MLK Day features a host of special events and community-based service projects throughout the city (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Multiple venues
Monday, January 21
www.mlkday.gov
In 1983, the third Monday in January was officially recognized as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, honoring the birthday of the civil rights leader who was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Dr. King would have turned eighty-four this month, and you can celebrate his legacy tomorrow by participating in a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service project or attending one of several special events taking place around the city. BAM’s twenty-seventh annual free Brooklyn Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. includes a keynote speech by Harry Belafonte, a live simulcast of the presidential inauguration activities, and musical performances by the Brooklyn Interdenominational Choir and Kindred the Family Soul. The JCC in Manhattan again teams up with Symphony Space for Artists Celebrate: Martin Luther King, Jr., a free evening consisting of Catherine Russell & Her Band performing “Civil Rights in Song and Spirit,” Anthony Russell, Anthony Coleman, and Michael Winograd coming together for “Convergence: Hebrew, Yiddish, Yemenite, and African-American Songs in a Contemporary Jazz Setting,” and April Yvette Thompson starring in excerpts from Liberty City, her play written with Jessica Blank, all taking place at Symphony Space beginning at 6:30. The Museum of the Moving Image will be open on MLK Day, screening Martha Burr and Mei-Juin Chen’s new documentary, The Black Kungfu Experience, as part of their “Fist and Sword” series, with martial artists Ron Van Clief, Tayari Casel, and Dennis Brown on hand to talk about the film, followed by the special presentation “Tongues Untied, True Tales Told: African-American Women Changing the Picture in Film and Television,” with Ruby Dee, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Barbara Montgomery, featuring discussion along with clips from Montgomery’s upcoming Mitote as part of the museum’s “Changing the Picture” series. The Children’s Museum of Manhattan will teach kids about King’s legacy with its “Make a Difference Pledge,” “I Have a Dream Mural,” and performances by the Harlem Gospel Choir, while the Brooklyn Children’s Museum has “Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Message of Peace” craft activity and an educational discussion of “Justice Everywhere.” And the Museum at Eldridge Street will be hosting a free Family Story Hour & Crafts highlighted by a reading of Eloise Greenfield and Jan Spivey Gilchrist’s picture book The Great Migration: Journey to the North.
In 2004-5, Christopher Trumbo’s play Trumbo: Red, White, and Blacklisted, based on the writings of his father, jailed Hollywood Ten screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo (1905-76), toured the country, a staged reading directed by Peter Askin and starring such actors as Nathan Lane, Joe Mantegna, Bill Irwin, Brian Dennehy, and F. Murray Abraham in the title role. Christopher and Askin turned the show into a documentary film, with decidedly mixed results. Although Trumbo’s letters are works of art on their own, funny and incisive, biting and cynical, with a wry, dry sense of humor that summarizes the social and political climate of the cold war era, they lose much of their power when read overdramatically onscreen by Dennehy, Josh Lucas, Paul Giamatti, and others. The camera will linger on Michael Douglas or David Strathairn as they contemplate what they have just read, adding an unnecessary sense of seriousness and importance. It is almost impossible to concentrate on Trumbo’s words as you wonder why Joan Allen was selected, whether Liam Neeson should have tried an American accent, how long and white Donald Sutherland’s hair is, or how many sly gestures Lane will make as he relates a riotous treatise on onanism. Interviews with such friends and colleagues as Manny Azenberg, Kate Lardner, Kirk Douglas, and Trumbo’s children, Christopher and Mitzi, dig deeper into the kind of man Trumbo was, along with archival footage of Trumbo on talk shows, in home movies, and telling the House Un-American Committee to go to hell. Askin tries so hard to focus on the actual words of the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind such classics as Johnny Got His Gun, Roman Holiday, Spartacus, Exodus, and Papillon that he ends up obscuring the portrait as a whole. But oh, what words they are. Trumbo will be screening January 22 at the IFC Center as part of the Tuesday-night series “Stranger than Fiction,” with Askin on hand to participate in a Q&A. The series continues through February 26 with such other documentaries as Neil Barsky’s Koch, Amy Nicholson’s Zipper: Coney Island’s Last Wild Ride, and Terence Nance’s An Oversimplification of Her Beauty.
“What’s up with this song? So kitschy, yet so profound,” director and narrator Roberta Grossman says at the beginning of her rollicking documentary, Hava Nagila (The Movie). “And what’s the deal with the chair?” A staple at Jewish celebrations, primarily weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs, “Hava Nagila” instantly gets friends and family members out on the dance floor, forming a circle and doing the Hora. Grossman delves into the history and mystery of the catchy song, which over the years has been performed by an unlikely crew that has included Harry Belafonte, Connie Francis, Glen Campbell, Johnny Yune, and Regina Spektor, all of whom appear in the film and discuss the tune’s popularity. (There are also archival performances from all around the world as well as an anti-“Hava” song from Bob Dylan.) Also putting “Hava Nagila” into perspective are Yiddish theater veteran Leonard Nimoy, communications professor Josh Kun, and KlezKamp founder Henry Sapoznik, a “Hava” hater who says with a more than a touch of cynicism, “It’s relentless. It’s resilient. But then again, so are cockroaches,” a statement that exemplifies Grossman’s playful attitude, exemplified by her corny captioning and clever clips from such TV shows and movies as Laugh-In, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Danny Kaye Show, A Serious Man, Wedding Crashers, History of the World Part I, and Fiddler on the Roof. But she also reveals another side to the song, as described by professor James Loeffler, who explains, “‘Hava’ is a portal into a century and a half of Jewish history.” Grossman ( Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh) sets off on what she calls a “Hava Quest,” venturing to the village of Sadagora in Ukraine, the birthplace of the song, and later meeting with two warring families battling over authorship of the words and music. She traces its impact on the development of the State of Israel and the Jewish migration to suburban America, and, yes, she lays out precisely what the words of the song mean. Like the song itself, Hava Nagila (The Movie) is a fun and fanciful frolic into the fascinating story behind one of the most famous songs that so many know so little about. Hava Nagila, which opens March 1 at Lincoln Plaza, is screening January 15 at the twenty-second annual New York Jewish Film Festival, presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, with Grossman on hand to participate in a Q&A following the show.
Mikael Buch’s Let My People Go! is a charmingly wacky, unpredictable comedy that is filled with fun cinematic references, with the first-time feature-film director openly paying tribute to his many influences with an infectious glee. Nicolas Maury stars as Ruben, a French Jew living in Finland with his lover, Teemu (Jarkko Niemi). On his route one day, Ruben attempts to deliver a package to Monsieur Tilikainen (Kari Väänänen), who refuses to accept it once he sees that it contains a whole ton of money. As he suffers a heart attack on his front lawn, he wills the cash to Ruben, who initially doesn’t want it but eventually accepts it. But when he tells Teemu what happened, the incensed Teemu throws him out for having taken the money while leaving the old man dying on the grass. With nowhere else to go, Ruben returns to his crazy family in Paris, where he learns disturbing stories about his mother (Almodóvar regular Carmen Maura) and father (longtime French actor Jean-François Stévenin), his sister (Amira Casar) is in the midst of an ugly fight with her Palestinian-supporting goy husband, and his macho brother (Clément Sibony) is prepared to do whatever it takes to protect the crazy clan. Meanwhile, a distraught Ruben is offered a job in the family dry-cleaning business and gets entangled in an unfortunate sexual tug-of-war with respected lawyer and community leader Maurice Goldberg (Jean-Luc Bideau). Referencing a wide range of filmmakers including Jacques Demy, Wes Anderson, Woody Allen, Douglas Sirk, Vincente Minnelli, and Pedro Almodóvar, Buch and cowriter Christophe Honoré (Ma mère, Love Songs) have a grand old time with the oddball goings-on, which often go way too over the top or are too silly for their own good, but Maury manages to keep it all together with his sad-sack faces and physical comedy, evoking both silent movies and Hollywood musicals. Céline Bozon’s cinematography and Gwendal Bescond’s production designer, particularly in the candy-colored suburban fantasy world of Finland, continues the madness. Buch, who is still in his twenties, was born in France and raised in Taiwan and Barcelona, a diverse background echoed in the many cultural clashes and varied elements depicted in Let My People Go! The film opens January 11 at the Quad, with Buch on hand to participate in Q&As following the 7:20 shows on Friday and Saturday.