Clarina Bezzola’s “When I Walk Alone in the Streets” greets visitors at the Austrian Cultural Forum (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd St. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
Wednesday, October 19, free, RSVP required at 212-319-5300 ext222, 6:30
Walls and Bridges festival continues through October 28
Beauty Contest exhibition continues daily through January 3, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.acfny.org
www.wallsandbridges.net/en
Featuring works by twenty international artists, “Beauty Contest” examines the ever-evolving nature of what is considered beautiful in today’s society. Pieces by Cindy Sherman, Kalup Linzy, Rashaad Newsome, Anna Jermolaewa, Katarina Schmidl, Evangelia Kraniot, and others look at the concept of beauty from a multitude of different angles, often incorporating humor to make their point. For example, it’s hard not to initially smile upon first encountering Clarina Bezzola’s “When I Walk Alone in the Streets,” which greets visitors to the Austrian Cultural Forum with an enormous hand and teeth, but there’s more to it than just its big, bold colors. On October 19, dance writer Gia Kourlas will host the panel discussion “Human Beauty and Its Social Construction” at ACFNY, with François Chaignaud, Jon-Jon Goulian, Silke Grabinger, and Gressett Salette talking about beauty and its preconceptions, followed by a performance by Chaignaud and Grabinger. The event is part of the semiannual Walls and Bridges festival, ten days of “transatlantic insights” gathered this time under the theme of “Infinite Affinities.” The festival continues through October 28 with such programs as “The Actual Lives of Catherine Millet and Robert Storr” at FIAF on October 20 (free, 7:30), “Screening Identities: Danny Glover in Conversation with Manthia Diawara” at the Invisible Dog on October 22 (free, 3:30), “Please Kill Me: A Punk Musical Show” by Mathieu Bauer at the Invisible Dog on October 23 (free, 6:30), “Sonic Affinities: A Piano Performance by Jay Gottlieb” at the New School on October 24 (free, 8:30), and “The Space-Time Continuum: What the Future Has in Store for Human Beings” with Étienne Klein at the New York Public Library on October 26 ($15-$25, 7:00).
Much like the end of the silent film era itself, the last horse-drawn trolley is doomed in Harold Lloyd’s final silent film. Big business is playing dirty trying to get rid of the trolley and classic old-timer Pop Dillon. Meanwhile, Harold “Speedy” Swift, a dreamer who wanders from menial job to menial job (he makes a great soda-jerk with a unique way of announcing the Yankees score), cares only about the joy and wonder life brings. But he’s in love with Pop’s granddaughter, Jane, so he vows to save the day. Along the way, he gets to meet Babe Ruth. Ted Wilde was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director, Comedy, for this thrilling nonstop ride through beautiful Coney Island and the pre-depression streets of New York City. A restored 35mm print of Speedy is being shown October 16 at 3:00 at the Museum of the Moving Image with live accompaniment by pianist Donald Sosin, preceded by an illustrated lecture about the making of the movie by film historian John Bengtson, author of Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd (Santa Monica Press, May 2011, $27.95), and will be followed by a book signing.
Created by an overflow of the Colorado River in 1905, the highly salinic Salton Sea became a fashionable vacation destination in the 1950s, “the new recreational capital of the world,” as archival footage announces at the beginning of Alma Har’el’s feature-length documentary, Bombay Beach. “The future is now,” a promotional film proclaims, but over the years the “miracle sea in the desert” has instead come to represent the underside of the American dream. Currently an environmental disaster resembling a postapocalyptic landscape, the area is home to a motley crew of people just trying to get by. Har’el, a video director for such bands as Beirut, focuses her handheld camera on three protagonists: Red, a grizzled old white man who makes money by purchasing cigarettes at a nearby Indian reservation and selling them for a profit to his friends and neighbors and who doesn’t hide his racist upbringing; CeeJay, a black high school student who left the gang-ridden streets of South Central L.A. for Bombay Beach, where he hopes to star on the football team and make it to the NFL; and Benny Parrish, a young white boy who is fed medications to control his mood swings and whose parents recently served time for various weapons charges. Har’el intercuts scenes of the community’s daily life, from heartwarming stories to invasive moments, with choreographed dance vignettes that range from charming to manipulative, set to original music by Beirut’s Zach Condon and two songs by Bob Dylan. Har’el’s cinema verité style sometimes feels like it’s straining its neck out the window, gazing on a car wreck on the highway as it tells the story of these very poor people who have extremely limited resources, education, and access to health care. Winner of the Best Documentary Feature award at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, Bombay Beach opens October 14 at the IFC Center, where Har’el will attend the 8:20 shows on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night.
After working for two years on a film about global interdependence and connectedness in the internet age, award-winning documentarian Tiffany Shlain (Yelp: With Apologies to Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, The Tribe, Less Is Moore) realized that she did not feel connected to her material. So she turned inward, deciding to instead focus her camera on her close relationship with her father, Leonard Shlain, a successful surgeon and author of such books as The Alphabet vs. the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image and Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light. In an ironic twist of fate, Dr. Shlain, whose writings examined the different functions of the left and right brain in humans, was diagnosed with brain cancer. At the same time, his daughter, after five miscarriages, was desperately trying to make one final attempt to get pregnant as her forties approached. (She already had a daughter with her husband, Ken Goldberg.) This life-and-death dichotomy lies at the heart of Tiffany Shlain’s moving, deeply personal story, exactingly told in her feature-length debut, Connected. Shlain includes scenes from her original concept, highly illustrative and scientific examinations of the human species’ growing addiction to computers and cell phones, narrated by Peter Coyote, alongside animation, archival footage, lots of Harold Lloyd clips, and home movies, holding nothing back as she shares intensely personal details about her family and herself. While the idea that technology has given humans the ability to become more connected around the world is nothing new, Shlain’s intimate exploration is affecting nonetheless. Founder of the Webby Awards, Shlain, who currently observes a technology Shabbat, turning off all electronic equipment every Saturday, has organized a series of special events at the Angelika, where Connected is scheduled to run October 14-20, with Q&As following select screenings nearly every day. Among the participants who will be looking at various aspects of technology and culture are Todd Oldham and Anna Deavere Smith (October 14, 7:15), Jennie Livingston (October 15, 4:40), Reboot, Jumpstart, Natan, and Heeb magazine (October 15, 7:15), Rachel Sklar (October 16, 7:15), Peter Crosby (October 17, 4:40), Ted Hope (October 19, 4:40), Paul Levinson (October 19, 7:15), and Benjamin Barber (October 20, 7:15).
