Go Go Tales

Friday night director Abel Ferrara was seen cajoling people on the street near the Walter Reade Theater, begging them to attend the New York Film Festival's midnight screening of his comedy, Go Go Tales, about a downtown club on the decline. “We'll find a place to put your bags,” he pleaded with one passerby referring to the man's rolling suitcase. Handsome in a rugged way with a huge Frankenstein head, Ferrara looks thuggish for a moment, perhaps frightening, and then his face melts into a soft vulnerability. You do not want to say no to him. In the meantime, in the theater's lobby, a cocktail reception was underway. Sylvia Miles, in a top hat, was the hub of activity, photos and chat. Playing the landlord of the go go club, Miles is the only woman in the film wearing clothes (a fake Chanel houndstooth suit and velvet headband); she has the film's best scenes, holding a fire hose in one hilarious moment and as a barfly with a foul mouth; in a stroke of genius, she sings a ditty intoning “bed, bath, and beyond” over the movie's end credits. Willem Dafoe was also on hand, as he was the week before, on the festival's opening night. At Tavern on the Green he escorted guests into the swell schmooze fest as if he were in character, the club's proprietor desperate to keep it alive. Rushing by was a tony crowd-including Leelee Sobieski looking very Hollywood in a slinky gown, directors Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, actors Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Schwartzman, Adrian Brody with his mom, photographer Sylvia Plachy-- you just wanted to ask Willem, “Where are the pole dancers?”

                                                                                     Regina Weinreich