Hoyt Richards looks back at a critical decision in his life in Welcome to the Beyond
WELCOME TO THE BEYOND (Brent Huff, 2018)
Cinepolis Chelsea
260 West 23rd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday, November 13, 7:30
Festival runs November 8-15 www.docnyc.net www.welcometothebeyond.com
In the summer of 1978, Hoyt Richards, a gorgeous blond athlete from a large, successful family, was approached by a man on a beach in Nantucket who offered him a bright future. Richards, aka John Richards, appeared to already have it all, but he eventually followed the man, who turned out to be Frederick von Mierers, the leader of the Eternal Values cult, who claimed to be an alien from the planet Arcturus. Former model Brent Huff tells the bizarre story, in many ways a cautionary tale, in Welcome to the Beyond, screening November 13 at DOC NYC. In 2012, while filming a Ford Models reunion, actor, writer, and director Huff (Behind the Orange Curtain, Chasing Beauty) recognized Richards and approached him about making a documentary about his experience with Eternal Values. Richards agreed, and speaks extensively about what happened to him; Huff also meets with many of Richards’s friends and relatives. “There’s definitely a dynamic in this family that’s regrettable,” younger brother Garth says. “That dynamic had to do with, John was always my father’s favorite, and John epitomized what my father would have loved to have been: the blue-eyed, blond-haired, good-looking football player. There’s a cruel twist in all that, is that by my father making John his favorite, he created resentment from every other sibling of John. He put John on an island, and I don’t know how John internalized that, but that wasn’t a pretty place to be.”
Talking about his mother, John, who is one of the film’s producers, admits, “I always just felt like she was on a different planet.” John was the first male supermodel, went to Princeton, partied at Studio 54, and had a major career, but ultimately he came to understand that he was in a cult and that he had to get out. The psychology behind his story is related by Steven Hassan, a former cult member who became a deprogrammer and has written such books as Combatting Cult Mind Control. Richards’s five siblings, cousins, parents, and close friends as well as a fellow former cult member all share their thoughts on a situation that they still don’t really understand: Just why did Richards fall for von Mierers and Eternal Values? Welcome to the Beyond is screening November 13 at 7:30 at Cinepolis Chelsea in the Portraits section of DOC NYC, with Huff, producer Shawn Huff, and editor Pete Speneuk on hand for a Q&A.
Chris Ruge is one of three health-care workers profiled in The Providers trying to make a difference in northern New Mexico
THE PROVIDERS (Anna Moot-Levin & Laura Green, 2018)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Monday, November 12, 12:45
Festival runs November 8-15
212-924-7771 www.docnyc.net theprovidersdoc.com
Most recent polls show that health care is the number one concern of most Americans, ahead of the economy, immigration, the environment, gun violence, and other issues. Filmmakers Anna Moot-Levin and Laura Green travel to northern New Mexico to explore a critical aspect of the health-care crisis in the moving, almost elegiac The Providers, which is making its New York City premiere at the DOC NYC festival. Moot-Levin and Green, both the children of doctors, directed, produced, photographed, recorded the sound, and edited (with Chris Brown) the film, which follows three health-care workers as they deal with poor, underserved patients with empathy, compassion, and understanding in small rural towns. “My job is to try to keep you alive,” nurse practitioner Chris Ruge tells one patient. “Health care is a relationship,” explains physician assistant Matt Probst. And family physician Leslie Hayes points out that once she retires, there is no one to take over for her. Moot-Levin and Green spent one hundred days over three years in Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and Española in New Mexico, going behind the scenes as Ruge, Probst, and Hayes treat men, women, and children, including many adults suffering from alcoholism, opioid abuse, and other addictions. The three providers are part of the ECHO Care program at El Centro clinics, which allows them to see patients who have little or no money; they visit them in the hospital and make house calls, often stopping by just to check on how things are going. “There is so much beauty here. And there is so much pain,” Probst says.
Anna Moot-Levin and Laura Green on the set of The Providers, their first film
The film also reveals how their dedication to their jobs impact their private lives; Ruge’s wife, nurse midwife Ann Ruge, complains that her husband cares more about his patients than about her, while Probst has to deal with an addicted father and troubled sister. When future funding for ECHO Care is in jeopardy, Chris Ruge notes, “If it ended, it would likely lead to the early death of a lot of our patients.” Another problem is where the next generation of health-care workers will come from to serve these indigent communities; Probst teaches physician assistant students at the University of New Mexico, where he hopes to find young men and women willing to stay local. “I want to go into the medical profession because this community is so far from medical help,” one student, Tiffany, says. The Providers is screening November 12 at IFC in the American Perspectives section of DOC NYC, with Moot-Levin participating in a Q&A after the film.
Orson Welles on the set of his final film, The Other Side of the Wind
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (Orson Welles, 2018)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Sunday, November 11, 5:00
Series runs through January 8
212-708-9400 www.moma.org
Throughout Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind, characters make declarations that have been applied to Welles’s work over the years, and what audiences may even be thinking in the first minutes of this, his final film: “Does all this matter?” “What the hell is that?” “I’m bored with the whole story.” “You could tell me what’s going on here.” And “What happens here?” “I’m not really sure, Max.” But that wickedly sly self-referential commentary is one of the many reasons that The Other Side of the Wind is yet another masterpiece by the man who brought the world Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil, F for Fake, and other classics. Welles’s legendary difficulties — budgetary problems, editing and reshoots without his consent, productions that took years to finish — are both the subject and the story of the making of The Other Side of the Wind itself. Welles’s potent skewering of Hollywood was shot in the 1970s and remained incomplete until now; finally, nearly one hundred hours of footage have been edited into a two-hour gem that will be screening November 11 at MoMA in their annual “Contenders” series, made up of films the institution believes will last the test of time. The Other Side of the Wind begins with an equilibrium-challenging blast of grainy scenes photographed with shaky handheld cameras and sudden, disorienting closeups, switching from color to black-and-white, the audio track not quite synced, Michel Legrand’s jazzy noir score underlining the too-rapid pace as all the main characters are introduced. The conceit of the film is that it tells the story of the last day of iconic, ornery auteur J. J. Hannaford’s life, played by iconic, ornery auteur John Huston. (Welles always claimed that Hannaford was not based on himself but on other great directors.) “This little historical document has been put together from many sources,” Hannaford acolyte Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich) announces in voice-over at the start, “from all the footage shot by TV and documentary filmmakers and also the students, critics, and young directors who happened to bring 16- and 8mm cameras, having been invited to Jake’s seventieth birthday party.”
Peter Bogdanovich and John Huston star in Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind
Once the film calms down, it’s stupendous, a bittersweet takedown of the studio system and the end of an era, with a fabulous cast that covers nearly every aspect of the film world: Susan Strasberg as ruthless, ambitious critic Julie Rich; Edmond O’Brien as actor Pat Mullins; Mercedes McCambridge as Maggie Noonan, Hannaford’s manager; Norman Foster as Billy Boyle, an old-timer who knows how to handle things; Paul Stewart as Matt Costello, another of Hannaford’s old cohorts; Lilli Palmer as movie star Zarah Valeska, the host of the party; Cameron Mitchell as grumbling makeup artist Zimmie; Pat McMahon as journalist Marvin P. Fassbender; Joseph McBride as critic Pister; Tonio Selwart as a financier known only as the Baron; Howard Grossman as biographer Charles Higgam; Geoffrey Land as studio head Max David; Frank Marshall as one of the documentarians; Cathy Lucas as Mavis Henscher, a young woman Hannaford takes a liking to; Stafford Repp (Chief O’Hara on Batman) as Hannaford supporter Al Denny; Dennis Hopper as director Lucas Renard; Benny Rubin as Hollywood agent Abe Vogel; Gregory Sierra as screenwriter Jack Simon, who keeps throwing barbs at Hannaford; and Dan Tobin as the uptight Dr. Bradley Pease Burroughs. Among those being parodied or paid homage to in the casting and the plot are Marlene Dietrich, John Houseman, John Ford, William Wellman, Pauline Kael, Robert Evans, Charles Higham, Cybill Shepherd, and John Milius. Among the party guests are George Jessel, Curtis Harrington, Henry Jaglom, Paul Mazursky, Claude Chabrol, Cameron Crowe, Les Moonves, and Rich Little, who originally played Otterlake but was replaced by Bogdanovich, who extensively interviewed Welles for the seminal book This Is Orson Welles. (And yes, that man in the bathroom stall is William Katt, who would later become the Greatest American Hero, while 1970s/’80s star Cassie Yates is Martine.)
Cinematographer Gary Graver and editor Bob Murawski have done what must have been a nearly impossible job, creating a compelling narrative that interweaves the many styles with the making of Hannaford’s last film, also called The Other Side of the Wind, a somewhat existential erotic tale of a Native American woman played by an unnamed actress (Oja Kodar, Welles’s companion) who’s being followed by a motorcycle rebel portrayed by first-time actor John Dale (Bob Random), a new discovery of Hannaford’s. The film is Hannaford’s attempt to remain relevant in the modern age; it’s shot in bold colors, with plenty of nudity and a hip score that serve as a stark counterpoint to the predominantly black-and-white footage of Hannaford and his exploits. “It’s a whole new business,” Zimmie laments. The Other Side of the Wind is a fitting coda to Welles’s career — although he does not appear in the film, his voice can be heard off-camera at one point — a grand finale lovingly put together with respect and admiration that once again makes us wonder what Welles could have achieved had he not continually run into so much trouble as a filmmaker. The MoMA screening will be followed by a Q&A with producer Filip Jan Rymsza. It will be preceded at 2:00 by Morgan Neville’s overly fanciful They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, which goes behind-the-scenes of The Other Side of the Wind, detailing the making of the movie through interviews with many of the participants while also delving into Welles’s working process, fundraising methods, and, of course, genius. It’s narrated by Alan Cumming and features Bogdanovich, Kodar, Shepherd, Jaglom, Graver, Random, Marshall, Little, Mitchell, McBride, Simon Callow, George Stevens Jr., Jeanne Moreau, Danny Huston, and others. Neville will take part in a Q&A after the screening.
Flat Earth superstar Mark Sargent shares his theories in Behind the Curve
BEHIND THE CURVE (Daniel J. Clark, 2018)
Cinepolis Chelsea
260 West 23rd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Saturday, November 10, 8:00
Festival runs November 8-15 www.docnyc.net www.behindthecurvefilm.com
A few years ago, I got into a series of social media discussions with an old high school acquaintance who believed in a lot of conspiracy theories. It turns out he is a Flat Earther, one of a growing number of Americans who believe that the planet is not round. He asked me to watch a bunch of videos that supported his beliefs, and I did, but no matter what science-based evidence I threw back at him, he was prepared with an answer that often included claims that high-level, respected scientists were part of the conspiracy, that they were being paid off by the secret government. I ultimately ended our social media friendship when it turned into a false flag discussion and it became evident he thought reports of mass shootings were hoaxes as well. Anyway, Daniel J. Clark’s Behind the Curve brought that all back for me. In the expertly made film, screening November 10 in the Science Fiction section of DOC NYC, Clark tracks the exploits of several very public Flat Earthers as they prepare for the first annual Flat Earth International Conference in 2017 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Many are eager to hear in person from those they follow online, leaders in the movement who regularly post videos “proving” that there’s no curve to the Earth. “I didn’t choose flat earth; flat earth chose me,” Flat Earth superstar and former digital pinball champion Mark Sargent explains. Clark spends a lot of time with Sargent and his cohort, the Morrissey-loving Patricia “the Interviewer” Steere, as they attend meetups, go to a NASA museum, watch the supposed solar eclipse, and make new videos. Among the others attending the conference are Nathan “the Evangelist” Thompson, Bob “the Engineer” Knodel, Chris “the Craftsman” Pontius, and Jeran “the Experimenter” Campanella as well as people who go by such names as Infinite Plane Society and Odd Reality; the only Flat Earther who turns his back on the conference is the angry Matt “Math Powerland” Boylan, who thinks Sargent is a plant working for Warner Bros.
Clark allows the Flat Earthers to make their case, neither judging them nor portraying them as idiots. He does, however, speak with a number of concerned professionals who delve into the psychological reasons why people fall for conspiracy theories, including Caltech astrophysicist Hannalore Gerling-Dunsmore, UCLA psychiatry professor Dr. Joe Pierre, Caltech physicist Dr. Spiros Michalakis, Caltech astronomer Dr. Erika Hamden, NASA astronaut Commander Scott Kelly, psychologist and writer Dr. Per Espen Stoknes, high school teacher Stephen Hagberg, and science writer Tim Urban. (He purposely avoided such well-known debunkers as Neil “He Who Shall Not Be Named” deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye the Science Guy.) They all show empathy and understanding for the Flat Earthers, treating them as misguided people rather than absurd zealots for a ridiculous cause, a tempting characterization of those who believe, among other things, that we are all living inside a giant dome like in The Truman Show. The experts discuss such diagnoses as impostor syndrome, the Dunning-Kruger Effect, institutional disconfirmation, information bias, miseducation, scientific superiority complex, and a general distrust of authority, never outright criticizing any of the Flat Earthers. One of the Flat Earthers humorously states that most of them do not live in their mother’s basement; however, Sargent does spend a significant amount of time with his mom, who is not fully sold on the planet being flat. Clark and producers Nick Andert and Caroline Clark will be at the Cinepolis Chelsea screening to talk about the film.
Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche and Erric Solomon will discuss ancient wisdom, the future of tech, and radical happiness at the Rubin on November 10 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
“Getting to know your own mind should be fun,” former Silicon Valley tech executive Erric Solomon said at a recent cocktail party celebrating the release of Radically Happy (Shambhala, $24.95), the new book he cowrote with his longtime friend, Tibetan Buddhist teacher Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche, who explained, “It’s about how you can be happy, not why. We already know why we should be happy.” Solomon and Phakchok Rinpoche will be at the Rubin Museum on November 10 at 3:00 for the talk “Ancient Wisdom and Tech Future”; this past summer, Rinpoche appeared at the Rubin for two presentations, a mindfulness meditation and “Stories of Padmasambhava.” Radically Happy: A User’s Guide to the Mind features a foreword by Daniel Goleman and Tara Bennett-Goleman, colorful artwork by Julian Pang, and such chapters as “Why You Need Radical Happiness, or How to Be Less of a Dog and More of a Lion,” “The Looking-for-Happiness Conundrum,” and “Contemplating the Interdependent Nature of Reality.” As the Golemans note, “Phakchok Rinpoche lives much like the rest of us and so can draw on his own doubts, anger, and other familiar feelings to illustrate ways we can each find steadier footing in the rocky realities of our lives.” Solomon and Rinpoche might use the word “radical” a lot in the book, but their approach applies common sense to everyday existence, believing that problems can “be resolved by being more present-moment focused and by thinking of the welfare of others. Could the path to happiness really be that simple?” Part of the Rubin’s yearlong investigation into the future, the talk will be followed by a book signing; general admission is $25, but for $45 you get a signed copy of the book, preferred seating, and a karma tour.
Superb documentary looks at the life and career of genre-redefining writer Ursula K. Le Guin
WORLDS OF URSULA K. LE GUIN (Arwen Curry, 2018)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Saturday, November 10, 11:45 am
Festival runs November 8-15 www.docnyc.net worldsofukl.com
If you’ve never read anything by Ursula K. Le Guin, you’re going to want to fill your bookshelf with her works after watching Arwen Curry’s superb documentary, Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, making its New York City premiere November 10 at the DOC NYC festival. The intimate portrait focuses on the Berkeley-born author’s writings and how she changed the face of literature for science fiction and fantasy as well as for women authors. “What Ursula was having to navigate was the societal prejudice against science fiction, against the fantastic, and against children’s fiction. All of these things were marginalized,” award-winning writer Neil Gaiman says. Le Guin points out, “The critics had dismissed science fiction and fantasy as essentially worthless, and I knew better. I knew that my work was not second rate, that it was of literary value.” Curry spent seven years researching Le Guin and following her to public appearances and filming her in her longtime home of Portland, Oregon. Le Guin, the author of such masterful novels as A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Dispossessed as well as the highly influential short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” died in January 2018 and was interviewed for the film in her eighties; from her deeply wrinkled face emerges the voice and infectious enthusiasm of a much younger woman.
Among the authors singing Le Guin’s praises are Gaiman, David Mitchell, Michael Chabon, Samuel R. Delany, Adrienne Maree Brown, China Miéville, Theodora Goss, Margaret Atwood, and Vonda N. McIntyre, along with professor emeritus James Clifford, editor Annalee Newitz, and Le Guin biographer Julie Phillips, who universally rave not only about what a great writer she was but what a wonderful human being too. Le Guin was the daughter of highly regarded anthropologists Alfred L. Kroeber and Theodora Kroeber, who both studied indigenous cultures destroyed by colonial impact; familiarity with her parents’ work may have contributed to Le Guin’s immense skill of world-building in her books. “Imaginative fiction trains people to be aware that there are other ways to do things and other ways to be, that there is not just one civilization and it is good and it is the way we have to be,” she says in the film. Curry also speaks with Le Guin’s husband and their children and goes to Cannon Beach with Le Guin, a visit beautifully captured by cinematographer Andrew Black. Curry includes home movies, family photographs, speeches, marked-up manuscripts, and shots of Le Guin working at a typewriter; in addition, animator Molly Schwartz brings to life various book covers and a handful of scenes narrated by Le Guin. It’s utterly charming watching Le Guin discuss her career, a gentle soul in touch with who she is and what she does. She even participated in the Kickstarter campaign to fund the project, offering signed books, rare special editions, a framed sketch of her cat, a meet-and-greet, and more. The American Masters presentation is screening at the SVA Theatre at 11:45 am on November 10, with Curry and Schwartz on hand to talk about the film.
Three Identical Strangers tells the amazing story of adopted triplets who find one another only to learn horrible details of their separation
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS (Tim Wardle, 2018)
Cinepolis Chelsea
260 West 23rd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Thursday, November 8, 6:15
Friday, November 9, 10:15 am
Festival runs November 8-15 www.docnyc.net www.threeidenticalstrangers.com
At the beginning of Tim Wardle’s Three Identical Strangers, screening November 8 and 9 at the ninth annual DOC NYC festival, Bobby Shafran says, “When I tell people my story, they don’t believe it. I guess I wouldn’t believe the story if someone else were telling it, but I’m telling it. And it’s true, every word of it.” He then discusses how, in 1980, through a series of coincidences, he discovered that he was an adopted triplet, and the three brothers, born on July 12, 1961, became the best of friends, going on a media blitz and taking New York City by storm. That in itself is a great story, but that’s only the first part of this gripping movie; what follows is a thriller-like investigation into the lives of Edward Galland, David Kellman, and Robert Shafran involving why they were separated at birth by the Louise Wise Services adoption agency. It’s an utterly captivating film, as every time you think the story can’t get more bizarre, it does. Wardle speaks with many members of the three boys’ adopted families, journalists, and several people who were involved in the nature/nurture experiment that separated them; it’s absolutely heart-wrenching watching them learn what happened to them back in 1961 that changed their lives forever and ultimately resulted in tragedy — and the full truth is still not known. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at Sundance among awards at many other festivals, Three Identical Strangers is screening in the Short List section of DOC NYC, with Wardle present at both shows.
