Tag Archives: Truman Capote

LINCOLN CENTER OUT OF DOORS: A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE OF GEOFFREY HOLDER

The life of Geoffrey Holder will be celebrated at special free program at Lincoln Center

CARMEN & GEOFFREY (Linda Atkinson & Nick Doob, 2006)
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Amsterdam & Columbus Aves.
Saturday, August 1, free, 1:00
firstrunfeatures.com
lcoutofdoors.org

Carmen & Geoffrey is an endearing look at Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder’s lifelong love affair with dance — and each other. The New Orleans-born de Lavallade studied with Lester Horton and went to high school with Alvin Ailey, whom she brought to his first dance class. Best known as a pitchman for 7UP (the “uncola”) and playing the intriguing Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die, Trinidadian Holder was a larger-than-life gentle giant who was a dancer, choreographer, composer, costume designer, actor, stage director, writer, photographer, painter, and just about anything else he wanted to be. The two met when they both were cast in Truman Capote and Harold Arlen’s Broadway show House of Flowers in 1954, with Holder instantly falling in love with de Lavallade; they remained together until Holder’s death this past October at the age of eighty-four. Directors Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob combine amazing archival footage — of Eartha Kitt, Josephine Baker, Ulysses Dove, de Lavallade dancing with Ailey, and other splendid moments — with contemporary rehearsal scenes, dance performances, and interviews with such stalwarts as dance critic Jennifer Dunning, former Alvin Ailey artistic director Judith Jamison, and choreographer Joe Layton (watch out for his eyebrows), along with family members and Gus Solomons jr, who still works with de Lavallade, and Dudley Williams, who just died last month. The film was made on an extremely low budget, and it shows, but it is filled with such glorious footage that you’ll get over that quickly. Carmen & Geoffrey, along with additional rare archival footage, is screening August 1 as part of the free Lincoln Center Out of Doors program “A Celebration of the Life of Geoffrey Holder” and will be preceded by the panel discussion “The Life and Work of Geoffrey Holder” with Doob and Atkinson, moderated by Leo Holder, Geoffrey and de Lavallade’s son. Fans should also check out the new exhibition “The Genius of Geoffrey Holder,” on view through August 29 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

LET THERE BE LIGHT — THE FILMS OF JOHN HUSTON: BEAT THE DEVIL

Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones star as would-be married lovers in film noir parody

BEAT THE DEVIL (John Huston, 1953)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Saturday, December 20, 4:00, Thursday, December 25, 10:15, and Friday, December 26, 4:45
Festival runs December 19 – January 11
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.com

Oscar-winning director John Huston pokes fun at some of his previous films in the sly, dry crime noir parody Beat the Devil. Written by Huston and Truman Capote, who furiously typed out pages every day on set, the 1953 black-and-white film teams Huston with Humphrey Bogart for the sixth and final time, following such successes as The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen, elements from all of which can be found in this jumbled tale of a gang of crooked men looking to score big in the uranium mines of Kenya. Bogart stars as Billy Dannreuther, a cool customer married to Italian firebomb Maria (Gina Lollobrigida). They are stranded in an Italian port town while waiting for a ship to take them and his associates — Peterson (Robert Morley), O’Hara (Peter Lorre), Ravello (Marco Tulli), and Major Jack Ross (Ivor Barnard) — across the Mediterranean to Africa. Also along for the ride is the prim and proper Harry Chelm (Edward Underdown) and his hotsy-totsy wife, Gwendolen (Jennifer Jones), who quickly falls for the smooth, confident Billy. Throw in a murder, a drunk captain (Saro Urzi), and some neat twists and turns and you have yourself an amusing little exercise, even if it does have its share of plot holes, story jumps, and inconsistencies.

Robert Morley and Humphrey Bogart get down to business in BEAT THE DEVIL

Morley (subbing for the late Sydney Greenstreet), Lorre, and Tulli are like the Three Stooges of film noir, while Bogart riffs on himself as a leading man and Jones has a ball chewing the scenery as a blonde beauty. It’s a confusing film, randomly mixing humor with pathos, but even if it’s the least successful of the Huston-Bogart canon, it’s still more than just an interesting trifle. Beat the Devil is screening December 20, 25, and 26 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series Let There Be Light: The Films of John Huston, which runs December 19 to January 11 and consists of forty films directed by the master, from The Maltese Falcon and The Night of the Iguana to Key Largo and Moby Dick, from Prizzi’s Honor and Sinful Davey to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The List of Adrian Messenger, in addition to a handful of other works he either appeared in (Tentacles!) or that demonstrate his lasting influence (There Will Be Blood.)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON MOVIE: CAPOTE

Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for his portrayal of Truman Capote

Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for his intense portrayal of Truman Capote

CAPOTE (Bennett Miller, 2005)
St. Agnes Library
444 Amsterdam Ave. between 82nd & 83rd Sts.
Saturday, March 8, free, 2:00
212-621-0619
www.nypl.org
www.sonyclassics.com

In November 1959, Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) brutally murdered a Kansas family. After reading a small piece about the killings in the New York Times, New Yorker writer Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) sets out with his research assistant, Harper “Nell” Lee (Catherine Keener), to cover the story from a unique angle, which soon becomes the workings of the classic nonfiction novel In Cold Blood. Capote tells police chief Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper) right off the bat that he cares only about the story, not what happens to the killers, which does not endear him to the local force. But when the murderers are captured, Capote begins a dangerous relationship with Smith, who comes to think of the writer as a true friend, while Capote gets caught up deeper than he ever thought possible. Based on the exhaustive biography by Gerald Clarke, Capote is a slow-moving character study featuring excellent acting and some interesting surprises, even for those who thought they knew a lot about the party-loving chronicler of high society and high living. Hoffman, who just died from a drug overdose, earned an Oscar for portraying the socialite author, who was played the following year by Toby Jones in Douglas McGrath’s Infamous, which was based on a book by George Plimpton. Capote, which was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Bennett Miller), Best Supporting Actress (Keener), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Dan Futterman), is screening for free on March 8 at 2:00 at the NYPL’s recently renovated St. Agnes branch on the Upper West Side in a special tribute to Hoffman, a native New Yorker who left us well before his time, playing a longtime New Yorker who also died too young.

DÜRER TO DE KOONING: 100 MASTER DRAWINGS FROM MUNICH

Jacopo Pontormo, “Two Standing Women,” light and dark red chalk, stumped, after 1530? (courtesy of Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Münich)

Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 6, $10-$15 (free Friday 7:00 – 9:00)
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org

For the 250th anniversary of Munich’s Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in 2008, the Morgan Library sent over one hundred drawings for a special show. The German museum, which has never before lent works to an American institution for a single exhibition, has now returned the favor, sending across the pond one hundred master drawings from its extensive collection. Divided into two galleries by chronology, “Dürer to de Kooning: 100 Master Drawings from Munich” is a treasure trove of exceptional pieces, many by artists rarely seen in the Morgan. The first gallery features works from Italy, Germany, Holland, and France, dating from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, including Jacopo Pontormo’s red chalk “Two Standing Women,” Rembrandt’s “Saskia Lying in Bed, a Woman Sitting at Her Feet,” and Albrecht Dürer’s “Portrait of Kaspar Nützel,” in addition to sheets by Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Michelangelo, and Friedrich. The modern gallery is highlighted by drawings from an unusually wide range of artists not often displayed together in the same room, from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s “Nude Girl in Interior” and Arnulf Rainer’s “Adalbert Stifter (Death Mask)” to Willem de Kooning’s “Standing Man” and Georg Baselitz’s “Duck Pond,” as well as works by Bruce Nauman, Franz Marc, David Hockney, Sigmar Polke, Jean Dubuffet, Max Beckmann, Larry Rivers, Georg Baselitz, Emil Nolde, Pablo Picasso, Francis Picabia, and Vincent van Gogh. Also on view at the Morgan right now are “Fantasy and Invention: Rosso Fiorentino and Sixteenth-Century Florentine Drawing,” “Beatrix Potter: The Picture Letters,” and “Happy Holidays from the Morgan!,” consisting of Charles Dickens’s original manuscript of A Christmas Carol, Truman Capote’s handwritten “A Christmas Vacation,” a letter from George Washington written at Valley Forge on Christmas Day, 1777, and other seasonal paraphernalia.

LAST CHANCE: THE FEVERISH LIBRARY

“The Feverish Library” features a different kind of book collection (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Friedrich Petzel Gallery
537 West 22nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through October 20, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-680-9467
www.petzel.com

How can you go wrong with an exhibition whose main image is a still of Burgess Meredith as book lover Henry Bemis holding up his glasses at the end of the classic Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last”? Well, there actually isn’t time enough, as today is your last chance to see a celebration of a potentially dying breed, the printed book. Taking its name from a quote by Jorge Luis Borges, “The Feverish Library,” organized in cooperation with Matthew Higgs at Friedrich Petzel in Chelsea, features works by more than three dozen artists that incorporate books and the concept of reading. Gavin Brown creates a grid of paperbacks on the floor. Cindy Sherman photographs herself in front of a bookshelf. Richard Artschwager’s “Book” is a huge open wooden tome that can’t be read. Erica Baum’s “Author” shows a cross-section of printed pages. Liam Gillick’s “Prototype Construction of One Manuscript” is a wrapped pile of four reams of red paper. The all-star collection of artists also includes works by John Baldessari, Martin Creed, Hans-Peter Feldman, Taba Auerbach, Carol Bove, Martin Kippenberger, Richard Prince, Wade Guyton, Rachel Whiteread, Sean Landers, Wolfgang Tillmans, David Hammons, and others. In addition, in a nod to Joseph Kosuth, at the front is a collection of the favorite books of Petzel artists; Dana Schutz picks Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Nicola Tyson goes with Laurie Weeks’s Zippermouth, Troy Brauntuch selects Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Sarah Morris prefers Vladimir Nabokov’s Transparent Things, and John Stezakar chooses Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.

FROM THE PEN OF . . . THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK

Kitty Winn and Al Pacino struggle with love and addiction in THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK

THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Sunday, September 9, 6:45, Thursday, September 13, 9:15, and Monday, September 17, 6:45
Series continues through September 19
212-505-5181
anthologyfilmarchives.org

Al Pacino burst onto the cinematic landscape in The Panic in Needle Park, his first starring role. Pacino is fabulously unsettling as Bobby, a junkie always looking to score around Sherman Square at 72nd St. and Broadway, known then as Needle Park. Bobby hooks up with Helen (Kitty Winn, who was named Best Actress at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival for her performance), and the two of them do whatever is necessary to stay high as they wander the streets of the city. Director Jerry Schatzberg (Scarecrow, The Seduction of Joe Tynan, Street Smart) uses natural sound and light to give the film a more realistic feel, as if you are walking through the streets with Bobby and Helen. Several scenes will break your heart, including the one on the Staten Island Ferry; the powerful screenplay was the first written by novelist Joan Didion. The film launched Pacino’s stellar film career; his next five movies were The Godfather, Scarecrow, Serpico, The Godfather Part II, and Dog Day Afternoon, arguably the best start to an acting career ever. Gritty, realistic, and surprisingly tender, The Panic in Needle Park will be screening September 9, 13, and 17 as part of Anthology Film Archives’ ongoing series From the Pen of . . ., paying tribute to the often underrecognized writers behind some great films, this time around focusing on screenplays written by novelists, including Donald Westlake (Cops and Robbers, The Stepfather), Elmore Leonard (Joe Kidd, Mr. Majestyk), James Salter (Downhill Racer), Richard Matheson (House of Usher), Truman Capote (The Innocents), and others.

BAC FLICKS: CARMEN & GEOFFREY

The life of Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder is examined in low-budget documentary

CARMEN & GEOFFREY (Linda Atkinson & Nick Doob, 2006)
Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jerome Robbins Theater
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday, April 24, $15, 7:00
866-811-4111
www.bacnyc.org
firstrunfeatures.com

Carmen & Geoffrey is an endearing look at Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder’s lifelong love affair with dance — and each other. The New Orleans-born de Lavallade studied with Lester Horton and went to high school with Alvin Ailey, whom she brought to his first dance class. Trinidadian Holder is a larger-than-life gentle giant who is a dancer, choreographer, composer, costume designer, actor director, writer, photographer, painter, and just about anything else he wants to be. The two met when they both were cast in Truman Capote and Harold Arlen’s Broadway show House of Flowers in 1954, with Holder instantly falling in love with de Lavallade; they’ve been together ever since. Directors Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob combine amazing archival footage — of Eartha Kitt, Josephine Baker, Ulysses Dove, de Lavallade dancing with Ailey, and other splendid moments — with contemporary rehearsal scenes, dance performances, and interviews with such stalwarts as dance critic Jennifer Dunning, former Alvin Ailey artistic director Judith Jamison, and choreographer Joe Layton (watch out for his eyebrows), along with family members and Gus Solomons jr and Dudley Williams, who still work with de Lavallade. The film was made on an extremely low budget, and it shows, but it is filled with such glorious footage that you’ll get over that quickly. Carmen & Geoffrey is screening April 24 at 7:00 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, with a panel discussion to follow, as part of the “BAC Flicks” series, which continues May 30 with Matt Wolf’s 2008 documentary, Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell.