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

PACINO’S WAY

Al Pacino is wondering what amazing line he will utter next in classic film

Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
March 14-30
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com

“In a sense this is a homecoming for me,” stage and screen legend Al Pacino says of the extensive Quad series “Pacino’s Way,” running March 14-30 and consisting of more than thirty films starring and/or directed by the East Harlem–born, Bronx-raised Oscar, Tony, and Grammy winner. The seventy-seven-year-old Method actor will be at the Quad for the New York City premiere of the double feature Wilde Salomé and Salomé, both directed by the longtime Greenwich Village resident and based on the Oscar Wilde play. Pacino is one of the most quotable actors in the history of cinema, delivering memorable lines, as only he can, in films both great and, well, not so great. “The more naturalistic, photogenic qualities of film complement the language-driven essence of classical theater,” he notes. Below are some of his best movie quotes, followed by when the films they’re from will play at the Quad, but you’re gonna have to figure out which movie is which yourselves.

Al Pacino is looking for his next Bard quote in Looking for Richard

Al Pacino is looking for his next William Shakespeare quote

“I want to kill myself sometimes when I think that I’m the only person in the world and that part of me that feels that way is trapped inside this body, that only bumps into other bodies, without ever connecting to the only other person in the world trapped inside of them. We have to connect. We just have to.”
Wednesday, March 14, 1:45, and Wednesday, March 21, 4:25

“Are you listening to me, son? I’m giving you pearls here.”
Wednesday, March 14, 4:05, and Monday, March 19, 7:40

“You think you’re big time, you gonna fuckin’ die big time. You ready? Here comes the pain.”
Wednesday, March 14, 9:00, and Thursday, March 22, 6:00

“Four seconds is a lifetime!”
Thursday, March 15, 8.45, and Sunday, March 25, 4:10

“You’re out of order. You’re out of order. The whole trial is out of order.”
Friday, March 16, 5:10, and Tuesday, March 20, 6:40

“I’m a germ. You should split.”
Friday, March 16, 3:00, and Saturday, March 24, 3:25

“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
Friday, March 16, 7:30, and Sunday, March 25, 1:00

“Max, you should be more careful where you drop your drawers. Some scorpion will put a lip-lock on your big ass.”
Saturday, March 17, 1:00, and Thursday, March 22, 3:50

Al Pacino has plenty to say to Gene Hackman

Al Pacino isn’t scared of having plenty to say to Gene Hackman in indie drama

“The reality is, we do not wash our own laundry!”
Saturday, March 17, 5:30, and Wednesday, March 28, 4:00

“It’s not personal. It’s strictly business.”
Saturday, March 17, 8:00, and Monday, March 26, 7:00

“Wait a minute! Wait. I’m having a thought. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I’m gonna have a thought. It’s coming . . . It’s gone.”
Sunday, March 18, 1:00, and Sunday, March 25, 11:00 am

“I’m Donald Duck.”
Sunday, March 18, 3:05, and Thursday, March 22, 8:45

“There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
Sunday, March 18, 6:20, and Tuesday, March 27, 7:00

No need to worry; Al Pacino is only temporarily speechless in courtroom fave

“I subscribe to the law of contrary public opinion: If everyone thinks one thing, then I say bet the other way.”
Tuesday, March 20, 2:30, Friday, March 23, 7:00, and Thursday, March 29, 4:30

“Look at me. Underestimated from day one. You’d never think I was master of the universe, now would you?”
Tuesday, March 20, 9:00, and Friday, March 23, 1:45

“What’s she gonna do, shoot me? We’re in a restaurant!”
Wednesday, March 21, 2:05, and Thursday, March 29, 6:30

“Wyoming, that’s not a country.”
Wednesday, March 21, 6:45, and Friday, March 30, 3:30

“A wise guy’s always right; even when he’s wrong, he’s right.”
Friday, March 23, 4:30, Saturday, March 24, 5:40, and Wednesday, March 28, 1:30

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA: WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS

The SDF (Clément Durand) and the Non-Bobo (Frédéric Schulz-Richard) are among six characters searching for sanctuary in Eugène Green’s Waiting for the Barbarians

WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS (ATTENDANT LES BARBARES VOSTA) (Eugène Green, 2017)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Tuesday, March 13, 6:30; Friday, March 16, 4:00
Festival runs March 8-18
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.org

Six characters are in search of an exit from modern life in Eugène Green’s delightfully surreal and very strange Waiting for the Barbarians, which is screening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema” festival on March 13 and 16. American expat Green’s previous two films, La Sapienza and The Son of Joseph, featured gorgeous architecture and lush landscapes; Waiting for the Barbarians opens with a beautiful static shot by cinematographer Raphaël O’Byrne of the Seine on a slightly cloudy day, accompanied by the soothing sounds of rushing water and birds. Green next sets the stage by explaining through photographs and text that what we are about to see is the result of a workshop (Les Chantiers Nomades) in which “The reality of twelve actors and a small crew . . . becomes a fiction expressing the reality of the world.” The film then moves into a dungeonlike basement run by the Mage (Fitzgerald Berthon) and the Magesse (Hélène Gratet), a mysterious couple who live in near-darkness, using only candlelight. There’s a knock on the door, and the Mage answers it. “We were told you’re a mage,” a young man says. “Do you believe what you’re told?” the Mage responds. “In this case, yes,” the man says. The Mage: “Freedom of conscience is guaranteed by secularity.” The man: “We were told we’d be safe here.” The Mage: “What do you fear?” The man: “The barbarians. They’re coming.” The Mage: “How do you know?” The man: “Social media.” It’s a hilarious beginning, all deadpan, a candle illuminating the man’s face like in a Caravaggio painting. The Mage agrees to let them in, if they hand over all of their electronic devices. Over the next seventy minutes, the slow-moving, slow-talking Mage and Magesse conduct odd ritualistic gatherings in which the Poet (Arnaud Vrech), the Bobo (Ugo Broussot), the Bobelle (Chloé Chevalier), the Paintress (Anne-Sophie Bailly), the Non-Bobo (Frédéric Schulz-Richard), and the homeless SDF (Clément Durand) discuss their lives in bizarre, often disconnected statements delivered in a straightforward, direct, almost zombielike manner, which turns pedantic dialogue into very funny riffs on art, politics, class structure, love, parenting, and death.

An Arthurian novel is reenacted in blue light in Waiting for the Barbarians

“I’m not the least bit phallocratic, and I always agree with my wife,” the Bobo says. “How can you expect us to know anything if we don’t have internet?” the Bobelle asks. The Paintress explains that she doesn’t paint because “running a paintbrush over a naked, pure, virginal surface feels like an act of unbearable violence.” The Non-Bobo is a politician who has never run for office. The six characters identify the barbarians they are escaping from as the Scythians, the Thracians, the Goths, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Huns, the Avars, the Alans, the Cumans, the Tatars, the Pechenegs, and the United Statesians. (Green is a Brooklyn native who lives in France and refers to America as “Barbaria” in interviews.) The Poet encounters a ghost named Sophie (Valentine Carette), the daughter of the Mage and Magesse, who says she has been expecting him; her red scarf is the only color amid the blackness. The Non-Bobo lets loose a magnificent eye roll. The Mage examine two works by Nicolas Tournier. They all enter a blue-lit courtyard where they watch apparitions perform scenes from the twelfth-century verse romance Jaufré, a melodrama involving Jaufré (Roman Kané), Brunissen de Montbrun (Marine Chesnais), Taulat de Rougemont (François Lebas), and Mélian de Montmélior (Durand). In introducing the performance, the Mage says, “Fiction is merely an attempt to show something more real than the world,” which describes Green’s film as well. Waiting for the Barbarians is about the fear of contemporary society and its future, of being alone, of not being connected in the twenty-first century, when everyone is on the move all the time, never stepping back and just being in the moment. It is droll and languorous, inscrutable and hysterical, didactic and wryly clever. Be sure to stick around through the end credits, which give updates on the characters. Green likes to make cameos in his films, but there’s no room for him in Waiting for Barbarians; fortunately, you will be able to see him on March 13, when he will take part in a Q&A following the 6:30 North American premiere of the film. “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema” continues through March 18 with films by Vincent Macaigne, Xavier Legrand, Xavier Beauvois, Bruno Dumont, Nobuhiro Suwa, Laurent Cantet, and others.

BURT REYNOLDS X 5: BURT REYNOLDS IN PERSON

Even Burt Reynolds can’t believe he’ll be at Metrograph on March 14 to talk about Deliverance and more

Who: Burt Reynolds
What: “Burt Reynolds x 5”
Where: Metrograph, 7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts., 212-660-0312
When: Wednesday, March 14, 7:00 (series runs March 14-18)
Why: In preparation for the March 30 theatrical release of Burt Reynolds’s latest film, The Last Movie Star, the eighty-two-year-old sly sex symbol will be at Metrograph for the kickoff of its six-day festival, “Burt Reynolds x 5.” On March 14, the Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated Reynolds will be on hand for the 7:00 screening of what just might be his best film, John Boorman’s blistering Deliverance, in which Burt plays Lewis Medlock, a rugged adventurer who, while on a canoe trip with three friends, encounters some unforeseen trouble in the mountains. “Machines are gonna fail and the system’s gonna fail,” Lewis tells Ed (Jon Voight). “Then, survival. Who has the ability to survive: That’s the game — survive.” Reynolds is certainly a survivor, having made more than one hundred films, from classics to some real dreck, and he was married twice, to Judy Carne and Loni Anderson. The festival continues with Reynolds’s Gator, Michael Ritchie’s Semi-Tough, Hal Needham’s Smokey and the Bandit, and Bill Forsyth’s Breaking In.

ReelAbilities FILM FESTIVAL: PERFECTLY NORMAL FOR ME

Perfectly Normal for Me premieres this week at the tenth annual ReelAbilities Film Festival

PERFECTLY NORMAL FOR ME (Catherine Tambini, 2017)
Multiple venues
March 9, 11, 12
Festival runs March 8-14
www.jccmanhattan.org
www.perfectlynormalformedoc.com

About halfway through Catherine Tambini’s sweet-natured documentary Perfectly Normal for Me, about a group of young boys and girls who attend Dancing Dreams in Bayside, a nonprofit that teaches children with medical or physical challenges to dance and become leaders, I was already thinking how I was going to start this review; I was going to call the film “inspirational.” But I quickly changed my mind when sixteen-year-old Veronica Siaba says in the movie that they’re all “so sick of being called inspirational for just basically living.” In the sixty-minute film, director and producer Tambini and cinematographer Matt Porwoll follow four kids as they go about their daily life, going to school, playing at home and outside with friends and family, and preparing for the annual Dancing Dreams show: five-year-old Alexandria Vega, eight-year-old Jake Ehrlich, twelve-year-old Caitlin McConnell, and Veronica. The boys and girls who attend Dancing Dreams have such diseases as spina bifida, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophy, but they are determined to not let that stop them from dancing. (Alexandria’s twin, Maya, does not have any diseases but is very close to her sister and is allowed to join her; meanwhile, Caitlin’s twin, Allison, who also has no serious muscular ailments, is a Dance Helper.) Some can walk on their own, some need help, and others are confined to wheelchairs — except when at Dancing Dreams. “I didn’t want it to be just another program where they sat in a wheelchair and danced in the wheelchair,” organization founder and physical therapist Joann Ferrara explains. “I wanted everyone who could get up to get up, everyone to do the best and the most they could.” Each child has his or her own Dance Helper, usually a high school student who works with that boy or girl for several years.

Emmy nominee Tambini (The State of Arizona, Farmingville) speaks with several Dance Helpers, including Morgan King, Shirley Huang, Kara O’Connell, and Shi’Ann Ottley Cleveland. “They don’t have to feel different when they come here,” Cleveland says. “They can just be themselves, and that’s why I love it here.” Tambini also meets with Maya and Alexandria’s parents, Laura Ariza and Rene Vega; Jake’s mother, Natalie; and Caitlin’s parents, Steve and Kara, all of whom are dedicated to their children’s health and happiness. One phrase that keeps popping up in describing the children is “strong-willed”; it is clear from the start that these are extraordinary kids who don’t want to be identified merely by their illness, as they have so much more to offer the world. “I just want to be a normal kid. That’s my lifetime goal,” Jake says. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Veronica adds. Perfectly Normal for Me is screening in the tenth annual ReelAbilities Film Festival on March 9 at the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan, March 11 (free with RSVP) at the merged Central Queens Y and the Samuel Field Y and the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, and March 12 (free with RSVP) at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium. All shows will be followed by a Q&A with members of the cast and crew. ReelAbilities runs March 8-14 and features a comedy night, dance, a fashion panel, art exhibitions, a puppet show, other special events, and thirty films dealing with disabilities.

BEST ACTRESS: A CÉSAR-WINNING SHOWDOWN

And the FIAF audience award for favorite César-winning Best Actress ever goes to . . .

RED CARPET SCREENING AND PARTY
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, March 6, $14, 4:00 & 7:30
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

The ninetieth Academy Awards will be given out tonight, but there is also excitement building for another highly anticipated movie contest, the conclusion of FIAF’s two-month CinéSalon series “Best Actress: A César-Winning Showdown.” On Tuesday nights from January 9 to February 20, the French Institute Alliance Française presented films featuring nine of France’s finest actresses, each of whom has won the coveted César for Best Actress. On March 6 at 4:00 and 7:30, the winner will be announced with a special surprise screening and wine and beer reception (in addition to Champagne at the later show), and attendees are encouraged to come in festival attire. The outstanding nominees are Marion Cotillard, Isabelle Adjani, Nathalie Baye, Emmanuelle Riva, Romy Schneider, Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve, Sandrine Bonnaire, and Isabelle Huppert. FIAF has offered a hint about the film that will be screened, starring the audience-voted favorite César winner ever: “This French cinema gem will keep you at the edge of your seat and make you laugh too.”

BROOKLYN MUSEUM FIRST SATURDAY: WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

“Judy Chicago Designing the Entry Banner for ‘The Dinner Party,’” 1978 (courtesy of Through the Flower Archive)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, March 3, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum honors Women’s History Month with its free March First Saturday program, featuring live performances by Leikeli47, DJ Sabine Blaizin (Oyasound) with live percussion by Courtnee Roze, MICHIYAYA Dance (with Anya Clarke and Mitsuko Verdery leading a jam session), and Brown Girls Burlesque, presenting “Act Like a Lady! Strippin’ Fo’ the Culture,” with Hoodoo Hussy, Elektra Taste, Dakota Mayhem, Skye Siren, and Dirty Honey Shake dancers, hosted by Ravenessa; a book launch of Beverly Bond’s Black Girls Rock! Owning Our Magic. Rocking Our Truth. with Bond, Michaela Angela Davis, and Eunique Jones Gibson; pop-up gallery talks by teen apprentices in the “American Art” galleries; a community talk with representatives from THINK!Chinatown; Cave Canem Foundation poetry with zakia henderson-brown, Marwa Helal, and Aracelis Girmay; a hands-on art workshop inspired by Judy Chicago’s banners; a curator tour of “Roots of ‘The Dinner Party’: History in the Making” led by Carmen Hermo; and a Feminist Book Club discussion of Janet Mock’s Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me, with Glory Edim of Well-Read Black Girl. In addition, the galleries will be open late so you can check out “One Basquiat,” “Roots of ‘The Dinner Party’: History in the Making,” “Arts of Korea,” “Infinite Blue,” “Ahmed Mater: Mecca Journeys,” “Rodin at the Brooklyn Museum: The Body in Bronze,” “A Woman’s Afterlife: Gender Transformation in Ancient Egypt,” and more.

INGMAR BERGMAN CENTENNIAL RETROSPECTIVE: SHAME / THE PASSION OF ANNA (WITH LIV ULLMANN PRESENT)

Eva (Liv Ullmann) and Jan (Max von Sydow) struggle to preserve their love during a brutal civil war in Ingmar Bergman’s Shame

SHAME (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
February 28, March 1-3
Series runs February 7 – March 15
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

Longtime Ingmar Bergman muse Liv Ullmann will bet at Film Forum on March 2 for a Q&A following the 6:15 screening of Shame, part of a five-week retrospective celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Swedish director’s birth. Shame is a brilliant examination of the physical and psychological impact of war, as seen through the eyes of a happily married couple innocently caught in the middle of the brutality. Jan (Max von Sydow) and Eva Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann) have isolated themselves from society, living without a television and with a broken radio, maintaining a modest farm on a relatively desolate island a ferry ride from the mainland. As the film opens, they are a somewhat ordinary husband and wife, brushing their teeth, making coffee, and discussing having a child. But soon they are thrust into a horrific battle between two unnamed sides, fighting for reasons that are never given. As Jan and Eva struggle to survive, they are forced to make decisions that threaten to destroy everything they have built together. Shot in stark black-and-white by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Shame is a powerful, emotional antiwar statement that makes its point through intense visual scenes rather than narrative rhetoric. Jan and Eva huddle in corners or nearly get lost in crowds, then are seen traversing a smoky, postapocalyptic landscape riddled with dead bodies. Made during the Vietnam War, Shame is Bergman’s most violent, action-filled film; bullets can be heard over the opening credits, announcing from the very beginning that this is going to be something different from a director best known for searing personal dramas. However, at its core, Shame is just that, a gripping, intense tale of a man and a woman who try to preserve their love in impossible times. Ullmann and von Sydow both give superb, complex performances, creating believable characters who will break your heart. Shame is also being shown February 28, March 1, March 2 at 2:00 and 10:15, and March 3.

Andreas Winkelman (von Sydow) and Anna Fromm (Liv Ullmann) seek love, companionship, and the truth in Ingmar Bergman’s The Passion of Anna

THE PASSION OF ANNA (Ingmar Bergman, 1969)
Film Forum
March 2, 3, 7, 13
filmforum.org

Liv Ullmann will also be at Film Forum on March 3 for a Q&A following the 12:30 screening of The Passion of Anna, the conclusion to Ingmar Bergman’s unofficial island trilogy that began with Hour of the Wolf and Shame, each work filmed on Fårö island and starring Ullmann and Max von Sydow as a couple. Bergman throws caution to the wind in The Passion of Anna, the Swedish title of which is the more direct and honest The Passion. The 1969 film was made while Bergman and Ullmann’s personal relationship was ending, and it shows. The film opens with Andreas Winkelman (von Sydow) trying to repair his leaking roof. A divorcé, he lives by himself on the island, treasuring his isolation as he smokes his pipe and goes about his basic business. But when Anna Fromm (Ullmann) stops by to use his phone, he gets swept up into Anna’s drama — her husband and child were recently killed in an accident that left her with a bad leg — and that of her best friends, Elis Vergerus (Erland Josephson) and his wife, Eva (Bibi Andersson). Suddenly Andreas is going to dinner parties, taking in a puppy, and getting involved in the mysterious case of a rash of animal killings, whom some are blaming on off-kilter local resident Johan Andersson (Erik Hell). And the more his privacy is invaded, the worse it all could become.

For the first time, Bergman, a perfectionist of the highest order, allowed improvisation in several scenes. He gives each actor a few minutes to describe their characters during the film, breaking the fourth wall, while also adding his own narration. “Has Ingmar Bergman made a picture about his cast, or has his cast made a picture about Ingmar Bergman?” the original American trailer asks. Cinematographer extraordinaire Sven Nykvist uses a handheld camera while switching between black-and-white and color, occasionally focusing on dazzling silhouettes and close-ups that are challenged by the stark reds of a blazing fire and Anna’s hat and the bold blues of the sky and Anna’s penetrating eyes, all splendidly edited by Siv Lundgren. Bergman tackles such regular subjects as God, infidelity, dreams, war, and loneliness with a slow build that threatens to explode at any moment. The film is also very much about the search for truth, both in real life and cinema. It might be called The Passion of Anna, but there is an overarching coldness that pervades everything. The finale is sensational, the scene going out of focus until virtually nothing is left. The Passion of Anna is screening in Film Forum’s “Ingmar Bergman Centennial Retrospective” on March 2, 3, 7, and 13.