Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
seen @ Film Forum, New York NY

So it was Virginia’s birthday a couple of weeks ago and I was gonna take her rowboating in Central Park. There were thunderstorms in the morning, but then it cleared up and got warmer. Still, she changed her mind about going and suggested a movie instead. I was like, we can go to a movie anytime, but this was what she wanted. Couldn’t refuse her on her birthday—and as it turned out, the film she picked was a winner.

I’ve read some Toni Morrison: I own a copy of The Bluest Eye, and I used to have Beloved. I forget what happened to it. (The Jonathan Demme film version was good, though I remember at the time it kinda freaked me out a bit.) I admit, when it comes to classic black literature, I tend to gravitate more towards the guys: Baldwin, Ellison, Hughes, Wright. The books by black women authors I have are more modern—though now that I think of it, couldn’t Morrison qualify as modern? Not sure. (Also—sorry, sports fans—sometimes I confuse Morrison with Maya Angelou.

Regardless, I’ve always respected Morrison as an Author of Note, but this new documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am made me much more aware of her as a person. According to this Vanity Fair piece, she had known the director, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, since 1981, so it’s quite possible he was the only one who could’ve made this film. A photographer, he has Morrison face the camera directly while all his other interviewees are off-center, a visual distinction that feels more intimate—although he does a ton of jump-cutting in the talking head sections, something I see a lot of in interviews of this sort. I don’t like it.

Morrison discusses her childhood family; her years as an editor at the book publisher Random House and how she attracted a number of black authors; her novels; and her later, hard-won recognition by her wider (whiter, male-r) audience, including her Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes. Other interviewees include Fran Leibowitz, Angela Davis, and of course, the Big O: Oprah Winfrey. In addition, we see a number of beautiful illustrations of black life made specifically for this film, including a series of collages of Morrison in the opening credits.

As a writer, I dug hearing her speak about her craft. I wish she had talked more about it, though I understand why more emphasis was placed on other things, like her career and her place in the black literary canon. I read her work when I was younger, and while I found the florid, intricate writing style a struggle, I could still tell there was something substantial there, something unlike other authors.

Virginia said she had read some of Morrison’s stuff too, though she didn’t think of herself as a huge fan. I think she was more drawn to this film as an example of a powerful and influential woman artist. I wasn’t aware of this film at all, but I am glad I saw it. I still hope I can take Virginia rowboating this summer, though.

Course plotted and laid in...

...all systems are go for the #30DaysOfStarTrek, beginning this Thursday! This is another first for me. I've seen other bloggers post for 30 consecutive days and always marveled at the sight. Now I'm gonna try it myself. Of course, I've already started writing in advance. The trick will be in keeping to my schedule.

If you look at the sidebar, you'll notice the itinerary, which will include the people behind the scenes as well as the characters and episodes, all from my slightly skewed perspective. In addition: I MIGHT make it to the big Trek con here in New York for one day at least. Nothing definite yet, but if it happens, I'll write about it. I did make it to the Starfleet Academy Experience exhibit at the USS Intrepid. I went there with my pals Bibi and Eric; we had a great time, and I'll definitely tell you about that. I also hope to review Adam Nimoy's film For the Love of Spock, and who knows, maybe there will be one or two other surprises.

September will be an exciting time to celebrate 50 years of Trek, and I sincerely hope you'll share your opinions, memories and stories about Trek with me this month as well.

The image at the top is from the chalk art festival I went to in New Paltz last month. I had meant to use it in my post on Beyond, but I forgot, so here it is now.

We have time for a few links before we get started...

Raquel went to CapitolFest.

Le explores the acting career of a fellow Brazilian, whose career took him around the world.

Ryan thinks a redefinition of the term "classic film" is overdue.

Ivan reviews a book about film preservation.

Film Forum is starting a new series of double features.

Spotlight on pioneering black animator Floyd Norman.

The Loews Jersey City theater will be featured in a new short film starring Danny Aiello.

Top 5 movie-going moments of 2015

I almost wasn't going to do a Top 5 this year, because I honestly didn't think I had enough to round one out - but then I realized that not every positive movie-going experience has to include something odd or unusual, though this list includes those too. Once again, I was fortunate to have seen some world-class films on the big screen, on celluloid, and those should be acknowledged too. So here you go:

5. Pather Panchali @ Film Forum. I wish I could've seen the rest of the Apu Trilogy at the Forum as well, but I can hardly complain about getting to see the first film in the series, on a big screen. It was as good as I remembered it.

4. Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm at MOMI. It wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen, but seeing it on a big screen in 70mm was worth the trip - and it certainly increased my appreciation for seeing films on celluloid. Seeing it with an appreciative crowd always helps.

3. Son of the Sheik with the Alloy Orchestra at Celebrate Brooklyn. One thing I never mentioned about that summer night in Prospect Park is that after the movie, I happened to run into my old girlfriend as I was about to leave the ampitheater. It was totally unexpected; I didn't think she had any interest in old movies in general, much less silent movies, but she was there with a friend of hers, talking to some other people, and she was pleasantly surprised to see me, to say the least. The three of us hung out at a nearby bar afterward. It was the first time I had ever bought her a drink - strange experience, that. I had never seen her imbibe before. But it was a nice way to end a terrific evening.

2. Being at the Loew's Jersey City the night FOL won their court case. This is perhaps a bit of a cheat: being there was actually kind of anti-climactic given that I had found out the news while I was still in Hoboken, earlier in the day - but it was part of that thrilling eight hours or so where I was constantly on my cellphone, searching for news articles and updating my blog as I learned more about the story. It was fun to act like a real journalist for that day, especially when it involved a story I cared about. And even if this wasn't an "exclusive," at least I got video footage (however grainy) of the announcement at the theater, so there's that. Without a doubt one of the best moments in the history of this blog.

1. First-run movies returning to Forest Hills' Cinemart with American Sniper. If you saw my supplemental Tumblr blog, you might remember when I wrote about this from wa-a-a-a-a-y back in January: the Cinemart Fiveplex in Forest Hills, a second-run theater for years, resumed showing first-run movies with the release of American Sniper, and in so doing, gave their 90-year-old cinema a shot in the arm. It was quite exciting, in a small-scale way, to have been part of the festivities, and naturally, I'm pleased to see a neighborhood theater continue to thrive amidst the multiplex chains. I went back there this month to see Spotlight, and they look like they're still doing well.

------------------------
Previously:
2014 top five
2013 top five
2012 top five
2011 top five

Pather Panchali

Pather Panchali (AKA Song of the Little Road)
seen @ Film Forum
5.8.15

Pather Panchali was yet another film I saw for the first time during my video store days in the 90s, when all I knew about it was that it was an Important Movie. I remember liking it, but I never had the inclination to revisit it or any of the other films in the so-called Apu Trilogy - Aparajito and World of Apu. So I was pleased to see that Film Forum was gonna show all three films this month, although this is probably the only one I'll get to see there.

If you've never seen PP, it's a simple family drama, set within rural India. Mother, father, big sister, little brother, elderly aunt; Dad's job takes him away for long stretches; big sister's a bit of a problem child, which makes the neighbors look down on Mom and her parenting skills; Auntie's kinda crazy and a bit of a kleptomaniac; and little brother's just trying to make his way in this world. He is the Apu of the "Apu Trilogy," if it wasn't obvious.

What do we know about the director, Satyajit Ray? Well, the Trilogy accounted for three of his first five feature films, and he went on to make a whole lot more, none of which, I'm afraid, I've heard of, much less seen. At 6' 5", he was a big guy; he was an illustrator and composer in addition to being a writer-director; he was buddies with Akira Kurosawa; and among the many awards he received in his lifetime included the French Legion of Honor.

PP was based on a book and took over five years to shoot, little by little. The West Bengal government gave Ray money to finish it when he ran out of funds at one point. The Prime Minister of India insisted upon it! When PP took off, Ray was able to quit his job working in an ad agency to make movies full time.

Family dramas are often the best way to gain insight into a culture without it coming across like a documentary, and PP is no exception. We see how Indian people from this time period (1955) and this part of the country eat, dress, live, entertain themselves (there's a nice part where Apu watches a live theatrical performance based in what looks like Indian myth), etc. We see what they value, what their hopes and fears are. Dad is a writer, and he wants to make money off of it, but it's a struggle. Mom fears that her aunt is becoming a bad influence on her daughter and a burden on the family in general. It's a different culture, but the problems they have to deal with are not all that different.

And then there's the music. Chances are you know the name Ravi Shankar from the music of the Beatles, especially George Harrison, and the Byrds. Shankar, an internationally acclaimed, Grammy-winning musician, did the music for the entire Trilogy, and he rocks the sitar like you expect him to. It makes such a distinctive sound; you can tell that it's different from a guitar, and Shankar was the Eric Clapton of the sitar. His music gives PP an added dimension, an extra layer of depth. Hear for yourself.

The Forum is stretching the Trilogy out over the month of May. Some of the people in the crowd I saw PP with seemed to think they were gonna see all three movies at once - which I wouldn't have objected to! It would be nice if the Forum could offer a three-for-one deal of some kind, but that probably would be tricky to pull off. I'm just glad I saw this one when I did.

The Tingler

The Tingler
seen @ Film Forum, New York, NY
8.18.13

So... who has two thumbs and recently said something along the lines of how William Castle movies don't get played often anymore?

[this guy]

For a brief time during last month's Castle-thon, it seemed like there was a bit of a resurgence in the horror director's popularity, at least on Twitter - though both Monstergirl and Goregirl had something to do with that, I'm sure. Castle may never attract more than a niche crowd of cinephiles, but if nothing else, they're devoted cinephiles.

I was reminded of this again when I (finally!) saw The Tingler on Sunday at Film Forum. It was part of an end-of-summer classic sci-fi series, with lots of great old genre movies that, if I had the time and money, I'd probably spend on the whole thing. The line for admission, as you might imagine, was out the door and far down the street. Good thing my pals John & Sue got there before me so I wouldn't be too far back. I invited the two of them along; I hadn't seen them in awhile and I knew they'd go for this.

Now, the Forum advertised this showing as being in "Percepto," which, as we learned from my Castle post, requires sticking vibrating motors underneath random audience seats and activating them during the movie. I had speculated that if this sort of thing were done today, there'd be fighting over seats and people would leak the locations of those seats online. 

There was no fighting that I saw on Sunday, and as for advance knowledge, well, I admit, I asked Will, who had already seen Tingler at the Forum, if he remembered where the rigged seats were. He was convinced there were very few of them, if any, and as it turned out, he was right. I didn't see any rigged seats to the left and the right of me, nor did I see any in the row in front of me. Needless to say, I was bummed... but what the Forum offered turned out to be not so bad. 

In Tingler, Vincent Price plays a scientist who discovers a parasitic life-form that resides at the base of the human spinal column and grows whenever somebody gets scared, and only screaming can control it (just go with it). To test his theory, he shoots himself up with LSD - which may make this 1959 film one of, if not the very first, films to depict LSD use. I remember thinking at that moment that gee, it would be cool if we could see him tripping in color. Sure enough, the print was overlaid with a color filter which looked like tie-died liquid squishing around. It was a nice touch - and it was just what I wished for!

There's a skeleton in Price's lab, and naturally, that made me think of "Emergo" from House on Haunted Hill - the skeleton that pops out from behind the screen and hovers over the crowd during a key moment. Well, wouldn't you know it, during a big "scary" moment in Tingler, what should come out of nowhere but the Emergo skeleton, to the cheers of the near-sellout crowd? It hung from a wire running at a diagonal above the auditorium. It dangled around back and forth for a few moments, and at one point an entire arm fell off the skeleton and into the crowd! That got a huge roar of approval! 

This scene is supposed to be colored this way.

Eventually it stayed in place, hanging in front of the screen as the movie continued. It stayed that way for several minutes, as whoever was in charge of it twitched it first one way, then another, as if unsure which way to pull it. One guy in front shouted "Wrong way!" when it moved away from its hiding place. Personally, though, I suspect that it was deliberately kept out a few minutes longer than necessary, just for the hell of it.

The best was yet to come, though. In the film, the Tingler parasite is extracted from a human corpse, and in a bit of meta-narrative, it eventually escapes into, of all places, a movie theater, and since screaming is supposed to neutralize it, Price implores the theater audience - and by extension, us - to scream like crazy. This is when the buzzers are supposed to go off, but what happened on Sunday was the ushers stormed into the auditorium with flashlights, frantically running around looking for the "Tingler" as everybody screamed like madmen. Somebody - a plant, no doubt - pretended to grapple with something that looked like the Tingler and wrestled it out of his seat and down the aisle and out the emergency exit and everybody went bananas over the whole thing, myself included.

The movie itself is not that great. Besides the questionable (at best) premise, one can clearly see the wire used to make the Tingler move, and Price on an LSD trip can never be taken seriously. As I've said before, though, Castle's films are less about quality than they are about entertainment, and even if this wasn't really presented in "Percepto" as I understood it, I was entertained.

Tingler played as part of a twin bill with Homicidal, complete with a Coward's Corner which two more plants escaped towards at the appointed moment in the film. I was glad to see it again because now that I knew the secret of that film, I could look at it again and see how the pieces of the puzzle fit, which I totally missed the first time. John had seen it before, but Sue hadn't, so she was surprised by the big twist towards the end. 

Castle himself, from his introduction to Tingler

Plus, this screening had people I knew in attendance; I saw an old comics acquaintance, Abby, who was there with a friend, and Will was there too, which I didn't expect, since he had seen it already. When it comes to movies, though, he really gets around; after this twin bill, he went into Brooklyn to see another movie! He told me later on Twitter that he has memberships at many New York film theaters, so he gets in cheap. That would explain it.

Night Nurse/Ladies They Talk About

This is Barbara Stan-week! All this week we'll celebrate the life and career of my favorite actress, Barbara Stanwyck, covering different eras of her long and distinguished journey through the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Night Nurse
Ladies They Talk About
seen @ Film Forum, New York, NY
7.19.11

It was probably Double Indemnity that did it for me. I'm not sure whether I first saw it in my film history class in college or while working at the old video store I worked at, but either way, it was likely that film that made me admire Barbara Stanwyck. My reaction to the movie was on a similar level to when I saw Sunset Boulevard for the first time (both Billy Wilder films; not a coincidence): I've never seen anything like this before. From the way she talked, the way she moved, the way she acted, I believed that Stanwyck was a woman that a man would kill for. 

Then I saw more of her movies, and I saw other sides to her; how she could be playful, virtuous, treacherous, elegant, and more. She wasn't a va-va-VOOM sex goddess like Marilyn or Rita, but she could easily evoke sensuality. She didn't challenge gender roles in the same manner as Katherine or Joan, but she was tough enough to stand up for what was hers, no matter which side of the tracks her characters came from. She made mediocre films good and good films better - and she'll forever be remembered as one of Hollywood's greatest leading ladies.

Night Nurse and Ladies They Talk About were two movies shown during the Film Forum's marvelous recent series on pre-Code Hollywood. (When I saw it, it was part of a triple bill which also included the William Powell film Lawyer Man, which was also good.) Stanwyck's career began in a time when movies, still in its infancy, were castigated by conservative organizations for their alleged immorality. In 1930, a production code was adopted that was designed to restrain what could and could not be shown in the movies, but it wasn't until 1934 that it was given teeth. One of the pivotal films that ultimately led to enforcement of the Code was Stanwyck's own Baby Face.

In Night Nurse, Stanwyck and Joan Blondell are nurses at a hospital, and Stanwyck discovers a plot by a delinquent mother to kill her daughters and collect on their trust funds. In Ladies They Talk About, Stanwyck, for her part in a series of robberies, goes to prison thanks to an old flame turned radio evangelist, who she still has a thing for. I liked Nurse better. It's got a mixture of drama and comedy, it's sexier (I think the sight of Stanwyck and Blondell in their slips must've been what offended the prudes back then), plus it's got an early appearance by a mustache-less Clark Gable as a bad guy! Ladies didn't quite live up to the promise of seeing Stanwyck in a women's prison movie - the prison wasn't anywhere near as rough as I thought it might be, and the ending seemed like a cop out.

I've found pre-Code films to be somewhat of a mixed bag. Some of them do live up to their reputation, but others have struck me as more pedestrian. Of course, I understand that social mores were very different back in the late 20s and early 30s, and I try to keep that in mind when I watch them, though it's not easy. One of the first movie books I ever bought was an anthology called Movie Censorship and American Culture, a group of essays detailing the history of the film industry's long battle against censorship. The Code period gets a great deal of discussion, naturally, so I'm familiar with the context of the time period in which films like Nurse and Ladies were part of. Given the pressures Hollywood was under to kowtow to conservative groups, perhaps the very fact that they were able to make the movies they did is significant of itself.

(Dig this: I just discovered that today marks the 80th anniversary of Night Nurse's release! I totally did not know this and did not plan for it. It's a complete coincidence.)

Meek's Cutoff

Meek's Cutoff
seen @ Film Forum, New York, NY
4.10.11

Meek's Cutoff invites some comparisons to True Grit (either one): old, scruffy, morally-questionable dude undertakes a mission of great importance on behalf of (and in the company of) tough frontier woman, one that takes them through the untamed wilderness of the old West. My main interest in this movie was Michelle Williams, whom I love, but I was also impressed with Bruce Greenwood. As long as we're making comparisons with True Grit, I thought Jeff Bridges' performance was a little overpraised. Rooster Cogburn is supposed to be somewhat loutish and even disreputable, but I thought he pushed it too far in that direction for most (but not all) of the movie. Here, Greenwood's Stephen Meek feels less like a parody and more like a proper badass anti-hero. I loved the constant tension between him and Williams; it served as a reminder that she and the rest of the wagon train were putting their trust in this man who may not be entirely reliable. Also, you can actually understand what he says!

I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was an original screenplay, though not by director Kelly Reichardt (whom I'd like to see more of, after this and Wendy and Lucy). She had a great eye for detail, not only with the period costumes and props, but with getting the cast to do the little everyday things that the people in a wagon train would have to do to survive and actually showing them. There's one scene that lingers on Williams loading a shotgun and firing it, and you see the process of filling it with powder, stuffing it down the barrel, locking and loading it, taking aim and firing. Meek, like many recent Westerns, de-glamorizes the genre to a great extent. Reichardt didn't even shoot it in widescreen; the very opposite, in fact. The frame is very small, restricting those sweeping, panoramic vistas we've come to expect from Westerns and providing a much different feel.

Quiet movies like this, with a very minimal score and lots of ambient sound, really test the audience you see it with. You trust them to be as quiet and attentive as they can and you hope they don't blow it (things like the occasional cough or sneeze are acceptable, of course). This opening weekend crowd was fine, although the woman next to me simply had to check her smart phone twice. She didn't talk on it, just fiddled with the screen for a minute or so before putting it away again. A third time and I would've told her to put it away, but fortunately there was no third time.

A few words about the Film Forum: I like the place a lot, but I hate the huge pillars in the auditoriums. You have to be careful where you sit, because in some places the pillars obstruct the screen. The backs of the seats all have small plaques dedicated to a financial donor, I would imagine, since the Forum is a non-profit cinema. I always wonder whether a certain donor would want to sit in his or her "seat" whenever they come down there for a film. Before the movie began, they played a bunch of Western-type music, which I thought was a great touch. There was some Morricone-sounding spaghetti Western score, "Don't Fence Me In," "Ghost Riders in the Sky," some other Western scores, stuff like that. And in the lobby they had a couple of mannequins with costumes from the film.

The Forum's popcorn has a great reputation, but I thought I'd try something different to eat: I had a slice of chocolate orange bundt cake. It wasn't bad; it was thick and sumptuous, and lasted quite awhile for a relatively small slice. Actually, I'm just now reminded of the last time I went to visit my pals Bibi and Eric and Bibi tried to make a chocolate orange bundt cake. She fussed over it for a long while, and while the result was alright, I liked the Forum's version better.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
seen @ Film Forum, New York NY
8.14.10

I took eight years of art school, learning whatever I could about how to be a better artist. I haven't been able to make a living with my art (yet), but I'd always felt that a formal education was a necessary requirement towards that goal. In subsequent years, I met artists who were self-taught, and some of them were just as good, if not more so, than those who went to school for it. As a result, every now and then I'd wonder how much I really needed all those classes.

Visual art always appealed to me, even from a young age. As I got older, though, I found myself interested in other art forms - writing, acting, music - and I was kinda pulled in different directions, eager to try out other stuff. Eventually, though, I always returned to visual art. My devotion to it may not have been as strong as that of others - I realize that. But if that was the case, what would the path of my development had been without art school, since I was so busy exploring other media?

How much of art is instinctual and how much is acquired knowledge? Basquiat never set out to be a fine artist; someone just looked at his graffiti and said hey, you should be an artist - so he did. He had no formal training, yet his paintings eventually became the toast of the town. I always considered myself a commercial artist, so perhaps the parallels are different - I never aspired to be a fine artist - but still, it's bewildering to me how these things happen.

I saw this film with Vija, one of my oldest and dearest friends. After the film I posed the instinct-versus-education question to her, and she pointed out how, in Basquiat's case at least, he came onto the art scene at just the right time (the late 70s), when there was an explosion of artistic creativity in New York from multiple angles - and the movie does make that clear. Plus she's old enough to remember what this was like.

Vija's a fine artist, and she has this kind of support group of like-minded artist friends. Their work is quite different from mine, but I've found common ground with them. We get together every so often and share ideas and each other's art. Lately I've been trying to nudge Vija into possibly doing a group project of some kind. She seems receptive, but I'm not sure about everyone else yet.

We were accompanied to the movie by Soonae, a woman who's also in the group. Vija's BF Franz was supposed to come too, but he arrived late and ended up waiting in the lobby for the rest of us. Afterwards we all wandered around Soho and Chinatown looking for a place to eat, settling on a place on Mott Street. I had kung pao chicken.

I like the Forum but their seats are tiny. If I can't sit on the aisle I'm gonna have problems.