Tag Archives: film forum

YASUJIRO OZU: LATE SPRING

Father (Chishu Ryu) and daughter (Setsuko Hara) contemplate their future in Yasujirō Ozu masterpiece

LATE SPRING (BANSHUN) (Yasujirō Ozu, 1949)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
July 3-5, 11:00 am
Series runs weekends through September 27
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

Yasujirō Ozu’s Late Spring marked a late spring of sorts in the Japanese auteur’s career as he moved into a new, post-WWII phase of his long exploration of Japanese family life and the middle class. Based on Kazuo Hirotsu’s novel Father and Daughter, the black-and-white film, written by Ozu with longtime collaborator Kogo Noda, tells the story of twenty-seven-year-old Noriko (Setsuko Hara), who lives at home with her widower father, Shukichi Somiya (Chishu Ryu), a university professor who has carved out a very simple existence for himself. Her aunt, Masa (Haruko Sugimura), thinks Noriko should get married, but she prefers caring for her father, who she believes would be lost without her. But when Somiya starts dropping hints that he might remarry, like his friend and colleague Jo Onodera (Masao Mishima) did — a deed that Noriko finds unbecoming and “filthy” — Noriko has to take another look at her future. Late Spring is a masterpiece of simplicity and economy while also being a complex, multilayered tale whose every moment offers unlimited rewards. From the placement and minimal movement of the camera to the design of the set to the carefully choreographed acting, Ozu infuses the work with meaning, examining not only the on-screen relationship between father and daughter but the intimate relationship between the film and the viewer. Ozu, who never married, has a firm grasp on the state of the Japanese family as some of the characters try to hold on to old-fashioned culture and tradition while recovering from the war’s devastation and facing the modernism that is taking over.

LATE SPRING is part of summer-long festival at the IFC Center celebrating the work of director Yasujirō Ozu

Hara, who also starred as a character named Noriko in Ozu’s Early Summer and Tokyo Story, is magnificent as a young woman averse to change, forced to reconsider her supposed happy existence. And Ryu, who appeared in more than fifty Ozu films, is once again a model of restraint as the father, who only wants what is best for his daughter. Working within the censorship code of the Allied occupation and playing with narrative cinematic conventions of time and space, Ozu, who died on his birthday in 1963 at the age of sixty, examines such dichotomies as marriage and divorce, the town and the city, parents and children, the changing roles of men and women in Japanese society, and the old and the young as postwar capitalism enters the picture, themes that are evident through much of his oeuvre. In his 1977 book Ozu: His Life and Films, historian, director, and writer Donald Richie wrote, “For him the givens of his pictures were indeed so everyday that, once decided upon, he neither considered nor questioned their effect. This was shown by his surprise that anyone would want to ask questions about his material and his methods, and by his indifference, even obliviousness, to the many similarities among his pictures. Not in the slightest doctrinaire, he early found a way to show what he wanted and saw no reason to change.” A masterpiece from start to finish, Late Spring is screening in a 35mm print at the IFC Center July 3-5; the series continues through September 27 with such other Ozu works as What Did the Lady Forget?, Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, Record of a Tenement Gentleman, and Tokyo Twilight.

GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR — FROM GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE AND BEYOND: THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD

Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn capture each other’s fancy in one of the grandest adventure movies ever made

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (Michael Curtiz, 1938)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Monday, June 22, 4:30
Series runs through August 5
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

With King Richard the Lionheart (Ian Hunter) off fighting the Crusades, his scheming brother, Prince John (Claude Rains), has taken over England, planning to become king with the help of the conniving Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) and the cowardly Sheriff of Nottingham (Melville Cooper). But one brave man stands in his way, “an impudent, reckless rogue who goes around the shire stirring up the Saxons against authority,” according to the Bishop of the Black Canons (Montagu Love). “And he has the insolence to set himself up as a protector of the people.” Sir Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn), better known as Robin Hood, is fiercely loyal to King Richard and will do anything to preserve the sanctity of the throne and fight for the rights of the common people as he occupies Sherwood Forest with his band of merry men in tights, including Will Scarlet (Patric Knowles), Little John (Alan Hale Sr.), Friar Tuck (Eugene Pallette), and Much (Herbert Mundin). He also falls for the lovely Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland), King Richard’s ward whom John promises to Gisbourne. Directed with appropriate flair and fanfare by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, Mildred Pierce) and William Keighley (Each Dawn I Die, The Man Who Came to Dinner), The Adventures of Robin Hood is a rollicking romp through the famous legend, complete with exciting fight scenes, lots of male camaraderie, and just the right touch of romance. Flynn and de Havilland, who ended up making eight films together, are magnetic as Robin Hood and Maid Marian, a classic love story mired in life-threatening danger. There have been numerous versions of Robin Hood, starring such actors as Douglas Fairbanks, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Patrick Bergin, Cary Elwes, and the voice of Brian Bedford, but there’s no Sir Robin quite like Flynn, who flits about with an endless supply of charm, humor, grace, and bravery. By the way, Marian’s horse, then known as Golden Cloud, was sold after the movie to Roy Rogers and was renamed Trigger, going on to have quite a career himself. Winner of Three Oscars (for art direction, editing, and original score — it lost Best Picture to Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It with You) — The Adventures of Robin Hood is screening on June 22 at 4:30 as part of MoMA’s “Glorious Technicolor: From George Eastman House and Beyond” series, a celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of Technicolor, which continues through August 5 with such other delights as Vincente Minnelli’s Yolanda and the Thief, Roy Rowland’s The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. with George Pal’s And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, and Curtiz’s Sons of Liberty short with The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET

Richard Widmark and Thelma Ritter talk over old times in Samuel Fuller Cold War noir

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (Samuel Fuller, 1953)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
May 29 – June 4
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

Three-time loser Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) gets more than he bargained for when he lifts femme fatale Candy’s (Jean Peters) wallet on the subway, landing him in trouble with mysterious Joey (Richard Kiley) and the Feds in Samuel Fuller’s fab Cold War noir set in New York City. “If you refuse to cooperate, you’ll be as guilty as the traitors that gave Stalin the A bomb,” the cops tell him, to which Skip classically replies, “Are you waving the flag at me?” Widmark is almost too good as Skip, a suave pickpocket who lives under the Brooklyn Bridge in an old bait and tackle shack. Sure, it gets a little melodramatic at the end, which comes too soon (the film is only eighty minutes long), but it’s worth every minute nonetheless. And yes, that is Brooklyn’s own Thelma Ritter as the curious little lady who sells ties for information, earning her fourth consecutive Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. One of Fuller’s best, Pickup on South Street is screening at Film Forum in a new 4K restoration May 29 to June 4.

THE APU TRILOGY: PATHER PANCHALI

Apu (Subir Banerjee) watches life unfold in his small Indian village in Satyajit Ray’s PATHER PANCHALI

PATHER PANCHALI (SONG OF THE LITTLE ROAD) (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
May 8-28
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

A groundbreaking work in the history of world cinema, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali and its two sequels, Aparajito and Apur Sansar, have been meticulously restored by the Criterion Collection and the Academy Film Archive following a nitrate fire in 1993 — the year after Ray was awarded an honorary Oscar on his deathbed — and now are being shown together as “The Apu Trilogy,” running May 8-28 at Film Forum. Inspired by a meeting with Jean Renoir in Kolkata, where Renoir was shooting The River, and watching ninety-nine films in six months while working as a graphic designer for an advertising agency in London, Ray decided to make his first film, adapting Bibhutibhushan Banerjee’s 1929 novel, which he knew well; Ray had contributed illustrations to a later edition of the book. The film took nearly five years to make as Ray faced repeated financing problems, such delays as cattle eating flowers that were needed for an important scene, and a cast and crew primarily of nonprofessionals. Despite all those issues, Pather Panchali is a stunning masterpiece, a bittersweet and captivating tale of a rural family mired in poverty, struggling to survive in extremely hard times. In a small village, Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee) is raising her daughter, Durga (Runki Banerjee), a rambunctious teen, and son, Apu (Subir Banerjee), while her husband, dreamer Harihar (Kanu Banerjee), a wannabe playwright and poet, goes off for months at a time, trying to find work in the city. (The actors shared a common surname but were not related in real life.) Sarbajaya is also caring for their elderly cousin, “Auntie” Indir (retired theater actress Chunibala Devi), who walks very slowly, hunched over and with impossibly leathery skin. The family goes about its business from day to day, as the kids play with friends, figure out how they can get something from the sweets man, and hang out with Auntie, who offers a fresh perspective on life. Sarbajaya is embarrassed that she cannot pay back several rupees she owes her relatively wealthy neighbor, who owns an orchard from which Durga steals fruit. It’s a meager existence, but it avoids being completely dark and bleak because of Auntie’s sense of humor and Apu’s wide-eyed innocence. The film is told from his point of view — in fact, the first time we see him, he is lying down, covered, and one of his eyes pops open, dominating the screen. It’s a difficult, challenging life, but there’s always hope.

Durga (Runki Banerjee) offers Auntie (Chunibala Devi) a stolen treat in PATHER PANCHALI

The episodic Pather Panchali was heavily influenced by Italian Neorealism while also evoking works by Ozu, Kurosawa, and Renoir, providing an alternative to the flashier, popular Bollywood style. First-time writer-director Ray and first-time cinematographer Subrata Mitra maintain a lyrical, poetic pace, accompanied by a traditional score by sitar legend Ravi Shankar. The film succeeds both as a cultural testament, lending insight into the poor of India, as well as a fully realized cinematic story; it won the country’s National Film Award for Best Feature Film while also earning Best Human Document honors at Cannes. Sarbajaya, Durga, Apu, and Auntie are almost always barefoot, wearing the same clothes, scraping the bottom of the pan with their fingers for that last grain of rice, but there’s an elegance and grace, an intoxicating honesty, to their simple, laborious daily lives. Ray would go on to make such other films as Teen Kanya, Jalsaghar, Ashani Sanket, Devi, and Agantuk, but he is most remembered for “The Apu Trilogy,” which looks absolutely gorgeous in these new 4K restorations, reaffirming its lofty place in the coming-of-age pantheon alongside François Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel series. Ray’s son, director and cinematographer Sandip Ray, who collaborated with his father on several projects, will introduce the 8:00 screening of Pather Panchali on May 8.

IRIS

Iris Apfel shows off her unique and influential fashion sense in Albert Maysles documentary (photo courtesy Magnolia Pictures)

IRIS (Albert Maysles, 2014)
Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., 212-727-8110
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway between 62nd & 63rd Sts., 212-757-2280
Opens Wednesday, April 29
www.magpictures.com
mayslesfilms.com

“I like individuality,” self-described “geriatric starlet” and nonagenarian fashion doyenne Iris Apfel says at the beginning of octogenarian Albert Maysles’s penultimate film, Iris. “It’s so lost these days. There’s so much sameness. Everything is homogenized. I hate it. Whatever.” Iris celebrates that individuality, not only Apfel’s, who at ninety-three is still active in the fashion world, but Maysles’s, who passed away in March at the age of eighty-eight, leaving behind a legendary legacy that changed the face of documentary cinema, including such classics as Salesman, Grey Gardens, and Gimme Shelter. Throughout the film, Apfel speaks directly to Maysles, who ends up on camera several times, breaking that once-impenetrable fourth wall that he, his brother, David, and their partner, Charlotte Zwerin, helped tear down years ago. Maysles spent four years filming the Queens-born Apfel as she shared her lovely story, growing from an interior designer and textile-business owner to a world-renowned fashion collector, tastemaker, and rule breaker, accompanied all along the way by her husband of more than sixty-six years, Carl. Maysles shows Iris, in her trademark enormous circular-framed glasses and unique, colorful ensembles that mix designer clothing with a healthy dose of inexpensive accessories, as she bargains at a cheap local store, advises women at a special Loehmann’s event, prepares for her 2005 show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, hawks her jewelry line on the Home Shopping Network, works on a window display at Bergdorf Goodman, and talks fashion with Martha Stewart, Tavi Gevinson, and others. Maysles interviews such designers as Alexis Bittar, Duro Olowu, Naeem Khan, and Dries van Noten, Met curator Harold Koda, Architectural Digest editor in chief Margaret Russell, and J. Crew head Jenna Lyons, who have only the most kind and generous things to say about the always positive Apfel, who has a genuine love of life. “It’s better to be happy than well dressed,” she tells friend and photographer Bruce Weber.

Nonagenarian Iris Apfel and octogenarian Albert Maysles display a love of life in IRIS (photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

Maysles also explores the Apfels’ inspiring relationship, filled with humor, a love of collecting knickknacks and tchotchkes (strewn about their cluttered apartment), and an infectious yen for trying anything and everything that life has to offer. The film concludes with Carl’s one-hundredth birthday party. Early on, Iris tells a story about one of her first jobs, toiling for Frieda Loehmann in Brooklyn. “One day she called me over and she said, ‘Young lady, I’ve been watching you.’ She said, ‘You’re not pretty, and you’ll never be pretty, but it doesn’t matter. You have something much better. You have style.’” Iris indeed has style, as this wonderful documentary extols, a marvelous tribute both to her and Carl as well as Albert Maysles. Who needs pretty when something this beautiful is what emerges? Iris opens April 29 at Lincoln Plaza and Film Forum, where it will be preceded by Vivian Ostrovsky’s fashion short, Losing the Thread. Producers Laura Coxson and Rebekah Maysles, one of Albert’s children, will be at Film Forum for the 6:20 show on April 29, while Iris herself will participate in a Q&A following the 6:20 screening on May 1 and will then introduce the 8:20 show.

STRICTLY STURGES: THE PALM BEACH STORY & THE LADY EVE

Barbara Stanwyck lures Henry Fonda into her alluring trap in THE LADY EVE

THE LADY EVE (Preston Sturges, 1941) / THE PALM BEACH STORY (Preston Sturges, 1942)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Friday, April 17, and Saturday, April 18
Series runs through April 26
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

While it’s often lumped in with classic screwball comedies, Preston Sturges’s The Lady Eve is much darker and slower than its supposed brethren. An alluring, tough-talking Barbara Stanwyck is first seen as Jean Harrington, a con artist looking to trick a wealthy man on a cruise ship. At her side is her father, “Colonel” Harrington (Charles Coburn), a gambler and a cheat. As soon as Jean sees rich ale scion Charles Pike (a wonderfully innocent Henry Fonda), she digs her claws into the shy, humble man, challenging the Hays Code as she shows off her gams and leans into him with a heart-pounding sexiness. Pike, of course, falls for her, but when his right-hand man, Muggsy (William Demarest), discovers that she regularly preys on suckers, Charles is devastated. However, in this case, Jean’s feelings might actually be real, forcing her to go to extreme circumstances to try to get him back. Stanwyck is, well, a ball of fire as Jean/Eve, determined to win at all costs. Fonda, not usually known for his comedic abilities, is a riot as poor Hopsie, as Jean calls him; the looks on his face when she ratchets up the sex appeal are priceless, and a later scene when he keeps falling down at a party displays a surprising flair for physical comedy. The film was based on an original story by Irish playwright Monckton Hoffe, who was nominated for an Oscar. The opening and closing credits feature a corny animated snake in the Garden of Eden; in The Lady Eve, Stanwyck offers the apple, and Fonda can’t wait to take a bite. And there’s nothing shameful about that.

Joel McCrea, Claudette Colbert, and Rudy Vallée are caught up in a romantic triangle in Preston Sturges’s THE PALM BEACH STORY

Writer-director Sturges was on quite a roll in the early 1940s, making a string of memorable pictures that included The Great McGinty, Christmas in July, Sullivan’s Travels, Hail the Conquering Hero, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, and The Lady Eve. In the midst of that amazing run is The Palm Beach Story, one of the craziest of the classic screwball comedies. Running out of money, married couple Tom (Joel McCrea) and Geraldine Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) are preparing to leave their ritzy Park Ave. apartment until a straight-talking, shriveled old wienie king (Robert Dudley) hands Gerry a wad of cash so she doesn’t have to move out. She pays off their many bills, but Tom is suspicious of how she got the money, demanding to know if any sex was involved, a rather risqué question for a 1942 Hays Code-era romantic comedy. Gerry decides that she is no good for Tom and insists on getting a divorce even though they still love each other. So she grabs a train to Florida, meeting the wacky Ale & Quail Club and John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallée), a kind, soft-spoken gentleman who takes a liking to her and helps her out of a jam. Things reach a manic pace as Tom heads to Palm Beach as well, trying to save the marriage while fending off the advances of the Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor). McCrea and Colbert make a great comic duo, displaying a fiery sex appeal that is still hot all these years later. What’s not hot is the film’s use of black characters, who are horribly stereotyped and are even referred to as “colored” in the credits. It might have been a different time, but there aren’t a whole lot of quality movies that were that blatant about it. In addition, the shooting scene with the Ale & Quail Club goes way over the top. But when the film focuses on Tom and Gerry, caught up in their own endlessly charming game of cat and mouse, The Palm Beach Story shines. A double feature of The Lady Eve and The Palm Beach Story is playing Film Forum on April 17 & 18 as part of “Strictly Sturges,” a two-week series, continuing through April 26, that celebrates the career of the playwright, screenwriter, and director who was born Edmund Preston Biden in Chicago in 1895 and passed away in New York City in 1959. The festival consists of all of his directorial and screenwriting efforts; among the other upcoming double features are The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero, Mad Wednesday and Never Say Die, and The Great McGinty and The Great Moment, in addition to solo screenings of Christmas in July, Sullivan’s Travels, If I Were King, and others.

DIOR AND I

Documentary follows Raf Simons as he becomes new creative director of Christian Dior

DIOR AND I (Frédéric Tcheng, 2014)
Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., 212-727-8110
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th St., 212-875-5601
Opens Friday, April 10
www.diorandimovie.com

After working on two previous fashion-related films, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel and Valentino: The Last Emperor, Frédéric Tcheng makes his solo directorial debut with Dior and I. In April 2012, fashion designer Raf Simons was named the new creative director of Christian Dior, bringing along his right-hand man, Pieter Mulier. Tcheng goes behind the scenes to follow Simons as he prepares his first-ever haute couture collection, which is due in a mere two months. Tcheng zooms in on the Belgian designer’s working methods and general anxiety as he takes over at the legendary company, developing important relationships with Dior CEO Sidney Toledano, première atelier flou Florence Chehet, première atelier tailleur Monique Bailly, the seamstresses, the models, and other employees. Simons chooses to pay homage to Dior’s past with his new collection while attempting to rid himself of the designation of “minimalist designer.” One of his most fascinating directions is attempting to incorporate the work of artist Sterling Ruby into his designs. All the while he is haunted by the ghost of company founder and New Look creator Christian Dior, who is shown by Tcheng in archival footage accompanied by a voice-over of Omar Berrada reading from Dior’s memoirs. Dior and I is a slight but affecting race against time, as one man in the present honors the past while laying the groundwork for a bright future. Dior and I opens April 10 at Film Forum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, with Tcheng and Berrada appearing at Film Forum for the 7:30 show April 10 and the 5:20 show April 11; Tcheng will also be at the Walter Reade Theater for a Q&A following the 7:00 show April 11.