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

BREAKUP AT A WEDDING

Phil Havemeyer (Philip Quinaz) has to reconvince his bride-to-be (Alison Fyhrie) to marry him in BREAKUP AT A WEDDING

BREAKUP AT A WEDDING (Victor Quinaz, 2013)
IndieScreen
289 Kent Ave. at South Second St.
August 2-8, 7:00
347-227-8030
www.breakupatawedding.com

With their wedding day upon them, Alison Jones (Alison Fyhrie) suddenly gets cold feet, convincing her fiance, Philip Havemeyer (cowriter Philip Quinaz), that they should go ahead with the festivities anyway, faking it for the guests and then calling it quits afterward in the silly but fun pseudo-mockumentary Breakup at a Wedding. The film is set up as wedding videographer Vic James’s (cowriter, director, and producer Victor Quinaz, Philip’s brother) self-proclaimed masterpiece; James and his small team of photographers have been given unlimited access to the previously happy couple and their friends and families, capturing intimate moments, deep, dark secrets, and general mayhem as all hell breaks loose, from the rehearsal dinner through the wedding itself. “Weddings make people go insane, but I always edit out the crazy,” Vic says at the beginning, “that is, until I met these two.” There are battles between the competing best men (Damian Lanigan and Chris Manley), maid of honor Mary (Mary Grill) is determined to get laid, and Alison has trouble dealing with her divorced parents (Hugh Scully and Caitlin B. FitzGerald), her father’s new Czech mail-order bride (Helena Lukas Martemucci), and her stepmother’s goddaughter, Lenka Jones (cowriter and producer Anna Martemucci, who is married to Victor Quinaz), who is betrothed to Alison’s brother, Brian (Brian Shoaf). It all makes for a host of bizarre antics, some very funny, others too far over the top, but there’s a charming genuineness and warmth to it all, probably in part because many of the actors and filmmakers are related themselves, and Philip Quinaz has most likely experienced a whole lot in one of his other jobs, professional wedding DJ. Cinematographer and coeditor Giovanni P. Autran, who also plays the florist, keeps it all honest, mixing in interview segments, handheld shots at the wedding, and playfully lit dance scenes. And thankfully, the film avoids getting overly sentimental while including some fresh insights into love, friendship, responsibility, and trust. Breakup at a Wedding continues at indieScreen in Williamsburg nightly at 7:00 through August 8; one of the producers, Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock on the relaunched Star Trek franchise, will be on hand for a Q&A following the August 6 show.

GRAVITY AND GRACE: MONUMENTAL WORKS BY EL ANATSUI

El Anatsui’s hanging works welcome visitors to fascinating show (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

El Anatsui’s hanging works welcome visitors to fascinating retrospective (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brooklyn Museum
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing and Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, fifth floor
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Wednesday – Sunday through August 18, suggested donation $12
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Over the last decade, Ghana-born, Nigerian-based abstract artist El Anatsui has been gaining international fame for his unique sculpture-paintings that hang from ceilings and walls and climb across floors. The works, which often resemble maps, are composed of aluminum liquor bottle caps of a multitude of colors, woven together with copper wire by a team of assistants into patterns that Anatsui then puts together to form larger pieces that evoke African history, mass consumption, environmentalism, and the intimate physical connection between people all over the world. This continuing series welcomes visitors to the outstanding Brooklyn Museum exhibition “Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui,” which also looks back at the artist’s past while revealing his fascinating process.

El Anatsui’s “Waste Paper Bags” look back at African history while also evoking modern-day environmentalism (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Much of Anatsui’s oeuvre changes every time it’s shown at a new location, hung a little differently, without the same type of lighting, allowing them to be experienced anew; they also benefit from being viewed from a distance and then close up, offering varying perspectives. The show is expertly laid out, from the mazelike hallway entrance to the side-by-side “Red Block” and “Black Block” to the inclusion of several videos that show Anatsui at work in his studio and walking around, seeking out found objects and ideas for future projects. “I don’t believe in artworks being things that are fixed,” the artist and longtime teacher has said. “You know, the artist is not a dictator.” Indeed, painted wood reliefs such as “Motley Crowd” and “Amewo (People)” from the 1980s and ’90s are meant to be altered, with curators encouraged to rearrange the blocks of wood as they see fit. It’s all part of Anatsui’s “nomadic aesthetic” and dedication to the “nonfixed form,” representing multiple materials in varying shapes and sizes while also celebrating personal freedom. His titles also capture an international flavor, with such names as “Drifting Continents,” “Earth’s Skin,” and “Amemo (Mask of Humankind).” And make sure to get up close to “Ozone Layer,” which has the added bonus of air being blown in through the wall, creating sound and movement.

“Red Block” and “Black Block” hover behind “Peak” in beautifully curated show (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Red Block” and “Black Block” hover behind “Peak” in beautifully curated exhibition (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The exhibition, Anatsui’s first solo show in a New York museum, also features charcoal and graphite drawings, acrylic works on paper, and “Waste Paper Bags,” a collection of large-scale sculptures made of discarded aluminum printing plates that relate to Nigerian culture as well as go-bags that Ghanaian refugees packed when escaping their country in a hurry. It’s a terrific show that has been extended two weeks through August 18; there is also still time to see his “Broken Bridge II” outdoor wall piece on the High Line, which runs through September. Admission to the Brooklyn Museum is free on August 4 for the monthly First Saturdays program, the theme of which is Caribbean, with live performances by Casplash, Los Hacheros, and Zing Experience, curator talks, screenings of the omnibus film Ring Di Alarm and Storm Saulter’s Better Mus’ Come, an artist talk with Miguel Luciano, dance workshops, a discussion with author Nelly Rosario about her debut novel, Song of the Water Saints, and pop-up gallery talks focusing on specific works by Anatsui.

RURAL ROUTE FILM FESTIVAL: TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE

Real-life sisters Dior and Oumoul Kâ play fictional sisters facing a family crisis in TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE

TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE (GRAND COMME LE BAOBAB) (Jeremy Teicher, 2012)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, August 3, free with museum admission, 2:00
Festival runs August 2-4
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.tallasthebaobabtree.com

The 2013 Human Rights Watch Film Festival came to a close this past June 23 with Jeremy Teicher’s heart-wrenching Tall as the Baobab Tree, an involving, powerful, yet gentle drama about a Senegalese family trapped by tradition in a modernizing world. Real-life sisters Dior and Oumoul Kâ star as Coumba and Debo, close siblings who live in the tiny rural village of Sinthiou Mbadane (where they actually are from). When their older brother, Silèye (Alpha Dia), falls out of a baobab tree and breaks his leg, their father (Mouhamed Diallo) doesn’t have enough money to pay for the necessary medical care so he instead sends Coumba out to do Silèye’s job of herding the cows and decides to sell off eleven-year-old Debo to suitors for marriage. Their mother (Mboural Dia) is unwilling to stand up to her husband, so Coumba hatches a plan in which her friend Amady (Cheikh Dia), who has a crush on her, will watch the herd for her secretly while she heads into the city and gets a job until she makes enough money to help Silèye heal and prevent Debo from having to marry so young. Unfortunately, not everything goes quite as planned. But through it all, no matter how difficult things get, all of the characters maintain their faith, praising peace and continually saying, “God is great.”

Teicher came up with the idea for Tall as the Baobab Tree when he was a student working on This Is Us, a documentary for the nonprofit organization CyberSmart Africa in which the children of Sinthiou Mbadane created brief digital stories about their lives. Teicher, who directed Tall as the Baobab Tree and cowrote it with Alexi Pappas, chose to focus on the very real African problem of forced marriage of young girls between the ages of eight and twelve, collaborating closely with the nonprofessional actors selected from the village, allowing their own stories to meld together, blending fact and fiction. Another central issue is the importance of education, particularly for girls, as Debo clearly would rather follow in Coumba’s footsteps and prepare for university instead of becoming a child bride. The narrative unfolds slowly and calmly, with no overemotional, melodramatic moments or any soapbox preaching, while the tender mood is enhanced by cinematographer Chris Collins’s lush photography and Salieu Suso’s Kora-based score. The first feature ever filmed in the Puular language, Tall as the Baobab Tree is screening August 3 at 2:00 at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of the Rural Route Film Festival, with Teicher present to talk about the work, which will be preceded by Ross Whitaker’s Home Turf and Laska Jimsen’s Beaver Creek Yard. The festival, which is dedicated to films made about environments away from urban centers, runs August 2-4 and also features a Les Blank tribute, a DCP restoration of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, Diego Rougier’s Salt, Marlo Poras’s The Mosuo Sisters, and Veit Helmer’s Baikonur, in addition to live performances in the museum’s new courtyard by the Frontier Needs Heroes, Gimagua, Vlada Tomova’s Bulgarian Voices Trio, and the Spookfish.

SAY A LITTLE PRAYER: THE MAGICIAN

A traveling troupe of illusionists is forced to defend itself in Ingmar Bergman’s THE MAGICIAN

CABARET CINEMA: THE MAGICIAN (ANSIKTET) (Ingmar Bergman, 1958)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, August 2, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

Ingmar Bergman’s darkly comic 1958 film The Magician is one of the Swedish auteur’s lesser-known, underrated masterpieces, an intense yet funny, and fun, work about art, science, faith, death, and the power of the movies themselves. When Vogler’s Magnetic Health Theater comes to town, the local triumvirate of Dr. Vergérus (Gunnar Björnstrand), police commissioner Starbeck (Toivo Pawlo), and Consul Egerman (Erland Josephson) brings the traveling troupe in for questioning, forcing them to spend the night as guests in Egerman’s home. The three men seek to prove that mesmerist Albert Emanuel Vogler (Max von Sydow), his assistant, Mr. Aman (Ingrid Thulin), a witchy grandmother (Naima Wifstrand), and their promoter, Tubal (Åke Fridell), are a bunch of frauds. The interrogations delve into such Bergmanesque topics as science vs. reason, good vs. evil, life and death, and the existence of God. As various potions are dispensed to and tricks played on a staff that includes maid Sara (Bibi Andersson), cook Sofia Garp (Sif Ruud), and stableman Antonsson (Oscar Ljung) in addition to Starbeck’s wife (Ulla Sjöblom) and Egerman’s spouse (Gertrud Fridh), a series of romantic rendezvous take place, along with some genuine horror, leading to a thrillingly ambiguous ending.

Max von Sydow is mesmerizing as mesmerist and Ingmar Bergman alter ego Albert Emanuel Vogler in THE MAGICIAN

Von Sydow is mesmerizing as the mesmerist, a silent, brooding man in a sharp beard and mustache, his penetrating eyes a character all their own. (The original title of the film is Ansiktet, which means “Face.”) His showdowns with Dr. Vergerus serve as Bergman’s defense of the art of film itself, an illusion of light and shadow and suspension of belief. Meanwhile, Tubal and wandering drunk Johan Spegel (Bengt Ekerot) offer comic relief and a needed level of absurdity to the serious proceedings. The film is superbly shot in black-and-white by cinematographer Gunnar Fischer, maintaining an appropriately creepy and mysterious look throughout. It also introduces character names into Bergman’s canon, appellations such as Vogler, Vergérus, and Egerman, that will show up again in such future works as Persona (with Liv Ullmann as actress Elisabet Vogler, who has stopped speaking, and Björnstrand as Mr. Vogler), Hour of the Wolf (with Thulin as Veronica Vogler, a former lover haunting von Sydow’s painter Johan Borg), Fanny and Alexander (with Jan Malmsjö as Bishop Edvard Vergérus), and After the Rehearsal (with Josephson as theater director Henrik Vogler and Lena Olin as actress Anna Egerman). Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 1959 Venice Film Festival, The Magician is screening August 2 at the Rubin Museum, introduced by sociologist and Union Theological Seminary assistant professor Samuel Cruz, PhD, concluding the Cabaret Cinema series “Say a Little Prayer,” held in conjunction with the exhibition “Count Your Blessings,” which opens August 2 and explores the use of prayer beads in various Buddhist traditions.

WHEN COMEDY WENT TO SCHOOL

Jerry Lewis is among the comedians reminiscing about the famous Catskills era in WHEN COMEDY WENT TO SCHOOL

WHEN COMEDY WENT TO SCHOOL (Mevlut Akkaya & Ron Frank, 2013)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St., 212-924-7771
JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at West 76th St., 646-505-5708
July 31 – August 6
www.whencomedywenttoschool.com

In the new documentary When Comedy Went to School, Mickey Freeman describes what it’s like to “die” onstage, that terrible feeling of experiencing flop sweat while bombing in front of a live audience. Unfortunately, this film is dead on arrival, dripping wet. Made by Mevlut Akkaya (director and producer), Ron Frank (director, producer, and editor), and Lawrence Richards (writer and producer), the thankfully short film, which clocks in at a mere seventy-seven minutes, purports to tell the history of the Catskill comedians at such resorts as Kutsher’s, Grossinger’s, and the Concord. The filmmakers speak with such comic giants as Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar, Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory, Jackie Mason, and Jerry Stiller, who describe what it was like in the Borscht Belt’s heyday of the 1950s and 1960s. There are also plenty of archival clips of those men as well as Rodney Dangerfield, Woody Allen, Henny Youngman, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, and Lenny Bruce (however, very few from actual Catskills performances), with additional commentary from Joe Franklin, Larry King, and Hugh Hefner. But timing is everything in comedy, something When Comedy Went to School is sorely lacking; the film drags and sputters as Akkaya, Frank, and Richards — onscreen host and narrator Robert Klein is the poor soul relegated to reading the increasingly dull script — try to delve into the social and historical aspects of the Catskills, from the comedians themselves to the people who owned the resorts and the families that went there year after year, but it’s slow moving, repetitive, and, worst of all, boring. Although some of the comedians have interesting anecdotes — Lewis steals the show with his insights on the relationship between performer and audience — most of it falls flat, reminiscent of the old vaudeville convention of bringing out the weakest act to clear the house after the stars are done. When Comedy Went to School runs July 31 to August 6 at the JCC in Manhattan and the IFC Center, with Akkaya, Frank, and Richards on hand to talk about the film at the 7:05 show on opening night at IFC; the trio will be back at IFC for the 7:05 screening on August 1, joined by Klein and Cory Kahaney.

HIGHLIGHTS OF CANNES FILM FESTIVAL WITH GILLES JACOB / MOVIE NIGHT WITH PAUL SCHRADER: PICKPOCKET

Michel (Martin LaSalle) eyes a potential target in Robert Bresson’s highly influential masterpiece PICKPOCKET

PICKPOCKET (Robert Bresson, 1959)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, July 30, $10, 12:30, 4:00, 7:30
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Tuesday, July 30, $16, 7:30
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

Robert Bresson’s 1959 Pickpocket is a stylistic marvel, a brilliant examination of a deeply troubled man and his dark obsessions. Evoking Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Martin LaSalle made his cinematic debut as Michel, a ne’er-do-well Parisian who lives in a decrepit apartment, refuses to visit his ailing mother (Dolly Scal), and decides to become a pickpocket. But it’s not necessarily the money he’s after; he hides the cash and watches that he steals in his room, which he is unable to lock from the outside. Instead, his petty thievery seems to give him some kind of psychosexual thrill, although his pleasure can seldom be seen in his staring, beady eyes. As the film opens, Michel is at the racetrack, dipping his fingers into a woman’s purse in an erotically charged moment that is captivating, instantly turning the viewer into voyeur. Of course, film audiences by nature are a kind of peeping Tom, but Bresson makes them complicit in Michel’s actions; although there is virtually nothing to like about the character, who is distant and aloof when not being outright nasty, even to his only friends, Jacques (Pierre Leymarie) and Jeanne (Marika Green), the audience can’t help but breathlessly root for him to succeed as he dangerously dips his hands into men’s pockets on the street and in the Metro. Soon he is being watched by a police inspector (Jean Pélégri), to whom he daringly gives a book about George Barrington, the famed “Prince of Pickpockets,” as well as a stranger (Kassagi) who wants him to join a small cadre of thieves, leading to a gorgeously choreographed scene of the men working in tandem as they pick a bunch of pockets. Through it all, however, Michel remains nonplussed, living a strange, private life, uncomfortable in his own skin. “You’re not in this world,” Jeanne tells him at one point.

Michel (Martin LaSalle) can’t keep his hands to himself in Bresson classic

Bresson (Au hasard Balthazar, Diary of a Country Priest) fills Pickpocket with visual clues and repeated symbols that add deep layers to the narrative, particularly an endless array of shots of hands and a parade of doors, many of which are left ajar and/or unlocked in the first half of the film but are increasingly closed as the end approaches. Shot in black-and-white by Léonce-Henri Burel — Bresson wouldn’t make his first color film until 1969’s Un femme douce — Pickpocket also has elements of film noir that combine with a visual intimacy to create a moody, claustrophobic feeling that hovers over and around Michel and the story. It’s a mesmerizing performance in a mesmerizing film, one of the finest of Bresson’s remarkable, and remarkably influential, career. In a scheduling quirk, Pickpocket is screening on July 30 at two different locations in the city. First, at 12:30, 4:00, and 7:30, it will be shown at FIAF, concluding the CinémaTuesdays series “Highlights of Cannes Film Festival with Gilles Jacob,” consisting of works chosen by festival president Jacob in honor of the glamorous event’s sixty-fifth anniversary. Also at 7:30, it will be presented at the IFC Center by writer-director Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Affliction), who called the film “an unmitigated masterpiece” in his extensive 1969 two-part review in the Los Angeles Free Press and told Sheila Johnston in a 2003 interview for the Telegraph, “I adore Pickpocket and can watch it endlessly. To me it’s as close to perfect as there can be.”

A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM

U.S. Grant National Memorial Park
West 122nd St. at Riverside Dr.
Sunday, July 28, free, 12 noon – 8:30 pm
877-427-5364
www.harlemweek.com

On Sunday, July 28, “A Great Day in Harlem” kicks off the annual Harlem Week festivities, a month of free events including live music, film screenings, community fairs, a college expo, and more. This year’s theme is “Living the Dream: Celebrating History,” paying tribute to the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. “A Great Day in Harlem” takes place in U.S. Grant National Memorial Park, featuring a cultural showcase with music and dance at 1:00, a gospel caravan at 3:00, and a fashion fusion showcase at 5:00, followed by “A Concert under the Stars: Songs in the Key of Life,” a salute to Stevie Wonder’s seminal 1976 Motown classic, led by Ray Chew & the Harlem Music Festival All-Stars with special guests. Harlem Week continues through August 24 with such other events as Great Jazz on the Great Hill in Central Park, the Tri-State Junior Tennis Classic in Mill Pond Park, Summer in the City with Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Contours, and the ImageNation Outdoor Film Festival in St. Nicholas Park, the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in Marcus Garvey Park, the 5K Anti-Gun Violence Walk for Peace, and much more.