April 2nd 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 Tout Truffaut at Film Forum, Permanent Vacation: The Films of Jim Jarmusch at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and Vienna Unveiled, The Aesthetics of Shadow Part 2: Europe and America, and An Autuerist History of Film at MoMA. The cinematic scallywaggery looks thus;
Film Forum
FAHRENHEIT 451 (1967) Dir; Francois Truffaut
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) Dir; Steven Spielberg
Film Society of Lincoln Center
DOWN BY LAW (1986) Dir; Jim Jarmusch
STRANGER THAN PARADISE (1984) Dir; Jim Jarmusch
PERMANENT VACATION (1980) Dir; Jim Jarmusch
MoMA
FAHRENHEIT 451 (1967) Dir; Francois Truffaut
THE EXCLUDED (1982) Dir; Franz Novotny
BROKEN BLOSSOMS (1919) Dir; D. W. Griffith
THE PHANTOM CHARIOT (1921) Dir; Victor Sjostrom
Today's Pick? Let us celebrate today a key figure in the reclamation of NYC's status as filmmaking mecca, if no threat to Hollywood in terms of finance and facilities then besting it in a far more important criteria; its iconic and unwavering cool. Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin had first proposed the cinematic possibilities still held by the onetime center of the celluloid universe, transplanting Italian Neorealism to Coney Island for THE LITTLE FUGITIVE. From that mere but potent seed sprung the likes of Cassavetes, Downey Jr., and the film school upstarts who numbers included Martin Scorsese and, well, Brian de Palma. NYC re-emerged as a proper and important stage not just for film production, but as a petri dish for creative, often groundbreaking cinematic thinking. The studios latched on to this seismic shift in cultural sensibility, and while they did not move their production offices east, they certainly allowed the 70's enfant terribles, mavericks like William Friedkin, Elaine May and Francis Ford Coppola, their way with the town, if not always with skyrocketing budget. The piss and vinegar of the 60's and early 70's had turned, unfortunately, to wine by decade's end, and truly daring filmmaking, and bold scenes they could begin or latch onto, seemed scarce. Hence the No Wave.
In a glorious rejection of what had by then become a plasticized, populist consumer fantasy of gritty, grimy NYC circa the Koch era, a subculture coalesced to reject even the still-warm corpses of the CBGB's punk scene, Spartanly tossing them off the cliff as deadweight and dross. A whole new art scene emerged as an almost instant backlash, a rejection of the still-new as old, but really a rejection of the corporate hegemony that allowed for unique indie voices to be easily categorized and shelved. Amongst their upstart rank included Amos Poe, Nick Zedd, and the subject of tonight's trib at the Film Society, a wry experimental humanist who still combines equal parts Luis Bunuel and Jean Renoir. As an act of benevolence the Film Society will sell you a special discounted tik to all THREE screenings of his early work today, and lord knows I don't like to pass me up a three-fer when that elusive beast pokes his head from out a shrub. I'm a lazy hunter. Sue.
PERMANENT VACATION, STRANGER THAN PARADISE & DOWN BY LAW unspool today as part of Permanent Vacation: The Films of Jim Jarmusch, screening at the Walter Reade Theater.
For more info on these and all NYC's classic film screenings in March '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 tomorrow with a brand new Pick, til then you'll never get your hair to look that cool. Just stop trying.
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 the 2012 hurricane. Be a mensch.
