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

THE AUTOMAT

Audrey Hepburn grabs a bite at the Automat in New York City (photo by Lawrence Fried, 1951)

THE AUTOMAT (Lisa Hurwitz, 2021)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Opens Friday, February 18
212-727-8110
filmforum.org
automatmovie.com

New Yorkers are used to saying goodbye to iconic institutions, from the old Penn Station and Ebbets Field to the Carnegie Deli and the Stork Club. One of the hardest to bid farewell to was a most unusual eatery that catered to anyone who had a couple of nickels and time for a quick lunch or dinner: the Automat, a type of self-service restaurant that flourished in New York City and Philadelphia, predominantly during the first six decades of the twentieth century.

At the beginning of Lisa Hurwitz’s thoroughly satisfying yet elegiac debut documentary, The Automat, comedian Mel Brooks tells her, “I’m going to give you what I can in terms of time and effort, and I’ll try to write the song.” He continues, “I suggest you do some narration at the beginning to frame what you’re going to talk about. You know, with pictures — do you have enough pictures of Automats?”

Hurwitz has plenty of pictures of Automats and just the right narrator to open the film, Brooks himself, who explains, “Of course, when you say ‘Automat,’ or ‘Horn & Hardart,’ very few people know what you’re talking about. But one of the greatest inventions in insane centers of paradise were these places that had little glass windows framed in brass with knobs, and if you put two nickels into the slot next to the windows, the windows would open up, and you could take out a piece of lemon meringue pie for ten cents and you could eat it.”

Brooks is one of many people who more than just enjoyed going to the Automat; for them, it was an integral part of their lives, a place to gather with friends, colleagues, and family, schmooze a bit, and have a cheap but good meal. From 1902 to 1991, the Automat served young and old, rich and poor; race, religion, politics — none of that mattered in the egalitarian spaces.

The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg recalls, “Yes, this is the great USA, with people of all different colors, and religions, and manner of dress, and yet we are all together.” The late Secretary of State Colin Powell notes, “All the Automats had that beautiful diversity that didn’t exist in most of the rest of the country, of economic standing, of color, of ethnicity, of language. You never knew what you’d run into in an Automat.” Among the others waxing poetic about the Automat are Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould, former Philly mayor Wilson Goode, and former Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz, who says, “The Automat for me was a seminal moment in my childhood, and I became a merchant the day that I was in that Automat.” Brooks declares, “The Automat had panache.”

Made over the course of seven years, the film also features interviews with Lorraine Diehl and Marianne Hardart, authors of The Automat: The History, Recipes, and Allure of Horn & Hardart’s Masterpiece; former Automat VP of engineering John Romas; Edwin K. Daly Jr., whose father was president of Horn & Hardart from 1937 to 1960; New York City historian Lisa Keller; H&H architect Roy Rosenbaum; architectural dealer and restorer Steve Stollman, who bought a lot of the old mechanisms when the restaurants closed; and historian Alec Shuldiner, whose PhD dissertation inspired Hurwitz to make the film.

Mel Brooks sings the praises of the Automat in loving documentary (photo by Carl Reiner)

There are tons of great photos and film clips in the documentary, including shots of Audrey Hepburn, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Jackie Gleason, Donna Reed, Abbott & Costello, and James Dean at the Automat and scenes from That Touch of Mink, The Bob Hope Show, The Flintstones, Warner Bros. cartoons A Hare Grows in Manhattan and Tree Cornered Tweety, Candid Camera, and such old movies as The Early Bird, No Limit, and Thirty Day Princess. Jack Benny hosts an opening there, giving out nickels to his guests. The Irving Berlin and Moss Hart musical Face the Music begins with the song “Lunching at the Automat.”

Hurwitz also deals with socioeconomic change that helped make the Automat so popular after the Great Depression and through both wars and, later, led to its downfall. The sentimental attachment everyone has for the Automat in the film is contagious, even if you never had the baked beans, ham and cheese sandwich, or creamed spinach; it was a special place to so many through several generations, and Hurwitz captures those sentimental feelings with panache while leaving you with an ache in your heart and stomach — and a song from Mel Brooks. The Automat opens February 18 at Film Forum, with Hurwitz participating in Q&As on Friday at 7:00, Saturday at 7:30, and Sunday at 5:40.

THE UNMAKING OF A COLLEGE: THE STORY OF A MOVEMENT

Students occupy offices in documentary The Unmaking of a College

THE UNMAKING OF A COLLEGE: THE STORY OF A MOVEMENT (Amy Goldstein, 2021)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, February 11
www.ifccenter.com

“One can worry that if Hampshire is failing, what does that mean for liberal arts education in general?” Sloan Foundation president Adam Falk asks in Amy Goldstein’s passionate documentary, The Unmaking of a College: The Story of a Movement. A graduate of the innovative, experimental independent Hampshire College, which opened its doors in 1970, Goldstein follows a months-long sit-in orchestrated by students upon learning that the institution was in danger of closing.

On January 15, 2019, new college president Miriam “Mim” Nelson sent out a letter advising of an important meeting being held in forty-nine minutes. At that meeting, which many people could not attend because of the late notice, she announced that the school was looking for a “strategic partner” and that there was likely going to be no incoming class in the fall. Students, teachers, and even members of the board of directors took action, demanding answers. When none came, the students occupied several offices, including Nelson’s, as they crusaded for their rights, attempting to save the liberal arts college, which had a relatively low endowment and relied primarily on tuition, which was high.

Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco explains, “We are about to see a great shrinkage in the number of colleges and universities in this country because only the wealthiest will be able to survive. And it’s inevitable, I think, that fragile colleges are going to face the possibility of going out of business.”

Among the students Goldstein talks to are Marlon Becerra; Cheyenne Palacio-McCarthy; Andrew Gordon; Moon West; Annie Wood; Joshua Berman, who took extensive footage of various events and gatherings; and Rhys MacArthur, who works in the admissions office. They are often photographed in front of a large screen with campus footage projected over them, evoking how all-encompassing the situation is; they are not just battling for their education but for their future careers and life.

“Students have always been a huge part of how this college runs. I remember occupying the president’s office, but I don’t remember why. I mean, that’s just in our blood,” Hampshire alum and master documentarian Ken Burns notes. “At one point it seemed like the story is that Hampshire College is dead. I am happy to say that rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated.”

Nelson doesn’t back down even as the press gets hold of the story and some questionable behind-the-scenes negotiations are revealed. Sitting on the floor of her office, surrounded by students, Nelson tells them, “I just have to say, I feel like I’m in an alternative universe here. I am working so f’ing hard. I am fighting like you can’t even imagine to maintain our independence. It’s critical. So I’m looking at all of these things.”

Student Nya Johnson immediately responds, “You get paid to work f’ing hard. So work. Do your work. We pay you to do this. I don’t know; I’m just confused. What alternative universe are you living in?”

Hampshire has a history of activism and providing students with a nontraditional education. Fear of a merger with one of its sister schools, Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, or UMass, worries students and faculty; professors are concerned with what would happen to them, particularly as potential layoffs loom. However, as Hampshire professor Salman Hameed declares about Nelson, “She picked the wrong college to mess with.”

Hampshire College president Miriam “Mim” Nelson finds herself under fire in Amy Goldstein doc

Goldstein (Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl, Self-Made Men) also speaks with Hampshire Gazette reporter Dusty Christensen, Science magazine editor in chief Holden Thorp, former college president Adele Simmons, lead fundraiser Cheri Butler, and Hampshire board of trustees member Mingda Zhao, who each offers a unique perspective on the conflict.

Hampshire professor Margaret Cerullo writes an article for The Nation detailing what is happening; she titles it “The Unmaking of a College: Notes from Inside the Hampshire Runaway Train,” a riff on the school’s original manifesto, The Making of a College. Yale School of Management associate dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld announces, “This was very badly handled.” The only person who speaks up for Nelson is Hampshire alum and conservative Subject Matter PR firm CEO John Buckley, who was hired by Nelson to help handle the crisis. “I saw a woman who was trying to do the right thing who got caught and made some mistakes, and then everything unraveled really, really badly,” he says.

Hampshire’s motto is “Non satis scire” — “To know is not enough.” The students’ nonviolent campaign for transparency, involvement, and agency, to know the truth and be part of the solution, is inspiring; many of them are learning lessons that will help them on their life’s journey while also finding out there can be lies and betrayal on that road. In many ways, the film serves as a primer for the future as the next generation prepares to eventually take over a torn and tattered America — and it all begins with education.

The Unmaking of a College: The Story of a Movement opens February 11 at IFC Center; Goldstein will be on hand for a Q&A with some of the film’s subjects following the 7:50 show.

GALERIE LELONG — DIALOGUES: ETEL ADNAN’S DISCOVERY OF IMMEDIACY

Etel Adnan, Découverte de l’immédiat 16, oil on canvas, 2021 (photo courtesy Galerie Lelong)

Who: Carla Chammas, Dawn Chan, Jina Khayyer, Mary Sabbatino
What: Live, virtual discussion about artist Etel Adnan
Where: Galerie Lelong & Co. online
When: Saturday, February 12, free with advance RSVP, noon
Why: In the summer of 2021, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist interviewed artists and longtime partners Etel Adnan and Simone Fattal at their summer home in Erquy, France, prior to their upcoming shows at Art Basel. At one point Adnan, who was born in 1925 in Beirut, said, “My last book [Shifting the Silence] is about realizing that I am going to die. It’s different to know and to feel it, and it’s as if life happens in silence. There is behind the noise of daily life a silence that we hear, another noise, a shifting silence. This silence has changed the focus of consciousness. That’s my last book.” Adnan, who had continued working through the pandemic and was a celebrated poet as well as a visual artist, passed away that November at the age of ninety-six. Her extraordinary career will be the focus of the latest free “Galerie Lelong: Dialogues” virtual discussion, taking place February 12 at 12:30; the talk features gallerist and curator Carla Chammas, art critic and writer Dawn Chan, and writer, poet, and journalist Jina Khayyer; Galerie Lelong vice president/partner Mary Sabbatino will moderate the conversation.

Etel Adnan, Erquy the Edge, India ink on booklet, 2021 (photo courtesy Galerie Lelong)

The gallery’s New York City and Paris locations are currently showing “Discovery of Immediacy,” on view in Chelsea through February 19. The exhibition consists of new black-and-white oil paintings and leporello, folded paper works. “The leporello is a journey,” Adnan told Obrist. “When you start a leporello, it’s like getting on a boat — you have a journey in front of you and that’s what’s beautiful. In the middle of a leporello you are afraid of making a mistake because you would have to throw everything away. You have to invest in the work and you have to keep a tension. It’s like composing music, [maintaining] a rhythm — that’s the work of the leporello, not to fall into a hole, to continue like when you are surfing, to hold the wave.” The colorful Guggenheim retrospective “Etel Adnan: Light’s New Measure,” which included color paintings and a bonus of several films, recently closed, but it is sure to come up as well as we all try to hold the wave.

THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES — EDMUND de WAAL AND E. RANDOL SCHOENBERG IN CONVERSATION

Edmund de Waal will talk about his book and accompanying exhibition in free, virtual Jewish Museum program (photo by Iwan Baan)

Who: Edmund de Waal, E. Randol Schoenberg
What: Live virtual discussion about book and exhibit
Where: JewishGen Talks online
When: Wednesday, February 9, free with advance RSVP (donations accepted), 2:00
Why: “It is not just things that carry stories with them. Stories are a kind of thing, too. Stories and objects share something, a patina,” Edmund de Waal writes in his 2010 memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance. When ceramicist de Waal inherited his family’s netsuke collection, consisting of hundreds of miniature objects, he did a deep dive into the history of the Ephrussi clan, turning it into a bestselling book. Now the story behind his family and the netsuke is on view at the Jewish Museum through May 15. The fabulous show features paintings, letters, photographs, personal documents, keepsakes, and several vitrines containing hundreds of tiny items made of wood, ivory, or bronze, ranging from mice, monkeys, fish, rats, and nuts to spirits, demon catchers, gods, masks, and bottles. A woman takes a bath. A boy exposes himself. A snake wraps around a lotus leaf. A sea woman suckles an octopus. An eji stretches.

“The Hare with Amber Eyes” is on view at the Jewish Museum through May 15 (photo by Iwan Baan)

On the audio guide, de Waal quotes from the prologue, “I want to know what the relationship has been between this wooden object that I am rolling between my fingers — hard and tricky and Japanese — and where it has been. I want to be able to reach to the handle of the door and turn it and feel it open. I want to walk into each room where this object has lived, to feel the volume of the space, to know what pictures were on the walls, how the light fell from the windows. And I want to know whose hands it has been in, and what they felt about it and thought about it — if they thought about it at all. I want to know what it has witnessed.”

On February 9 at 2:00, de Waal will discuss the book, his family history, and the exhibit with attorney, philanthropist, and genealogist E. Randol Schoenberg; the free, virtual event is sponsored by the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, the Jewish Museum, and the Leo Baeck Institute. You can check out an earlier Jewish Museum conversation between de Waal and Adam Gopnik, about de Waal’s 2021 book, Letters to Camondo, here.

COMPANY: KATRINA LENK, PATTI LuPONE & CHRIS HARPER

Who: Katrina Lenk, Patti LuPone, Chris Harper, Jessica Shaw
What: Virtual discussion about current Broadway revival of Company
Where: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center online
When: Thursday, February 10, free with advance RSVP, 12:30
Why: In my review of the current, controversial revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s beloved Company, I wrote, “Two-time Tony winner Marianne Elliott has reconceptualized Company in ways that go beyond mere gender switching and diverse casting; this Company emphasizes individuality, confinement, isolation, and fear through magnificent staging.” You can hear what some of the key participants have to say about the show when the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center hosts a live, virtual discussion with Tony and Grammy winner Katrina Lenk (The Band’s Visit, Indecent), who plays Bobby, previously always portrayed as a man; two-time Tony and two-time Grammy winner Patti LuPone (Evita, Gypsy), who delivers the classic “Ladies Who Lunch”; and Olivier-winning producer Chris Harper (Elliott’s War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time). SiriusXM’s Jessica Shaw will moderate the free talk.

DAVID BYRNE AND JOHN WILSON — HOW WE LEARNED ABOUT NON-RATIONAL LOGIC: A CONVERSATION ON HUMOR AND BOOKMAKING

John Wilson talks with David Byrne about his latest Pace show and new book on February 7

Who: David Byrne, John Wilson
What: Live virtual discussion
Where: Pace Gallery, 540 West Twenty-Fifth St., Pace Gallery YouTube
When: Monday, February 7, free (online), 7:00
Why: In his endlessly creative and fun HBO docuseries How To with John Wilson, Astoria native John Wilson uses footage shot all around New York City to delve into such issues as small talk, scaffolding, memory improvement, finding a parking spot, and making the perfect risotto. In his endlessly creative and fun career, British-born musician, singer, playwright, and visual artist David Byrne has made albums (solo and with Talking Heads), given concerts, directed films, and had gallery shows; currently, his brilliant American Utopia continues on Broadway at the St. James Theatre through April 3, and his latest exhibition, “How I Learned About Non-Rational Logic,” is running at Pace’s Twenty-Fifth St. space through March 19. The show consists of several series of drawings Byrne has done over the last twenty years, including his unusual depictions of dingbats sketched during the pandemic. (He describes his fascination with dingbats here.)

Byrne and Wilson have previously collaborated on the 2015 true crime concert documentary Temporary Color; they now will sit down together for a discussion at Pace in conjunction with the publication of Byrne’s new book, A History of the World (in Dingbats) (Phaidon, March 9, $39.95). “How We Learned About Non-Rational Logic: A Conversation on Humor and Bookmaking” takes place in person at Pace, where attendees will receive a signed copy of the book; the event will also be streamed for free over YouTube. “This idea of non-rational logic was not something I made up, but I realized that it kind of resonated with both the fact that I make music and the fact that these drawings follow a kind of logic that isn’t kind of based on logical or rational thinking,” Byrne notes in the above behind-the-scenes video. There should be plenty of such non-rational logic in what promises to be a very funny and illuminating talk.

NYC’S MOVIE RENAISSANCE 1945 – 1955

New Yorkers should be flocking to see The Naked City and other Big Apple flicks at Film Forum

NYC’S MOVIE RENAISSANCE 1945 – 1955
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Through February 10
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

In his July 2021 book “Keep ’Em in the East”: Kazan, Kubrick, and the Postwar New York Renaissance (Columbia University Press, $40), film historian Richard Koszarski details how New York City came to be a haven for making movies. “Fiorello La Guardia was the first New York mayor to realize the full significance of the motion picture industry to the city’s economic well-being. The few hundred jobs directly at stake in the late 1930s were not unimportant, but ever since the turn of the century, the movies — along with broadcasting and publishing — had also been doing something else for New Yorkers. Where the twentieth century had begun with a range of great American cities competing for world and national attention, it was now clear that modern America was no longer so flat a landscape. Now there was New York — and all those other places. Pittsburgh, Chicago, and San Francisco were all great cities, but New York was the city.”

Tony Curtis and Richard Jaeckel are two of the toughies in Maxwell Shane’s City Across the River

New York City native Koszarski will be at Film Forum to talk about a few of the films in “NYC’s Movie Renaissance 1945 – 1955,” a two-week series consisting of two dozen flicks that take place in and around Gotham, released in the ten years beginning around the end of WWII. The diverse selection ranges from noir and romcoms to musicals and courtroom dramas, psychological studies and cop stories with car chases. Among the many stars you’ll encounter are Joseph Cotten, Jennifer Jones, Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Sainte, Richard Conte, Judy Holliday, Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark, Thelma Ritter, Dana Andrews, Jane Wyatt, Frank Sinatra, Ann Miller, Vittorio Gassman, Gloria Grahame, John Garfield, Moms Mabely, and Victor Mature.

Earl McEvoy’s The Killer That Stalked New York is among the many surprises in Film Forum series

Familiar classics such as Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil, Henry Hathaway’s The House on 92nd St. and Kiss of Death, Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend, Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s On the Town, and William Dieterle’s Portrait of Jennie are joined by such lesser-known works as George Cukor’s The Marrying Kind, Maxwell Shane’s City Across the River, Earl McEvoy’s The Killer That Stalked New York, Maxwell Shane’s City Across the River, Josh Binney’s Boardinghouse Blues, cinematographer extraordinaire Ted Tetzlaff’s The Window, and Bernard Vorhaus’s incarcerated women tale So Young, So Bad with Rita Moreno and Anne Francis.

Stanley Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss is part of Film Forum series about the renaissance of NYC-set flicks

Koszarski writes about Fletcher Markle’s Jigsaw, “Interesting suggestions of widespread corruption involving the mafia, right wing vigilantes, and political power brokers who operate out of Manhattan penthouses. . . . Most of the cast consisted of unfamiliar New York faces, but Markle and [Franchot] Tone did convince quite a few of their friends to pop up in oddball cameos.” And he explains about Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin, and Ray Ashley’s absolute gem Little Fugitive, in which a young boy goes on a Coney Island adventure, its “simplicity was itself a great part of its appeal: no pointed moral, no dramatic character arc, no allegorical references to corruption, intolerance, World War II, or nuclear disarmament. Instead the audience is led on by the film’s uncanny sense of observation — not just in terms of photographic imagery but in the way ordinary New Yorkers relate to one another, solve their little problems, and go about the mundane details of their everyday lives.”

Moms Mabely stars in Josh Binney’s Boardinghouse Blues

Koszarski will introduce Joseph Lerner’s awesomely titled Guilty Bystander, featuring Zachary Scott as an ex-cop house detective, on February 2 at 6:40. Master Film Forum programmer Bruce Goldstein will introduce Jules Dassin’s genre-defining The Naked City on February 5 at 7:50, accompanied by his short personal documentary, Uncovering The Naked City, and Susan Delson, author of Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen: One Dime at a Time (Indiana University Press, December 2021, $35-$85), will present “Soundies: America for a Dime” on February 10 at 6:50, focusing on “movie jukebox” clips from Duke Ellington, Nat “King” Cole, Dorothy Dandridge, Fats Waller, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and others.