The Rubin Museum examines the pursuit of happiness with a series of cool programs through December
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
September 23 – December 21, $20 – $35 (Love Songs $85, Cabaret Cinema free with $7 bar purchase)
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org
Rubin Museum genius programmer Tim McHenry is at it again, coming up with yet another unique and fascinating series at one of the city’s most exciting institutions. “Just how happy are you?” the man behind the perennially thrilling Brainwave festival asks. “The alleviation of suffering is central to Buddhist belief; the result is a form of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is cited as an inalienable right in the Declaration of Independence; the result is what, exactly? Are we talking about the same condition?” We all want to be happy, but happiness is different for every one of us. On September 23, Happy Talk kicks off with a series of inspired pairings, as artists from a variety of disciplines sit down with scientists, philosophers, and other big-time thinkers to discuss what inner and outer, personal and public joy is all about. That first session will feature entertainment legend Elaine Stritch with Duke Institute for Brain Sciences member P. Murali Doraiswamy and will be followed by such promising duos as performance artist Laurie Anderson and Harvard psychiatry professor Daniel Gilbert, meditation expert Sharon Salzberg and visual artist Josh Melnick, Dexter star Michael C. Hall and Cambridge research psychologist Kevin Dutton, playwright Neil Labute and singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, and award-winning actress Julianne Moore and Berkeley philosophy and psychology professor Alison Gopnik, among others. As a sidebar, the Rubin’s Friday-night Cabaret Cinema turns its attention to the theme of “Happiness is…,” with Dan Kleinman introducing Woody Allen’s Annie Hall on September 21, Molly Neuman discussing Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train on September 28, and Lili Taylor talking about Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life on October 5; the series continues through December 21 with such other films that deal with various levels of unhappiness as Five Easy Pieces, 8½, The 400 Blows, Brief Encounter, South Pacific, and Grapes of Wrath. In addition, the Rubin will premiere Victress Hitchcock’s documentary When the Iron Bird Flies, which examines Tibetan Buddhism’s path around the world, October 19-24, with most screenings including special speakers. And finally, on December 7, Rosanne Cash will present “Love Songs,” an evening of music with a trio of happy musical couples: Cash and John Leventhal, Steve Earle and Allison Moorer, and Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams. Wanna know one of the things that makes us happy? Our regular visits to the Rubin Museum, which never fails to ignite our minds and put huge smiles on our faces.
On May 4, 1961, Harper Lee won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for what turned out to be her only novel and an enduring American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. A captivating tale of racism in a small southern town based on her own, the book was made into a hit film the next year starring Gregory Peck as determined lawyer and single parent Atticus Finch, garnering eight Oscar nominations and three wins, including one for Peck for Best Actor. As famous as the book and film are, very little is known about Lee, who has not given an interview since 1964 and is rarely seen in public. In Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird, documentarian Mary McDonagh Murphy sets out to uncover the story behind this mysterious figure. She speaks with Lee’s ninety-nine-year-old sister, Alice; actress Mary Badham, who played Scout in the movie; and Joy and Michael Brown, who helped Lee afford to quit her job as an airline reservation agent so she could concentrate on her book back in the late 1950s. Although they lend insight into Lee’s character and the creation of To Kill a Mockingbird, the rest of Hey, Boo consists primarily of a series of talking heads discussing what the book means to them, coming off more like a PBS special than a feature-length theatrical documentary. Murphy, who has indeed spent most of her career making television documentaries (for PBS, CNBC, and CBS), speaks with Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, Wally Lamb, Andrew Young, Rosanne Cash, Scott Turow, Richard Russo, James McBride, Anna Quindlen, Allan Gurganus, and other writers, historians, and public figures who discuss various aspects of the book, but it’s mostly filling the time the director — and the viewer — would have rather spent with Lee herself, who declined to participate. Murphy does play excerpts from the 1964 radio interview and reveals interesting tidbits about the editing process Lee and the novel went through, but there’s just not enough new information to sustain the film’s already-brief eighty-two minutes. You’re better off reading the novel again — or for the first time — if you really want to delve into its many wonders.
