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

THE ART OF SEX AND SEDUCTION: SWIMMING POOL

Jealousy and envy are at the heart of François Ozon’s sexy thriller

CINÉSALON: SWIMMING POOL (François Ozon, 2003)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, November 18, $13, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through December 16
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org
www.focusfeatures.com

Charlotte Rampling is divine in François Ozon’s playfully creepy mystery about a popular British crime novelist taking a break from the big city (London) to recapture her muse at her publisher’s French villa, only to be interrupted by the publisher’s hot-to-trot teenage daughter. Rampling stars as Sarah Morton, a fiftysomething novelist who is jealous of the attention being poured on young writer Terry Long (Sebastian Harcombe) by her longtime publisher, John Bosload (Game of Thrones’s Charles Dance). John sends Sarah off to his elegant country house, where she sets out to complete her next Inspector Dorwell novel in peace and quiet. But the prim and proper — and rather bitter and cynical — Sarah’s working vacation is soon intruded upon by Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), John’s teenage daughter, who likes walking around topless and living life to the fullest, clearly enjoying how Sarah looks at her and judges her. “You’re just a frustrated English writer who writes about dirty things but never does them,” Julie says, and soon Sarah is reevaluating the choices she’s made in her own life. Rampling, who mixes sexuality with a heart-wrenching vulnerability like no other actress (see The Night Porter, The Verdict, and Heading South), more than holds her own as the primpy old maid in the shadow of a young beauty, even tossing in some of nudity to show that she still has it. (Rampling has also posed nude in her sixties in a series of photographs by Juergen Teller alongside twentysomething model Raquel Zimmerman, so such “competition” is nothing to her.)

Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) and Sarah (Charlotte Rampling) come to a kind of understanding in François Ozon’s SWIMMING POOL

Rampling has really found her groove working with Ozon, having appeared in four of his films, highlighted by a devastating performance in Under the Sand as a wife dealing with the sudden disappearance of her husband. Sagnier, who has also starred in Ozon’s Water Drops on Burning Rocks and 8 Women, is a delight to watch, especially as things turn dark. Swimming Pool is very much about duality; the film opens with a shot of the shimmering Thames river while the title comes onscreen and Philippe Rombi’s score of mystery and danger plays, and later Sarah says, “I absolutely loathe swimming pools,” to which Julie responds, “Pools are boring; there’s no excitement, no feeling of infinity. It’s just a big bathtub.” (“It’s more like a cesspool of living bacteria,” Sarah adds.) Ozon (Time to Leave, Criminal Lovers) explores most of the seven deadly sins as Sarah and Julie get to know each other all too well. Swimming Pool is being shown November 18 at 4:00 and 7:30 as part of the French Institute Alliance Française CinéSalon series “The Art of Sex and Seduction,” with the later screening introduced by filmmaker Ry Russo-Young and followed by a wine reception; the series continues Tuesdays through December 16 with Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake introduced by Alan Brown, Catherine Breillat’s The Last Mistress introduced by Melissa Anderson, and François Truffaut’s The Man Who Loved Women introduced by Laura Kipnis, all complemented by Jean-Daniel Lorieux’s “Seducing the Lens” photography exhibition.

GENOCIDE AND THE JEWS: A NEVER-ENDING PROBLEM

The Great Hall of the Cooper Union
7 East Seventh St. at Third Ave.
Monday, November 17, $25, 7:00
www.thisworld.us
www.cooper.edu

College campuses have been a hotbed of activity in the ongoing battle between the Israelis and the Palestinians. On September 22, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas gave a speech in the Great Hall of the Cooper Union, discussing his June meeting with Shimon Peres and Pope Francis in the Vatican, explaining, “I prayed that Israel will finally, after a long wait, live next to Palestine as a good neighbor and not as an occupier. So we Palestinians can continue to build our institutions for a modern and open state and society.” (You can watch the speech here.) Three days later, Abbas spoke at the UN and demanded that Israel pay for what he called “war crimes carried out before the eyes of the world.” In response to those speeches, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is hosting “Genocide and the Jews: A Never-Ending Problem” in the historic Great Hall on November 17, bringing together Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman to provide an alternate view to Abbas’s. “Three days before he went before the UN and accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinians, Abbas spoke at Cooper Union’s Great Hall to a crowd comprised mostly of NYU students,” Rabbi Boteach writes on his website. “Many gave him a standing ovation as he repeated his blood libel about the Jewish state. And this in a university with more than 8,000 Jewish students. Only one protest was staged outside the building on the night. It was organized by my son Mendy, an NYU undergraduate, who wisely focused on the positive message of the American values of democracy, racial harmony, and freedom of expression and how Abbas contravenes all three.” The discussion will be introduced by U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, inspired Edet Belzberg’s 2014 documentary Watchers of the Sky, which details the efforts of Raphael Lemkin, the coiner of the word “genocide,” to make mass killings a crime against humanity recognized by the world court. “When genocide is trivialized it is not just the six million of the Holocaust who suffer,” Rabbi Boteach continued. “It is the 1.5 million Armenians slaughtered by the Turks. It is the 2.5 million Cambodians murdered by the Khmer Rouge. It is the 800,000 Tutsis slaughtered by the Hutu. And it is all the innocent victims in Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo.” It should be very interesting to see what kind of protests there might be outside the Cooper Union for this program.

THE EPIC OF EVEREST

Striking document of 1924 attempt to climb Mount Everest has been restored by the British Film Institute

THE EPIC OF EVEREST (Captain John Noel, 1924)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Select days November 14 – December 21
212-620-5000
www.rubinmuseum.org
www.bfi.org.uk

In 1924, two British men, among the most famous mountaineers of their time, George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, set out with a large team to climb to the summit of Everest. Their amazing journey was documented by Captain John Noel, who used a hand-cranked camera with an impressive telephoto lens and sent the footage via yak to a lab in Darjeeling to be developed. The resulting black-and-white film, The Epic of Everest, is a poetic document of the third attempt to scale Everest, a mountain the Tibetans called “Chomo-Lung-Ma,” or Goddess Mother of the World. The eighty-seven-minute silent film has been digitally restored by the British Film Institute in a beautiful version that is making its New York premiere November 14 at the Rubin Museum, where it will be shown more than a dozen times through December 21, with most screenings introduced by a special guest and some followed by Q&As. The Epic of Everest, which is also ethnographically important for its (at times ethnocentric) depiction of local Tibetan culture, includes several scenes of Mount Everest tinted in blue, red, and violet; the ice-blue Fairyland section is especially breathtaking. Meanwhile, the restored intertitles display such dramatic text as “There is nowhere here any trace of life or man. It is a glimpse into a world that knows him not. Grand, solemn, unutterably lonely, the Rongbuk Glacier of Everest reveals itself.” and “Nor can one wonder at the invention that has clothed this extraordinary peak with a sacred character. What a terrifying thing it is! What an immensity of size, height and power it possesses!”

Irvine and Mallory — the latter famously answered “Because it’s there” when asked why he wanted to climb Everest — are joined by Sherpas and donkeys; mountaineer and artist Howard Somervell, who is seen smoking a pipe while sketching in his notebook; Alpine climbers John de Vars Hazard and Edward Norton; mountaineer Geoffrey Bruce, who is described as “the Expedition’s right hand man”; and geologist Noel Odell as they attempt to do what no human had done before. The 4K restoration, done in collaboration with Noel’s daughter, Sandra, also features a haunting new score by Simon Fisher Turner that incorporates both Western and Nepalese sounds. The Epic of Everest is particularly fascinating when compared to such recent mountaineering adventures as K2: Siren of the Himalayas, revealing how little has changed, except technology, as fearless men and women seek to climb toward the heavens. Among the experts who will be at the Rubin for select screenings are AFAR executive vice president and publisher Ellen Asmodeo-Giglio on opening night, Everest climbers Robert Anderson and Phillip Trimble, Columbia Modern Tibetan Studies director Dr. Robert Barnett, Outward Bound USA executive director Steve Matous, The Alpinist magazine editor in chief Katie Ives, The Summits of Modern Man author Peter H. Hansen, and British Consul General to New York Danny Lopez.

DOC NYC SHORT LIST: FINDING VIVIAN MAIER

Documentary turns the camera on mysterious street photographer Vivian Maier (photo by Vivian Maier / courtesy of the Maloof Collection)

FINDING VIVIAN MAIER (John Maloof & Charlie Siskel, 2013)
Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas
260 West 23rd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Friday, November 14, 12:30, and Saturday, November 15, 12 noon
Series runs November 13-20
www.docnyc.net
www.findingvivianmaier.com

By their very nature, street photographers take pictures of anonymous individuals, capturing a moment in time in which viewers can fill in their own details. In the wonderful documentary Finding Vivian Maier, codirectors John Maloof and Charlie Siskel turn the lens around on a street photographer herself, attempting to fill in the details of the curious life and times of Vivian Maier, about whom very little was known. “I find the mystery of it more interesting than her work itself,” says one woman for whom Vivian Maier served as a nanny decades earlier. “I’d love to know more about this person, and I don’t think you can do that through her work.” In 2007, while looking for historical photos for a book on the Portage Park section of Chicago, Maloof purchased a box of negatives at an auction. Upon discovering that they were high-quality, museum-worthy photographs, he set off on a mission to learn more about the photographer. Playing detective — while also developing hundreds of rolls of film, with thousands more to go — Maloof meets with men and women who knew Maier as an oddball, hoarding nanny who went everywhere with her camera and shared little, if anything, about her personal life. “I’m the mystery woman,” Maier says in a color home movie. Her former employers and charges, including talk-show host Phil Donahue, debate her background, the spelling and pronunciation of her name, her accent, and how she might have felt about a documentary delving into her secretive life.

Street photographer Vivian Maier captured a unique view of the world in more than 100,000 pictures (Vivian Maier / courtesy of the Maloof Collection)

Street photographer Vivian Maier captured a unique view of the world in more than 100,000 pictures (photo by Vivian Maier / courtesy of the Maloof Collection)

Maloof also discusses Maier’s work with such major photographers as Joel Meyerowitz and Mary Ellen Mark. “Had she made herself known, she would have become a famous photographer. Something was wrong. . . . A piece of the puzzle is missing,” Mark says while comparing Maier’s work to such legends as Robert Frank, Lisette Model, Helen Levitt, and Diane Arbus. Maloof tries to complete what becomes an ever-more-fascinating puzzle in this extremely enjoyable documentary that gets very serious as he finds out more about the mystery woman who is now considered an important twentieth-century artist. Finding Vivian Maier also has an intriguing pedigree; codirector and producer Siskel (Religulous) is executive producer of Comedy Central’s Tosh.0, executive producer Jeff Garlin (I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With) is a comedian who played Larry David’s best friend and agent on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Kickstarter contributor and interviewee Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs, Lie to Me) is an Oscar-nominated actor who collects Maier’s work. Maloof and Siskel will be on hand when Finding Vivian Maier is presented November 14 & 15 at Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas in the Short List section of the 2014 DOC NYC festival, which runs November 13-20 and consists of more than 150 documentaries being shown at Bow Tie, the IFC Center, and the SVA Theatre. To experience Maier’s work in person, be sure to check out the photography exhibit “Vivian Maier: In Her Own Hands,” continuing at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in Midtown through December 6.

DOC NYC METROPOLIS: SOME KIND OF SPARK

Pete Destil studies the flute with MAP mentor Gretchen Pusch in SOME KIND OF SPARK (photo by Ben Niles)

SOME KIND OF SPARK (Ben Niles, 2014)
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Sunday, November 16, 2:00
Series runs November 13-20
www.docnyc.net
www.somekindofspark.com

Ben Niles’s Some Kind of Spark is a heartwarming and heartbreaking documentary about the importance of music education in children’s lives. Niles, whose award-winning 2007 film, Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037, detailed the care and craftsmanship that goes into the creation of a grand piano, this time goes inside Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program, “a Saturday instrument instruction program for highly talented children from backgrounds underrepresented in American performing arts.” Niles follows six kids, between the ages of eight and fourteen, as each one is mentored by a member of MAP’s staff of professional musicians during a three-year course. Violist Kara Charles, trombonist Rahman Amer, trumpeter Abdullah Amer (Rahman’s twin brother), flutist Pete Destil, singer and bassist Ami Kone, and percussionist Alejandro Cediel are shown studying with their teachers (including Bill Ruyle and Mike Truesdell on percussion, San San Lee on violin, Gretchen Pusch on flute, Lubima Kalinkova-Shentov on bass, and Paula Bing and Huang Ruo on music theory) and talking to their families about what they’re learning.

Niles concentrates almost exclusively on the music; he doesn’t delve deep into the kids’ personal lives, the families’ financial situations, or what else the children might be into. The focus is on the playing, on the studying, and, more important, on the practicing. “Make sure you refuse to be the guy who just gets the notes. Do something greater,” mentor Weston Sprott tells Rahman. The most fascinating part of the film centers on Pete and Gretchen; prior to the program, Pete had never even picked up a flute, and Gretchen isn’t afraid to get tough with him if he’s not properly prepared, especially after a summer in which the young boy couldn’t practice at all because he can’t afford his own instrument. The tension builds as the kids decide whether to audition for a third year at MAP, try to make the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra, or apply to LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. Some Kind of Spark is a truly inspiring film that never gets overly sentimental, instead revealing, with brutal honesty, the challenges these kids face, because the path they have chosen is not an easy one. But seeing their eyes shine as they experience music in so many different ways makes it all worth it. Some Kind of Spark is having its world premiere November 16 at the SVA Theatre in the Metropolis competition of the fifth annual DOC NYC festival, with Niles, editor Sara Pellegrini, and select cast members present to talk about the film. The festival runs November 13-20 and consists of more than 150 documentaries, panel discussions, and workshops at Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas, the IFC Center, and the SVA Theatre.

MY FORMATIVE YEARS: THE HIRED HAND

Harry Collings (Peter Fonda) has some reckoning to do in revisionist Western THE HIRED HAND

CABARET CINEMA: THE HIRED HAND (Peter Fonda, 1971)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, November 14, free with $10 bar minimum, 9:30
Series continues Fridays through December 5
212-620-5000
www.rubinmuseum.org

After many years away from the homestead, Harry Collings (first-time-director Peter Fonda) returns to his farm, only to find that his wife (Verna Bloom) has kept herself rather busy once she assumed he was not coming back, in The Hired Hand, a so-called hippie Western written by Scottish novelist Alan Sharp, who also wrote Ulzana’s Raid and Night Moves. Warren Oates is his usual fine self as Harry’s dedicated sidekick, Arch Harris, as they do battle with the likes of the evil McVey (Severn Darden). The quiet, beautiful Fonda is like a Zen cowboy, trusting in karma to right the world’s wrongs, but that doesn’t always work out. Fonda considers the film, photographed by a young Vilmos Szigmond (McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Deer Hunter), to be a Greek tragedy within a Western; indeed, it’s a little gem that that goes way beyond the trappings of the genre, laying the groundwork for such later anti-Westerns as Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. The film is being shown November 14 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “My Formative Years,” curated by artist Francesco Clemente in conjunction with his current solo show, “Inspired by India,” and will be introduced by playwright Neil LaBute. Clemente says about the film, “I’m in favor of psychedelia in all manifestations and to find psychedelia in a Western is always nice when it happens, but it never happens.” The film series continues with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain on November 21 and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom on November 28 (introduced by choreographer Karole Armitage), before concluding with Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro GRA on December 5.

DOC NYC: FLORENCE, ARIZONA

Gunny Jackson is just one of the many characters who populate the prison town of FLORENCE, ARIZONA

FLORENCE ARIZONA (Andrea B. Scott, 2014)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Friday, November 14, 12:30, and Wednesday, November 19, 7:30
Festival runs November 13-20
212-924-7771
www.florencearizonafilm.com
www.docnyc.net

Brooklyn-based documentarian Andrea B. Scott reveals the soft underbelly of contemporary America in Florence, Arizona, which is having its world premiere this week at the annual DOC NYC festival. Scott heads to the small desert town of Florence in the Grand Canyon State, an area that was a farm community until a nearby 1875 silver boom led to its becoming a more wild West kind of place. Today the town revolves around the prison system; there are twice as many prisoners in Florence as there are residents, and a call to privatize more of the jails is part of the battle for mayor between the New Age-y Lina Austin and former police chief Tom Rankin, both of whom speak openly and honestly with Scott. Scott, who directed, produced, coedited, and photographed the film — which includes gorgeous shots of sunrises and vast landscapes — also meets with prison barber and former inmate Andy Celaya, who remembers the respect ex-cons used to get after serving their time; another former prisoner, young Marcus Seitz, who can’t wait to turn twenty-one so he can work inside the prison, explaining, “That would be pretty cool”; and grizzled prison detention officer Gunny Jackson, who runs the Semper Fi Ranch with his wife, Lois, and considers himself a “dove” who can be “a very vicious man when I want to be; I know how to inflict pain.” Scott also visits the Pinal County Historical Society, which features a section on all of the people who have been executed in Florence’s prisons.

Originally called Good Men, Bad Men, and a Few Rowdy Ladies during its successful Kickstarter campaign, Florence, Arizona is a pure slice of Americana, casting no judgments on a small cowboy town now beholden to the prison industrial complex. “What I found there was so much richer and nuanced than I ever could have expected — a prison town, yes, but also a deeply American town, full of colorful characters with universal stories,” Scott has said about her first visit to Florence, in December 2010. “On that trip, we began to spin an intricate web of people and places and stories — and before long, like any well-made web, we got stuck there, drawn into the town, its history, and its characters.” Florence, Arizona is screening November 14 and 19 at the IFC Center, with Scott, producer Devorah Brand, and executive producers David Menschel and Julie Goldman on hand to talk about the making of the film. DOC NYC runs November 13-20 at the IFC Center, Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas, and the SVA Theatre, consisting of more than 150 screenings of new and old films, panel discussions, Q&As, and workshops.