this week in film and television

TWI-NY TALK: BILL SHANNON / CRUTCH / DOC NYC

Bill Shannon moves and grooves through the 2012 New York City Dance Parade in Crutch (photo by Thos Robinson)

DOC NYC: CRUTCH (Sachi Cunningham & Vayabobo, 2020)
November 11-19, $12
www.docnyc.net
www.crutchdoc.com

“Everybody has crutches,” multidisciplinary artist and performer Bill Shannon says in Crutch, making its world premiere November 11-19 at the virtual DOC NYC festival. “Some of them you can see; some of them are invisible.”

The title is both literal and metaphorical. The Nashville-born, Pittsburgh-based Shannon has been called “Crutch” since he was a kid; he has required the use of crutches most of his life because of the degenerative bilateral hip deformity Legg-Calvé Perthes disease. A skate punk, Shannon designed a unique set of crutches with rounded bottoms and developed a career as a dancer, choreographer, and visual artist that combined the crutches with skateboards, public intervention, and neuroscience.

The film follows Shannon, who recently turned fifty, for twenty years; it is directed by Frontline veteran Sachi Cunningham (the two have known each other since grade school, and she once dated his brother) and capoeira documenter Vayabobo, aka Chandler Evans. Crutch incorporates footage from throughout Shannon’s life with new interviews with friends, colleagues, family, dance critics, and Shannon himself, who speaks his mind onstage and off as he travels from Pittsburgh to New York City, California, and Florida as well as England, Australia, Canada, Finland, Russia, and Spain. The film is structured around Shannon’s visit to Camp Perthes USA, where children with the disease can participate in sports and other activities while learning to embrace their disability.

In such exhibitions and live shows as “The Evolution of William Foster Shannon,” Touch Update, and Traffic: A Transient Specific Performance, the onetime Easter Seals poster child has developed not only a unique choreographic language but also his own terminology to describe what he does, including such phrases as “gestures of help,” “the weight of empathy,” “reflections of enquiry,” and “the ambiguity of disability” that drive his practice, which is anchored by interaction with the public. The film is available online through November 19 and is accompanied by a Q&A with Cunningham, Vayabobo, and Shannon. Shannon, who is sheltering in place with his family in Pittsburgh, took some time away from the opening of the film and a conference to discuss Camp Perthes, the art of provocation, the pandemic lockdown, and more.

twi-ny: There’s a lot of old footage of you in the film, including your childhood and teen years. What was it like going through your archives to find the material? Is it difficult to watch footage of yourself of the years when you did not need the crutches? As a viewer, those transitions are deeply affecting.

bill shannon: I have had the privilege and joy of a father who studied film photography in the ’70s and was very technical in his approach. Then my brother was a very talented artist all around and he took great photos in the mid-to-late ’80s, and also my good friend Brian’s photos and videos from the mid-’80s into the ’90s had a big presence as well. Digging it all out, scanning it all was a long, drawn-out process because I never throw anything away.

twi-ny: At one point in the film you talk about how your work involves looking at people looking at you. Have you seen the final cut of the film? What do you think of it in that context, now that another level has been added to that relationship?

bs: I have seen it. It’s very meta, yet also there are not enough details within the doc to really sink into the meat of the public street work in terms of language and phenomenology. The doc does get the message out in a clear way, though.

twi-ny: The scenes of you at the camp are very emotional, both to you and the audience; the look on the kids’ faces as you talk to them and dance are just beautiful. What was that experience like for you, especially since there was nothing like it when you were their age and dealing with the disease?

bs: The experience was very moving. My kids got to meet other kids with Perthes and have more info on what I went through. This was also a case of the film documenting its own impact on my life. The camp for kids with Perthes was through connections that Sachi and Chandler made in the process of looking for others with Perthes to interview. They then organized the visit and flew me out there with my kids. I wish I had had something like the camp at the time I was a kid; I think it would have shifted my worldview and sense of belonging.

twi-ny: You’ve performed all over the globe. Are people’s reactions, particularly when you descend stairs or fall to the ground in a public place, the same everywhere when it comes to their opting whether to become good Samaritans? Have their reactions changed over time, regardless of where they are? I remember that in a promo piece for “Touch Update,” you specifically ask the question “Can people change?”

bs: There are regional variables. There are variables in what “falling to the ground” actually looks and feels like. Reactions are very diverse and also context dependent. I do believe that people change. The international diversity, say, between Mexico City and Novgorod, Russia, or Cairo, Egypt, are vast and fascinating.

twi-ny: How has Pittsburgh been dealing with the pandemic?

bs: Pittsburgh, like most places, has its share of individuals who are pretending it’s not real. Pittsburgh allowed for kids to go back to school, which in my opinion is a very stupid move. It sucks for the kids during a time in their lives when social interaction and bonding with friends is everything. Youth are further pushed into the screens, and it’s really sad.

Bill Shannon’s life and art evolve in Crutch documentary

twi-ny: If you’re not going out much, do you miss the interaction you usually have with the public? The film focuses on how much you crave making those connections.

bs: I am feeling extremely out of sorts lately for a variety of reasons. Having some contact with the streets, with the world would mean so much to me. Working this week as part of a conference, I am reminded how much I rely on my physical presence and in-person communication to build trust and understanding with others. When it’s Zoom and text, I lose a lot of my tools.

twi-ny: One of the people in the film calls you an “agent provocateur.” Would you agree with that assessment?

bs: My mom called me a provocateur. It is true but not the “agent” part. That’s what cops do when they join BLM demonstrations; they become agent provocateurs and burn shit down and vandalize to give protesters and the cause a bad name. I wouldn’t want to be associated with the agent part, but being a provocateur, someone who provokes, is accurate.

twi-ny: Your art has progressed from skateboards and crutches to multimedia, multidisciplinary shows involving cutting-edge technology and neuroscience. What’s next for you?

bs: I really don’t think so much about what is next. Next will happen to me. I am here today in the moment and trying to solve problems that I have identified out of solutions I came across yesterday.

FREE TIME / UNDER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE

Free Time

Manfred Kirchheimer’s Free Time is having its virtual premiere at Film Forum beginning November 11

FREE TIME (Manfred Kirchheimer, 2019) and UNDER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE (Rudy Burckhardt, 1953)
Film Forum Virtual Cinema
Opens November 11, $12 for three-day rental
filmforum.org/film/free-time
grasshopperfilm.com

In 2019, eighty-eight-year-old Manfred Kirchheimer was at Lincoln Center’s Francesca Beale Theater to screen and discuss his latest work, the subtly dazzling Free Time, which had its world premiere in the Spotlight on Documentary section of the fifty-seventh annual New York Film Festival. The German-born, New York-raised Kirchheimer has taken 16mm black-and-white footage he and Walter Hess shot between 1958 and 1960 in such neighborhoods as Hell’s Kitchen, Washington Heights, Inwood, Queens, and the Upper East Side and turned it into an exquisite city symphony reminiscent of Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, and James Agee’s classic 1948 short In the Street, which sought to “capture . . . an image of human existence.” Kirchheimer does just that, following a day in the life of New York as kids play stickball, a group of older people set up folding chairs on the sidewalk and read newspapers and gossip, a worker disposes of piles of flattened boxes, laundry hangs from clotheslines between buildings, a woman cleans the outside of her windows while sitting on the ledge, a fire rages at a construction site, and a homeless man pushes his overstuffed cart.

Kirchheimer and Hess focus on shadows under the el train tracks, gargoyles on building facades, smoke emerging from sewer grates, old cars stacked at a junkyard, and grave markers at a cemetery as jazz and classical music is played by Count Basie (“On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “Sandman”), John Lewis (“The Festivals,” “Sammy”), Bach (“The Well Tempered Klavier, Book 1 — Fugue in B flat minor”), Ravel (Sonata for Violin & Cello), and others, with occasional snatches of street sounds. The title of the film is an acknowledgment of a different era, when people actually had free time, now a historical concept with constant electronic contact through social media and the internet and the desperate need for instant gratification. Kirchheimer, whose Dream of a City was shown at the 2018 NYFF and whose poetic Stations of the Elevated was part of the 1981 fest (but not released theatrically until 2014), directed and edited Free Time and did the sound, and it’s a leisurely paced audiovisual marvel. The only unfortunate thing is that it is only an hour long; I could have watched it for days. The film is opening virtually at Film Forum on November 11, preceded by Rudy Burckhardt’s 1953 classic fifteen-minute black-and-white short Under the Brooklyn Bridge, in which kids go for a swim under the iconic landmark and demolition goes on, set to music by Claude Debussy and Francis Poulenc performed by pianists Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale.

DOC NYC 2020

Army and NYPD vet Corey Pegues shares his surprising tale in A Cops and Robbers Story

DOC NYC
November 11-19
DOC NYC Live! free, individual films $12, ten-film pass $80, All Access Film Pass $199
www.docnyc.net
www.ifccenter.com

Forget about TV, newspapers, magazines, and online sites; if you want to know what’s going on in the world, just check out DOC NYC, the annual festival of nonfiction films that keeps getting bigger and better every year. Instead of being held at the IFC Center as usual, the eleventh edition will be virtual, running November 11-19, consisting of nearly two hundred shorts and features that explore timely issues as only documentaries can. Individual films are $12, and many come with a prerecorded Q&A with the filmmakers. In addition, DOC NYC will be hosting free, live discussions every day on Facebook, from noon to 4:00. Below is a look at some of this year’s highlights and the full Facebook Live schedule; keep watching this space for more recommendations as the festival continues.

ASHES TO ASHES (Taylor Rees, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
Vivian Ducat’s 2011 documentary, All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert, introduced the world to the extraordinary story of outsider artist Winfred Rembert, who shares his hardscrabble life through his intimately personal leather works. In the twenty-six-minute short Ashes to Ashes, Taylor Rees focuses on Rembert’s friendship with Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker, as the Star Wars fanatic talks about when he was nearly lynched as a teenager and she prepares for a special memorial. The close-ups of Rembert’s tired, weathered face and exhausted eyes speak volumes about the legacy of slavery in the United States.

Betye Saar takes care of business in short film screening at DOC NYC

BETYE SAAR: TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS (Christine Turner, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
Last year, MoMA hosted the powerful exhibition “Betye Saar: The Legends of Black Girl’s Window,” a retrospective of the work of the California-born African American artist whose assemblages explore racism and feminism, including the controversial 1972 piece The Liberation of Aunt Jemima. Saar, who turned ninety-four this past summer, now has another moving show, “Call and Response,” that continues at the Morgan Library through January 31. In Christine Turner’s nine-minute short, Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business, made for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the artist discusses her process, which involves incorporating found objects into her sociopolitical constructions; several works in the documentary are on view at the Morgan, an added bonus for those in New York City.

A COPS AND ROBBERS STORY (Ilinca Calugareanu, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
“I really wanted to tell my story,” Corey Pegues says in Ilinca Calugareanu’s A Cops and Robbers Story, making its world premiere at DOC NYC. “I was, like, people gotta know that you could make a bunch of crazy mistakes, even criminal mistakes, and then revamp and reinvent yourself. But I know I couldn’t do that.” A twenty-one-year veteran of the NYPD who believed in giving back to the community, Pegues held on to a secret that whole time: that he had previously been a street-corner drug dealer, a fact he knew would ruin everything he’d accomplished. Calugareanu speaks extensively with Pegues, his 1980s crew, and NYPD colleagues as the tale plays out one piece at a time. Be sure to stick around for the credits for a dazzling surprise about the film’s re-created 1980s scenes.

CROCK OF GOLD: A FEW ROUNDS WITH SHANE MacGOWAN (Julien Temple, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
DOC NYC is hosting the North American premiere of Julien Temple’s Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, a portrait of music legend Shane MacGowan, the Irish punk leader of the Pogues who is renowned for his heavy drinking. MacGowan, who will turn sixty-three on Christmas Day, is now confined to a wheelchair because of a 2015 accident in which he broke his pelvis, and his speech is so slurred, from years of alcohol and drug abuse and perhaps the worst teeth in rock-and-roll history, that the film includes subtitles whenever he speaks. He hangs out with former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and actor Johnny Depp, talks about his childhood and his songwriting process, shares fabulous old footage and family photographs, and tells us how much he hates “Fairytale of New York,” which plays way too much during the documentary. I’ve seen the Pogues a few times, including a 2007 show at Roseland in which MacGowan disappeared for a while, so the band kept playing until he eventually returned, a new bottle in hand, just days after he had fallen off the stage in Boston and tore ligaments. Crock of Gold is a difficult film to watch, especially for fans who have seen Shane perform live with the Pogues or the Popes; he is now a shell of what he once was, a sad testament to what should have been a much more successful career.

Bill Shannon asks audiences to abandon assumptions in Crutch

CRUTCH (Sachi Cunningham & Vayabobo, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
in June 2010, I witnessed a mind-blowing participatory work, Bill Shannon’s Traffic: A Transient Specific Performance, in which Pittsburgh native Shannon, who has the degenerative bilateral hip deformity Legg-Calvé Perthes disease, glided through the Financial District on his specially designed crutches and skateboard as he interacted with people on the street while the audience watched from a bus that followed him. In Sachi Cunningham and Vayabobo’s Crutch, making its world premiere at DOC NYC, Shannon delves into the nature of the disease, which he contracted in childhood, explores his working methods as a dancer, choreographer, and multimedia artist, and visits a summer camp for kids with Legg-Calvé Perthese. “Everybody has crutches,” Shannon says in the feature-length film. “Some of them you can see; some of them are invisible.” (And yes, that is me on the bus….)

HER NEW YORK (David Gross, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
www.davidlgross.com
Since the 1960s, artist Jill Gill has been preserving the memory of long-gone aspects of the city in her “Lost New York” ink-and-watercolor paintings. In David Gross’s nine-minute Her New York, Gill discusses her process of photographing street corners, buildings, and movie theaters, then committing them to paper in a cartoony, playful, yet detailed style reminiscent of Red Grooms, Ben Kantor, and Roz Chast. But Gill does not lament the past; instead, she enjoys the what was as well as what is and what will be, acknowledging that things change, and not always for the worst, which is not a bad way to look at the city, and the world.

NINE DAYS A WEEK (Maliyamungu Muhande, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
Part of the DOC NYC U — New School shorts program, Maliyamungu Muhande’s Nine Days a Week is a black-and-white portrait of now-eighty-year-old street photographer Louis Mendes, who hangs around Grand Central Terminal, B&H, the Audubon Ballroom, and other locations with his vintage 1940 press camera and takes pictures of people who come up to talk to him, for a price. Mendes shares bits about his life, which includes living in shelters, and invites Muhande into his crowded studio, where he shows off his photos. The film is screened with Amrit Cheng’s OK Boomer, Lillian Xuege Li’s Parklife, and Claire Haughey’s Hidden Costs in addition to a Q&A with the directors.

THE SOCIAL DILEMMA (Jeff Orlowski, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
Available on Netflix, Jeff Orlowski’s The Social Dilemma is a frightening look into the algorithms used by such platforms as Facebook to keep users clicking away, seeing exactly what the site wants you to see. Social media experts go deep into detail, accompanied by fantastical yet goofy staged scenes that reveal how we are all trapped. No matter how bad you might have thought it was, it’s worse.

SONGS OF REPRESSION (Estephan Wagner & Marianne Hougen-Moraga, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
Part of the Winner’s Circle section of DOC NYC, Estephan Wagner and Marianne Hougen-Moraga’s Songs of Repression takes viewers inside Colonia Dignidad (Colony of Dignity), a private community in southern Chile established in 1961 by German ex-pats led by Paul Schäfer. Rebranded Villa Baviera, it is now a tourist destination, not so much for its expansive beauty, but for the horrible things that happened there, particularly the physical and sexual abuse of children, some of whom are now raising their kids there and exploiting the evils perpetrated by Schäfer for profit. One returnee and one resident decide to tell the full truth, but nearly everyone else wants to either remain silent or “forgive and forget,” resulting in a gripping tale that will often have you gasping at what you see and hear.

Keytin takes Elizabeth Lo on an amazing journey in Stray

STRAY (Elizabeth Lo, 2020)
www.docnyc.net/film/stray
www.magpictures.com/stray
You can have Sounder, Old Yeller, and Lassie, cheer on Balto, Benji, and Beethoven. But the best movie dog ever is Keytin, the extraordinary golden mutt who is the star of Elizabeth Lo’s masterful feature-length debut, Stray. Lo follows the remarkable canine as she wanders through the streets of Istanbul and other parts of Turkey, living a dog’s life, in a place that until fairly recently would regularly round up strays and euthanize them mercilessly. Everywhere she goes, she meets up with people she knows and who love her, from a dock to a dangerous construction site; she also plays with such puppy pals as Nazar and Kartal. Keytin scavenges for food, cuddles up with homeless kids from Aleppo, relaxes amid traffic, and chases a cat, all with a look in her eyes that reveals great depth and understanding that humans can only dream of. The soundtrack mixes a splendid score by Ali Helnwein with snippets of poignant conversation overheard on Keytin’s journeys, accompanied by occasional intertitles with relevant quotes by Diogenes and Themistius. (“Human beings live artificially and hypocritically and would do well to study the dog.”) As I said, Best. Movie. Dog. Ever.

A THOUSAND CUTS (Ramona S. Diaz, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
www.athousandcuts.film
Around the world, freedom of the press is under attack like never before, as authoritarian leaders and dictators attempt to silence their critics and control the narrative by casting the media as the enemy of the people. In A Thousand Cuts, filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz focuses on the Philippines, where President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent war on drugs has widened to include threatening journalists who do not support him: particularly Maria Ressa, the dedicated and relentless founder of the online news site Rappler, which has refused to submit to Duterte’s brutal authority. It’s a frightening film about a remarkable woman who is prepared to fight for the freedom of the press at any cost. You can read my full review here.

TINY TIM: KING FOR A DAY (Johan Von Sydow, 2020)
www.docnyc.net
www.tinytimfilm.com
“When you look at where Herbert Khaury begins and Tiny Tim ends, nothing was ever normal from top to bottom, from start to finish, Tiny Tim biographer Justin A. Martell says in Johan Von Sydow’s Tiny Tim: King for a Day. Through archival footage, interviews with friends and family, animated re-creations, and diary narration ready by “Weird Al” Yankovic, Von Sydow relates the strange tale of Tiny Tim, once the biggest star in the world, plucking away at his ukulele as he sang familiar songs in his unique vibrating falsetto. A friend of mine recently asked on his Facebook page, “Tiny Tim: Good, Bad, or Unimportant?” This documentary might change many of the responses he received.

Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer will discuss Fireball: Visitors from a Darker World live on Facebook on November 11

CONVERSATIONS WITH FILMMAKERS
During the festival, there will be free live half-hour discussions on Facebook, featuring filmmakers, subjects, and other experts digging into the issues explored in the works.

Wednesday, November 11
Fireball: Visitors from a Darker World, with Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer, 1:00

Inside the DOC NYC Short List, with Thom Powers, Basil Tsiokos, and Opal H. Bennett, 2:00

Focus on Shorts, with Opal H. Bennett and Samah Ali, 3:00

Thursday, November 12
Truth to Power: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me, with U.S. Congress members Rep. Barbara Lee (CA), Rep. Karen Bass (CA), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (MA), moderated by Abby Ginzberg, noon

Los Hermanos/The Brothers, with violinist Joshua Bell, Harlem Quartet member Ilmar Gavilán, and filmmakers Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider, 1:00

Zappa, with filmmaker Alex Winter and film editor Mike J Nichols, 2:00

Dope Is Death, with acupuncturist Juan Cortez and filmmaker Mia Donovan, 3:00

Friday, November 13
The Reason I Jump, with novelist David Mitchell and filmmaker Jerry Rothwell, noon

The Walrus and the Whistleblower, with Phil Demers, Jeff Ventre, and Natalie Bibeau, 1:00

Television Event, with filmmaker Jeff Daniels, 3:00

Saturday, November 14
The Dissident, with chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov and filmmaker Bryan Fogel, noon

Through the Night, with director Loira Limbal and Stanley Nelson, 1:00

Restaurant Hustle 2020: All on the Line, with restaurateurs Antonia Lofaso, Marcus Samuelsson, Maneet Chauhan, and Christian Petroni and filmmakers Guy Fieri and Frank Matson, 3:00

Since I Been Down explores incarceration, mandatory sentences, trauma, and rehabilitation through the case of Kimonti Carter

Sunday, November 15
Chasing Childhood, with Long Island superintendent of schools Dr. Michael Hynes, author and Let Grow cofounder Lenore Skenazy, clinical psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair, and filmmaker Eden Wurmfeld, 1:00

A La Calle, with Acting Americas deputy director of Human Rights Watch Tamara Taraciuk Broner and the Promise Institute for Human Rights executive director Kate Mackintosh, 2:00

Since I Been Down, with philosopher Angela Davis, prosecuting attorney Dan Satterberg, and filmmaker Gilda Sheppard, 3:00

Monday, November 16
The Big Scary “S” Word, with philosopher Cornel West, filmmaker Yael Bridge, and author Astra Taylor, noon

The Mole Agent, with filmmaker Maite Alberdi, producer Marcela Santibáñez, executive producers Julie Goldman and Christopher Clements, and Carolyn Hepburn, 1:00

The Meaning of Hitler, with writer Francine Prose, Hannah Arendt Center head Roger Berkowitz, and filmmakers Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, 2:00

No Ordinary Man, with filmmakers Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt and memoirist Thomas Page McBee, 3:00

Tuesday, November 17
Calendar Girl, with fashion designer Nicole Miller, New York Fashion Week creator Fern Mallis, former InStyle editor Eric Wilson, director Christian Bruun, and producer Natalie Nudell, noon

Beautiful Something Left Behind, with Joe Primo, Vivian Nunez, Rebecca Soffer, and Carole Geithner, 2:00

Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story, with Remote Area Medical CEO Jeff Eastman, healthcare reform activist Wendell Potter, and filmmaker Paul Michael Angell, 3:00

Beyond Resilience, with Sahar Driver, Chloe Walters-Wallace, Madeleine Lim, and Miriam Bale, 4:00

Wednesday, November 18
DOC NYC Awards Presentation, noon

Harlem Rising: A Community Changing the Odds, with Harlem Children’s Zone founder Geoffrey Canada, CEO Kwame Owusu Kesse, graduate Amber Deas, board member Stanley Druckenmiller, and senior manager and executive producer Marlene Fox, 1:00

Nasrin, with journalist Jason Rezaian, Reza Khandan, and filmmakers Jeff Kaufman and Marcia Ross, 2:00

Love & Stuff, with filmmaker Judith Helfand, 3:00

Thursday, November 19
IDFA / DOC NYC Dialogue, with Thom Powers and Orwa Nyrabia, noon

Landfall, with filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo, 1:00

The Last Out, with filmmakers Sami Khan and Michael Gassert, 2:00

In My Own Time: A Portrait of Karen Dalton, with musician Peter Stampfel and others, 3:00

FIRE WILL COME

Amador Arias makes a gripping film debut in Oliver Laxe’s Fire Will Come

WILL COME (O QUE ARDE) (Oliver Laxe, 2020)
Metrograph Virtual Cinema
October 30 – November 5, $12
metrograph.com
www.kimstim.com

“What fire does not destroy, it hardens,” Lord Henry says in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. There’s no disaster quite like a fire; as Californians can attest, it’s one of our greatest fears, that one’s home will suddenly and irrevocably be obliterated in a blaze. But there’s also something beautiful about watching a fire, listening to it crackle, bathing in its light and warmth. Such is the case with Oliver Laxe’s Fire Will Come, a hypnotic and mesmerizing slow burn of a film, equipped with an ever-present fuse that threatens to detonate at any moment.

Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes, the film starts ominously in the dark woods, silent until bare trees start falling down. After a minute, we see yellow bulldozers moving through the forest, knocking them down, but not for logging; it is as if these mechanical monsters are eliminating an enemy before it can strike. The sounds of the bulldozers pushing through the trees soon vanish, replaced by menacing music as the camera floats from a close-up of tree bark to one of the bulldozers, like it’s a large, malicious creature, its two top lights shutting off like a pair of eyes closing after a long day of killing.

Benedicta (Benedicta Sanchez) surveys her land shortly after her son returns from prison in Fire Will Come

The story moves to a small, tight-knit rural village in the mountains of Galicia, where Amador Coro (Amador Arias) has returned to live with his mother, Benedicta (Benedicta Sanchez), after having spent time in prison for starting a wildfire. He cares for their three cows, is followed around by his loyal dog, and carries with him an unspoken but heavy guilt, a melancholy that overwhelms his every gesture. He says little, enduring taunts from his former friends in town, who tease him by asking for a light, when they speak to him at all. “If they make suffer, it’s because they are suffering,” his mother assures him. She also tells him, “I’m really happy that you’re home,” but there is little evidence of any contentment, few smiles to be had.

We never learn exactly what Amador might have done and what its effects were, but the blame clearly runs deep. This is no obvious situation in which a gender-reveal party led to devastation; instead, it’s more about humanity’s relationship with nature and the planet, about our responsibilities to the land and to the animals, which include ourselves. Like California, Galicia is a place where wildfires run rampant, among the worst in Europe, the result not only of climate change or accidents but of controlled burns that erupt out of control, in part due to invasive eucalyptus trees. The fires have become political because of their economic ramifications as much as for the havoc they wreak.

Water plays a key role in the film alongside fire. During a rainstorm, Benedicta finds shelter in the nook of a large tree. Later, when Amador takes one of the cows, Parda, to bathe in a dirty pond surrounded by greenery, the animal is uneasy, unwilling to leave the safety of the muddy water. After getting help from the local vet, Elena (Elena Fernandez), he rides back with her in her truck as she plays Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” Cohen singing, “And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water / And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower / And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him / He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them.” Elena tries to become friends with Amador, but he, broken and feeling forsaken, pushes her away.

His loneliness is palpable, plagued with a conscience that burdens him with shame, a big, strong man now sad and fragile, not interested in seeking redmption. It’s as if he exists on a different plane, dourly wandering through a world that he no longer belongs in, that he feels he doesn’t deserve. In his first film, Arias, a former forest warden who now works with animals, is brutally honest, his craggy face etched in strife, his gait constantly troubled. Fire Will Come is steeped in reality, from the use of nonprofessional actors to the fires themselves. Laxe (You All Are Captains, Mimosas), the French-born son of Galician parents, shot the film in his grandparents’ village, among people he knows. He did not use CGI; instead, he had his cast and crew wait for real forest fires, then filmed actual firefighters battling them. You can almost feel the heat coming off the screen; the film is gorgeously photographed by Mauro Herce, through foggy landscapes, stunning vistas, and claustrophobic interiors, accompanied by natural sounds captured by Sergio da Silva, Xavier Souto, and Amanda Villavieja and a soundtrack that features Vivaldi and Haas in addition to sparse but effective incidental music by Xavi Font. It all comes together in one scene in which Amador is driving in his car, the camera following him from outside, reflections of trees passing over the front windshield as classical music plays. Editor Cristóbal Fernandez maintains a deliberate, almost reluctant pace.

The opening and closing scenes are stark reminders of our connection to the earth and the frightening potential for one to destroy the other. The Galician title of the film, O que arde, means “What burns,” which is not as sinister as “Fire will come,” a warning of what lies ahead. In 1969, Peggy Lee sang, “I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire / I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face as he gathered me up / in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement / I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames / And when it was all over I said to myself, is that all there is to a fire.” In his third feature film, Laxe shows us that there is so much more.

[Fire Will Come is streaming at Metrograph October 30 to November 5; each rental comes with access to a conversation between Laxe and master cinematographer Ed Lachman (Far from Heaven, Light Sleeper.)]

THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW MUSICAL LIVESTREAM

Who: Tim Curry, Wilmer Valderrama, Lance Bass, Rosario Dawson, Jason George, Nell Campbell, Seth Green, Jason Alexander, David Arquette, the Dresden Dolls, Miss Peppermint, Eiza Gonzalez, Josh Gad, Ben Barnes, Jenna Ushkowitz, Rachel Bloom, Karen Olivo, Marissa Jaret Winkour, Madison Uphoff, Kalen Chase, Rumer Willis
What: Livestreamed Halloween political fundraiser
Where: WisDems Zoom
When: Saturday, October 31, suggested donation $31, 10:00
Why: America is in danger of going through a perilous time warp if the current administration gets another four years in office, further setting back gains that have been made over decades toward freedom and equality for all. With that in mind, the Wisconsin Democratic Party has been on a fierce and furious drive to flip the swing state blue on election day with virtual cast reunions of Happy Days, The Princess Bride, Veep, and Superbad that have each raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Next up is a celebration of the 1975 midnight cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a film that celebrates individuality and daring to be different. We might not be able to touch-a, touch-a, touch-a, touch one another, but we can reach out and come together online, and joining in the fun on Halloween night will be Dr. Frank N. Furter himself, Tim Curry, along with Wilmer Valderrama, Lance Bass, Rosario Dawson, Jason George, Nell Campbell, Seth Green, Jason Alexander, and David Arquette, with musical performances by the Dresden Dolls, Miss Peppermint, Eiza Gonzalez, reunion champ Josh Gad, Ben Barnes, Jenna Ushkowitz, Rachel Bloom, Karen Olivo, Marissa Jaret Winkour, Madison Uphoff, Kalen Chase, and Rumer Willis. The suggested donation is $31 for the one-time-only live event, but you can give any amount to watch the festivities and submit your own question, so as far as change goes, don’t just dream it, be it.

“THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS”: A HALLOWEEN NIGHT BENEFIT CONCERT

Who: James Monroe Iglehart, Rafael Casal, Adrienne Warren, James Monroe Iglehart, Danny Burstein, Nik Walker, Lesli Margherita, Rob McClure, Kathryn Allison, Jenni Barber, Erin Elizabeth Clemons, Fergie L. Philippe, Jawan M. Jackson, Brian Gonzales
What: Livestreamed benefit concert
Where: the Actors Fund Vimeo channel
When: Saturday, October 31, $4.99, 7:00
Why: “Year after year, it’s the same routine / And I grow so weary of the sound of screams / And I, Jack, the Pumpkin King / Have grown so tired of the same old thing,” Skeleton Jack sings in Tim Burton’s 1993 animated classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas. In this horrific 2020, everyone will be lamenting the holiday, with no parade in the Village, no club parties and in-person costume contests, no bobbing for apples, and no trick-or-treating; the city is destined to be a lonely place on October 31. But there’s a lot happening online, including a benefit concert featuring Broadway stars performing Danny Elfman’s music from Nightmare. The all-star cast includes Rafael Casal as Jack, Adrienne Warren as Sally, James Monroe Iglehart as Oogie Boogie, Danny Burstein as Santa, Nik Walker as Lock, Leslie Margherita as Shock, and Rob McClure as Barrel, joined by Kathryn Allison, Jenni Barber, Erin Elizabeth Clemons, Fergie L. Philippe, Jawan M. Jackson, and Brian Gonzales. Tickets are only $4.99, with proceeds going to the Actors Fund and the Lymphoma Research Foundation.

HAPPY DAYS SCRIPT READ AND REUNION

Who: Ron Howard, Henry Winkler, Anson Williams, Marion Ross, Don Most, Lowell Ganz, Josh Gad, D’Arcy Carden, Yara Shahidi, more
What: Live reunion reading
Where: WisDems Zoom
When: Sunday, October 25, minimum donation $1, 7:00
Why: It will not be the happiest of days for everyone when the cast of Happy Days reunites for a benefit script read and Q&A in support of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in an effort to help turn the state blue again in the upcoming presidential election. On October 25 at 7:00, a classic episode of the sitcom, which aired on ABC from 1974 to 1984 and was set in Milwaukee, will be read live on Zoom by Henry Winkler as the too-cool Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli, Ron Howard as the the freckle-faced Richie Cunningham, Don Most as the wacky Ralph Malph, Anson Williams as the doofy Potsie Weber, and Marion Ross, on her ninety-second birthday, as the frisky Mrs. C. Sadly, creator Garry Marshall, Tom Bosley (Howard Cunningham), Erin Moran (Joanie Cunningham), Pat Morita (Arnold), and Al Molinaro (Al) are no longer with us. But what about Scott Baio, as tough-guy Chachi Arcola, you ask? Well, the staunch Trump-supporting conservative recently tweeted, “What a shame to use a classic show like Happy Days about Americana to promote an anti-American socialist. #Shameful.” So John Stamos will be stepping into Chachi’s shoes for the presentation, which will also include writer Lowell Ganz, Josh Gad, D’Arcy Carden, Yara Shahidi, and surprise guests. (Ted McGinley, Cathy Silvers, Linda Purl, Lynda Goodfriend, and Crystal Bernard are still around.) And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get the real, inside story of what happened to Chuck.

“We’re thrilled a show made famous in Milwaukee is coming back home to help make Donald Trump a one-term president,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair Ben Wikler said in a statement. “We know all roads to the White House go through the Badger State, and with the cast of Happy Days helping us raise money to take back the White House, we believe even more we can deliver a victory on November 3.” Happy Days hasn’t held up very well, but this should be a fun night anyway, following two other WisDems reunions, The Princess Bride and Veep, as well as the PA Dems benefit reunion of This Is Spinal Tap and the Texas Democratic Party’s Seinfeld Fundraiser About Something on October 23.