Gossip Central

On the Road with Jeremy Thomas

The glorious conceit of Mark Cousins’ documentary about British producer Jeremy Thomas is filming him from the passenger seat of a posh car on the way from London to Cannes, for the yearly film festival of festivals. A man of routines, Thomas followed the family business of filmmaking, always having a film to promote, but more, to schmooze with directors and distributors from a balcony overlooking the sea. The festival is after all, a work place. This is his 45^th year, seeing beautiful countryside as it whizzes by on the highway, and discussing life and filmmaker along the route. Some of his films, The Last Emperor, Only Lover Left Alive, Sexy Beast among them, are screening at the Quad Cinema for a retrospective, as is Cousins’ documentary, The Storms of Jeremy Thomas, a glimpse of the man behind the wheel.

This week, a special viewing of Cousins’ documentary drew many guests from his distinctive career including Debra Winger, who starred as Kit in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Sheltering Sky. Interviewed in the documentary, she speaks about Thomas’ humor and taste. A clip from the film shows her emerging in North Africa with John Malkovich and dozens of suitcases as they are travelers, not tourists, taking everything with them as if they will never return, in author Paul Bowles’ defining distinction. Interviewed in person by Sony Picture Classics’ Michael Barker, Thomas spoke about filming in the desert, taking liberties in the vast expanse of sand that makes this film so unique. Another clip shows Winger as Kit returning to a crowded café, just short of the author’s cameo, as he asks, how many times do we return to the same place in one’s life. It’s a question that works well pondering Thomas’ career as production auteur.

Hamptons Journal: Bob Colacello at The Peter Marino Foundation/ Hanzhi Wang at LongHouse

Writer Bob Colacello is the best kind of gossip; he observes people with a big heart and humor. In his latest book, an art volume of vintage New York photos by David Jimenez, accompanied by his text—a forgetting, as Colacello told a packed house at the Peter Marino Foundation in a conversation with Ivorypress publisher Elena Ochoa Foster, who flew in from Madrid for this occasion. He was inspired by the poet Joe Brainard who wrote a memoir listing his remembrances. For his own take, titled New York Memories, Colacello lists all that he had forgotten about New York in the 1970’s and 1980’s, when, as he was “forgetting,” downtown and uptown arts met at happy studios, galleries, discotheques, especially Studio 54, Steve Rubell’s place in midtown, and Eric Goode’s more artsy Area in Tribeca.

The conceit works well to dispel the impulse toward nostalgia, as Elena Ochoa Foster noted, even as Colacello records a bygone world. Going back to his childhood, he told the crowd that included Francesco Clemente, Vito Schnabel, his mother Jacqueline, Zac Posen, Vincent Fremont, and an artworld elite, in the upstairs space where the Israeli artist Michal Rovner’s brush strokes migrated against austere backdrops, it all started out when he came into “the city” as a boy:

“I forgot the awe and wonder I felt as a child arriving at the old Penn Station, which had been designed by McKim, Mead, and White in 1910, and was torn down to make way for the new Madison Square Garden in 1963.

“I forgot Woody Allen always sat at the most visible table at Elaine’s, pretending to be invisible.

“I forgot Malcom Forbes told me his old money friends like Doris Duke and the Mellons asked to be taken off the [Forbes 400] list, claiming they were worth much less than Forbes thought, and the only friend who insisted he was worth a lot more was Donald Trump.

“I forgot going to Andy Warhol’s Memorial at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on April Fool’s Day, 1987 with Sao Schlumberger, and thinking the huge crowd was testament to his greatness.

“I forgot that no matter what happens New York goes on, feet on the ground, head held high, heart and mind open.

Remembering Brice Marden in Tangier

You know the old adage: I would have paid more attention had I realized how important it was. In 1983 when I taught a summer writing workshop in Tangier with Paul Bowles at the American School of Tangier, the School of Visual Arts, under the leadership of founder Silas Rhodes invited a distinguished faculty that included Brice Marden. With reverence for the history of Tangier as an artists’ mecca, Marden and his family, his wife Helen Marden, their two girls, Mirabelle  and Melia (5 and 3), and an au pair, were given the room Henri Matisse occupied when he resided at the Villa de France Hotel. I lived in the room next door. The view was over the sumptuous gardens which Matisse painted in his modernist style. Marden’s abstract style, lyrical blocks of color and sinewy lines did not seem suited to palm foliage and flora, nor to the colors but he surely absorbed the vibe. At breakfast on the terrace, the girls seemed extraordinarily well behaved. Having already met the man I would marry, my fears about life as a wife and mother were allayed by seeing this family living free to travel and explore. Helen, an artist who had waitressed at Max’s Kansas City, would say, to acclimate to a culture, eat their yogurt and onions, and drink their wine.

At times, Brice and Helen, and whoever was teaching—that could be photographer Mary Ellen Mark, or graphic designer Milton Glaser, or type designer Ed Benguiat, or journalist Pete Hamill, would meet at the hotel bar. Because Brice was a fan of the beat writers, we had a connection through the poetry—I had written on Jack Kerouac and knew William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, all of whom spent time in Tangier. And, we smoked kif together. Later, after our time in Tangier, he did a series (1989-91), an homage to the Chinese poet Han Shan named for his “Cold Mountain” poems. Han Shan, famously a reclusive drunk, was the inspiration for Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums and poems by Gary Snyder. On a random evening Brice and I had dinner at the Claridge, a classy joint on the main boulevard, Louis Pasteur. Visiting Tangier in July, I had Brice on my mind as I passed the former restaurant now a bar and a bit run down. Sadly, Brice Marden died on August 9.

Candace Bushnell’s Lesson #6: Be Specific About What You Want

HBO’s And Just Like That, now nearing its final episode in series 2 features happy endings for Charlotte, Miranda, and we presume Samantha, and several additional characters. Carrie Bradshaw has moved on from the loss of Mr. Big, happily, and her creator, Candace Bushnell, has moved on too. An author—though not yet a Pulitzer Prize winner—and performer, Bushnell wowed the crowd at Canoe Place Inn in Hampton Bays this week in her one-woman show. Strutting across a stage in baby blue satin with feather trim, she recounts her stellar career as Observer columnist, coming to the big city, modest suitcase in hand, landing on Beekman Place with photographer Gordon Parks, sleeping around. Sex, or rather, “having sex like a man” becomes her material, and like her characters, she is quite explicit. If you are a fan of Sex & the City, you know what I mean.

Miraculously, in her tour de force hour and a half one-woman show—with the exception of a cameo by two dogs, the words “penis” and “vagina” are uttered once each, as Bushnell poses the question, Is There Still Sex in the City? Phone in hand, answering, “Good news only,” she converses with her Samantha, her Miranda, and her Charlotte, composites of her real-life friends and paragons of wisdom, as she navigates her rise as writer, all the while dumped by lovers including her ballet dancer husband. Through all of these experiences, she has learned many lessons, each numbered and epiphany-like. These she shares with her audience. The men she mentions do not fare well—even her supportive father somehow lets her know her flat chest will get her nowhere in love.

Authors Night/ Paula Abdul at SHE Summer Hamptons Evening

Famously, you cannot get near the famous authors at the yearly event of the season, Authors Night to benefit the East Hampton library. For books by Misty Copeland, Robert Caro, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Paulina Porizkova, the lines are long. No matter, writers in abundance are just happy to schmooze with one another. Susan Isaacs sat beside A. M. Homes, favorites conferring behind stacks of their most recent books. Similarly, Vanity Fair writer Marie Brenner could not say enough about Alice Carriere, seated beside her with a memoir about growing up the daughter of artist Jennifer Bartlett and French actor Mathieu Carriere, even when Katie Couric stopped by to say hello. Alafair Burke, daughter of novelist James Lee Burke, does her famous father proud. Another father, Geraldo Rivera was on hand to support his daughter Sol Rivera who has written a book of poetry. Page-turning author  Jean Hanff Korelitz spoke about book clubs she organizes in private Park Avenue homes. Allison Yarrow, passionate about women’s reproductive rights, held forth beside Amy Zerner and Monte Farber, regulars at this mega-gathering with a new book registering astrological verites for each birthday. Crazy as it may sound to some, they always get it right. Looking up mine, I did learn a “karmic lesson:” “the life and fun of a party,” I should, at overwhelming times, “change activities and cultivate more determination.” Good to know!

Tangier Journal: Why Not Barbie in a Burka?

Among the many Barbie international variations, Barbie in a sari, in lederhosen, in a kilt, none exist in a burka. So how would Barbie play where women, covered except for the eyes, are simply not seen? In Tangier, still an “international zone,” a thriving tourist spot, the streets are crowded with women and men in all attire, speaking the sounds of many languages. Still, it is hard to imagine a visual language as far afield as the palette of Greta Gerwig’s movie Barbie and its screaming pinks.

Barbie is a world phenomenon making over a $billion. Could nostalgia for the ubiquitous doll draw the audience at Tangier’s Cinema Alcazar’s 5 pm screenings, as it does for millions in the U.S. and elsewhere fascinated with her extensive wardrobe—(I’m a fan of the Bob Mackie Cher dolls), preposterous physique, feminist/anti-feminist controversy? Wink-wink smart, Gerwig’s script penned with her partner Noah Baumbach, is full of a political agenda all too familiar on these shores. The professional Barbies lose all sense of self when Ken declares Kendom, and all things patriarchy. Are Moroccan women similarly inclined?

Oppenheimer in Tangier

The Cinema Alcazar, a newly refurbished theater in the Tangier medina, was just a zigzag from my riad, one minute away if I remembered the right rights, lefts, and a staircase. Shuttered for decades, the theater now shows the latest in world fare subtitled in French. When Oppenheimer opened to acclaim in the U. S., so too did it fascinate Moroccans, judging by the crowds queuing up for the 7 pm screenings. The theater manager said most shows were sold out from first screening on. The next day I was there, seated between a German filmmaker and a Moroccan one who said as a kid he used to come to this theater with friends to take in Kung Fu action flicks. Now with no spare seat in sight, I wondered why the American story of Oppenheimer would be such a hit in North Africa.

The development and dropping of the atom bomb were world events, true. Christopher Nolan’s visuals are worth the price of admission. Solarized, monumental, rising plume, the testing cloud alone had his fictive viewers geared up, in sunglasses and slathered against burn for the occasion. The image—movie magic for sure-- seems comical, and does not play well among descendants of New Mexicans hurt by the radiation.

A register of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s achievement, the bomb is the movie’s excuse for engaging in important themes—anti-Semitism being one, and another being betrayal. (I had just seen the sculpture of Judas kissing Christ on the façade of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.) Taking note of a brilliant performance by Robert Downey Jr. as the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Oppenheimer’s chief antagonist, I was struck by the egotism mixed with ambition, and the damage done by small men—as Nolan, basing his portrayal on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, shapes the hero/ villain narrative.

Rufus Wainwright Celebrates 50 at Montauk's Historic Lighthouse

On the brink of 50, legendary Rufus Wainwright’s music genre is hard to pin down. But one thing’s certain: he’s got lots of friends, family, and fans, all in full display at his birthday concert bash to benefit Montauk’s historic lighthouse, now turned 227 years old. Maintaining this edifice takes more than a village, and from the looks of the slopy grounds outside, everyone was pitching in. The same could be said of the performances, featuring Tig Notaro, Katie Couric, Jimmy Fallon, Jenni Muldaur, Laurie Anderson, Chris Stills, Chaim Tannenbaum, G. E. Smith, Rufus’ sisters Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright-Roche, daughter Viva Wainwright, and more. Hosting or just hanging around for the first-rate music were Liev Schreiber, Ross Blechner, Bruce Weber and Nan Bush, Christy Brinkley and Cynthia Nixon. Many spirits hung around too: many of Rufus’ mom Kate McGarrigle’s songs were sung, Laurie Anderson performed a song by Lou Reed about how to see in the dark.

Wainwright started off the generous three-hour concert with Irving Berlin’s “How Much Do I Love You?” Who knew that Berlin actually spent time in Montauk? Wainwright does the American songbook, folk, jazz, rock with ease. Everyone waits to hear Rufus’ cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Halleluliah,” which he dedicated to the artist Eric Freeman who recently died and who is scheduled to have an exhibition at Guild Hall in the coming year. After a duet on Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” Rufus congratulated Chris Stills on his marriage to Stacy. They had just flown in from the Vineyard for the occasion. I am still not over G. E. Smith’s guitar solo on “Memory Motel.” And Amber Martin led everyone in a rousing “Higher.”

Laura Linney in The Miracle Club at Tribeca: On the Road with Women of a Certain Age

During the pandemic, Ozark was celebrating its latest season at the Plaza Hotel’s Oak Room. Laura Linney, one of its stars, dropped by the masked but crowded party—“on her way to Ireland to make a movie with Maggie Smith,” she said. Now that film, The Miracle Club, having just had its world premiere at the recent Tribeca Festival, opens in American theaters in July.

A road movie for ageless women, as we say, The Miracle Club is a European variation on the female travel romp made popular in this country with The Book Club, 1 & 2, 80 for Brady, etc. hugely successful entertainments featuring an older, glamorous, stellar quartet. In the Irish version, with a purposeful, religious pilgrimage that goes back to The Canterbury Tales (1400), you can add soul.

Linney plays the estranged daughter of a beloved Irish woman recently deceased. The woman’s friends—with Kathy Bates joining in with Maggie Smith—take a bus trip to Lourdes for healing. A good part of the film’s beginning goes into the kinds of emotional and physical resuscitation needed here. In lesser hands, this could be melodramatic fodder for a soap opera. Newly arrived to mourn her mother, Linney makes the trip with them, an outsider who used to be an insider; shall we say, without divulging a rich backstory, she is the movie’s miracle.

In Lourdes (filmed in Dublin), there’s a quiet moment that takes your breath away: Linney, helping Smith in a “bath” meant for spiritual cleansing places her hand on Smith’s shoulder in a gesture of generosity and forgiveness. If Americans are concerned with stolen Louis Vuitton suitcases in Rome, here, you might replace the laughs with tears of gratitude. At the SVA Beatrice theater, Linney and the film’s director Thaddeus O’Sullivan noted, this was the first time Linney and Smith performed together; Kathy Bates worked hard with a dialect coach for her fine accent, and the filming took a brisk 25 days.

Mamie Gummer in Dial M for Murder: Bay Street Theater on a Roll

At Bay Street Theater, bourbon glasses bear tell-tale fingerprints and lipstick traces. A husband and wife and her lover, in evening attire, converse in a London living room, the décor like the players, impeccably soignee. Murder scenarios foreshadow events to come. This is the opening of Dial M for Murder, adapted from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 movie, from Frederick Knott’s original script and play. Jeffrey Hatcher’s version raises the stakes, making the husband a would-be writer turned PR guy in publishing, promoting the lover’s new murder mystery.

As Margot, the socialite wife, Mamie Gummer is sublime, elegantly slim, vulnerable yet capable of anything. It’s Grace Kelly’s part in Hitchcock’s masterpiece. Her husband, Tony (Erich Bergen) suspects she’s having an affair. “The other woman,” Maxine, (Rosa Gilmore) is smart, challenging to Tony. As in the classic, he’s bent on murder. Under Walter Bobbie’s superb direction, the twists keep coming: Is it jealousy or simply the money?

Enter Lesgate (Max Gordon Moore), down on his luck. Is he a murderer for hire, or a convenient body? This being a period thriller, a black telephone with rotary dial is a character more than a prop. By Act II, Inspector Hubbard (Reg Rogers) with wind swept hair commands the stage in a trench coat, a hilarious bespectacled vision reminiscent of Groucho Marx.