Not Coming to a Theater Near You has launched another one of its must-follow series, this one on the films Peter Greenaway made with cinematographer Sacha Vierny, art direction team Ben van Os and Jan Roelfs, and composer Michael Nyman.
The editors: "Absent these collaborators - the departure of Michael Nyman (Prospero's Books would be their final collaboration, in 1991) and the death of Sacha Vierny (in 2001; 8½ Women was the last film he lensed for Greenaway) - Greenaway's cinematic work has diminished in visuals and sound, and has largely given way to the director's multifarious array of projects in other media. In conjunction with our forthcoming screening of Greenaway's 1989 masterpiece, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, we'll be considering the British expatriate's collaborations with the aforesaid crew, as well as some of his formative early work." So far: David Carter on The Falls and The Draughtsman's Contract and Leo Goldsmith on A Zed & Two Naughts and The Belly of an Architect. Updates, 1/15: Evan Kindley on Drowning by Numbers, Leo Goldsmith on The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover and Rumsey Taylor on Prospero's Books. Update, 1/19: Rumsey Taylor on The Baby of Mâcon.
EVENTS
The 19th New York Jewish Film Festival has opened today and runs through January 28. Michael Atkinson has an overview: "In the wake of Defiance, Valkyrie, et al, the blooming of features based on Holocaust history nudges out the familiar 'kak,' albeit with erratic results, while a smattering of archivals define what such a festival is really for."
On a somewhat related note, and also in the Voice, Michelle Orange: "An assembly of documentary and fictional fragments meant to cohere into a kind of abridged, impressionistic memoir, Carmel presupposes at least a passing familiarity with Israeli history and a more serious acquaintance with (and interest in) [Amos] Gitai's previous work and personal and political preoccupations." More from David Fear in Time Out New York. At MoMA from this evening through Monday.
"The product of an ongoing collaboration between the Museum of Modern Art and the Global Lens Initiative, the annual Global Lens series is designed to promote and showcase filmmaking in nations with developing film industries," writes Andrew Schenker. "This year's edition offers up a consistently mid-range product, reliably delivering a minimal level of cinematic inventiveness, but rarely breaking out of the mold." Tomorrow through January 29.
And Nikolaus Geyrhalter's "half-dozen feature-length portraits of hidden places and people - screening for a week at Anthology - double as implicit critiques of commercial documentary practice," writes Rob Nelson. "Geyrhalter, who formed his own production company at 22 (he's 37 now), has been making much the same film since his 1994 ode to Danube life, Washed Ashore: Here's what you haven't seen; decide for yourself what it means. The director's designated epic, shot in a dozen remote locations around the globe, is the shockingly beautiful travelogue Elsewhere (2001), a triumph of cinematic landscape photography and one of two four-hour films in his oeuvre. But for me, his masterpiece remains the bone-chilling Pripyat (1999), an end-of-days doc that aptly graced the last New York Film Festival of the 20th century." In the L Magazine, Benjamin Mercer agrees. The series starts Friday. Update, 1/15: More from Darrell Hartman in Artforum.
"Hey, it's a film festival masquerading as an art gallery show! Or is it an art gallery show masquerading as a film festival? Whatever it is, it's the Projections Festival of Rare and Hard to See Films curated by Aaron Rose and screening from Jan 16 to Feb 20 at the Roberts & Tilton gallery in Los Angeles." And Mike Everleth has the lineup.
Ongoing: Yesterday, I pointed to Melissa Anderson's piece for Artforum on Charlotte Forever, running Tuesdays at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York. Today, Justin Stewart chimes in for the L Magazine, arguing that Charlotte Gainsbourg's "acting career has proven to be, in my opinion, much more interesting than her musical one."
Also, the entry on the current retrospectives of current work by Elia Kazan, Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa in Chicago, London and New York, respectively, has been updated through today.
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