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

FRANCOFEST: FRANCOPHENIA (OR: DON’T KILL ME, I KNOW WHERE THE BABY IS)

James Franco is feeling the pressure as he prepares for critical GENERAL HOSPITAL scene in FRANCOPHENIA

FRANCOPHENIA (OR: DON’T KILL ME, I KNOW WHERE THE BABY IS) (James Franco & Ian Olds, 2012)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Thursday, March 6, 7:45, and Monday, March 10, 12:45
Series runs March 5-13
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.foxsearchlight.com

Okay, we have an important confession to make: We can’t get enough James Franco. There, we said it. And we are truly excited about the IFC Center’s FrancoFest, a nine-day cinematic tribute to the California-born actor, screenwriter, director, artist, poet, teacher, philanthropist, college student, novelist, Oscar cohost, dance-theater enthusiast, fragrance spokesman, bon vivant, and soon-to-be Broadway star. We’re not about to fault him for wanting to get the most out of life. He’s also not afraid to poke fun of his own image, which he does in Francophenia (Or: Don’t Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is). The film follows Franco as he prepares for a critical scene for General Hospital, the soap opera in which he has portrayed a visual artist named Franco on and off since 2009. Dressed in a sharp tux, the fictional Franco is getting ready for the opening of his new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles as well as plotting to commit murder. He eagerly meets with adoring fans and speaks with the media, but as day turns to night, he starts doubting himself, although it’s not clear which Franco is suffering the psychological dilemma. In whispered voice-overs by codirector Ian Olds and cowriter Paul Felten, the actor/character becomes overwhelmed with fear and paranoia. “What’s gonna happen to me? Can you tell me?” he says, adding, “What was I thinking?” But he then remembers who he is and seeks to gain control. “I made this machine, and all the parts are moving perfectly, just as they should. I’m the foreman of the factory. I made this happen, all of it. And it’s brilliant. It’s a masterpiece,” he murmurs. The ramblings also take shots at his own “Being James Franco” persona as he declares, “Look at this: I’m everywhere. I’m the light of this world. I begat this motherf&*ker. What have you ever made?” Is Franco/Franco/Franco in on all the jokes or the subject of derision? Who cares, since it all seems to be in such good, self-referential fun. Francophenia is screening March 6 & 10 at the IFC Center, with Franco and Olds on hand for the first showing to talk about the work. FrancoFest runs March 5-13 with screenings of Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Howl (in which Franco plays Allen Ginsberg), Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, William Friedkin’s Cruising, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, and such Franco-directed flicks as Sal, My Own Private River, Good Time Max, The Broken Tower, As I Lay Dying, The Ape, and his latest, Interior. Leather Bar, which he directed with Travis Mathews, with Franco present at various screenings the first four days.

REMASTERED AND RESTORED — TREASURES OF FRENCH CINEMA: TWO MEN IN MANHATTAN

Jean-Pierre Melville and Pierre Grasset are involved in a lurid cover-up in Melville’s TWO MEN IN MANHATTAN

CINÉSALON: TWO MEN IN MANHATTAN (DEUX HOMMES DANS MANHATTAN) (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1959)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, March 4, $13, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through March 18
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

When French U.N. delegate Fèvre-Berthier goes missing in director Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1959 noir, Two Men in Manhattan, reporter Moreau (Melville) of the French Press Agency and freelance photographer Pierre Delmas (Pierre Grasset) go out on the town, trying to find out what happened. While Moreau is seeking the truth, Delmas is after a sensationalist photograph he can sell to the highest bidder. They meet up with several women who knew the married diplomat — some much better than others — including his secretary, Françoise Bonnot (Colette Fleury), actress Judith Nelson (Ginger Hall), stripper Bessie Reid (Michèle Bailly), and jazz singer Virginia Graham (Glenda Leigh). As the men make their way through Rockefeller Plaza, Times Square, Greenwich Village, Broadway, the subway, and the United Nations, Marial Solal’s and Christian Chevallier’s jazzy score dominates the outdoor scenes, soaking the viewer in the New York at night atmosphere. And all the while, the reporter and photographer are trailed by someone in a mysterious car. As they get closer to their destination, they are faced with some serious ethical choices, not just about journalism, but about life itself. Nearly fifty-five years after its release, Two Men in Manhattan feels as stiff and dated as Melville’s (Bob le Flambeur, Le Doulos, Le Samouraï) lead performance, his only starring role and his sole appearance in one of his own films. It’s difficult to tell if Two Men in Manhattan is a serious procedural, an homage to classic noirs, a tribute to New York City, or a sly genre parody — perhaps it’s all of them, but far too many of the twists and turns are hard to swallow, especially when it comes to Delmas’s selfish decisions and Moreau’s often absurd brainstorms that seem to exist just to quicken the plot despite their incredulity. Still, it’s beautifully shot in shadowy darkness by Nicholas Hayer, and it was proclaimed by Jean-Luc Godard to be the second best film of the year. A digitally remastered version of Two Men in Manhattan is screening March 4 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 Phillip Lopate, and both shows will be followed by a wine reception. The three-month festival continues March 11 with Claire Denis’s Chocolat, introduced by African Film Festival founder Mahen Bonetti, before concluding March 18 with Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Truth.

MODERN MONDAYS: AN EVENING WITH BETH B AND THE CAST OF EXPOSED

Bambi the Mermaid gets emotional in Beth B's revealing EXPOSED

Bambi the Mermaid gets emotional in Beth B’s intimate and revealing documentary

EXPOSED (Beth B, 2013)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Monday, March 3, 7:00
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
Theatrical release March 13-20, IFC Center
www.moma.org
www.exposedmovie.com

In Exposed, visual artist Beth B, who got her start in the 1970s underground scene in New York City, invites viewers into the inner world of burlesque, going behind the scenes with eight current performers who share intimate details about their lives and their shows. Beth B (Two Small Bodies, An Unlikely Terrorist), who wrote, directed, produced, edited (with Keith Reamer), and photographed (with Dan Karlok) the seventy-six-minute documentary, goes backstage at such New York venues as the Slipper Room, Le Poisson Rouge, the Cutting Room, Dixon Place, P.S. 122, Galapagos Art Space, and Coney Island’s Sideshows by the Seashore as burlesque performers discuss issues of gender, control, freedom, disabilities, power, nudity, femininity, personal and professional identity, and more. “What the world projects as normal, it’s just such an illusion, it’s such a fantasy,” Bunny Love says, “and I love that fantasy.” UK comedian and cabaret performer Mat Fraser, who was born with “flippers” for hands, explains, “If you can make them laugh and make a political point that fuels your outrage, all the better.” And Rose Wood adds, “I’ve tried to present my audience with an indelible picture of the body seen in another way, seen in a way that’s different than they see themselves. They have ideas of what’s normal — what a man does, what a woman does, what a heterosexual does, what a gay person does — and I try to present them with another way of seeing the body.” Among the other performers who share their stories are Tigger!, who uses burlesque as a kind of sexual political theater; Dirty Martini, who pays tribute to such early stars of the wordless art form as Dixie Evans and Vickie Lynn; Bambi the Mermaid, who produces Coney Island’s popular Burlesque at the Beach series; Julie Atlas Muz, who honors Pina Bausch in her performance art; and World Famous *BOB*, who points out, “I never lie to people. People would say, ‘Are you a man or a woman?’ And I would say yes. That quick wit was something that I learned from my drag family, that quick wit, that ability to turn anything that hurts you inside into something that’s funny.”

World Famous *BOB* takes on the Patriot Act and freedom in EXPOSED

But whereas previous documentaries about burlesque, like Leslie Zemeckis’s Behind the Burly Q, examine its history, Exposed delves into the very personal, individual stories that drive these performers’ desire to take the stage and reveal themselves. While some are clearly proud of who they are and what they do, others appear to still be working out deeply felt, raw and painful emotions and memories. The eight subjects hold nothing back in the film as they bare body and soul; many of the performances are extremely graphic, but it is often as freeing to watch the acts onstage as it appears to be for the performers to perform them. Exposed is screening at MoMA on March 3 at 7:00 as part of the Modern Mondays series, with live performances by Muz, Fraser, and Dirty Martini, followed by a Q&A with Beth B, composer Jim Coleman (who wrote several songs with Beth B), coproducer Sandra Schulberg, and the full cast. The film will then move to the IFC Center for its official U.S. theatrical release March 14-20, with each 9:30 nightly showing featuring a live performance by one or more of the subjects, in addition to a March 13 sneak peek with the complete cast and filmmakers and an after-party at Dixon Place.

A SWANBERG SAMPLER: NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS

Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig get personal in NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS

NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS (Joe Swanberg & Greta Gerwig, 2008
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, March 1, free with museum admission, 4:30
Series runs March 1-2
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.nightsandweekendsmovie.com

Generation DIY examines long-distance relationships and identity in the offbeat Nights and Weekends, which is screening this weekend at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of the Saturday-Sunday mini-festival “A Swanberg Sampler,” featuring six works by mumblecore master Joe Swanberg. In the low-budget film, which was written, directed, and produced by Greta Gerwig (Greenberg, Frances Ha) and Swanberg (Kissing on the Mouth, Silver Bullets), who previously worked together on Hannah Takes the Stairs and LOL, the two play Mattie and James, respectively, a couple trying to make it work even though she’s in New York City and he’s in Chicago. The film opens with a graphic sex scene, but as the story continues, the two of them have more and more trouble communicating until, a year later, things are very different. The lo-fi indie was mostly shot in small, claustrophobic indoor sets, emphasizing the pair’s closeness as well as growing distance, in a cinéma vérité style that makes the audience feel as if it is intruding into the characters’ lives, especially given the improvised dialogue and underwhelming acting. Despite Gerwig and Swanberg’s chemistry and the very intimate relationship they portray onscreen, they have never been a couple in real life. Nights and Weekends might be an acquired taste, but it is an engaging, very personal kind of romantic comedy. The series also includes Hannah Takes the Stairs, Silver Bullets, Art History, Uncle Kent, and All the Light in the Sky, with Swanberg, who has made eleven films in the last three-plus years, present at all screenings to talk about the works.

FATAL ASSISTANCE

Documentary reveals that there’s still a whole lot to be done in Haitian recovery effort as organizations fight over details

FATAL ASSISTANCE (ASSISTANCE MORTELLE) (Raoul Peck, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves.
February 28 – March 6
212-875-5600
www.filmlinc.com

Award-winning Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s Fatal Assistance begins by posting remarkable numbers onscreen: In the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit his native country on January 12, 2010, there were 230,000 deaths, 300,000 wounded, and 1.5 million people homeless, with some 4,000 NGOs coming to Haiti to make use of a promised $11 billion in relief over a five-year period. But as Peck reveals, there is significant controversy over where the money is and how it’s being spent as the troubled Haitian people are still seeking proper health care and a place to live. “The line between intrusion, support, and aid is very fine,” says Jean-Max Bellerive, the Haitian prime minister at the time of the disaster, explaining that too many of the donors want to cherry-pick how their money is used. Bill Vastine, senior “debris” adviser for the Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti (CIRH), which was co-chaired by Bellerive and President Bill Clinton, responds, “The international community said they were gonna grant so many billions of dollars to Haiti. That didn’t mean we were gonna send so many billions of dollars to a bank account and let the Haitian government do with it as they will.” Somewhere in the middle is CIRH senior housing adviser Priscilla Phelps, who seems to be the only person who recognizes why the relief effort has turned into a disaster all its own; by the end of the film, she is struggling to hold back tears.

There’s a lot of talk but not nearly as much action in Haitian recovery from devastating earthquake

A self-described “political radical,” Peck doesn’t play it neutral in Fatal Assistance, instead adding mournful music by Alexei Aigui, somber English narration by a male voice (Peck narrates the French-language version), and a female voice-over reading melodramatic “Dear friend” letters that poetically trash what is happening in Haiti. “Every few decades, the rich promise everything to the poor,” the male voice-over says. “The dream of eradication of poverty, disease, death remains a perpetual fantasy.” Even though Peck (Lumumba, 2010 Human Rights Watch Film Festival centerpiece Moloch Tropical) attacks the agendas of the donors and NGOs while pushing an agenda of his own, Fatal Assistance is an important document that shows that just because money pours in to help in a crisis situation doesn’t mean that the things that need to be done are being taken care of properly. The centerpiece selection of the 2013 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Fatal Assistance is back at the Film Society of Lincoln Center for its week-long U.S. theatrical release February 28 – March 6 with Peck, the former Haitian minister of culture, the 1994 winner of the HRWFF’s Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking, and the 2001 HRWFF Lifetime Achievement Award winner, on hand for Q&As after several screenings.

FIRST SATURDAYS: WOMEN’S STORIES

Alison Elizabeth Taylor, “Security House,” wood veneer and shellac, 2008-10 (Gift of the Contemporary Art Acquisition Committee; © Alison Elizabeth Taylor)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, March 1, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org

In 1982, the United States recognized the first official Women’s History Week, comprising seven days in March; five years later, the third month of the year became Women’s History Month, passed by a congressional vote of 100 to 9. The Brooklyn Museum will be celebrating Women’s History Month on March 1 in their free First Saturdays programs by examining women and art, music, publishing, poetry, and more. The evening will include an artist talk by Alison Elizabeth Taylor, an arts workshop demonstrating how Taylor uses wood in her pieces, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh discussing her anti–street harassment project “Stop Telling Women to Smile,” pop-up gallery talks in English and Spanish on specific works by women, the interactive performance “Sublime” by the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective, a martial arts workshop with ABADÁ-Capoeira, a talk by Toni Blackman about hip-hop and activism, live music by Zuzuka Poderosa, TECLA, and Venus X with live animation by Niky Roehreke, pop-up spoken-word poetry, a live performance combining music and spoken-word by Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman of Climbing PoeTree, and a book club talk by members of the Feminist Press. In addition, the galleries will be open late, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to check out “Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey,” “Twice Militant: Lorraine Hansberry’s Letters to ‘The Ladder,’” “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt,” “Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas,” “Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn,” and other exhibits.

FESTIVAL NEUE LITERATUR: BORDER CROSSINGS

FESTIVAL NEUE LITERATUR 2014: NEW WRITING FROM AUSTRIA, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, AND THE U.S.
Multiple venues
February 28 – March 2, free with advance RSVP
www.festivalneueliteratur.org

For the fifth annual Festival Neue Literatur, a half dozen up-and-coming German-language authors, two each from Germany (Olga Grjasnowa, Abbas Khider), Austria (Milena Michiko Flašar, Maja Haderlap), and Switzerland (Melinda Nadj Abonji, Richard Weihe), will meet with two established American writers (Monique Truong, Keith Gessen) to contemplate the role of reading and writing in today’s quickly changing global society in conjunction with this year’s theme, “Border Crossings.” The three-day festival begins at 1:00 on February 28 at Deutsches Haus Columbia with “Encounters Across the Ocean,” which pairs the six European novelists with six students each from the Department of Germanic Languages and the Creative Writing Program. On March 1 at 6:00 at the powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, curator Tess Lewis will moderate “Memory and Language: Angels or Demons,” a discussion with Haderlap, Nadj Abonji, Michiko Flašar, and Truong that addresses such questions as “To what extent does language determine identity and one’s understanding of the world?” and “Is the fickleness of memory a burden or a liberation?” Sunday begins with a noontime Literary Brunch at Deutsches Haus NYU in which the six European writers will read from their works; German fare will be served. Things come to a close on Sunday night at 6:00 at McNally Jackson with “Search for Roots: Exile’s Revolving Doors,” with Grjasnowa, Khider, Weihe, Gessen, and moderator Lewis examining the questions “Are we all ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ now?” and “What is rootedness today?” As preparation, the 2014 reader, which includes samples of works from the six German-language writers and promises that you will “discover famous Austrian, German, and Swiss authors nobody in the U.S. has heard of,” can be downloaded for free here.