Monday, February 23, 2004
Saturday Cinematheque - Cinema Studies Dept, Tisch, NYU
Room 656 721 B'way
3/27
12pm Michael Snow - La Region Centrale
3:10 Wim Wenders - Kings of the Road
4/3
12:00pm Chantal Akerman- Jeanne Diehlman (for those of you who haven't seen it yet)
3:30 - Alan Tanner - Jonah Who Will be 25 in the Year 2000
4/24
12pm Andy Warhol/Marie Menken - Life of Juanita Castro
1:15 Helma Sanders Brahms - Germany, Pale Mother
3:50 Alain Resnais - Mon Oncle d'Amerique
Room 656 721 B'way
3/27
12pm Michael Snow - La Region Centrale
3:10 Wim Wenders - Kings of the Road
4/3
12:00pm Chantal Akerman- Jeanne Diehlman (for those of you who haven't seen it yet)
3:30 - Alan Tanner - Jonah Who Will be 25 in the Year 2000
4/24
12pm Andy Warhol/Marie Menken - Life of Juanita Castro
1:15 Helma Sanders Brahms - Germany, Pale Mother
3:50 Alain Resnais - Mon Oncle d'Amerique
Saturday, February 21, 2004
Wiliam Basinski/Richard Chartier, Sculpture Center, March 6th, 4:30pm
http://www.sculpture-center.org/pe_ca_mar.html
http://www.sculpture-center.org/pe_ca_mar.html
Monday, February 16, 2004
Whoa......almost forgot about this one:
Giacinto Scelsi, Miller Theater, Thursday Feb 26, 8pm
[THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 8:00PM]
[Composer Portraits] [Giacinto Scelsi] Influenced by Buddhism, yoga, and Eastern philosophy, Italian aristocrat Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) spent a reclusive existence reflecting upon infinitesimal gradations of sound and timbre. He expanded one or two pitches into entire musical universes through microtonal shadings and gorgeous orchestration. Largely unknown during his lifetime, his output has received considerable recognition in recent years, leading to his posthumous reputation as one of the most individual and important composers of the 20th century.
Anahit
Kya
Khoom
Okanagon
Ko-Tha (Three Dances of Shiva)
Elizabeth Farnum, soprano
Curtis Macomber, violin
Michael Lowenstern, clarinet
Sequitur
Paul Hostetter, conductor
Tickets: $20
CU Students: $7 (Columbia, not Cooper Union)
CU Faculty/Staff and Non-Columbia Students: $12
(Discounted tickets available for purchase only at the Box Office with valid ID)
Giacinto Scelsi, Miller Theater, Thursday Feb 26, 8pm
[THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 8:00PM]
[Composer Portraits] [Giacinto Scelsi] Influenced by Buddhism, yoga, and Eastern philosophy, Italian aristocrat Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) spent a reclusive existence reflecting upon infinitesimal gradations of sound and timbre. He expanded one or two pitches into entire musical universes through microtonal shadings and gorgeous orchestration. Largely unknown during his lifetime, his output has received considerable recognition in recent years, leading to his posthumous reputation as one of the most individual and important composers of the 20th century.
Anahit
Kya
Khoom
Okanagon
Ko-Tha (Three Dances of Shiva)
Elizabeth Farnum, soprano
Curtis Macomber, violin
Michael Lowenstern, clarinet
Sequitur
Paul Hostetter, conductor
Tickets: $20
CU Students: $7 (Columbia, not Cooper Union)
CU Faculty/Staff and Non-Columbia Students: $12
(Discounted tickets available for purchase only at the Box Office with valid ID)
Sunday, February 08, 2004
Walter Reade:
Film Comment Selects
NO REST FOR THE BRAVE
Alain Guiraudie, France, 2003; 104m
"An eccentric, gorgeous coming-of-age film that looks like late-Sixties Godard crossed with Vermeer. Terrified that his dreams will kill him, the sleep-deprived adolescent hero enters a fugue state where narratives collide and break off, and characters who are massacred in one scene turn up hale and hearty in the next. But the film is more than a surreal romp through the liminal. Having tested his manhood in fantasy, the hero must come to terms with the dilemma of the working class in a collapsing economy that offers little hope for a better life. Guiraudie is a daredevil filmmaker, and his film was the find of Cannes 2003." - Amy Taubin, Film Comment, July/Aug 2003
Fri Feb 13: 3:30; Mon Feb 16: 8:15
THE WORLD'S GREATEST SINNER
Timothy Carey, U.S., 1962; 75m
Remember the spastic guy who assassinates the racehorse in Kubrick's The Killing? Or the doomed soldier who kills the cockroach in Paths of Glory ? That would be the late, great Tim Carey, one of the most feared - and fired - character actors of all time. What most people don't know is that he also wrote, produced, and directed this psychotic treatise on power, corruption, and the infinity that lies within a communion wafer. After legally changing his name to God - and amassing a small army of deluded devotees - Carey's antihero derails into a morass of existential dread. A primitive but authentic American indie - the missing link between Ed Wood and John Cassavetes? "Possibly the most bizarre vanity-cum-auteur vehicle on record." - Grover Lewis, Film Comment, Jan/Feb 2004
Sat Feb 14: 5
SPECIAL PREVIEW: BRIGHT FUTURE
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 2003; 92m
Japanese cinema leading light Kiyoshi Kurosawa's improbably tender and hopeful story of alter egos, alienation, and anarchic acts of social defiance could almost be a reply to Fight Club . Charting a course away from genre and into the deceptive waters of psychodrama, Kurosawa's first digital film, and his most cryptic and pared down work to date, is about an aimless twentysomething, Yuji (Joe Odagiri), who is drawn into the orbit of enigmatic factory co-worker Mamoru (Todanabu Asano). When his self-appointed mentor inexplicably murders their boss and his family and commits suicide in prison, Yuji inherits not only his friend's lethal pet jellyfish but also his relationship with his estranged father. Kurosawa's trademark opaque minimalist visuals and unique attunement to social disconnect and urban periphery become the ideal setting for a meditation on the need to adapt to the new environment of the 21st-century.
Sat Feb 14: 7
WHITE WEDDING / NOCHE BLANCHE
1989; 92m
Vanessa Paradis made her memorable debut in this dark and pessimistic account of the vacuous relationship between Mathilde (Paradis), an intelligent yet troubled 17-year-old, and François (Bruno Crémer), a 50-year-old philosophy teacher. To ensure that the girl doesn't continue to fall under the influence of her suicidal mother, her father has sent her away to live alone - as a result, she habitually plays truant. François takes her side and defends her to the school board, so that she will not be expelled. Soon, the two are involved in a passionate affair, much to the chagrin of François's suspicious wife, Catherine (Ludmila Mikael). Ultimately Brisseau's film is "another pure melodrama dealing with the difficulty of communication and the impossibility of achieving true romantic fusion between a man and a woman." - Frédéric Bonnaud
Sat Feb 21: 5 & 9:15; Wed Feb 25: 5:10
A BRUTAL GAME / UN JEU BRUTAL
1983; 89m
Brisseau focuses on the fascinating juxtaposition between a serial child killer descending into madness and the young handicapped daughter he is attempting to raise. Tessier (Bruno Crémer), a renowned biologist, decides to stop work to take care of his rebellious offspring Isabelle (Emmanuelle Debever). Formerly institutionalized, Isabelle is finally coming out of her shell, while her father is simultaneously retreating from all reality. The disturbing parallel narrative is aided in no small part by Brisseau's rich and stylized mise-en-scène, which helps to create a deeply unsettling atmosphere through a heightened awareness of both the concrete and the metaphysical.
Sun Feb 22: 2; Thurs Feb 26: 5 & 9
Film Forum
It is absolutely imperative that you find a date to go see The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Feb 13-19
MoMA Grammercy
The Hiddem God: Film and Faith
Acto da primavera (Rite of Spring). 1963. Portugal. Written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira. With Nicolau Nunes da Silva, Ermelinda Pires. In filming a Portuguese village passion play, writes Richard Peña, Oliveira “perversely shows the impossibility of the salvation or renewal symbolized by Christ’s passion and resurrection in Christian belief.” Courtesy Cinemateca Portuguesa, Lisbon. In Portuguese, English subtitles. 85 min.
Monday, February 9, 6:00; Sunday, February 15, 1:00
Tilai (The Law). 1990. Switzerland/Great Britain/France/Burkina Faso. Written and directed by Idrissa Ouedraogo. With Rasmane Ouedraogo, Ina Cissé, Roukietou Barry. “A social order—evolved from tradition, ferociously maintained, yet unquestioned and unexamined—is the spiritual cohesion that binds the African villagers” (Laurence Kardish). Courtesy New Yorker Films. In Mooré, English subtitles. 81 min.
Saturday, February 14, 4:45; Monday, February 16, 6:00
Le Diable probablement (The Devil Probably). 1977. France. Written and directed by Robert Bresson. With Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari. James Quandt notes that this moral tale illustrates “that the world is hopelessly corrupt and despoiled, and that the various solutions society offers…are variously fraudulent, misguided, impotent.” Courtesy New Yorker Films. In French, English subtitles. 95 min.
Thursday, February 19, 4:15; Monday, February 23, 6:00
Tystnaden (The Silence). 1963. Sweden. Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. With Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom, Håkan Jahnberb. “The Silence stands as one of [Bergman’s] most potent and uncompromising gazes into the abyss,” writes Tony Pipolo. “It fearlessly speaks of an emptiness at the center of existence, the perception of which can only be met with silence.” In Swedish, English subtitles. 93 min.
Thursday, February 19, 6:15; Saturday, February 21, 1:00
Bad ma ra khahad bord (The Wind Will Carry Us). 1999. Iran/France. Written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami. With Behzad Dourani, Noghre Asadi. Godfrey Cheshire writes that “Kiarostami is often at his most serious when he appears to be at his most jokey…what’s most hidden in the film is also what’s most crucial: an idea of God that belongs specifically to Iranian esoteric thought.” Courtesy New Yorker Films. In Farsi, English subtitles. 118 min.
Friday, February 20, 2:00; Sunday, February 22, 5:00
Bad Lieutenant. 1992. USA. Directed by Abel Ferrara. Screenplay by Ferrara, Zoë Lund. With Harvey Keitel, Brian McElroy, Frankie Acciarito. “In Abel Ferrara’s film, about a man at the end of his spiritual tether,” writes Kent Jones, God is “not seen, but felt. In the stillness of Ferrara’s camera.” Introduced by Jones. 98 min.
Saturday, February 21, 3:00
[oh, if you haven't seen it, you (meaning the reader of this) oughtta go see Irit Bastry's "These Are Not My Images (Neither Here Nor There)". The "narrartive" itself is pretty lame, but it has some of the most intense video processing I've seen. ]
China Now
An Estranged Paradise. 1997–2002. China. Directed by Yang Fudong. A quiet meditation on peace, love, melancholia, and boredom, this video tells the story of a young man living in a small town in China with his fiancée. For no apparent reason, he begins to suffer from disaffection and restlessness, which threaten to undermine his life. But his malaise lifts as the rainy season comes to an end…. 76 min.
Thursday, February 12, 7:00; Saturday, February 14, 3:00
Dance with Farm Workers. 2002. China. Directed by Wu Wenguang, with Wen Wei. Documentarian Wu and choreographer Wen collaborated with a corps of thirty farmers from the provinces to chart their transformation from awkward innocents to savvy performers at a public event. In Chinese, English subtitles. 57 min.
Friday, February 13, 8:45; Monday, February 16, 4:00
Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at 70
Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Every Man for Himself). 1980. France. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Screenplay by Anne-Marie Miéville, Jean-Claude Carrière. With Isabelle Huppert, Nathalie Baye, Jacques Dutronc. “The film is an extraordinary mix of exhilaration and despair,” writes Colin MacCabe, “the exhilaration coming from the beauty and force of the images, the despair from a society in which no one is free, except the banks, and from a vision of male sexuality as inevitably damaged and damaging.” In French, English subtitles. 87 min.
Friday, February 20, 6:30
The Old Place: Small Notes Regarding the Arts at Fall of 20th Century. 1998. France. Written and directed by Anne-Marie Miéville, Jean-Luc Godard. On behalf of The Museum of Modern Art, Mary Lea Bandy and Colin MacCabe commissioned a moving-image essay from Miéville and Godard of their reflections on the state of the arts at the end of the twentieth century. In French, English subtitles. 50 min.
Friday, February 20, 8:30
Waterfront: A Journey around Manhattan in 18 Films
Time and Tide. 2001. USA. Directed by Peter Hutton. A meditation on the Hudson River—its slow, sure rhythms, brooding fog and sea smoke, and counterpoints of wilderness and industry, transience and endurance. 35 min.
The Docks of New York. 1928. USA. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. With George Bancroft, Betty Compson, Olga Baclanova. A waterfront melodrama about a ship’s stoker who rescues a prostitute from drowning and then stages a fake marriage ceremony with her for the sake of a good time. Documentary-like shots of the New York harbor give way to an erotically charged night-and-fog atmosphere of fishnet-strewn docks and seedy dens created in the studio. 60 min.
Friday, February 27, 6:30*; Sunday, February 29, 3:00*
Manhatta. 1921. USA. Directed by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler. One of cinema’s first city symphonies, an impressionistic rendering of Walt Whitman’s paean to New York by two leading photographers of the time. 9 min.
East Side,West Side. 1927. USA. Written and directed by Allan Dwan. With George O’Brien, Virginia Valli, J. Farrell MacDonald. Recently restored by MoMA’s Film and Media Archive from an original release print, this brisk, beautifully visualized melodrama is a glorious document of late 1920s New York. A boy from the slums longs for the finer things in life, and almost sacrifices his beloved to get them. With wonderful location work on the streets of Manhattan and the waterfront. 91 min.
Saturday, February 28, 3:00*; Sunday, February 29, 5:00*
Northsix
Tue 3/2/04
Joan of Arc
The Love of Everything
Make Believe
Fri 3/19-3/21/04
No Fun Fest 2004
Tonic
Wed, Feb 18
8pm Devendra Banhart plus Abra plus Antony
$8
Devendra Banhart: Devendra's Young God Records debut is already getting raves everywhere from Mojo to the NY Observer. "Devendra Barnhart is only 21, but his eerie, wavery voice and stream-of-consciousness songs -- ''the spirit is near, all the trees are dancing, ready to burn'' goes one lyric -- reach back to the childlike surrealism of some of psychedelia's most beloved oddballs, like Marc Bolan and Syd Barrett."--NY Times
Abra: Abra is "someone (Captain McReggae) on piano , someone(Charle Feathers) on light percussion, and me (Devendra) clean shaven and in very elegant drag singing, we do Nina Simone, Tim Hardin , Robert Johnson, Linda Perhacs, Elizabeth Cotten, and Fred Neil songs, actually that's just about the set right there, its a torch singing dramatic sorta thing."--Devendra Banhart
Antony: "Listening to Antony's voice is like hearing Elvis for the first time…two words and he has broken your heart… it is the most exquisite thing that you will hear in your life."--Laurie Anderson
Tue, Feb 24
8pm New No York
$10
This month: Richard Garet (Uruguay/NY): "Abstract maximalism" combining field recordings and computer generated sound, filtered through processes of spontaneity, chance, risk, intuition and improvisation. Plus, Sawako (Japan): "soundscapes graced with beautiful silences, the poetics of petite sounds, mixer feedback, computer processing, field recordings and the sounds of her immediate environment". Sawako has recorded for 12K/Line, Stasisfield, And/Oar among others.
Film Comment Selects
NO REST FOR THE BRAVE
Alain Guiraudie, France, 2003; 104m
"An eccentric, gorgeous coming-of-age film that looks like late-Sixties Godard crossed with Vermeer. Terrified that his dreams will kill him, the sleep-deprived adolescent hero enters a fugue state where narratives collide and break off, and characters who are massacred in one scene turn up hale and hearty in the next. But the film is more than a surreal romp through the liminal. Having tested his manhood in fantasy, the hero must come to terms with the dilemma of the working class in a collapsing economy that offers little hope for a better life. Guiraudie is a daredevil filmmaker, and his film was the find of Cannes 2003." - Amy Taubin, Film Comment, July/Aug 2003
Fri Feb 13: 3:30; Mon Feb 16: 8:15
THE WORLD'S GREATEST SINNER
Timothy Carey, U.S., 1962; 75m
Remember the spastic guy who assassinates the racehorse in Kubrick's The Killing? Or the doomed soldier who kills the cockroach in Paths of Glory ? That would be the late, great Tim Carey, one of the most feared - and fired - character actors of all time. What most people don't know is that he also wrote, produced, and directed this psychotic treatise on power, corruption, and the infinity that lies within a communion wafer. After legally changing his name to God - and amassing a small army of deluded devotees - Carey's antihero derails into a morass of existential dread. A primitive but authentic American indie - the missing link between Ed Wood and John Cassavetes? "Possibly the most bizarre vanity-cum-auteur vehicle on record." - Grover Lewis, Film Comment, Jan/Feb 2004
Sat Feb 14: 5
SPECIAL PREVIEW: BRIGHT FUTURE
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 2003; 92m
Japanese cinema leading light Kiyoshi Kurosawa's improbably tender and hopeful story of alter egos, alienation, and anarchic acts of social defiance could almost be a reply to Fight Club . Charting a course away from genre and into the deceptive waters of psychodrama, Kurosawa's first digital film, and his most cryptic and pared down work to date, is about an aimless twentysomething, Yuji (Joe Odagiri), who is drawn into the orbit of enigmatic factory co-worker Mamoru (Todanabu Asano). When his self-appointed mentor inexplicably murders their boss and his family and commits suicide in prison, Yuji inherits not only his friend's lethal pet jellyfish but also his relationship with his estranged father. Kurosawa's trademark opaque minimalist visuals and unique attunement to social disconnect and urban periphery become the ideal setting for a meditation on the need to adapt to the new environment of the 21st-century.
Sat Feb 14: 7
WHITE WEDDING / NOCHE BLANCHE
1989; 92m
Vanessa Paradis made her memorable debut in this dark and pessimistic account of the vacuous relationship between Mathilde (Paradis), an intelligent yet troubled 17-year-old, and François (Bruno Crémer), a 50-year-old philosophy teacher. To ensure that the girl doesn't continue to fall under the influence of her suicidal mother, her father has sent her away to live alone - as a result, she habitually plays truant. François takes her side and defends her to the school board, so that she will not be expelled. Soon, the two are involved in a passionate affair, much to the chagrin of François's suspicious wife, Catherine (Ludmila Mikael). Ultimately Brisseau's film is "another pure melodrama dealing with the difficulty of communication and the impossibility of achieving true romantic fusion between a man and a woman." - Frédéric Bonnaud
Sat Feb 21: 5 & 9:15; Wed Feb 25: 5:10
A BRUTAL GAME / UN JEU BRUTAL
1983; 89m
Brisseau focuses on the fascinating juxtaposition between a serial child killer descending into madness and the young handicapped daughter he is attempting to raise. Tessier (Bruno Crémer), a renowned biologist, decides to stop work to take care of his rebellious offspring Isabelle (Emmanuelle Debever). Formerly institutionalized, Isabelle is finally coming out of her shell, while her father is simultaneously retreating from all reality. The disturbing parallel narrative is aided in no small part by Brisseau's rich and stylized mise-en-scène, which helps to create a deeply unsettling atmosphere through a heightened awareness of both the concrete and the metaphysical.
Sun Feb 22: 2; Thurs Feb 26: 5 & 9
Film Forum
It is absolutely imperative that you find a date to go see The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Feb 13-19
MoMA Grammercy
The Hiddem God: Film and Faith
Acto da primavera (Rite of Spring). 1963. Portugal. Written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira. With Nicolau Nunes da Silva, Ermelinda Pires. In filming a Portuguese village passion play, writes Richard Peña, Oliveira “perversely shows the impossibility of the salvation or renewal symbolized by Christ’s passion and resurrection in Christian belief.” Courtesy Cinemateca Portuguesa, Lisbon. In Portuguese, English subtitles. 85 min.
Monday, February 9, 6:00; Sunday, February 15, 1:00
Tilai (The Law). 1990. Switzerland/Great Britain/France/Burkina Faso. Written and directed by Idrissa Ouedraogo. With Rasmane Ouedraogo, Ina Cissé, Roukietou Barry. “A social order—evolved from tradition, ferociously maintained, yet unquestioned and unexamined—is the spiritual cohesion that binds the African villagers” (Laurence Kardish). Courtesy New Yorker Films. In Mooré, English subtitles. 81 min.
Saturday, February 14, 4:45; Monday, February 16, 6:00
Le Diable probablement (The Devil Probably). 1977. France. Written and directed by Robert Bresson. With Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari. James Quandt notes that this moral tale illustrates “that the world is hopelessly corrupt and despoiled, and that the various solutions society offers…are variously fraudulent, misguided, impotent.” Courtesy New Yorker Films. In French, English subtitles. 95 min.
Thursday, February 19, 4:15; Monday, February 23, 6:00
Tystnaden (The Silence). 1963. Sweden. Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. With Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom, Håkan Jahnberb. “The Silence stands as one of [Bergman’s] most potent and uncompromising gazes into the abyss,” writes Tony Pipolo. “It fearlessly speaks of an emptiness at the center of existence, the perception of which can only be met with silence.” In Swedish, English subtitles. 93 min.
Thursday, February 19, 6:15; Saturday, February 21, 1:00
Bad ma ra khahad bord (The Wind Will Carry Us). 1999. Iran/France. Written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami. With Behzad Dourani, Noghre Asadi. Godfrey Cheshire writes that “Kiarostami is often at his most serious when he appears to be at his most jokey…what’s most hidden in the film is also what’s most crucial: an idea of God that belongs specifically to Iranian esoteric thought.” Courtesy New Yorker Films. In Farsi, English subtitles. 118 min.
Friday, February 20, 2:00; Sunday, February 22, 5:00
Bad Lieutenant. 1992. USA. Directed by Abel Ferrara. Screenplay by Ferrara, Zoë Lund. With Harvey Keitel, Brian McElroy, Frankie Acciarito. “In Abel Ferrara’s film, about a man at the end of his spiritual tether,” writes Kent Jones, God is “not seen, but felt. In the stillness of Ferrara’s camera.” Introduced by Jones. 98 min.
Saturday, February 21, 3:00
[oh, if you haven't seen it, you (meaning the reader of this) oughtta go see Irit Bastry's "These Are Not My Images (Neither Here Nor There)". The "narrartive" itself is pretty lame, but it has some of the most intense video processing I've seen. ]
China Now
An Estranged Paradise. 1997–2002. China. Directed by Yang Fudong. A quiet meditation on peace, love, melancholia, and boredom, this video tells the story of a young man living in a small town in China with his fiancée. For no apparent reason, he begins to suffer from disaffection and restlessness, which threaten to undermine his life. But his malaise lifts as the rainy season comes to an end…. 76 min.
Thursday, February 12, 7:00; Saturday, February 14, 3:00
Dance with Farm Workers. 2002. China. Directed by Wu Wenguang, with Wen Wei. Documentarian Wu and choreographer Wen collaborated with a corps of thirty farmers from the provinces to chart their transformation from awkward innocents to savvy performers at a public event. In Chinese, English subtitles. 57 min.
Friday, February 13, 8:45; Monday, February 16, 4:00
Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at 70
Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Every Man for Himself). 1980. France. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Screenplay by Anne-Marie Miéville, Jean-Claude Carrière. With Isabelle Huppert, Nathalie Baye, Jacques Dutronc. “The film is an extraordinary mix of exhilaration and despair,” writes Colin MacCabe, “the exhilaration coming from the beauty and force of the images, the despair from a society in which no one is free, except the banks, and from a vision of male sexuality as inevitably damaged and damaging.” In French, English subtitles. 87 min.
Friday, February 20, 6:30
The Old Place: Small Notes Regarding the Arts at Fall of 20th Century. 1998. France. Written and directed by Anne-Marie Miéville, Jean-Luc Godard. On behalf of The Museum of Modern Art, Mary Lea Bandy and Colin MacCabe commissioned a moving-image essay from Miéville and Godard of their reflections on the state of the arts at the end of the twentieth century. In French, English subtitles. 50 min.
Friday, February 20, 8:30
Waterfront: A Journey around Manhattan in 18 Films
Time and Tide. 2001. USA. Directed by Peter Hutton. A meditation on the Hudson River—its slow, sure rhythms, brooding fog and sea smoke, and counterpoints of wilderness and industry, transience and endurance. 35 min.
The Docks of New York. 1928. USA. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Screenplay by Jules Furthman. With George Bancroft, Betty Compson, Olga Baclanova. A waterfront melodrama about a ship’s stoker who rescues a prostitute from drowning and then stages a fake marriage ceremony with her for the sake of a good time. Documentary-like shots of the New York harbor give way to an erotically charged night-and-fog atmosphere of fishnet-strewn docks and seedy dens created in the studio. 60 min.
Friday, February 27, 6:30*; Sunday, February 29, 3:00*
Manhatta. 1921. USA. Directed by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler. One of cinema’s first city symphonies, an impressionistic rendering of Walt Whitman’s paean to New York by two leading photographers of the time. 9 min.
East Side,West Side. 1927. USA. Written and directed by Allan Dwan. With George O’Brien, Virginia Valli, J. Farrell MacDonald. Recently restored by MoMA’s Film and Media Archive from an original release print, this brisk, beautifully visualized melodrama is a glorious document of late 1920s New York. A boy from the slums longs for the finer things in life, and almost sacrifices his beloved to get them. With wonderful location work on the streets of Manhattan and the waterfront. 91 min.
Saturday, February 28, 3:00*; Sunday, February 29, 5:00*
Northsix
Tue 3/2/04
Joan of Arc
The Love of Everything
Make Believe
Fri 3/19-3/21/04
No Fun Fest 2004
Tonic
Wed, Feb 18
8pm Devendra Banhart plus Abra plus Antony
$8
Devendra Banhart: Devendra's Young God Records debut is already getting raves everywhere from Mojo to the NY Observer. "Devendra Barnhart is only 21, but his eerie, wavery voice and stream-of-consciousness songs -- ''the spirit is near, all the trees are dancing, ready to burn'' goes one lyric -- reach back to the childlike surrealism of some of psychedelia's most beloved oddballs, like Marc Bolan and Syd Barrett."--NY Times
Abra: Abra is "someone (Captain McReggae) on piano , someone(Charle Feathers) on light percussion, and me (Devendra) clean shaven and in very elegant drag singing, we do Nina Simone, Tim Hardin , Robert Johnson, Linda Perhacs, Elizabeth Cotten, and Fred Neil songs, actually that's just about the set right there, its a torch singing dramatic sorta thing."--Devendra Banhart
Antony: "Listening to Antony's voice is like hearing Elvis for the first time…two words and he has broken your heart… it is the most exquisite thing that you will hear in your life."--Laurie Anderson
Tue, Feb 24
8pm New No York
$10
This month: Richard Garet (Uruguay/NY): "Abstract maximalism" combining field recordings and computer generated sound, filtered through processes of spontaneity, chance, risk, intuition and improvisation. Plus, Sawako (Japan): "soundscapes graced with beautiful silences, the poetics of petite sounds, mixer feedback, computer processing, field recordings and the sounds of her immediate environment". Sawako has recorded for 12K/Line, Stasisfield, And/Oar among others.
