The Rep Report (January 30 - Feburary 5)

Phil Nugent — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:00:00 GMT

NEW YORK: Positif, affectionately known as "the other French film magazine" for its often confrontational stance in regard to the institution that is Cahiers du Cinema, has its say about that matters in the American indie canon with "Mavericks and Outsiders: Positif Celebrates American Cinema", January 30 - February 5. The program, curated by the magazine's longtime editor Michel Climent, includes such cultish provocations as James Toback's directorial debut Fingers (1978); Paul Schrader's working-man dirge Blue Collar (1978); the living-tabloid The Honeymoon Killers (1970), the sole directing job by Leonard Kastle (who took over from the original hire, Martin Scorsese); Wanda (1971), a character drama written and directed by its star, Barbara Loden, a heartbreakingly gifted actress perhaps better known for having been married to Elia Kazan; the presecient my-camera-ate-my-life mock-documentary David Holzman's Diary (1967); and the little-seen 1989 Reunion, starring Jason Robards and directed by Jerry Schatberg from a script by Harold Pinter. Climent will introduce many of the screenings and also host discussions with such special guests as Toback and director Larry Clark.

If all that only serves to whet your appetite for vintage American indies, The Panic in the Needle Park, the 1971 New York City junkie drama that boasts Al Pacino's first starring role, checks into the Film Forum for a week starting today. Directed by the aforementioned Jerry Schatzberg, from a script by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, and produced by Dunne's brother (and Didion's brother-in-law) Dominick Dunne before he began his own writing career, the movie is a well-made downer that has special historical value for its location shooting, which captures Fun City at its most rat-infested and raggedy--and which is augmented by an impressively grungy-looking supporting cast that includes Richard Bright, Raul Julia, Kiel Martin, Warren Finnerty, Joe Santos, Alan Vint, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Sully Boyar, and a tubby young Paul Sorvino in a bit as a cop--and of course for the first starring movie appearance by Pacino, 31 years old and a year away from The Godfather. He plays a scuffling heroin addict who falls in love with a young slummer played by Kitty Winn and sucks her into his vortex. The movie played at the Cannes Film Festival, where, surprisingly, it was Winn who came home with a prize for her performance. She would go on to play the assistant of the mother of the possessed little girl in both The Exorcist and Exorcist II: The Heretic, and disappear from the radar a few years later.

Douglas Sirk's 1950's films Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life would go on to win him a high-toned critical reputation as some kind of subversive master of stormy, hyperbolic melodrama and an inspiration to later filmmakers ranging from Fassbinder to Todd Haynes. Meanwhile, the older studio director John M. Stahl is known as, well, somebody who made a batch of movies that were later remade by Douglas Sirk. (In addition to the original Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life, Stahl directed the 1939 When Tomorrow Comes, which Sirk remade in 1957 as Interlude. But many old-movie lovers maintain that Stahl's originals are unself-conscious, well-wrought classics that have been unfairly overshadowed by Sirk's versions, and Anthology Film Archives is giving viewers a rare chance to compare them side by side with screenings this weekend of all six movies. Just on the basis of the on-screen talent, the 1934 Imitation, co-starring Claudette Colbert and the great black actress Louise Beavers, may have a clear edge.

The Rep Report: September 5--10

Phil Nugent — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:30:00 GMT

NEW YORK: Anthology Film Archives commences its salute to Jerry Schatzberg tonight with screenings of the director's firat features, the 1970 alienation-fest Puzzle of a Downfall Child (starring Faye Dunway) and the 1971 The Panic in Needle Park, costarring Al Pacino, in his first starring role, and Kitty Winn as a young couple of heroin addicts. Schatzberg, who seems to be more or less retired, had an erratic career, and to his other problems, he'll probably have at least one chance during his personal appearance at this retrospective to patiently explain that, no, he isn't Joel Schumacher. But as a filmmaker he had a broad curiosity about different milieus and kinds of characters, and his pictures have generally had texture and weight. Needle Park retains interest as a deep quaff of '70s New York at its most confoundingly ungovernable, and Schatzberg can boast of having directed Pacino in both his last performance before The Godfather made him a star and the first picture he made afterwards, the 1973 road movie Scarecrow co-starring Gene Hackman. When Schatzberg made the New York-set Street Smart fifteen years after Needle Park, he had to shoot it in Toronto, but once again he helped launch the movie career of a major star, this time someone who'd been working for decades and would turn fifty the year the picture was released: just a couple of years earlier, Morgan Freeman had been reduced to holding down a job on Another World, but his terrifying performance as a pimp who emerges like a monster from the id to turn pampered reporter Christopher Reeve's life into a pretzel earned him his first Academy Award nomination and a long-belated measure of the industry stature he'd long deserved. Also showing: Honeysuckle Rose, a 1980 country music remake of Intermezzo starring Willie Nelson and Dyan Cannon, which introduced Willie's theme song "On the Road Again," and "Reunion," a sadly overlooked 1989 film starring Jason Robards, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter.

Raindance, the British company responsible for the Raindance Film Festival (which opens October 7, by the way), is bringing its educational program to the New York Film Academy. Aspiring filmmakers looking to drop a few bucks towards their futures might want to check out Elliot Grove's "99 MInute Film School" on Tuesday, September 9 and the "Lo to No Budget Filmmaking" seminar on the weekend of September 13 and 14, which bears a recommendation blurb from director Christopher Nolan, whose most recent film, The Dark Knight, has been well-received. This marks the first time the Raindance people's first venture into America, and it might be nice if it wasn't their last, so for God's sake, behave yourselves.

LOS ANGELES: Every Thursday in September, the Silent Movie Theater hosts "Word Is Born: Hip Hop at the Movies, 1979-1984". Included are Hollywood exploitation jobs such as Breakin' and Beat Street, the solid period documentary Style Wars, and on September 25, Beat This! Hip Hop Rarities, winner of this month's Rep Report Award for Promotional Copy That We Have No Intention of Trying to Re-Word: " We've dug even deeper for our closeout night, and we're bringing you some of the rarest cuts in a fantastic mix of rarities from the old-school hip-hop era. Watch them one after the other, obscure odds and ends from the Golden Age, ending with Beat This! A Hip-Hop History! Yup! It’s the history of hip-hop! And it was made in 1984! And it’s all in rhyme! And it’s vocoderized by Afrika Bambaataa! And it’s sci-fi! And it stars BS-ing punk-impresario-turned-double-dutch-promoter Malcolm McLaren in all his patronizing glory! And it was made for Granada TV! And they forced director Dick Fontaine to slip in McLaren against his will, but he couldn’t do anything about it!"

SAN FRANCISCO: Sean McCourt of the Bay Guardian has the dirt on this weekend's Lebowski Fest.

NORTH CAROLINA: The tenth Hi Mom! Film Festival, festuring an international, family-friendly selection of fifty-one animated and live-action shorts, runs this weekend starting tonight, at the Art Center in Carborro. Please note that the outdoor screenings planned for Chapel Hill have been moved indoors due to a "strong threat of rain."

The Screengrab : kitty winn

The Rep Report (January 30 - Feburary 5)

The Rep Report: September 5--10