February 8th 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.
Today's continuing series include Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema up at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and BAM's valentine to female bad-assery Vengeange is Hers. The rep circuit monkey biz looks thusly;
Nitehawk Cinema
SAY ANYTHING (1989) Dir; Cameron Crowe
SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980) Dir; Robert Houston
Film Forum
ALPHAVILLE (1965) Dir; Jean-Luc Godard
THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947) Dir; Orson Welles
MoMA
MANILA IN THE CLAW OF LIGHT (1975) Dir; Lino Brocka
Film Society of Lincoln Center
THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT (1964) Dir; Wojciech Has
MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS (1960) Dir; Jerzy Kawalerowicz
BAM Cinematek
BLUE STEEL (1989) Dir; Katherine Bigelow
MS. 45 (1981) Dir; Abel Ferrara
Today's Pick? I'm making my first of what will surely be several selections from BAM Cinematek's Vengeance is Hers series, choosing Grindhouse auteur Abel Ferrara's first major work; a film that put the her back into retribution! Wait, it put the her back into payback! It put the her back into reprisal! Godammit why isn't the word her to be found in any synonym for revenge? Should I start looking at Russian slang?
Drawing from cinematic influences ranging from Polanski's REPULSION, vigilante films of the 70's and the fringe NYC arthouse cinema of Warhol and Downey Sr., as well as the conflicts derived from his Catholic upbringing, Ferrara announced himself with this film as a voice to be reckoned with; an artist fully willing and able to crawl through an underbelly as equally informed by Fellini's surrealist worldview as Mayor Koch's Time Square. His work, at its best, is at once romantic and lurid, painful and cathartic, tempting constantly with the worst our desires might achieve while simultaneously dangling nobler reward before us. It's easy to judge Ferrara's work as nothing more than garish entertainments, little more than base exploitation fare with slightly higher production budgets, but that, I argue, would be leaving so much of his worth out of the equation. Abel Ferrara's CV, at its best, has one stellar attribute that rises above all of his others, above all of his natural instincts as a filmmaker to present us with purely salacious cinema, which he no doubt fully embraces, with T&A and guns and cars that go BOOM; Abel Ferrara's best work has soul. There is a personal cry for help to be found in his best characters, an identification with his most seemingly unforgivable wretches. His is the cinema of the damaged, the lost, the betrayed. His is the cinema of the outlaw, those who define the idea of righteousness on their own terms. His is the cinema of Catholic guilt, the desire to see justice done grappling with the desire to remain just. His is a important voice in the cinematic world, then and now. Today you can glimpse an early, perhaps first, example of why that's true.
Abel Ferrara's MS. 45 unspools in a glorious new DCP resto as part of BAM's Vengeance is Hers series. I dont have a thing for nuns, dammit! Stop beating that dead horse okay maybe I got a thing for nuns.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in February '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 it's all about Sochi. And by Sochi I mean my Rusian bookie. He told me to take the Seahawks giving 30 points last week. Nostrovia!
-Joe Walsh
P. S. Should you be feeling charitable during this harsh weather period please remember to check in with the good folks over at Occupy Sandy. Some of our NY neighbors are still feeling the effects of last year's hurricane. Be a mensch.
