January 20th-26th: A Face In The Crowd, Panique, and The American Friend. Hey, I Know It's Inauguration Day, Read Into It What You Will!
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I'd love to begin this post with my usual brilliance, my panache, my much-envied balletic linguistics. Hell, I'd love to even pretend any of that sentence was true. I'd love to attempt my usual kick-off to the weekly post with some semblence of levity, smart or other. And let's be fair, usually it's other. Can't help it. This is a bad day. It's a bleak view from the front door, a bad forecast for the house. I'm not gonna shine a smear. Anything like that would be a betrayal of myself and this site and its purpose.
But here's what I can offer, what I believe I have offered and hopefully will continue to offer; a clarion for communal experience, an intellectual curiosity for the arts, a defense of its continuance as a cultural imperative, not merely here but everywhere in our country, everywhere in our world. We only regress if we allow it. And mankind as a whole has never allowed it.
In my own small way, I hope to argue the case for art, for freedom, for higher planes attainable by our race human. If only to roust some extra bodies towards their local rep house to view, in venue intended, what is largely deemed a frivolous entertainment but is actually one of our most valuable forms of expression: the moving image. In communal form. So here is my vocation. I hope you share it.
New and ongoing series this week include Film Forum Jr. at, yep, Film Forum; Stanley Kubrick at IFC Center; Based on a Book by Patricia Highsmith at Metrograph; Cruel and Unusual Comedy: Astonishing Shorts from the Slapstick Era at MoMA; Inauguration of the Displeasure Dome: Coping with the Election at Anthology Film Archives: and the eternally swank Cabaret Cinema at the Rubin Museum. The rep rigmarolle be thus;
Friday January 20th
IFC Center
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
THE SHINING (1980) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
DR. STANGELOVE: OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
Film Forum
PANIQUE (1947) Dir; Julien Duvivier
Metrograph
Based on a Book by Patricia Highsmith
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1950) Dir; Alfred Hitchcock
MoMA
Cruel and Unusual Comedy: Astonishing Shorts from the Slapstick Era
CHAPLINITIS: THE HEARTBREAK OF BIG FEET (1915-17) Various Directors
SLAPSTICK HASH (1907-24) Various Directors
Anthology Film Archives
Inauguration of the Displeasure Dome: Coping with the Election
A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957) Dir; Elia Kazan
IT HAPPENNED HERE (1965) Dirs; Kevin Brownlow & Andrew Mollo
Rubin Museum
VERTIGO (1958) Dir; Alfred Hitchcock
Nitehawk Cinema
DREAMSCAPE (1984) Dir; Jospeh Ruben
Today's Pick? Well, there are several screenings worthy this Inauguration Day. At the very least the paranoia of a good Hitch seems appropriate, and today we get his lone (sadly) Patricia Highsmith adap STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and his semi-confessional VERTIGO. In terms of nightmare scenarios thankfully only on film (shall we pray?), we get not only Kubrick's definitive nuclear comedy DR. STRANGELOVE but Joseph Ruben's unfairly forgotten DREAMSCAPE, the latter of which concerns a U.S. Prez beset by a WW3 that occurs in his sleep. Remember THAT golden age? But really, what more fitting screening today than the examination of a huckster so slick, so smooth, so golden in tongue and vile in purpose that he rouses the masses against their own best interests, serving as magnet to their ego and surrogate for their want and need. I'm not the biggest fan of Elia Kazan offscreen, in fact I think him quite the bum for his role in ruining some lives during the Blacklist. Yet I cannot deny his genius on those occasions when he displayed it. Many have remarked on the prescience of Chayevsky & Lumet's NETWORK over the last solar cycle, in regards to our political process. Some have labelled said prescience "eerie", while it was of course nothing of the sort. Democracy has always lived at the border of dictatorship & oligarchy & fascism. It's just that 2016 is the year we all became gobsmackingly aware of that fact. So in that spirit, and as a personal No Confidence vote today. I go with Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD. Screening at Anthology Film Archives as part of their series Inauguration of the Displeasure Dome: Coping with the Election. For once, I have no qualm with the oft magniloquent series title the venue is known for. Fitting.
Saturday January 21st
IFC Center
THE SHINING (1980) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
Film Forum
PANIQUE (1947) Dir; Julien Duvivier
MoMA
Cruel and Unusual Comedy: Astonishing Shorts from the Slapstick Era
HITS OF THE PAST (1912-29) Various Directors
WORKING GIRLS (1912-25) Various Directors
MORE PLOTS AND PLOTTERS (1913-23) Various Directors
Mid-Manhattan Library
THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN (1976) Dir; Blake Edwards
Metrograph
Based on a Book by Patricia Highsmith
PURPLE NOON (1960) Dir; Rene Clement
Anthology Film Archives
Inauguration of the Displeasure Dome: Coping with the Election
ICE (1969) Dir; Robert Kramer
Nitehawk Cinema
DREAMSCAPE (1984) Dir; Jospeh Ruben
Today's Pick? I know Julien Duvivier only through his perhaps best-known work, the exceptional PEPE LE MOKO, one of the best showcases for French actor Jean Gabin, that doughy stumble of manhood that brokered the peace between film acting's stagy past and its looming method/new wave future. So I'm intruiged by the opportunity to catch what has been long regarded a masterpiece of his, an adap of Georges Simenon, he of eternal bookshelf space and ubiquitous film credit. The great Michel Simon, yes that Boudu regifted oxygen, portrays a man not only beste with knowledge of murder but love's compromise. Duvivier's 1st film Post-Occupation found him in air rarefied by all accounts. So I'm making his 1947 PANIQUE my choice today. Screens at the Film Forum for not one week but TWO-COUNT-'EM-TWO! So fret, sweat, worry not. Ya got time.
Sunday January 22nd
IFC Center
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
BARRY LYNDON (1974) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
DR. STANGELOVE: OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964) Dir; Stanley Kubrick
Film Forum
THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933) Dir; James Whale
PANIQUE (1947) Dir; Julien Duvivier
Mid-Manhattan Library
THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY (1964) Dir; Arthur Hiller
MoMA
Cruel and Unusual Comedy: Astonishing Shorts from the Slapstick Era
SPORTS INJURIES: FITS IN FITNESS (1913-27) Various Directors
LOCO-MOTIVES: ON THE WRONG TRACK (1913-25) Various Directors
MORE PLOTS AND PLOTTERS (1913-23) Various Directors
Anthology Film Archives
Inauguration of the Displeasure Dome: Coping with the Election
A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957) Dir; Elia Kazan
PUNISHMENT PARK (1970) Dir; Peter Watkins
ICE (1969) Dir; Robert Kramer
Metrograph
Based on a Book by Patricia Highsmith
THE AMERICAN FRIEND (1977) Dir; Wim Wenders
Today's Pick? I'm not letting a good Highsmith adap sail through town without a nod. Wim Wenders became a bright light in World Cinema in the 70's, as participant to the German New Wave along with fellow stars, bacchanal diva Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and our beloved Werner Herzog. He began his career proper collaborating with brilliant DP Robby Müller, with grad project SUMMER IN THE CITY. He went on to film a road trilogy that enhanced his stature: ALICE IN THE CITIES, THE WRONG MOVE and KINGS OF THE ROAD. In 1977 he let his American obsessions spill fully over into an examination of Highsmith's most famous charcter, Tom Ripley, in an attempt to make sense, maybe, of American/West German relations, the effect our cultures had had, postwar, on each other. Bruno Ganz is the German with an incurable death sentence and nothing left to lose. American Tom Ripley is the sociopathic puppeteer seeking apliable cotton subject, but also offering scissors, and perhaps soul. It's a complicated piece, but so wonderfully orchestrated and beautifully shot the mazes of ethic compromise won't fully hit until after the credits roll. Plus, I defy Wes Anderson to deny this isn't 50 full % of where he came from. Try me , Grand Budapest! Wim Wenders THE AMERICAN FRIEND screens at Metrograph as part of their delightfully devious series Based on a Book by Patricia Highsmith.
Other notable screenings this week include Kubrick's THE SHINING on Monday the 23rd at IFC Center, as part of the Stanley Kubrick retrospective; LOVE AND WAR: ROMANTIC SKIRMISHES and WESTWARD WHOA this Tuesday at MoMA, part of the still unspooling Cruel and Unusual Comedy: Astonishing Shorts from the Slapstick Era; the original, and some say still the superior MAD MAX, accompanied by Morricone Youth this Wednesday as part of the Nitehawk Cinema's exceptional LIVE SOUND CINEMA series; and a slice of hope, John Cassavetes' wonderful MINNIE AND MOSKOVITZ, this Thursday the 26th, as part of Metrograph's promising new series Universal in the 70's: Part One. Hey, Cassavetes has always been second-hand for hope in my humble esteem, flaws, warts, boozy behavior and all. Here's what we might need in these next 4 years. I'm with ya JC.
Once again, there you have it, my picks and pontifications regarding your next 7 days' worth of rep filmgoing! We'll check in again a week from now, in the early days of a whole new spin 'round the sun, for the purposes of once more rummaging through the reels and making the tough yet wonderful choices regarding our chosen love. Til then be sure to follow me on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, and be SURE to catch my new YouTube channel, Nitrate Stock TV, where I'll be checking in at screenings all over the city and giving my 2 cents on the film, the venue, the audience, any damn thing that comes to my mind. Which, as some of ya know, can be quite entertaining. Welcome 2017, don't screw up like the last guy we fired. Til next time Stockahz, remember: be safe, be sound, and make sure the next guy and gal are too. Excelsior!
- Joe Walsh
P. S. As you know I like to beat the drum for what I consider worthwhile causes. Xenophobia has sadly always been present in our country, mostly dormant, but at times very awoken and tangible. Sadly, the latter is the present case, and the subject of Syrain refugees has become a veritable powderkeg. To those of you who believe we can aid these people, our fellow human beings who are desperate for our help, I suggest the heroic efforts of the good men and women at DoctorsWithoutBorders. They're providing boots-on-the-ground relief, everything from surgery and medicine to clean water. It's a small something to be sure in this maelstrom of madness, but it is just that: something.
