Jean-Pierre Léaud stars in Jean Eustache’s New Wave epic The Mother and the Whore, screening in a new 4K restoration at the New York Film Festival
THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE (LA MAMAN ET LA PUTAIN) (Jean Eustache, 1973)
New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center
Wednesday, October 5, Walter Reade Theater, 6:15
Thursday, October 6, Howard Gilman Theater, 6:30
212-355-6160 www.filmlinc.org
Jean-Pierre Léaud gives a bravura performance in French auteur Jean Eustache’s Nouvelle Vague classic, The Mother and the Whore, about love and sex in Paris following the May 1968 cultural revolution. Léaud stars as Alexandre, a jobless, dour flaneur who rambles on endlessly about politics, cinema, music, literature, sex, women’s lib, and lemonade while living with current lover Marie (Bernadette Lafont), obsessing over former lover Gilberte (Isabelle Weingarten), and starting an affair with new lover Veronika (Françoise Lebrun), a quiet nurse with a rather open sexual nature. The film’s three-and-a-half-hour length will actually fly by as you become immersed in the complex characters, the fascinating dialogue, and the excellent cast. Much of the movie consists of long takes in which Alexandre shares his warped view of life and art in small, enclosed spaces, the static camera focusing either on him or his companion. “I’m convinced all recent happenings in the world were meant against me,” he narcissistically says.
Léaud previously appeared in Eustache’ss Le Père Noël a les yeux bleus; the director also made My Little Loves, Numéro zéro, and Une sale histoire in a career cut short by his death in 1981 at the age of forty-two. A new 4K restoration of the nearly fifty-year-old film is being shown October 5 at 6:15 and October 6 at 6:30 as part of the Revivals section of the sixtieth New York Film Festival; Lebrun and restoration producer Charles Gillibert will be at the Walter Reade for a Q&A following the October 5 screening, while Lebrun will introduce the October 6 screening at the Howard Gilman.
Who:William Shatner, Joshua Brandon, Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson What: Livestreamed discussion Where:Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center online When: Thursday, October 6, free with RSVP ($28 with a copy of the book), 7:00 Why: “I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely . . . all of that has thrilled me for years. Where matter in the universe came from, where it’s going, why it’s expanding . . . I know very little, but I know just enough about the universe to be in its thrall, in awe of its mystery.”
So writes William Shatner in his latest book, Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder (Atria, October 4, $28), which includes such essays as “We Belong Together,” “Listen to the Animals,” and “There’s Beauty in Everything.” Now ninety-one, the actor, singer, horseman, and astronaut, whose grandparents emigrated from Ukraine and Lithuania, will launch the tome in a virtual presentation from the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center on October 6 at 7:00, speaking with his coauthor, Joshua Brandon, and moderator Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson. Registration is free, or you can order the book with the RSVP for $28. “I probably say wow more now than when I was a child, and I am absolutely enchanted by that fact,” Shatner explains in the introduction. “I don’t know how not to be doing. I really would regret not giving myself a chance to experience something new and to learn in the process.” Words to live by from a living legend.
Yvonne Rainer’s “last dance” includes a pillow fight at New York Live Arts
Who: Emily Coates, Brittany Bailey, Brittany Engel-Adams, Patricia Hoffbauer, Vincent McCloskey, Emmanuèle Phuon, David Thomson, Timothy Ward, Kathleen Chalfant What:World premiere Where:New York Live Arts Theater, 219 West Nineteenth St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves. When: October 5-8, $15-$85 Why: Legendary dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, author, and activist Yvonne Rainer asks, “What about the bees?” in what she has announced will be her “last dance.” Premiering October 5-8 at New York Live Arts, “HELLZAPOPPIN’: What about the bees?” takes on systemic racism through text, movement, and live projections, including excerpts from the 1941 Hollywood musical Hellzapoppin’, a reality-busting movie melding film and theater starring Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, Martha Raye, Mischa Auer, Shemp Howard, Slim and Slam, and Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, and Jean Vigo’s highly influential 1933 antiestablishment film about boarding school, Zero for Conduct. The evening begins with a screening of Rainer’s 2002 half-hour film After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: Hybrid, which expands on a piece she choreographed for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project incorporating texts by Oscar Kokoschka, Adolf Loos, Arnold Schoenberg, and Ludwig Wittgenstein and rehearsal footage shot by Charles Atlas and Natsuko Inue.
“HELLZAPOPPIN’: What about the bees?” runs October 5-8 at NYLA
A coproduction of NYLA and Performa, “HELLZAPOPPIN’: What about the bees?” will be performed by a mix of dancers and actors, featuring Emily Coates, Brittany Bailey, Brittany Engel-Adams, Patricia Hoffbauer, Vincent McCloskey, Emmanuèle Phuon, David Thomson, Timothy Ward, and Kathleen Chalfant. Rainer also harkens back to her fictional character Apollo Musagetes, leader of the muses, who in 2020 presented “Revisions: A Truncated History of the Universe for Dummies: A Rant Dance, Lecture, and Letter to Humanity.” “I’m going to be veering back and forth between various topics: my aging self-pity, my ‘permanently recovering racism,’ my sometimes evasive appropriation of the notion that not all white people, and not all white women, are racists, and various historical and cultural reflections,” Rainer, who is now eighty-seven, said in a statement. Rainer will participate in a Stay Late conversation with Bill T. Jones following the October 6 show.
Yaya (Charlbi Dean) and Carl (Harris Dickinson) just want to keep enjoying the good life in Triangle of Sadness
TRIANGLE OF SADNESS (Ruben Östlund, 2022)
New York Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center
Saturday, October 1, Alice Tully Hall, 9:00
Sunday, October 2, Alice Tully Hall, 2:15
Monday, October 3, Walter Reade Theater, 2:30
Monday, October 3, Museum of the Moving Image, 6:00 www.filmlinc.org
About halfway through Ruben Östlund’s brilliant Palme d’Or–winning satire Triangle of Sadness, I let out a sharp, loud laugh that made the people sitting around me wonder if I was okay. I was fine, and there were many more chuckles, snickers, giggles, guffaws, howls, and snorts to come, and not just from me.
In his previous films, Force Majeure and Palme d’Or winner The Square, the Swedish auteur has shown that he never lacks for subtlety as he skewers the lifestyles of the rich but not necessarily famous, mixing fear with farce, pushing both about as far as they can go without breaking.
In Triangle of Sadness, named for the small frown of worry wrinkles between a person’s eyebrows, Östlund channels Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (the “Autumn Years” segment with Mr. Creosote), and Lina Wertmüller’s romantic class comedy Swept Away . . . by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August, resulting in an outrageously over-the-top condemnation of the privilege born of war and colonialism.
The protagonists are semi-successful male model Carl (Harris Dickinson) and female model and social media influencer Yaya (Charlbi Dean), two extremely beautiful people who are at the center of each of the three parts of the 149-minute film. In the first section, Carl auditions for a runway job and the couple argue over who is going to pick up the check after a fancy dinner. In the second chapter, they mostly enjoy their free luxury cruise aboard a yacht even when all hell breaks loose. And in the finale, they have to figure out how far they will go just to stay alive.
Along the way, they meet a fantastic mélange of characters, including vacuous fashion reporter Lewis (Thobias Thorwid), gluttonous Russian capitalist Dimitry (Zlatko Burić), toilet cleaner Abigail (Dolly de Leon), chief ship steward Paula (Vicki Berlin), ridiculously rich single man Jorma Björkman (Henrik Dorsin), ridiculously rich single woman Vera (Sunnyi Melles), ridiculously rich and demure British couple Clementine (Amanda Walker) and Winston (Oliver Ford Davies), the mysterious Nelson (Jean-Christophe Folly), and alcoholic yacht captain Thomas Smith (Woody Harrelson).
Darius (Arvin Kananian) and Captain Smith (Woody Harrelson) try to keep their balance in Palme d’Or winner
Dickinson (See How They Run,Where the Crawdads Sing) and Dean (Spud,Black Lightning) are magnetic together as flawed glitterati who exist in their own reality, until they don’t. (A star in the making, South African actress and model Dean died tragically this past August at the age of thirty-two.) Burić and Harrelson are a riot as their friendship blossoms amid booze and debates over Karl Marx, capitalism, and socialism. As a bonus, the yacht in the film is the Christina O, which was formerly owned by Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy. The rest of the large cast plays the dark humor with exquisitely calm, mannered demeanors.
Östlund, who has also written and directed Gitarrmongot,Involuntary, and Play, holds nothing back in Triangle of Sadness; the film could use a bit of trimming here and there, but that’s not his style. He puts it all out there, full steam ahead, damn the torpedoes. (The French title is Sans filtre, or “Without Filter.”) Both Force Majeure and The Square left indelible images in my head, and the same is true with his latest film, which still has me breaking out into laughter when I recall several key moments, such as Dimitry boasting, “I sell shit”; ship steward Alicia (Alicia Eriksson) trying not to say no to a demanding passenger; Captain Smith leaning sideways right before the captain’s dinner, next to his stable second in command, Darius (Arvin Kananian); and Abigail asking fellow survivors who’s in charge. It’s all so much unrelenting madness even as it hits you over the head with its political philosophy.
Triangle of Sadness screens October 1-3 at the New York Film Festival, with Östlund, de Leon, and Burić participating in Q&As following the shows on the first two days at Alice Tully Hall. The film opens in theaters October 7.
Who: Wendell Pierce, Sharon D. Clarke, André De Shields, Miranda Cromwell, Salamishah Tillet What:Panel discussion on new Death of a Salesman revival Where:Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (NYPL), 515 Malcolm X Blvd., and online When: Monday, October 3, free with RSVP, 7:00 Why: Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennehy, and Philip Seymour Hoffman have all starred as Willy Loman in Broadway productions of Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize–winning 1949 American classic, Death of a Salesman. You can now add to that prestigious list Wendell Pierce, in the latest Broadway revival, now in previews for an October 9 opening at the Hudson Theatre. The cast features Pierce and Sharon D. Clarke as Willy’s wife, Linda — both won Oliviers for their performances in the West End production — along with André De Shields as Ben, Khris Davis as Biff, and McKinley Belcher III as Happy, the first all-Black Loman family on the Great White Way.
On October 3 at 7:00, Pierce (The Wire,The Piano Lesson), Clarke (Holby City,Caroline, or Change), and Tony and Emmy winner De Shields (Hadestown,The Full Monty) will be joined by director Miranda Cromwell (Magic Elves,Pigeon English) and moderator and Pulitzer Prize winner Salamishah Tillet for a discussion at the NYPL’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; presented in conjunction with the 92nd St. Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center, the free event is being held in person and online, and advance registration is required. “So many of the elements of the play are fundamentally questioning of the American dream, and when you put that through the perspective of the Black experience, that enriches it,” Cromwell said in a statement. “The obstacles are harder, the stakes become higher.”
Lundahl & Seitl, Symphony — Tunnel Vision, performed in 2015 at Momentum 8 (photo courtesy of the artists)
Who:Lundahl & Seitl,Barbara London What:Performance and discussion Where:Scandinavia House, 58 Park Ave. at 38th St. When: Sunday, October 2, free with advance RSVP, performances 11:30 am – 1:30 pm and 4:00 – 5:30, discussion at 1:30 Why: “In times of challenge, how to find a good balance between resilience and resistance when adapting to a changing environment? How can we stay sensible for subtle yet powerful shifts in our being together? What is an acceptable level of reality, and for who/what do we make the sacrifice?” So ask immersive art duo Lundahl & Seitl in regard to their 2009 piece, Symphony of a Missing Room, which they reimagined as an app during the pandemic. On Sunday, October 2, Christer Lundahl and Martina Seitl will be at Scandinavia House to perform the work, in half-hour increments between 11:30 and 1:30 and 4:00 to 5:30; in addition, there will be a discussion at 1:30 moderated by curator and writer Barbara London, host of the Barbara London Calling podcast.
The free event is being held in partnership with the Consulate General of Sweden in New York; Lundahl & Seitl have previously performed Symphony of a Missing Room at the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm, the Akropolis Museum in Greece, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in India, and the Temple of Alternative Histories at Staatstheater Kassel in Germany, among other venues. The ever-evolving work involves white goggles as participants must reconsider their inner and outer relationships with the environment and the space they are in. Admission is free with advance RSVP.
Mark Morris Dance Group will perform Water and more at Brooklyn Bridge Park on October 1 (photo by John Eng)
Who:Mark Morris Dance Group What:Free outdoor performances Where:Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 1, Harbor View Lawn When: Saturday, October 1, free, 2:00 & 4:00, workshop at 3:00 {ed. note: This event is now canceled because of the weather] Why: Brooklyn-based favorites Mark Morris Dance Group will be in Brooklyn Bridge Park on Saturday, October 1, to present a pair of free programs on the Harbor View Lawn at Pier 1, at 2:00 and 4:00, with an all-ages workshop at 3:00. The troupe, founded in 1980 by Morris, will perform Water, a nine-minute 2021 piece for fourteen dancers set to music by George Frideric Handel; Greek to Me, a five-minute solo from 1998 set to Harry Partch’s “Two Studies on Ancient Greek Scales” from “Eleven Intrusions”; the twenty-two-minute 2007 Suite from Orfeo ed Euridice set to the score by Christoph Willibald Gluck; and the eighteen-minute 1998 work Dancing Honeymoon, featuring seven dancers in yellow and music by Ethan Iverson.
