this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

A FACE IN THE CROWD: REMEMBERING LEE REMICK

Lee Remick lights up the screen in 2K restoration of The Europeans

THE EUROPEANS (James Ivory, 1979)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
December 20-26
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com

From her big-screen debut in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd in 1957, it was clear that Massachusetts native Lee Remick would be more than just another face in the crowd. In conjunction with the theatrical release of the fortieth anniversary 2K restoration of The Europeans, the Quad is celebrating Remick with that 1979 Merchant Ivory costume drama in addition to six other works that make up the too-brief series “A Face in the Crowd: Remembering Lee Remick.” In The Europeans, Remick, who tragically passed away in 1991 at the age of fifty-five, plays the très chic and cultured Eugenia Münster, who has arrived from the continent with her brother, bohemian painter Felix Young (Tim Woodward), seeking to stay awhile with their cousins, the Wentworths, who have a large country estate outside Boston.

Patriarch Mr. Wentworth (Wesley Addy) is suspicious of the siblings, who are very different from his more staid family. Eugenia’s marriage to a German prince is falling apart, so she is in the market for a new partner. One potential match is the ne’er-do-well Clifford Wentworth (Tim Choate), but Eugenia has her eyes on the more mature Robert Acton (Robin Ellis), another cousin of the Wentworths from a different side of the family. Unitarian minister Mr. Brand (Norman Snow) is in love with one of Clifford’s sisters, the iconoclastic, church-skipping Gertrude (Lisa Eichhorn), who has taken a liking to Felix, who thinks that Mr. Brand is a better match for Gertrude’s sister, Charlotte (Nancy New). Also in the mix is Robert’s younger sister, the ingénue Lizzie (Kristin Griffith).

Adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novella by Henry James, directed by James Ivory, and produced by Ismail Merchant — the trio would also collaborate on James’s The Bostonians (with Remick) in 1984 and The Golden Bowl in 2000 — The Europeans is a slowwwww-moving melodrama that too often feels like it’s going nowhere during its mere ninety minutes. Remick is simply fab as Eugenia, a twinkle ever-present in her sparkling eyes as she bandies about in Judy Moorcroft’s jaw-dropping costumes and dazzling hairdos. The film looks great, courtesy of cinematographer Larry Pizer and art director Jeremiah Rusconi, and Remick is transfixing, lifting another of James’s tales of morally corrupt European nobility vs. the wealthy, prim, upright Puritans of New England. As a bonus, the ninety-one-year-old Ivory (A Room with a View, Call Me by Your Name) will be at the Quad on December 20 for a Q&A following the 7:15 screening.

Lee Remick made her feature-film debut in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd

Remick made twenty-eight feature films and more than two dozen television movies and miniseries in addition to appearing on Broadway several times. The Quad festival, running December 20–26, shows her alongside some of Hollywood’s finest leading men. In Otto Preminger’s gripping and tense Anatomy of a Murder, she’s married to Ben Gazzara, who is on trial for murder, caught between defense attorney James Stewart and prosecutor George C. Scott. In Robert Mulligan’s emotional Baby the Rain Must Fall, Remick is married to Steve McQueen in a story by Horton Foote. Remick was nominated for an Oscar for her daring performance in Blake Edwards’s harrowing Days of Wine and Roses, in which she and Jack Lemmon battle the bottle in a big way. In Gordon Douglas’s gritty, effective The Detective, Remick is having marital problems with Frank Sinatra, a cop on a brutal case. In Richard Donner’s still terrifying The Omen, Remick and Gregory Peck are a high-powered Washington couple who just might be raising the devil. And Remick sizzles in the Trump-ist A Face in the Crowd, in which Andy Griffith made his film debut as well. Remick had a uniquely mesmerizing charm; when she’s onscreen, you can’t take your eyes off her, no matter who she is next to. Head over to the Quad to see for yourself — and be prepared to fall in love with one of the most underrated stars of the twentieth century.

CURATORS’ CHOICE: WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD’S ON FIRE?

Titus Turner looks up to his older brother, Ronaldo King, in What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?

WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD’S ON FIRE (Roberto Minervini, 2018)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, December 20, 7:30
Series continues through January 12
718-777-6888
www.movingimage.us
www.kimstim.com

Roberto Minervini follows up his Texas Trilogy – The Passage, Low Tide, and Stop the Pounding Heart – with the powerful sociopolitical call to action What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?, which is screening December 20 in the Museum of the Moving Image’s annual series “Curators’ Choice,” a collection of the best works of the past twelve months, which curator Eric Hynes and assistant curator Edo Choi call “among the best film years in memory.”

What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? is shot in sharp, distinctive black-and-white by cinematographer Diego Romero Suarez-Llanos so that it looks like a fictional work from the civil rights era, but it is an all-too-real documentary that shows what’s happening in the US today, even though far too many Americans would deny the inherent realities the movie depicts. Italian-born director Minervini, who is based in the American south, tells four poignant stories steeped in oppression: Judy Hill is struggling to get by, running a bar that has become an important meeting place for the Tremé community while also caring for her elderly mother, Dorothy; Ashlei King hopes that her young sons, fourteen-year-old Ronaldo King and nine-year-old Titus Turner, come back safe after going out to play in a junkyard; Mardi Gras Indian Chief Kevin Goodman melds black and Native American traditions in changing times; and Krystal Muhammad and the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense protest the killings of two African American men at the hands of police.

The New Black Panther Party for Self Defense fights the power in What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?

Beautifully edited by Marie-Hélène Dozo, the film, which was shot in Louisiana and Mississippi in the summer of 2017, captures the continuing results of institutionalized, systemic racism and income inequality in the United States. “We’ve been set free, but we’re still being slaves,” Judy Hill proclaims. “Nowadays, people don’t fight; they like to shoot,” Ronaldo teaches Titus. What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? is the kind of film that should be widely seen, including in schools around the country, to highlight the everyday impact of racial injustice. There are no confessionals in the film, no so-called experts discussing socioeconomic issues; instead, it’s real people, struggling to survive and fighting the status quo and America’s failure to effectively face and deal with its original sin. The most controversial section involves the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense, the members of which march through town declaring, “Black power!” When they face off against the police, they make some arguable choices, but what’s most important is what has taken place to even put them in that situation. There’s a good reason why the title, What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?, is framed as a question, one that every one of us should look in the mirror and answer for ourselves.

Judy Hill struggles to get by in poignant, important film by Roberto Minervini What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?

“Curators’ Choice” continues through January 12 with such other 2019 popular and little-seen gems as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood, James Gray’s Ad Astra, Kent Jones’s Diane, and the director’s cut of Ari Aster’s Midsommar and features Q&As with Jones, Aster, Penny Lane (Hail Satan?), Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell), Brett Story (The Hottest August), Nathan Silver, Cindy Silver, and Jarred Alterman from Cutting My Mother, and Julia Reichert, Steve Bognar, and Jeff Reichert from American Factory.

NIGHTMARES: LIVE PODCAST TAPING

nightmares

Who: Emily Flake, Kat Burdick, Amanda Duarte, Jean Grae, Porochista Khakpour, Kembra Pfahler
What: Live podcast taping of Nightmares: Good People, Bad Dreams
Where: The Red Room at KGB, 85 East Fourth St.
When: Sunday, December 15, free (two-drink minimum), 7:00
Why: Cartoonist-writer-performer-teacher-illustrator Emily Flake’s podcast Nightmares: Good People, Bad Dreams invites “the funniest and most interesting people around” to talk “about what messed up things go through their heads at night.” On December 15 at 7:00, the show will be taped live at the Red Room at KGB as Flake and her guest cohost, comedian Kat Burdick, are joined by writer-performer Amanda Duarte, hip-hop artist and polymath genius Jean Grae, writer-teacher-lecturer Porochista Khakpour, and performance artist, filmmaker, and the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black lead singer Kembra Pfahler for what should be a wildly unpredictable evening of laughs and scares.

MUSEUM OF THE STREET

“2628 Maple Ave., LA, April 1997” (photo courtesy Camilo José Vergara / Museum of the Street)

Who: Naa Oyo A. Kwate, Lawrence Hubbard, Camilo José Vergara, Ben Katchor
What: Slideshow presentation and panel discussion about “religious visions, public memorials, political effigies, historical tableaux, and commercial signage found in the Black and Latinx neighborhoods of America”
Where: The New School, 66 West Twelfth St., Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall
When: Wednesday, December 11, free, 7:00
Why: “For more than four decades I have devoted myself to photographing and documenting the poorest and most segregated communities in urban America,” Chilean-born, New York-based writer and photographer Camilo José Vergara notes about his ongoing project “Tracking Time,” part of his Museum of the Street. He continues, “I feel that a people’s past, including their accomplishments, aspirations, and failures, are reflected less in the faces of those who live in these neighborhoods than in the material, built environment in which they move and modify over time. Photography for me is a tool for continuously asking questions, for understanding the spirit of a place, and, as I have discovered over time, for loving and appreciating cities.”

“Mrs. Ada Marshall, Martin Luther King Drive at Bostwick, Jersey City, 2004” (photo courtesy Camilo José Vergara / Museum of the Street)

In conjunction with “The Other Street Art,” architecture editor and writer Cynthia Davidson’s recent interview with Vergara, the New School is hosting an illustrated discussion on December 11 at 7:00 with Vergara, Rutgers associate professor Naa Oyo A. Kwate, PhD, South LA comics artist Lawrence “Raw Dog” Hubbard, and Parsons associate professor and Julius Knipl creator Ben Katchor. “When my friend, the cartoonist Ben Katchor, saw my photos, he said, these institutions only want diversity that fits their narrow definitions of art,” Vergara says in the interview, which can be read in full here. “If the nature of the work challenges the economic basis of their institutions, they won’t recognize it, including street muralists, who work for little money in poor neighborhoods. Their work is meant to be ephemeral and would undermine the economic existence of major art institutions. Unlike the artists selected by the Getty, the largely unrecognized street artists have not enjoyed a privileged upbringing, nor have they had any training beyond high school art classes.” Be prepared for a lively and eye-opening evening.

MIDNIGHT FAMILY

EMT Juan Ochoa deals with corrupt police in Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family

MIDNIGHT FAMILY (Luke Lorentzen, 2019)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Opens Friday, December 6
212-660-0312
metrograph.com
midnightfamilyfilm.com

Following nearly 120 screenings at film festivals around the world and winning more than two dozen awards, Luke Lorentzen’s spellbinding documentary Midnight Family opens December 6 for a weeklong run at Metrograph. The San Francisco–based Stanford grad initially went south of the border to make a different movie, but after meeting the Ochoa family, he quickly changed direction, embedding himself for six months over three years with Fernando (Fer) Ochoa and his two sons, Juan, who is now seventeen, and Josué, now ten, riding along with them in their private ambulance as they roam around Mexico City searching for hurt people in desperate need of assistance. The film announces at the beginning that there are only about forty-five government ambulances for nine million people in the city, so a slew of independently operated vehicles use radio scanners and police tips to race toward scenes of accidents so they can take victims to nearby hospitals and get paid for their efforts. However, they are not necessarily properly trained EMTs, and their ambulances are often not registered — the Mexican health-care system is in such disarray that there is little if any oversight anywhere — and if the people they pick up are poor, they don’t collect on the bill.

But the Ochoas, who named their business Med Care, soldier on, going out night after night. They are truly concerned about helping men, women, and children who require medical care, even if they don’t always know the best methods to treat them while speeding toward either a public or private hospital — sometimes making the decision based on whether they have a deal with that hospital to get some cash in exchange for delivering patients. There’s a good reason why it says on their ambulance: “Urgencias Basicas,” which means “basic emergencies.”

Lorentzen expertly unfolds the narrative, as the emergencies start with a broken nose and build up to much more serious health situations. It plays out like a thriller, first with the Ochoas racing through crowded streets and on sidewalks, trying to get to the accident scene before another ambulance does, then roaring to the hospital while their new passenger is still alive. Serving as producer, director, cinematographer, and editor, Lorentzen uses two Sony FS-7s, one mounted on the windshield facing in, the other either handheld or on a tripod in the back, making viewers feel like they’re in the ambulance, experiencing the breathtaking, claustrophobic nature of the Ochoas’ everyday experiences, enhanced by Matías Barberis’s immersive sound design and natural light, which is often quite beautiful, as street lamps and glowing gas stations add a magical quality to the darkness.

There are no talking heads, no experts discussing the health-care crisis, no pontificating about how bad things are. It’s just the Ochoas and their ambulance. Even when they take a break, Fer relaxes right in front of the vehicle, ready to jump into action if a call comes in. “I’d love to take just one night off to show people how screwed they’d be without us. This city would be a mess without private ambulances,” Juan says. Even with them, it’s quite a mess, as Lorentzen does not shy away from the ethical questions raised by the Ochoas’ modus operandi. But in the end, Midnight Family is a gripping and powerful look at the struggles to get quality health care and make a living in Mexico while also evoking the countless medical issues that are prevalent around the world — and in America too.

EI ARAKAWA: WEWORK BABIES (11 Cortlandt Alley)

[A group of children follow each other down a dirt path in a wooded forest, their backs turned away from the camera. The path leads towards a grassy clearing, lit by radiant sun. Across the frame is the logo for “WeWork,” offset on a diagonal.]

Artists Space
11 Cortlandt Alley
Sunday, December 8, free, 2:00
212-226-3970
artistsspace.org

Fukushima-born, LA–based performance artist Ei Arakawa will lead a parade of a different kind on Sunday, December 8, inaugurating the new home of Artists Space. The former New Yorker is presenting WeWork Babies (11 Cortlandt Alley), beginning at 2:00 outside Artists Space at 11 Cortlandt Alley with a march of plastic infants that will then go into the lobby and down into the cellar gallery, which serves as an art baby nursery. The piece, complete with Q&A, will be performed by Arakawa, Malik Gaines, Tony Jackson, Sohee Kim, Erika Landström, Shuang Liang, George Liu, Yuri Manabe, Molly McFadden, Gela Patashuri, Jamie Stevens, and Tinatin Tsiklauri, with music by Boston-born, Brooklyn-based composer and installation artist Stefan Tcherepnin and his seven-month-old son, Igor Törnudd-Tcherepnin. Founded in 1972, Artists Space “strives for exemplary conditions in which to produce, experience, and understand art, to be a locus of critical discourse and education, and to advocate for the capacity of artistic work to significantly define and reflect our understanding of ourselves.” The opening-month celebration continues with such other free programs as the album launch “Speaker Music: drape over another” on December 13 and the book launch “Alexander Zevin: Liberalism at Large” on December 16.

FIRST SATURDAYS: BEST OF THE BOROUGH

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, December 7, free (some events require advance tickets), 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum shows off the best of the borough in the December edition of its free First Saturday program. There will be live performances by Los Hacheros, Gemma, DJ Laylo, Adrian Daniel, and drag collective Switch n’ Play (featuring Divina GranSparkle, K.James, Miss Malice, Nyx Nocturne, Pearl Harbor, and Vigor Mortis with special guest Heart Crimson); Visual AIDS screenings of short films commemorating the annual Day With(out) Art, followed by a conversation between filmmakers Iman Shervington and Derrick Woods-Morrow, moderated by writer Mathew Rodriguez; a book talk on Elia Alba’s The Supper Club with Sur Rodney (Sur) and Jack Waters, focusing on the conversation from the book that asks “What Would an HIV Doula Do?”; a curator tour of the Arts of Japan galleries with Joan Cummins; teen apprentice pop-up gallery talks in “Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall”; a night market with handmade artisanal products; and a poetry reading and book signing by Brooklyn poet laureate Tina Chang from her latest book, Hybrida. In addition, the galleries will be open late so you can check out “Garry Winogrand: Color,” “Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall,” “yasiin bey: Negus,” “One: Xu Bing,” “Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion,” “JR: Chronicles,” and more.