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

REMASTERED AND RESTORED — TREASURES OF FRENCH CINEMA: THE COLOR OF LIES

Jacques Gamblin and Sandrine Bonnaire play a married couple facing a crisis in Claude Chabrol’s THE COLOR OF LIES

CINÉSALON: THE COLOR OF LIES (AU CŒUR DU MENSONGE) (Claude Chabrol, 1999)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, February 25, $13, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through March 18
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

“The mask reveals more than the face,” Germain-Roland Desmot (Antoine de Caunes) says in French New Wave auteur Claude Chabrol’s 1999 thriller A Color of Lies, which is actually an investigation into the concept of truth. In seaside Breton, a ten-year-old girl has been found in the woods, raped and murdered. New police inspector Lesage (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) believes the culprit is painter and art teacher René Sterne (Jacques Gamblin), the last person known to see the girl alive, but he is staunchly defended by his caring wife, Vivianne (Sandrine Bonnaire), who is striking up a close friendship with Desmot, a self-obsessed local celebrity who writes books and appears on television shows. When a second death is linked to René, Lesage thinks she’s got her man, but the truth is not so easy to uncover in this ever-more complex mélange. Cowritten by Chabrol (Les Cousins, Les Biches) and Odile Barski and shot in an ominous 1970s atmosphere by Eduardo Serra (The Girl with a Pearl Earring, Blood Diamond) that explodes with bursts of deep blues and reds, The Color of Lies is a dark mystery about love, art, obsession, and truth, centered by Bonnaire’s (Vagabond, Monsieur Hire) radiant performance as a dedicated woman facing a critical moment of doubt. Gamblin (Laissez-passer) is effective as René, a cynical, unpredictable man who walks with a cane; on the surface, it is easy to assume he is guilty of anything anyone accuses him of, but his wife’s love adds sympathy and hope that he is not the murderer. The Color of Lies is filled with tricky plot twists emanating from the trompe-l’oeil painting style employed by René in his work, and by Chabrol throughout the film, creating a false reality, like masks that people wear to try to hide the truth behind them. A digitally remastered version of The Color of Lies is screening February 25 at 4:00 & 7:30 as part of the FIAF CinéSalon series “Remastered & Restored: Treasures of French Cinema”; the later screening was supposed to be presented by costar Gamblin, who had to cancel, so a new presenter will be announced. Both shows will be followed by a wine reception. The three-month festival continues with such other recently restored French films as Claire Denis’s Chocolat (introduced by Mahen Bonetti), Jean-Pierre Melville’s Two Men in Manhattan (introduced by Phillip Lopate), and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Truth.

MAD AS HELL: THE MAKING OF NETWORK

Howard Beale gets mad — and asks the American people to join him — in Sidney Lumet’s NETWORK

SCREENING, DISCUSSION & BOOK SIGNING: NETWORK (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, February 23, $15, 2:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

“Slowly, the world we’re living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my teevee and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad.” So declares Peter Finch as news anchor Howard Beale in Sidney Lumet’s classic 1976 satire, Network. Written by Paddy Chayefsky, the film, about a fictional television network that will apparently do just about anything for ratings, was nominated for ten Oscars and won four — Finch posthumously beat out castmate William Holden (who plays Max Schumacher, an old-time news pro trying desperately to hold on to any shred of dignity left at the company) for Best Actor, Faye Dunaway won Best Actress as ruthless programmer Diana Christensen, Beatrice Straight was named Best Supporting Actress for her six minutes of screen time as Schumacher’s wife, and Chayefsky won for Best Original Screenplay, his insightful script predicting much of what would happen in the media over the next several decades, and it’s still all frighteningly relevant today. On February 23, the Museum of the Moving Image will be showing Network, with cultural critic David Itzkoff on hand to talk about the film and sign copies of his new book, Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies (February 18, Times Books, $27). “The problems, plural, with television, as enumerated by Paddy Chayefsky,” Itzkoff writes at the beginning of the book, “included but were not limited to: its crassness, its stupidity, its chasing of fads and its embracing of gimmicks; its reduction of all that was distinctive and worthy of celebration in American culture to the basic food groups of game shows, songs, and dances; its compulsion to force everyone watching it to think the same thing at the same time; and its overall lack of artistic integrity. Also, it paid him too little.” Itzkoff is supposed to be joined by ESPN host and onetime Howard Beale impersonator Keith Olbermann, who has been bedridden with shingles this week and whose home Twitter page features the quote “Sorry. Not my day to run the network.”

RICHIE’S FANTASTIC FIVE — KUROSAWA, MIZOGUCHI, OZU, YANAGIMACHI & KORE-EDA: AFTER LIFE

Guides interview the deceased in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s AFTER LIFE

AFTER LIFE (WANDÂFURU RAIFU) (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 1998)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Wednesday, February 19, $12, 7:00
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s five-film, five-month, five-director tribute to writer, critic, scholar, curator, and filmmaker Donald Richie, who died on February 19, 2013, at the age of eighty-eight, comes to a close on the one-year anniversary of his passing in appropriate fashion, with a screening of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s second narrative feature, After Life, Kore-eda’s eminently thoughtful film about two of his recurring themes: death and memory. Every Monday, the deceased arrive at a way station where they have three days to decide on a single memory they can bring with them into heaven. Once chosen, the memory is re-created on film, and the person goes on to the next step of his or her journey, to be replaced by a new batch of souls. The way station is staffed by guides, including Takashi Mochizuki (Arata), Shiori Satonaka (Erika Oda), and Satoru Kawashima (Susumu Terajima), whose job it is to interview the new arrivals and help them select a memory and then bring it to life on-screen. Some want to take with them an idyllic moment from childhood, others a remembrance of a lost love, but a few are either unable to or refuse to come up with one, which challenges the staff. Twenty-one-year-old Yūsuke Iseya declares, “I have no intention of choosing. None,” while seventy-year-old Ichiro Watanabe (Taketoshi Naito) is having difficulty deciding on the exact moment, reevaluating and reflecting on the life he led. (Ichiro’s wife is played by Kyōko Kagawa, who has also appeared in films by Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, and Kenji Mizoguchi, three seminal directors whose work was previously shown in the Japan Society series.) As the week continues, the guides look back on their lives as well, sharing intimate details, one of which leads to an emotional finale.

AFTER LIFE explores life, death, memory, heaven, and the art of filmmaking

Kore-eda, who previously examined memory loss in the documentary Without Memory and explored a family’s reaction to death in the brilliant Still Walking, interviewed some five hundred people about what memory they would take with them to heaven, and some of those nonprofessional actors are in the final cut of After Life, blurring the lines between fiction and reality. After Life is also very much about the art of filmmaking itself, as each memory is turned into a short movie created on a set and watched in a screening room. In fact, the film was inspired by Kore-eda’s memories of his grandfather’s battle with what would later be identified as Alzheimer’s disease; the director has also cited Ernst Lubitsch’s 1943 comedy, Heaven Can Wait, as an influence, and the Japanese title, Wandâfuru raifu, means “Wonderful Life,” evoking Frank Capra’s holiday classic. But Kore-eda never gets maudlin about life or death in the film, instead painting a memorable portrait of human existence and those simple moments that make it all worthwhile — and will have viewers contemplating which memory they would take with them. After Life is screening at Japan Society on February 19 at 7:00, concluding “Richie’s Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda,” and will be introduced by Yale professor Aaron Gerow. (In addition, Kore-eda’s latest film, the masterful Like Father, Like Son, has been extended at the IFC Center.)

REMASTERED AND RESTORED — TREASURES OF FRENCH CINEMA: LOLA MONTES

Ringmaster Peter Ustinov promises “Rumour! Scandal! Passion!” in presenting story of Lola Montès (Martine Carol)

CINÉSALON: LOLA MONTÈS (Max Ophüls, 1955)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, February 18, $13, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through March 18
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for!” announces the monocled, whip-snapping Mammoth Circus ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) as Max Ophüls’s 1955 CinemaScope masterpiece, Lola Montès, begins. “The most sensational act of the century!” he continues, the camera following him in a breathtaking tracking shot as he introduces “a creature a hundred times more wild than any beast in our menagerie! A monster of cruelty . . . with the eyes of an angel!” Then, with much fanfare, Lola Montès (Martine Carol) arrives like a queen — albeit a circus queen — as the ringmaster tells the audience that they (we) are about to witness “the whole truth of the extraordinary life of Lola Montès.” What follows is not necessarily the true tale of the famed courtesan and entertainer who gained more notoriety for her scandalous love affairs and hourglass body than for her abilities as an actress and dancer. Lola’s story is told in a series of flashbacks showing her with Franz Liszt (Will Quadflieg), Lt. Thomas James (Ivan Desny), conductor Claudio Pirotto (Claude Pinoteau), a young student (Oskar Werner), and, most critically, King Ludwig I of Bavaria (a dashing Anton Walbrook). The episodes reveal her to be both loved and reviled as she struggles to succeed in her career, which ends up taking second place to the men in her life. Ophüls barely shows the cigar-loving Lola performing, instead letting the camera slowly dance around her, often depicting her through window frames, screens, and curtains as if she is a caged animal, all leading to a dangerous grand finale.

Lola (Martine Carol) dreams of a better life in Max Ophüls’s CinemaScope masterpiece

Lola Montès is filled with visual splendor; Jean d’Eaubonne and Willy Schatz’s sets are lush and elegant, and Georges Annenkov’s and Marcel Escoffier’s costumes are beautiful and appropriately extravagant, while cinematographer Christian Matras creates an emotionally powerful palette, bathing Ophüls’s first and only color film in bold reds and blues. (The director of such previous classics as La Ronde, Le Plaisir, and Letter from an Unknown Woman died in 1957 at the age of fifty-four while making Les Amants de Montparnasse.) It’s a dazzling cinematic achievement, one that was initially met with derision, then chopped up by the producers, but finally restored to its exquisite original version, a 35mm print of which will be screening February 18 at 4:00 & 7:30 as part of the FIAF CinéSalon series “Remastered & Restored: Treasures of French Cinema”; the later screening will be presented by painter Lola Montes Schnabel, and both shows will be followed by a wine reception. The three-month festival continues with such other recently restored French classics as Claude Chabrol’s The Color of Lies (costar Jacques Gamblin will no longer introduce the film), Claire Denis’s Chocolat (introduced by Mahen Bonetti), and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Two Men in Manhattan (introduced by Phillip Lopate).

CULINARY KIDS FOOD FESTIVAL

New York Botanical Garden hosts family-friendly culinary food fest February 17-23

New York Botanical Garden
Dining Pavilion behind the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory
2900 Southern Blvd.
February 17-23, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
All-Garden Pass: adults $20, children two to twelve $8
718-817-8700
www.nybg.org

The New York Botanical Garden is taking advantage of the February school break by hosting a family-friendly culinary food festival February 17-23, part of its Edible Academy programming, which focuses on “the important connections between plants, gardening, nutrition, and the benefits of a healthful lifestyle.” The weeklong event, which takes place in the Dining Pavilion behind the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, will offer cooking demonstrations, food tastings, tips and recipes from local chefs and garden staff, workshops, hands-on activities, and live entertainment. Parents and children can stop by the Tip-Top Pickle Shop, the Cheesemonger’s Shop, the Bakery, and Spice Adventures to learn about specific parts of the food-making process and can also create seed packets to grow their own basil. On February 21 to 23, Janice Buckner will put on a food-related puppet show, and on February 23 the Bronx Arts Ensemble Family Concert will present Hansel and Gretel, in which two kids nearly end up on the menu. In addition, the garden, which should be looking lovely with all the snow, has several exhibitions on view, including “Tropical Paradise,” “Close: The Photography of Allan Pollok-Morris,” and “Four Seasons,” as well as the self-guided Winter Walk in the Forest, Seasonal Conifer Explorations, a Winter Plant & Tree Tour, and more.

THE CREATIVE COLLABORATION OF MARTIN SCORSESE AND LEONARDO DiCAPRIO: THE DEPARTED

Leonardo DiCaprio gets ready for battle in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning THE DEPARTED

THE DEPARTED (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
Bow Tie Ziegfeld Theater
141 West 54th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Thursday, February 13, 3:30
Festival runs February 13-14
212-765-7600
www.bowtiecinemas.com

Based on Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s awesome Infernal Affairs (2002), Martin Scorsese’s relatively faithful remake, The Departed, moves the relentless action and intrigue from Hong Kong to the mean streets of Boston, where it is hard to tell cop from criminal. Just out of the academy, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) rises quickly to detective in the Special Investigations Unit, but he’s actually in cahoots with master crime lord Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Meanwhile, Billy Costigan (an excellent Leonardo DiCaprio), training to become a cop, is sent deep undercover (including a prison stint) to infiltrate Costello’s gang, with only Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Sergeant Dignam (a very funny and foul-mouthed Mark Wahlberg) aware of the secret mission. Sullivan and Costigan are like opposite sides of the same persona; in between them stands Costello — and Madolyn (Vera Farmiga), a psychiatrist who is in a relationship with one and is doctor to the other. As both the cops and the criminals search desperately for their respective rats, no one can trust each other, leading to lots of blood and a spectacular finale. Nicholson has a field day as the aging gangster, chewing up mounds of scenery in his first film with Scorsese, who returned to peak form with his best work since 1990’s Goodfellas. The film was nominated for five Oscars, winning four, for Best Director, Best Film Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker), Best Adapted Screenplay (William Monahan), and Best Picture, while Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio is celebrated in two-day festival at the Ziegfeld

Collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio is celebrated with two-day festival at the Ziegfeld

The Departed is being shown on February 13 at 3:30 as part of a two-day salute at the Ziegfeld to the long-running partnership between DiCaprio and Scorsese, including screenings of all five of their collaborations: The Aviator, Scorsese’s examination of Howard Hughes’s (DiCaprio) high-flying and controversial airplane career; Gangs of New York, which pits Amsterdam Vallon (DiCaprio) against Bill “the Butcher” Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the city’s immigrant-heavy Five Corners; Shutter Island, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel with DiCaprio as a U.S. marshal; and their latest, the multi-Oscar-nominated The Wolf of Wall Street, in which DiCaprio plays real-life stockbroker Jordan Belfort. DiCaprio, Schoonmaker, and screenwriter Terence Winter will take part in a Q&A with Kent Jones prior to the 7:00 screening of Wolf on February 13.

REMASTERED AND RESTORED — TREASURES OF FRENCH CINEMA: UNE CHAMBRE EN VILLE

Edith (Dominique Sanda) and François (Richard Berry) find each other in Jacques Demy’s dark but colorful French musical

CINÉSALON: UNE CHAMBRE EN VILLE (A ROOM IN TOWN) (Jacques Demy, 1982)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, February 11, $13, 4:00 & 7:30
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

From the very opening of Une Chambre en Ville (A Room in Town), French New Wave director Jacques Demy announces that the 1982 musical melodrama is going to be something a little different. As a rising sun changes color over a construction site across the Loire River, what appear to be closing credits run up the screen, set to Michel Colombier’s romantic score, as if the film is ending. But Demy and cinematographer Jean Penzer are only getting started, shifting from black-and-white to color to black-and-white again as they cut to the hard streets of 1955 Nantes, where a shipyard strike is under way. Riot police are in a stand-off with hundreds of male and female strikers, characters on both sides singing instead of talking and shouting — in a scene that eerily evokes Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables, which came thirty years later. Soon the intricate plot unfolds, as the striking, and broke, François Guilbaud (Richard Berry), who is renting a room from former baroness Margot Langlois (Danielle Darrieux) and dating doe-eyed Violette Pelletier (Fabienne Guyon), instantly falls for femme fatale Edith Leroyer (Dominique Sanda), Mme. Langlois’s recently married daughter, who is already fed up with her impotent cheapskate of a husband, television salesman Edmond Leroyer (Michel Piccoli). The over-the-top drama plays out in wonderfully garish rooms of deep, intoxicating colors, which are echoed by Rosalie Varda’s (daughter of Demy and Agnès Varda) costumes, which even go so far as to have Violette wearing violet and Edith going bare beneath her luxurious fur coat, with no one changing clothes over the course of the two days in which the story takes place. As the strike continues, the main characters connect with one another in good and bad ways, especially when straight razors and guns are involved.

Striking workers are ready to fight the power in Jacques Demys UNE CHAMBRE EN VILLE

Striking workers are ready to fight for their rights in Jacques Demy’s UNE CHAMBRE EN VILLE

Writer-director Demy, who transformed the movie musical in the 1960s with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort (the latter also featuring Darrieux), includes no Hollywood-like set pieces in Une Chambre en Ville, no dancing, no choruses — essentially, no real songs at all. Instead, all of the dialogue is sung by the actors (or dubbed in by someone else) as if in regular conversation. Inspired by a real shipyard strike in his hometown of Nantes in 1955, Demy takes on such concepts as wealth, class, authority, home, family, and, most of all, love — both real and imagined, unrequited and lustful — in the vastly underrated film, which is quite entertaining and very funny despite its dark themes. And be on the lookout for more echoes of Les Misérables throughout. A new digital restoration of Une Chambre en Ville is screening February 11 at 4:00 & 7:30 as part of the FIAF CinéSalon series “Remastered & Restored: Treasures of French Cinema”; the later screening will be presented by New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik, and both shows will be followed by a wine reception. The three-month festival continues with such other recently restored French classics as Max Ophüls’s Lola Montès (introduced by Lola Montes Schnabel), Claude Chabrol’s The Color of Lies (costar Jacques Gamblin will no longer introduce the film), and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Two Men in Manhattan.