Tag Archives: willem dafoe

THE CONTENDERS 2014 — NYMPHOMANIAC: EXTENDED DIRECTOR’S CUT

NYMPHOMANIAC

Joe (Stacy Martin) learns about sexual pleasure in Lars von Trier’s controversial NYMPHOMANIAC

NYMPHOMANIAC: EXTENDED DIRECTOR’S CUT (Lars von Trier, 2013)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Sunday, November 23, 2:30
Series runs through January 16
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
www.magpictures.com

When I reviewed Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac earlier this year, when it was released in two separate “volumes,” I wrote, “I certainly would have preferred seeing Nymphomaniac in one complete sitting rather than in two parts, one of which stands head and shoulders above the other (although they do need each other); however, I’m not sure what I’ll do when the five-and-a-half-hour director’s cut is released later this year.” Well, as promised, the extended director’s cut is now available for viewing, being shown November 23 at 2:30 as part of MoMA’s annual series “The Contenders,” consisting of films the institution believes will stand the test of time. What follows is a slightly amended version of my initial review of the first two volumes; there are an additional thirty minutes added to the first part, while the second part now includes what MoMA refers to as “some of the most gruesome and wrenching passages ever seen on film.”

In Breaking the Waves, Danish Dogme 95 cofounder Lars von Trier’s 1996 breakthrough, Stellan Skarsgård plays a paralyzed man who convinces his wife (Emily Watson) to have sexual liaisons with other men and then tell him about the encounters in graphic detail. In von Trier’s latest controversial, polarizing work, Nymphomaniac, Skarsgård stars as Seligman, a single man who takes in a woman named Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who is soon sharing her own sexual adventures with him, in extremely graphic detail. After finding Joe severely beaten in an alley, Seligman nurses her back to health while carefully listening to her life story. She repeatedly says she is a bad, irredeemable human being because of the things she has done, which started to go off the rails when she was a small child discovering the pleasure sensations to be had in her nether regions. Her sordid tale is told in flashbacks, as her younger self (Barking at Trees’ Stacy Martin) goes from lover to lover to lover to lover to lover ad infinitum. (The specific numbers are plastered over the screen.) Along the way, Seligman offers his own interpretation of her life, praising her sense of freedom while comparing her sexuality to fly-fishing, which von Trier (Dancer in the Dark, Melancholia, Antichrist) relates in a playful way that is at first absurdly silly but actually ends up coming together. Unfortunately, however, Martin is far too bland as Joe as she beds victim after victim, including Jerôme (a miscast Shia LaBeouf), perhaps the only one who truly loves her. The film also features Christian Slater and Connie Nielsen as Joe’s parents and Uma Thurman as a scene-stealing wronged wife.

NYMPHOMANIAC

Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) continues her search for sexual pleasure and pain in the second half of NYMPHOMANIAC (photo by Christian Geisnaes)

The second half of von Trier’s four-hour graphic exploration of feminine sexuality and the very nature of storytelling itself is a masterfully crafted, often deadly dull and repetitive, but, in the end, gloriously inventive work. Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is in the midst of telling her brutally in-depth tale of sexual addiction to the sincere and respectful Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), who brought her into his home upon finding her badly beaten in a dark alley. In the flashbacks, Joe is now played with mystery and complexity by Gainsbourg, after the young Joe had been previously portrayed by the bland and boring Stacy Martin, and the change of actress is one of the key reasons why the second part works so much better than the first. Joe shares details of trying to make a sex sandwich, giving group therapy a shot, becoming obsessed with a violent sadist (Jamie Bell), and accepting a dangerous job with L (Willem Dafoe).

L (Willem Dafoe) offers Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) a dangerous job in second volume of controversial Lars von Trier epic (photo by Christian Geisnaes)

L (Willem Dafoe) offers Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) a dangerous job in controversial Lars von Trier sexual epic (photo by Christian Geisnaes)

In between her stories, which are divided into such chapters as “The Eastern and the Western Church (The Silent Duck)” and “The Mirror,” Seligman delves into various intellectual theories to help explain her exploits, discussing religion, paradox, democracy, language, mythology, Freud, and such dichotomies as suffering and happiness, pleasure and pain, Wagner and Beethoven, and the virgin and the whore. Cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro’s camera is far more steady in these scenes, in contrast to the moving, handheld shots that dominate the flashbacks. The interplay between the calm, gentle Seligman and the lonely, lost Joe is beautifully acted and inherently touching, but, this being von Trier, the film’s ending will further controversies that already involve episodes of extreme violence and actual sexual penetration (the latter performed by body doubles). The MoMA series continues through January 16 with such other 2014 cinematic entries as Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, and Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash.

NYFF52 MAIN SLATE: PASOLINI

Willem Dafoe

Willem Dafoe stars as Pier Paolo Pasolini on the last day of his life in new Abel Ferrara film

PASOLINI (Abel Ferrara, 2014)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Thursday, October 2, Alice Tully Hall, 6:00
Friday, October 3, Howard Gilman Theater, 9:00
Encore screening: Sunday, October 12, Walter Reade Theater, 7:15
Festival runs September 26 – October 12
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.com

Director Abel Ferrara packs a whole lot into controversial Italian writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini’s last day on earth in the multinational coproduction Pasolini. Unfortunately, it all ends up a rather confusing jumble, with Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant, The Addiction) and screenwriter Maurizio Braucci (Gomorrah, Black Souls) squeezing too much into too little. Willem Dafoe stars as Pasolini on November 2, 1975, as the director is interviewed by a journalist, reads the newspaper on the couch, sits down at his typewriter to work on his novel Petrolio, edits what would be his final film (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom), and goes cruising to pick up a young stud. Ferrara adds enactments of scenes from the never-realized Porno-Teo-Kolossal, with Pasolini’s real-life lover, Ninetto Davoli, playing the fictional character Epifanio. (Davoli was supposed to play the younger Nunzio in the hallucinatory tale, about a search for faith and the messiah. Davoli is played by Riccardo Scamarcio in Ferrara’s film.) Ferrara never really delves into the internal makeup of Pasolini (The Gospel According to Matthew, Teorema), an openly gay outspoken social and political activist, poet, Marxist, Christian, and documentarian, instead using brief episodes that only touch the surface, as if Dafoe is playing a character based on Pasolini rather than the complex man who was indeed Pasolini. But Ferrara does get very specific about Pasolini’s mysterious, brutal death. Pasolini is screening October 2, 3, and 12 at the 52nd New York Film Festival.

FIFTY YEARS OF JOHN WATERS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU TAKE? CRY-BABY

CRY-BABY

Johnny Depp drives them all wild in John Waters’s cool musical comedy homage CRY-BABY

CRY-BABY (John Waters, 1990)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
September 13, 3:00, and September 14, 8:00
Series runs September 5-14
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.com

It’s the drapes versus the squares as Grease and Rebel without a Cause meet West Side Story and Jailhouse Rock in one of trash king John Waters’s most accessible films, the romantic musical comedy Cry-Baby. Waters snatched 21 Jump Street heartthrob Johnny Depp right off the covers of teen magazines for his first starring role in a feature film, with Depp playing high school heartthrob and leather-jacketed bad boy Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker, leader of the rough-and-tough drapes, who also include his pregnant sister, Pepper (Ricki Lake), the trampy Wanda Woodward (porn star Traci Lords), Mona “Hatchet-Face” Malnorowski (Kim McGuire), and Milton Hackett (Darren E. Burrows). Lenora Frigid (Kim Webb) is desperate to go out with Cry-Baby, who earned his nickname because of the solitary tear that can trickle from one of his eyes, but he has his sights set on square queen Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane), whose grandmother (Polly Bergen) runs a charm school and is disgusted by the juvenile delinquents. She much prefers Allison stay true to nerd king Baldwin (Stephen Mailer) than hang out with the dregs of society. But Allison and Cry-Baby’s love just might be meant to be. Writer-director Waters wonderfully evokes 1950s teen flicks with fast cars, the pangs of first love, and a delicious soundtrack of old and new tunes as Cry-Baby and Baldwin fight it out onstage in song instead of with knives or other weapons. (James Intveld sings Depp’s part, while Rachel Sweet does Allison’s.) Waters has also assembled a cast of parents to end all casts of parents: Troy Donahue and Mink Stole are Mr. and Mrs. Malnorowski, Joe Dallesandro and Joey Heatherton are Mr. and Mrs. Hackett, David Nelson and Patricia Hearst are Mr. and Mrs. Woodward, and Iggy Pop and Susan Tyrell are Mr. and Mrs. Rickettes. The story doesn’t always hold together, but Depp easily gets things back on track with his damn fine looks — er, charismatic performance. And yes, that prison guard is indeed Willem Dafoe. Cry-Baby, which was turned into a Broadway musical that earned four Tony nominations but had a very short run at the Marquis Theatre, is screening September 13 at 3:00 and September 14 at 8:00 as part of the spectacularly titled Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Fifty Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take?” The series runs through September 14 and features all of Baltimore’s favorite son’s shorts and full-length works in addition to “Movies I’m Jealous I Didn’t Make,” eight films that Waters says are “extreme, astoundingly perverse, darkly funny, and, most importantly, supremely surprising films that turn me green with envy.

NYMPHOMANIAC: VOLUME II

NYMPHOMANIAC

Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) continues her search for sexual pleasure and pain in NYMPHOMANIAC VOLUME II (photo by Christian Geisnaes)

NYMPHOMANIAC: VOLUME II (Lars von Trier, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave., 212-875-5600
Landmark Sunshine Cinema, 143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves., 212-330-8182
Opens Friday, April 4
www.magpictures.com

Two weeks ago, when the first half of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac opened at the Landmark Sunshine and Lincoln Center, I reserved judgment until I saw Volume II, which begins April 4 at the same locations. Now that I’ve experienced the second part of von Trier’s four-hour graphic exploration of feminine sexuality and the very nature of storytelling itself, I’m at last ready to render my opinion and publicly declare my admiration for this masterfully crafted, often deadly dull and repetitive, but, in the end, gloriously inventive work. Volume II picks up right where Volume I concludes — it’s actually one film that has been broken into two parts in theaters and on VOD, forcing people to pay twice to see the whole thing — with Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in the midst of telling her brutally in-depth tale of sexual addiction to the sincere and respectful Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), who brought her into his home upon finding her badly beaten in a dark alley. In the flashbacks, Joe is now played with mystery and complexity by Gainsbourg, after the young Joe had been previously portrayed by the bland and boring Stacy Martin, and the change of actress is one of the key reasons why Volume II works so much better than Volume I. Joe shares details of trying to make a sex sandwich, giving group therapy a shot, becoming obsessed with a violent sadist (Jamie Bell), and accepting a dangerous job with L (Willem Dafoe).

L (Willem Dafoe) offers Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) a dangerous job in second volume of controversial Lars von Trier epic (photo by Christian Geisnaes)

L (Willem Dafoe) offers Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) a dangerous job in second volume of controversial Lars von Trier sexual epic (photo by Christian Geisnaes)

In between her stories, which are divided into such chapters as “The Eastern and the Western Church (The Silent Duck)” and “The Mirror,” Seligman delves into various intellectual theories to help explain her exploits, discussing religion, paradox, democracy, language, mythology, Freud, and such dichotomies as suffering and happiness, pleasure and pain, Wagner and Beethoven, and the virgin and the whore. Cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro’s camera is far more steady in these scenes, in contrast to the moving, handheld shots that dominate the flashbacks. The interplay between the calm, gentle Seligman and the lonely, lost Joe is beautifully acted and inherently touching, but, this being von Trier, the film’s ending will further controversies that already involve episodes of extreme violence and actual sexual penetration (the latter performed by body doubles). I certainly would have preferred seeing Nymphomaniac in one complete sitting rather than in two parts, one of which stands head and shoulders above the other (although they do need each other); however, I’m not sure what I’ll do when the five-and-a-half-hour director’s cut is released later this year.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARINA ABRAMOVIC

Willem Dafoe and Marina Abramovic examine the seminal performance artists life in Robert Wilson spectacle (photo © Lucie Jansch)

Willem Dafoe and Marina Abramović examine the seminal performance artist’s life — and death — in Robert Wilson spectacle (photo © Lucie Jansch)

Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Through December 21, $135, 7:30
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

As the audience enters the Park Ave. Armory’s massive Wade Thompson Drill Hall to find their seats in the rising bleachers, three figures are already onstage, a trio of white-faced women representing Marina Abramović lying in coffins, motionless, hands clasped over their chests. On each seat is a copy of the Seventh Regiment Gazette newspaper, which announces, “Artist Marina Abramović Dies at 67.” Soon three dogs are onstage, sniffing at the red bones scattered around the coffins. For the next two and a half hours, episodes from the life of the seminal performance artist are depicted as only director Robert Wilson can do it: visually stunning and psychologically confounding, gorgeous and infuriating, rousing and frustrating, hysterically funny and annoyingly repetitive. Looking like a cross between Joel Grey in Cabaret,, the Joker from Batman, and the Heat Miser from The Year without a Santa Claus, Willem Dafoe narrates the story, primarily from a heavily littered platform in front of the right-hand side of the stage, calling out biographical tidbits from Abramović’s professional and personal life, some of which are then played out with a cast that includes Abramović first as her domineering mother, then as herself. Tales of her family being the first in their neighborhood in the former Yugoslavia to have a washing machine, her mother throwing an ashtray at her head, Marina considering getting a nose job, and her breakup walk with Ulay across the Great Wall of China are accompanied by music by Baby Dee, Scott Joplin, Paul Anka, and others, original compositions by William Basinski, and live performances of haunting songs by musical director, composer, and lyricist Antony, looking robust in a large, dark gown, and the Svetlana Spajić Group. The compelling second act is far more successful than the disappointing first, with a less abstract narrative and greater involvement from Dafoe. It is of course a visual spectacle, with wild costumes by Jacques Reynaud, crazy makeup by Joey Cheng, fab lighting by A. J. Weissbard, and video projections by Tomasz Jeziorski that feature snippets of some of Abramović’s durational performances. Although clear connections can be made between events in Abramović’s childhood and certain works, especially those that involve physical attacks on her body, The Life and Death of Marina Abramović is not meant to be mere biography, autobiography, or obituary; instead, it is another unique and unusual collaborative performance in a provocative career that has been experiencing a quite a resurgence over the last decade, with more to come.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARINA ABRAMOVIC

Willem Dafoe

Marina Abramović’s life — and death — takes center stage with the help of Willem Dafoe, Antony, Robert Wilson, and others

Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
December 13-21, $135, 7:30
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

Performance artist extraordinaire Marina Abramović has been undergoing a career renaissance this century, highlighted by an exciting, vibrant 2010 MoMA retrospective, “The Artist Is Present,” and the 2012 documentary about the making of the exhibition. The Serbian-born, New York-based Abramović is a regular at fancy galas, and she even recently performed at Pace Gallery with Jay-Z. So what does the sixty-seven-year-old artist do, just as her life and career have become rejuvenated? Well, she stages her own funeral, of course. Actually, Abramović has decided to hand her biography over to experimental theater maestro Robert Wilson, the man behind such innovative and unique collaborations as The Black Rider with William S. Burroughs and Tom Waits, Einstein on the Beach with Philip Glass and Lucinda Childs, and The Temptation of Saint Anthony with Bernice Johnson Reagon and Geoffrey Holder. In The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, the woman behind the “Rhythm” series and so many other cutting-edge works plays herself and her mother, with Willem Dafoe serving as narrator and songs by Antony Hegarty. Conceived and directed by Wilson, it is another audiovisual spectacle that has already had a documentary made about its creation; “Marina is the landscape, Bob the mind, Antony the heart, Willem the body,” director Giada Colagrande explains. The Life and Death of Marina Abramović will fill the Park Ave. Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall December 12-21; on December 15 at 6:15, armory artistic director Alex Poots will moderate an artist talk with Abramović and Dafoe in the Veterans Room as part of the Malkin Lecture Series.

WES ANDERSON’S WORLDS: THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU

Bill Murray is plenty weird in Wes Anderson’s plenty weird THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU

THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (Wes Anderson, 2004)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, May 26, and Sunday, May 27, free with museum admission of $10, 3:00
Series runs through May 27
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
lifeaquatic.movies.go.com

Wes Anderson’s fourth film, following Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums, is, once again, zany, unique, offbeat, and creative, although in this case the sum of the parts do not add up to a worthwhile whole. Bill Murray stars as Steve Zissou, a minor-league Jacques Cousteau type who has been making cult underwater documentaries for years, but his last adventure could turn out to be his final one in more ways than one. His crew includes longtime right-hand man Klaus Daimler (Willem Dafoe), who is jealous of the new guy in Steve’s life, a pipe-smoking Kentucky pilot who might be his son (Owen Wilson); a pregnant reporter profiling Steve for an oceanography magazine (Cate Blanchett); a Brazilian safety expert who has a fondness for playing acoustic versions of David Bowie songs in Portuguese (Seu Jorge); the bond company stooge protecting his company’s investment (Bud Cort); and Zissouss mad producer (Michael Gambon), among others. There’s also wealthy rival Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum), who used to be married to Zissou’s wife Eleanor (Anjelica Huston). After Zissou’s best friend, Esteban (Seymour Cassel), gets eaten supposedly by the rare “jaguar shark,” Zissou goes on a personal mission of underwater vengeance that is just too dry for its own good. Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) did the stop-motion animation of the sea creatures. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is screening May 26-27 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image retrospective “Wes Anderson’s Worlds,” being held in conjunction with the opening of Anderson’s latest, Moonrise Kingdom, which hits theaters May 25.