Film

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Deep Songs, Film, My back pages, New York, Television, Theater

Liaisons with Angela

October 27, 2022

Attend this tale. I regret that I never ran into her at a cocktail party, nor was I privileged to have shared the stage or screen with her. Except for a brief moment, my story is the story of millions. I was an audience member, a fan who was the happy beneficiary of the talent…

Criticals, Dance, Film, Music, My back pages

Crazy Rhythms in a Night of Love

November 29, 2020

Last night I enhaled the glorious mise en scene of Steve McQueen’s Lover’s Rock, one of the five short films that comprise his Small Axe series (Amazon Prime). All that polyester! Sweaty dancers and swigs of beer redolent of high school parties in the basements of classmate’s houses! It’s the power of film, and its…

Art, Film, My back pages

Jonathan Demme, Film Director 1944-2017

April 30, 2017

A few hours or so spent in the company of a great film is akin to falling in love. A spell is cast; like a lover, the images on screen evoke a flipbook of feelings. That was what it was like to experience a Jonathan Demme film. I won’t soon forget the unbeatable elation I felt…

Architecture, Art, Film, Museums/Galleries

Haunted Art

September 5, 2016

How apt that the red barn on top of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is called Transitional Object. It’s a term psychologists use to describe that which weans us away from, while providing the comfort of the original—think pacifier, though such objects might also be defined as props used to test reality. Could the same…

Film, Television, Theater, Vespers

Patty Duke 1946-2016, Ken Howard 1944-2016

March 30, 2016

For us union performers, the names Ken Howard and Patty Duke were synonymous with leadership; both served as president of the Screen Actors Guild at pivotal transition times. Duke famously took over the reins from William Schallert, a case of TV-bred nepotism (Schallert played Duke’s character’s father and uncle). More recently Howard shepherded the merger…

Criticals, Film, Gay, History, Short Cuts, Theater

Oscar Bait!

January 2, 2015

It isn’t true for every child that grows up in a large family, but it was true for me: I wanted to be seen. There I was, a middle child (one of ten) convinced of his invisibility, and fighting like hell to rectify the injustice. From where I sat, recognition came either by way of…

Film, Television, Theater

Mike Nichols, 1931-2014, Director

November 23, 2014

The very first play I saw on Broadway was the original production of D.L. Coburn’s The Gin Game. By then, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy had left, and been replaced by E.G. Marshall and Maureen Stapleton. No matter: it was still a once-in-a-lifetime evening watching those two deliver performances so perfect they made me weep….

Film, My back pages, Television, Theater, Vespers

Robin Williams, Funny Boy 1951-2014

August 11, 2014

We had a few things in common. Both of us were sons of the midwest (he hailed from Chicago; I was born in Cincinnati). Both of us were born on July 21. About the last–I once worked as an extra on one of his films. It was Cadillac Man, and I was thrilled, though not…

Film

Gordon Willis, Cinematographer, 1931-2014

May 20, 2014

If he’d only shot The Godfather, Annie Hall and Manhattan, Gordon Willis’s reputation would be secure as one of the visual artists responsible for Hollywood’s last golden age of artisanal filmmaking. But his other films were equally masterful–this was the man who also did Pennies from Heaven, Woody Allen’s wonderful run of 80s films (Zelig,…

Current Affairs, Film, History, Music, New York, Race, Theater

Vampire Elegies, 50s Negroes and White Folks With Guitars

April 15, 2014

On screen, onstage, in concert: here’s some stuff I got to see last week. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, director). What could be more modern? Two lovers live on opposite sides of the continent; when Adam (Tom Hiddleston), a legendary rock star recluse holed up in Detroit, becomes suicidal, his lady, Eve (the tres elegant…