’ll have to catch it during this return engagement, which ends December 7.

KAWASAKI’S ROSE

Martin Huba as Pavel with Daniela Kolarova as Jana in a scene from KAWASAKI’S ROSE

KAWASAKI’S ROSE
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
November 24 – December 7
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.menemshafilms.com

Inspired by the success of THE LIVES OF OTHERS, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Oscar-winning 2006 drama about the German secret police, the Czech team of writer Petr Jarchovsky and director Jan Hrebejk (DIVIDED WE FALL, BEAUTY IN TROUBLE) tackle a similar subject from a different point of view in the powerful KAWASAKI’S ROSE. After discovering that her mystery illness is not terminal cancer, Lucie (Lenka Vlasáková) returns home to her husband, Ludek (Milan Mikulcik), and daughter, Bara (Anna Simonová), only to find out that Ludek is once again seeing his former lover, Radka (Petra Hrebícková). Ludek and Radka are working on a documentary about Lucie’s father, Pavel (Martin Huba), who is about to receive the coveted Czech memory prize in honor of his work with disabled children since the Velvet Revolution. But when Lucie understandably refuses to accept Radka’s gesture of friendship, Ludek decides to get even after being given Pavel’s complete dossier, which reveals that the beloved doctor and his wife, Jana (Daniela Kolárová), have been keeping some very damaging secrets that could tear apart their family. Like THE LIVES OF OTHERS, KAWASAKI’S ROSE is a nearly flawless film, with well-drawn characters, a compelling, emotional story, and a gripping narrative structure, always offering something unexpected. The performances are uniformly excellent, the script subtle and intelligent. Curiously, the only misstep, and thankfully it’s just a minor tangent, involves the title figure, Mr. Kawasaki (Isao Onoda), a painter who was taken in by Jana’s onetime lover, anarchist sculptor Borek (Antonin Kratochvil). Kawasaki seems completely unnecessary, existing merely as a metaphor both within the film and outside it, referring to master mathematician and paper folder Toshikazu Kawasaki and his famed origami rose that flows out from the center. Hrebejk will be at Film Forum for the 7:50 show on November 27.

MILESTONE FILMS: 20 FOR 20 — KILLER OF SHEEP

KILLER OF SHEEP is part of twentieth anniversary of Milestone Films at the IFC Center

KILLER OF SHEEP (Charles Burnett, 1977)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
November 24-28
Series runs through March 27
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.killerofsheep.com

Founded in 1990 by Dennis Doros and Amy Heller as a way to preserve great orphaned works, Milestone Films is celebrating its twentieth anniversary with a series of weekend screenings at the IFC Center. The festival began November 12-14 with Luchino Visconti’s ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS and November 19-21 with Michael Powell’s THE EDGE OF THE WORLD and continues this weekend with Charles Burnett’s low-budget feature-length debut, KILLER OF SHEEP, which Milestone recently restored with the soundtrack intact; the film had not been available on VHS or DVD for decades because of music rights problems that were finally cleared, setting up a wildly successful theatrical run at the IFC Center in 2007. (The soundtrack includes such seminal black artists as Etta James, Dinah Washington, Little Walter, and Paul Robeson.) Shot on weekends for less than $10,000, KILLER OF SHEEP took four years to put together and another four years to get noticed, when it won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1981 Berlin Film Festival. Reminiscent of the work of Jean Renoir and the Italian neo-Realists, the film tells a simple story about a family just trying to get by, struggling to survive in their tough Watts neighborhood in the mid-1970s. The slice-of-life scenes are sometimes very funny, sometimes scary, but always poignant, as Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders) trudges to his dirty job in a slaughterhouse in order to provide for his wife (Kaycee Moore) and children (Jack Drummond and Angela Burnett). Every day he is faced with new choices, from participating in a murder to buying a used car engine, but he takes it all in stride. The motley cast of characters, including Charles Bracy and Eugene Cherry, is primarily made up of nonprofessional actors with a limited range of talent, but that is all part of what makes it all feel so real. KILLER OF SHEEP was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1989, the second year of the program, making it among the first fifty to be selected, in the same group as REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, THE GODFATHER, DUCK SOUP, ALL ABOUT EVE, and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. The Milestone series continues December 3-5 with Orson Welles’s THE TRIAL and December 10-12 with Gillo Pontecorvo and Maleno Malenotti’s THE WIDE BLUE ROAD.

NOTHING PERSONAL

Lotte Verbeek and Stephen Rea star as two lonely people whose lives slowly intertwine

NOTHING PERSONAL (Urszula Antoniak, 2009)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between Fifth Ave. & University Pl.
Opens Friday, November 19
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
www.nothingpersonalthemovie.com

Polish writer-director Urszula Antoniak’s debut feature film, NOTHING PERSONAL, is a muddled meditation on loneliness and the price of personal freedom. After walking out on her life for unstated reasons, a young Dutch woman (Lotte Verbeek) wanders the Irish countryside of Connemara, coming upon a cottage owned by a grumpy older man (Stephen Rea) who lives there alone, in the middle of nowhere. He offers her food in exchange for her tending to his garden, but at first she refuses, not wanting to have any real contact with other people, but she eventually relents, with one caveat: that he asks no personal questions of her, keeping their “relationship” at a distance. It soon becomes an intellectual boxing match as they spend more time together, deciding on what they each really want. Shot in Holland, Spain, and Ireland, NOTHING PERSONAL, winner of four Golden Calf awards at the 2009 Netherlands Film Festival, is a dreary and uncomfortable movie, with Antoniak’s heavy hand evident in nearly every scene, manipulating just how much information the characters will reveal, which ends up alienating audiences, who just won’t care about the two protagonists. There’s nothing personal about NOTHING PERSONAL, just a shivering coldness and chasm-like emptiness echoed by one of the jobs the man gives the woman; by the time it does start warming up, it’s too little, too late.