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

BROOKLYN HOLIDAY BOOK FAIR

Adrian Tomine is the special guest at the fourth annual Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair

The Old Stone House
336 Third St. between Fourth & Fifth Aves.
Saturday, December 5, free, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
718-768-3195
theoldstonehouse.org

The historic Old Stone House will be hosting the fourth annual Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair on December 5, chock-full of rare, vintage, and out-of-print literary tomes offered by independent bookshops and antiquarian booksellers from Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Cobble Hill, Sheepshead Bay, Midwood, and other locations in the world’s greatest borough. The participating shops are Antifurniture, Archestratus Books, Arthur Fournier Fine & Rare, Brooklyn Books, Enchanted Books, Freebird Books, Honey & Wax Booksellers, Joe Maynard, Terrace Books, Tom Davidson, and Faenwyl Bindery. This year’s special guest is Sacramento-born Brooklynite Adrian Tomine (Shortcomings, New York Drawings), who will be signing copies of Killing and Dying (Drawn & Quarterly, October 2015, $22.95) from 12 noon to 1:00. This is a great place to do some holiday shopping; of course, any way you can avoid buying books through Amazon is always strongly encouraged.

FIRST SATURDAY: CONEY ISLAND

Harvey Stein, “The Hug: Closed Eyes and Smile,” digital inkjet archival print, 1982 (© Harvey Stein, 2011)

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

The Brooklyn Museum is honoring the most dramatic, historic, and entertaining part of the world’s greatest borough for the December edition of its monthly free First Saturday program. On the always eclectic bill are live music by Fright Barker and Sons and Raya Brass Band, a theatrical drawing performance by Amour Obscur, sideshow acts curated by Adam Rinn, the issues-oriented BodySpeak by Brown Girls Burlesque, a curator talk and Q&A about the new exhibition “Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008” with Robin Jaffee Frank, a wire workshop where you can make your own Coney Island ride, a book club discussion with Harvey Stein about his photography book Coney Island: 40 Years, 1970–2010, a screening of Sidney Lumet’s The Wiz, and a Visual AIDS screening of Radiant Presence, followed by a discussion with Ted Kerr, Shawn Torres, Rusti Miller-Hill, and Jawanza Williams held in conjunction with World AIDS Day/Day With(out) Art. In addition, the galleries are open late so you can check out such other exhibitions as “Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (To a Seagull),” “Forever Coney: Photographs from the Brooklyn Museum Collection,” “Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World,” and “KAWS: ALONG THE WAY.”

JOSEPH O’NEILL AT THE IRISH ARTS CENTER

Who: Joseph O’Neill
What: Award-winning author Joseph O’Neill reading from and discussing his latest novel, The Dog (Vintage Contemporaries, June 2015, 415.95)
Where: Donaghy Theatre, Irish Arts Center, 553 West 51st St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., 866-811-4111
When: Wednesday, December 2, $12, 7:30
Why: “Perhaps because of my growing sense of the inefficiency of life lived on land and in air, of my growing sense that the accumulation of experience amounts, when all is said and done and pondered, simply to extra weight, so that one ends up dragging oneself around as if imprisoned in one of those Winnie the Pooh suits of explorers of the deep, I took up diving. As might be expected, this decision initially aggravated the problem of inefficiency.” So begins Joseph O’Neill’s latest novel, The Dog, a satire of the modern world as only he can tell it. O’Neill, who is a professor at Bard and won the 2009 Pen/Faulkner Wward and the Kerry Fiction Prize for the marvelous Netherland, will be at the Irish Arts Center on December 2 to discuss The Dog, about a man who tries to rediscover himself in Dubai. And he should know be quite the expert on international relations, having been born in Ireland and raised in Mozambique, South Africa, Iran, Turkey, and Holland.

MATHIEU AMALRIC — RENAISSANCE MAN: THE SCREEN ILLUSION

Clindor (Loïc Corbery) is caught in various personal and professional triangles in THE SCREEN ILLUSION

CinéSalon: THE SCREEN ILLUSION (L’ILLUSION COMIQUE) (Mathieu Amalric, 2010)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, December 1, $14, 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through December 15
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

In 2010, French actor-director Mathieu Amalric was commissioned by la Comédie-Française to make a television version of one of the plays the legendary company had recently staged. The rules were both limiting and freeing: He had to use the same cast, could not add any words to the script (but could make cuts), and had to shoot the film in twelve days without using the theater itself. Amalric had the credentials for such a daunting assignment; he had previously starred in such films as Munich, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and Kings and Queen and directed Mange ta soupe and On Tour, in which he also starred and for which he won the Best Director prize at Cannes. He decided to adapt Pierre Corneille’s 1636 play, L’Illusion comique, a melodrama written just as the Baroque style was shifting into the Classical period. The film takes place in and around a hotel in 2011, where concierge/sorcerer/detective Alcandre (Hervé Pierre) is showing surveillance video to Pridamant (Alain Lenglet), who is searching for his long-missing son, Clindor (Loïc Corbery). Clindor is working for video-game executive Matamore (Denis Podalydès); both men, as well as Adraste (Adrien Gamba-Gontard), are vying for the attention of the lovely but cold Isabelle (Suliane Brahim), daughter of corporation head Géronte (Jean-Baptiste Malartre). Meanwhile, Adraste’s coworker, Lyse (Julie Sicard), is desperately in love with Clindor. It all comes to a head one night following a dinner party, when a fierce battle takes place on a rooftop. “When all hope is gone, one has nothing more to fear,” Isabelle says.

Mathieu Amalric on the set of his Pierre Corneille adaptation for la Comédie-Française

The Screen Illusion is a clever and inventive, if at times confusing and overly farcical, adaptation of Corneille’s tale. The actors recite their lines in verse, which takes a little getting used to. Production designer Hervé Dajon and cinematographer Isabelle Razavet bathes the hotel in deep, lurid greens and reds, echoing the greed, envy, jealousy, and lust that surround the characters. The film is very much about the act of viewing; just as we watch theater and movies, becoming lost in their magic, Pridamant watches his son via CCTV cameras, and Amalric actually brings the camera — and the viewer — inside the recordings as the story unfolds before our eyes as well. “Believe only what you see,” Alcandre warns at the beginning of the film, looking into a mirror and talking to himself as well as the audience, hinting at what is to follow and foreshadowing a surprise twist at the end. Inspired by such works as Jean-Luc Godard’s Détective and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai, Amalric, an accomplished stage performer in addition to being a film director and actor, melds all of those elements into The Screen Illusion, a tidy little tale that is more than what it first appears. The Screen Illusion is being shown at 7:30 on December 1 in Florence Gould Hall as part of FIAF’s CinéSalon series “Mathieu Amalric: Renaissance Man” and will be introduced by film critic Nicholas Elliott. The series continues through December 15 with Late September, Early Spring; Fantastic Mr. Fox; and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

CHUNG MONG-HONG: SOUL

A father (Jimmy Wang) and son (Joseph Chang Hsiao-Chuan) are trapped in a dark mystery that won’t let up in Chung Mong-Hong’s SOUL

SOUL (SHĪ HÚN) (Chung Mong-hong, 2013)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Monday, November 30, 7:30
Series runs November 30 – December 3
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Taiwanese writer-director Chung Mong-Hong’s third feature film, following 2008’s Parking and 2010’s The Fourth Portrait, is an intense, meditatively paced thriller about family and identity. In Soul, wuxia legend Jimmy Wang (aka Jimmy Wong Yu) stars as Wang, a simple, understated old man living in a reclusive house in the mountains. After his chef son, Ah-Chuan (Joseph Chang Hsiao-Chuan), suddenly collapses in the city and is brought back to his childhood home, strange things start occurring, as Ah-Chuan seems different and dead bodies begin to pile up. It turns out that Ah-Chuan’s soul has temporarily left his body, replaced by another, not-quite-so-gentle being, leading to yet more trouble, especially because Wang’s goofy policeman nephew, Little Wu (Vincent Liang), continues to hang around, sensing that something suspicious might be going on. The Taiwanese entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2014 Oscars, Soul is a gripping, surreal tale that unfolds with a cool calm that can explode at any moment, and then does. Shaw Brothers veteran Wang, who wrote, directed, and starred in such martial arts classics as The Chinese Boxer and Master of the Flying Guillotine, is sensational as Uncle Wang, playing the role with an assured, self-possessed composure despite the hell the old man finds himself in.

Jimmy Wang gives a carefully measured performance in Taiwanese psychological thriller

Chang (Eternal Summer, Au Revoir Taipei) is a strong counterpart to Wang, combining inner strength with just the right amount of mystery and danger. As in his previous films, which also include the 2011 short Reverberation and the 2006 documentary Doctor, Chung also serves as cinematographer, using the pseudonym Nagao Nakashima, and the gorgeous photography is like a character unto itself, bathing the film in lush earth tones that add yet another level to the lovely perplexity of it all. Soul kicks off BAMcinématek’s four-film retrospective of Chung’s work, screening on November 30 at 7:30, followed by a Q&A with the director. The series continues with Parking on December 1, Doctor on December 2, and The Fourth Portrait on December 3.

THE ATELIER WITH ALINA CHO: DIANE VON FURSTENBERG

Diane von Furstenberg photo by Lorenzo Agius. Alina Cho photo by Paul Bobadilla Sangster

Diane von Furstenberg (photo by Lorenzo Agius) and Alina Cho (photo by Paul Bobadilla Sangster) will sit down for an “Atelier” talk at the Met on December 2

Who: Alina Cho and Diane von Furstenberg
What: Met Museum Presents: “The Atelier with Alina Cho”
Where: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., 212-570-3949
When: Wednesday, December 2, $40 (includes museum admission), 6:30
Why: Last year, journalist and editor presented the inaugural season of “The Atelier with Alina Cho,” in which Cho sat down at the Met with such fashionistas as Anna Wintour and Donatella Versace. Cho is kicking off her sophomore season on December 2 with legendary icon Diane von Furstenberg, discussing art, ideas, and much more, in conjunction with the paperback publication of DVF’s memoir, The Woman I Wanted to Be (Simon & Schuster, October 2015, $17). “Living is learning, and as I look back at the many layers of experience I collected, I feel ready to share some of the lessons I learned along the way,” von Furstenberg writes in the book’s introduction. “Living also means aging. The good thing about aging is that you have a past, a history. If you like your past and stand by it, then you know you have lived fully and learned from your life. Those are the lessons that allowed me to be the woman I am.”

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER: NEW YORK CITY WINTER SEASON 2015

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Robert Battle’s NO LONGER SILENT (photo by Paul Kolnik)

New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
December 2 – January 3, $25-$150
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

For many people, the coming of Thanksgiving signals that Christmas is not too far off. For others, like us, it means that Alvin Ailey’s annual season at City Center is right around the corner. From December 2 to January 3, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be at the West Fifty-Sixth Street institution, continuing to spread its wings under the inspired leadership of artistic director Robert Battle. This season is highlighted by four world premieres: Ronald K. Brown’s Open Door, set to music by Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Rennie Harris’s Exodus; Kyle Abraham’s Untitled America: First Movement, the start of a trilogy that examines the prison system; and Battle’s own Awakening, his first new work with AAADT since taking the reins from Judith Jamison. Jamison’s A Case for You, an excerpt from her longer piece, Reminiscin’, gets a new production, set to Diana Krall’s version of the Joni Mitchell song. There will also be new productions of Ailey’s Blues Suite, Love Songs, and Cry and Talley Beatty’s Toccata, an excerpt from Come and Get the Beauty of It Hot. The company will be premiering two works, Battle’s No Longer Silent, with a score by Nazi-banned Jewish composer Erwin Schulhoff, and Paul Taylor’s Piazzolla Caldera, set to tango music by Astor Piazzolla.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Linda Celeste Sims in Alvin Ailey’s CRY (photo by Nan Melville)

On December 15, 20 (matinee), and 29, “Ailey Visionaries” presents works exclusively by past and present AAADT artistic directors Ailey, Jamison, and Battle. Revelations will be performed with live music on December 2, 4, and 5, while live music will also accompany Blues Suite on December 16, 19 (matinee), 20 (evening), and 31. Five programs will consist of only new works, on December 17, 19 (evening), 22, and 26 (evening) and January 2 (evening). And true Ailey fanatics can catch five programs of pieces by the legendary dancer and choreographer, on December 8, 13 (matinee), 16, 19 (matinee), and 20 (evening). As always, Saturday matinees will be followed by Q&As with members of the company. As a bonus, Ronald K. Brown will teach a master class on November 30, Donna Wood will lead a Blues Suite class on December 6, and Hope Boykin will teach a Beyond the Stage Master Class on December 14. And Jamison’s fiftieth anniversary of joining AAADT will be celebrated on New Year’s Eve, featuring the return of Clifton Brown, who will dance A Case of You. In addition to those special events, the season includes such returning favorites as David Parsons’s Caught, Brown’s Four Corners and Grace, Aszure Barton’s Lift, and Hans van Manen’s Polish Pieces, among others. So yes, you have your work cut out for you to choose just the right performance, but you can’t go wrong with any of them. Or you can do what we would like to do and just move in to City Center for the month.