January 24th 2014. Pick of the Day.
New York City's premiere resource for classic film screenings in the metropolitan area. Offering reviews, recommendations, venues and a host of links keeping classic film and the silver screens alive.
Among today's continuing series are IFC Center's The Way He Was: Early Redford, the Japan Society's trib to film scholar Donald Richie, Museum of the Moving Image's See It Big!: Musicals, and the Rubin Museum's excellent Cabaret Cinema series. The filmic hooliganism looks thusly;
IFC Center
ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976) Dir; Alan J. Pakula
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) Dir; George Romero
Film Forum
MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) Dir; John Ford
Anthology Film Archives
I WAS BORN, BUT... (1932) Dir; Yasujiro Ozu
THERE WAS A FATHER (1942) Dir; Yasujiro Ozu
Japan Society
HIMATSURI (1985) Dir; Mitsuo Yanagimachi
Museum of the Moving Image
ALL THAT JAZZ (1979) Dir; Bob Fosse
Rubin Museum
FITZCARRALDO (1982) Dir; Werner Herzog
Today's Pick? While two of my fave cinematic tales of obsession unspool this day, one investigatory (ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN) and the other gloriously delusional (FITZCARRALDO), I choose a third example; one at once both grounded in the "real" world of 70's New Hollywood cinema and as surreal as anything dreamt up by Cocteau or Fellini or Pasolini. Long before the year 1979 Hollywood had produced meta-musicals and even subversive deconstructions of the film genre, perhaps the most notable example of the latter was Fosse's own adap of his B'dway smash CABARET. After the director/choreographer took a crack at a non-musical, the unsuccessful Lenny Bruce biopic LENNY, he concocted one of the damndest flights of fancy and fantasy to come out of "Me" decade cinema, a monument to his seemingly boundless ego that also depicted his worst selves, warts and all, for public excoriation. Of course, being constituted almost entirely of hubris, Fosse would allow no other living soul but himself to act as accuser, prosecutor and judge when it came to his condemnation. Which ya gotta sorta admire.
In the process of deconstructing himself for all to see it's only logical that his career would bear scrutiny as well. Which led him, I believe, to create film's first anti-musical. If not, you tell me? Had anybody chosen to depict their deep-seated self-loathing via the film musical before, or enlisted such glam talents as Sandahl Bergman (who's a Valkyrie, btw), Ann Reinking and the very close and personal Ben Vereen? Had anyone chosen the song and dance production number as vehicle to communicate the very Hell they inhabited and could not escape? And finally, had anyone ever dealt such a sledgehammer blow to their own industry, and their chosen genre, while still leaving the audience entertained and even awestruck? Reinforcement of cinema's power of illusion through disillusionment. Ain't too many cats can brag they made that kinda film. Hence, I salute this unique and still enthralling work by making it my Pick today.
Bob Fosse's ALL THAT JAZZ screens tonight at 7pm at Museum of The Moving Image as part of their See It Big!: Musicals series. Turn turn kick turn, indeed.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic screenings in January '14 click on the interactive calendar on the upper right hand side of the page. And be sure to follow me on both Facebook, where I provide further info and esoterica on the rep film circuit and star birthdays, and Twitter, where I provide a daily feed for the day's screenings and other blathery. Back with a brand new Pick tomorrow, til then will the dancing Hitlers PLEASE wait in the lobby??!?
-Joe Walsh
