The Martha Graham Dance Company takes audiences behind the scenes of classic CLYTEMNESTRA this week (photo by Brigid Pierce)
GRAHAM STUDIO SERIES
Martha Graham Studio Theater
55 Bethune St., eleventh floor
Tuesday, October 4, and Wednesday, October 5, $25-$30, 7:00
marthagraham.org
The Martha Graham Dance Company has a special treat for dance fans this week when it opens the doors of its Bethune St. home for an open, ticketed rehearsal of its latest GrahamDeconstructed presentation, Clytemnestra Act 2. The 1958 masterpiece — and Graham’s only full-evening work — retells the Greek myth of the Trojan War from the point of view of the murderous title character. It features costumes by Graham and Helen McGehee, music by Halim El Dahm, and set design by Isamu Noguchi. The company will perform the second act, which takes place in Clytemnestra’s chambers; PeiJu Chien-Pott is Clytemnestra, with Ben Shultz as the ghost of Agamemnon, Xin Ying as Electra, Abdiel Jacobsen as Orestes, Lorenzo Pagano as Aegisthus, and Anne O’Donnell, Anne Souder, and Leslie Williams as the Furies; there will also be archival footage of Graham performing the title role. Part of the Graham Studio Series, GrahamDeconstructed offers inside looks at Graham classics, going behind the scenes of their history and creation, hosted by artistic director Janet Eilber.
Brillo Box (3¢ Off) is a charming and delightful look at art, family, and popular culture, as director Lisanne Skyler turns her camera on her mother and father to explore what became a major point of contention in their marriage. In 1969, young collectors Martin and Rita Skyler purchased a yellow “Brillo Box (3¢ Off)” by Andy Warhol for $1,000 from Ivan Karp at O.K. Harris in SoHo; five years earlier, in 1964, when the Skylers got engaged, the “Brillo Boxes” sold for $200 when they were first displayed. In 1971, Martin traded the box for a drawing by Abstract Expressionist dot painter Peter Young. In 2010, the Skylers’ “Brillo Box (3¢ Off)” sold at Christie’s for $3 million. In this intimate and lighthearted documentary, Skyler traces the history of Warhol’s Brillo Boxes — which were wood copies of the original boxes found in stores, designed by Abstract Expressionist James Harvey — the provenance of the specific box her family owned, and the birth, death, and rebirth of Pop art, via interviews with her parents as well as experts in the art world. “I started out not trying to be a connoisseur or anything like that but thinking that something I enjoyed doing could also just be another way of making money grow,” her father explains. Meanwhile, her mother felt a closer connection with the art, particularly with the Brillo Box, which she encased in Plexiglas and used as a coffee table. The Skylers also bought and sold works by Jake Berthot, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Chuck Close, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, and Richard Serra.
Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson is a beautifully poetic, deceptively simple wonder about the beauty, poetry, and wonderful simplicity of life, an ode to the little things that make every day special and unique. Adam Driver stars as Paterson, a New Jersey Transit bus driver and poet who lives in Paterson with his girlfriend, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani), who spends much of her time decorating their small, quaint house, painting black and white circles and lines on curtains, couches, dishes, walls, and even her clothing, continually creating works of art out of nearly everything she comes into contact with. The film takes place over an ordinary week for the sweet-natured couple, who are very much in love, each allowing the other the freedom to explore who they are and offering their complete support. Every morning, Paterson wakes up around 6:12, as the sunlight streaks over their sleeping bodies. He checks his Casio wristwatch to confirm the time — he doesn’t use an alarm clock, nor does he own a cell phone or a computer — then snuggles closer with Laura for a few extra minutes. He eats Cheerios out of a bowl painted by Laura with circles that match the shape of the cereal. He studies a matchbook, which becomes the starting point for his next poem. Lunchbox in hand, he walks to the Market St. garage and gets on board the 23 bus. He writes a few lines of poetry, listens to fellow bus driver Donny’s (Rizwan Manji) daily complaints, then heads out on his route through his hometown, picking up pieces of some very funny passenger conversations. For lunch he sits on a bench overlooking the Paterson Great Falls and composes more mostly non-rhyming lines in his “Secret Notebook,” which he will not show anyone but Laura. At quitting time, he walks home, checks the mail, fixes the tilted mailbox, sees what new art Laura has created, and takes their English bulldog, Marvin (Nellie, who won the Palm Dog at Cannes and passed away two weeks after shooting concluded), for a walk after dark, stopping for a beer and chatting with bar owner Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley). He then goes back home, ready to do it all over again the next day. But Paterson is no bored working-class suburbanite living out a dreary routine; he finds something new and special in every moment, from his job to his relationship to his nightly trips to the bar. Every day is different from the one before, Jarmusch celebrating those variations that make life such a joy.
“He’s a handmaiden to the gods. He’s been midwife to some of the most important people in music,” John Cameron Mitchell says at the beginning of Danny Says, Brendan Toller’s highly entertaining if scattershot documentary about Danny Fields. Born Daniel Henry Feinberg in Brooklyn in 1939, Fields graduated from the University of Pennsylvania when he was still a teenager, dropped out of Harvard Law School, and went on to one of the wildest careers in the music business. Attracted to both cutting-edge and celebrity culture, Fields was a DJ, a magazine editor, a record executive, a press agent, and a band manager, always doing things his way. “I always went against the grain,” he says in the film, which features family photographs, home movies (including scenes from his bar mitzvah), outstanding music clips, and new and archival interviews with Fields, a natural storyteller with a casual delivery, whether he’s talking about his sexual promiscuity, hanging out with Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick at the Factory, or trying to hook up Jim Morrison and Nico. Nothing is off limits as he shares tales about going to gay bars, making “Have a Marijuana” with David Peel & the Lower East Side, developing a friendship with Linda Eastman, and playing the Ramones for Lou Reed for the first time. “He had a way with words that made you want to become part of whatever he was doing,” Peel says in the film.
Writer-director Ari Folman imagines a sad but visually dazzling future in the spectacular fantasy The Congress. Inspired by Stanislaw Lem’s 1971 short novel The Futurological Congress, the film follows Robin Wright playing a fictionalized version of herself, an idealistic actress about to turn forty-five who has let her career come second to raising her two children, daughter Sarah (Sami Gayle) and, primarily, son Aaron (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is slowly losing the ability to see and hear. Wright’s longtime agent, Al (Harvey Keitel), has a last-chance opportunity for her: Jeff Green (Danny Huston), the head of Miramount, wants to scan her body and emotions so the studio can manipulate her digital likeness into any role while keeping her ageless. They don’t want the modern-day Robin Wright but the young, beautiful star of The Princess Bride, State of Grace, and Forrest Gump. The only catch is that in exchange for a substantial lump-sum payment, the real Wright will never be allowed to act again, in any capacity. With no other options, she reluctantly takes the deal. Twenty years later, invited to speak at the Futurological Congress, she enters a whole new realm, a fully animated world where men, women, and children live out their entertainment fantasies. Shocked by what she is experiencing, Wright meets up with Dylan Truliner (Jon Hamm), who has been animating her digital version for years, as a revolution threatens; meanwhile, Green has another offer for her, even more frightening than the first.