July 10th 2013. Pick Of the Day.
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Sidney Lumet's feature debut 12 ANGRY MEN, one of the great first filmmaking efforts all-time, screens for at least today and tomorrow as Film Forum's week-long booking winds to a close. As riveting and revealing as it was whence released in 1957, this classic is not merely a showcase for all the talents involved before and behind the camera, it also contains the concentrated DNA of its director's future CV, which summarily amounts to enthralling conflict where all sides get their say. Everyone has their reasons indeed. Chose it the first chance I got last Friday, so I must pass. Sid's still mah boy, tho. 4evah.
Satyajit Ray's TWO DAUGHTERS begins a three-day run at MoMA as part of their ongoing Auteurist History of Film series. I'm just gonna go ahead an be honest here; I've never seen a Satyajit Ray flick, but I'm dying to dive headfirst into his catalogue. Hopefully I wake up early enough to indulge one of these screenings, but today I choose a different import to our shores, one less interested in global outreach than outright subversive controversy. And there's not a single damn thing wrong with that.
BAM's month-long trib to John Cassavetes today features the indie auteur's first commerical directing gig in La-La Land, the Angry Young Man jazz drama TOO LATE BLUES, which features a standout perf from Bobby Darin in his first lead as a pianist whose refusal to bend to commercial interests damages his personal and professional life. A unique gem that demands re-discovery, but I chose the JC trib yesterday, so I think another counter-culture voice deserves my Pick today. Keep goin'...
Also at BAM today, specifically at their newly restored movie palace The Harvey Theater, the academy's Big Screen Epics series continues apace with a screening of David Lean's masterpiece LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in its glorious new DCP resto. HARD to choose against, but I'm saving this slice of movie magic for another day. An entirely different sort of British revolt draws my attent this day.
The Mid-Manhattan Library's summer series 1970's: NYC on Film tonight provides another chance to catch Sidney Lumet at the top of his game with a presentation of his 1973 NYPD classic SERPICO. Al Pacino delivers one of his career bests as the Blue Wall's worst enemy, and the film has come to rep this city and a beloved decade in its decline on a short list with such works as William Friedkin's THE FRENCH CONNECTION and Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER. Tempts, but I'll use the Library's BluRay-only facilities as excuse to choose another iconic perf that revolves around undoing the corrupt bureaucracy that rots otherwise noble institutions. Ahem. Let's move on, shall we?
On the outdoor screening circuit Riverside Park may lay claim to director Mervyn Le Roy's subjugation of spotlight to Busby Berkely's batshit balletic bombast as they present GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933. This really, probably is the classic film treat to beat this balmy July eve, but I pass in favor of a more bizarre fantasy, a more caustic overthrow of genre, one that focused its violent power of dissection not on government, corporations or even organized religion, but the very seedbed of these institutions; school.
Lindsay Anderson was born to British parents in India in 1923, which was not a good time to be an Indian under British rule. As anti-imperialism and indeed insurrection would become a theme in his work this surely was an auspicious introduction to the world. After graduating from Magdalen College in Oxford he served dutifully as a cryptographer in the Brit Army's intelligence corps, and nailed the Red Flag to the roof of the Officer's Mess upon learning of the Labour Party's 1945 victory in his home country. So the guy hadda point of view from the get-go.
Civilian life brought Anderson work as a film critic first for Sequence magazine and soon after for the still influential Sight And Sound. Capitalizing on the success of the UK's early 60's Angry Young Man movement, which included influential efforts from some of his critical peers, he decided to enter the directorial ring, first with a series of documentary shorts, but building to a grand homage to one of his filmmaking heroes; French cinema legend and fellow anarchist Jean Vigo.
Anderson's resulting debut feature pretty much unspools as Vigo's ZERO FOR CONDUCT with guns. A LOT of guns. And starring Malcolm McDowell. The casting of the latter proved no small stroke of luck, as the sheer charisma first-timer McDowell brought to the role not only birthed a new film star (and yeah Kubrick was watching) but helped sell Anderson's revolt as surely as any charm-smoldering alpha male had ever done in the worlds both real and reel. It may be too soon on the heels of our own American celebration of rebellion and revolution for me to exalt a work of Brit revolt, the very term an oxymoron at best, but with few exceptions has the complexity of insurrection been depicted in such simple, powerful terms.
Linday Anderson's IF... screens tonight at Anthology Film Archives, along with Ken Russell's WOMEN IN LOVE, as part of the venue's series Agnes B. Selects. Placate your inner bomb-thrower and catch this screening instead. Trust.
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