Gossip Central

White Noise Opens the New York Film Festival with a Bang

The 60^th New York Film Festival opens with a lot of noise, White Noise, that is. Noah Baumbach’s movie, adapted from Don DeLillo’s classic American 1985 novel, features the kind of ambient sound that barely registers, punctuated by the boom of train/freighter collisions in combustible flames exuding plumes of smoke. It’s a canvas of the senses, in grays and vivid crayon color—all the distractible elements necessary for survival in the face of definite death. In Samuel Beckett’s hands, this dilemma is sparely etched. But guided by DeLillo’s images of American detritus, Noah Baumbach succeeds in answering the question of how can anyone make a movie out of the satiric cacophony/ harmony of White Noise? Or, perhaps even more relatable, how would you respond to a “toxic airborne event?”

He succeeds well, utilizing station wagons and the A&P supermarket to full luster. Not since Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” have the aisles popped with shoppers and products strategically placed in happy familiarity. Mountains of everything a consumer would want to hoard.

His first adaptation, Baumbach claims to have been thinking about this project ever since as a teen his father put the novel in his hands. It helps that his father, novelist Jonathan Baumbach, was a professor at Brooklyn College and a writer wracked with his own existential dread, all familiar territory for the young Baumbach to mine. On a college campus setting, Jack Gladney (the excellent Adam Driver) is a celebrity academic, a specialist in Hitler studies. His colleague, Murray Suskind, (wonderful Don Cheadle) teaches Elvis. A beautifully choreographed lecture shows how enthusiasm for each of these idolized “superstars” flattens any moral, ethical consideration. Jack’s wife Babette (Greta Gerwig with big hair reminiscent of Melanie Griffith’s in Working Girl--no doubt costume designer Ann Roth’s touch), tries to cure her affliction: fear of death, much to the alarm of their three eldest children who chatter from beginning to end. Baumbach directed them to do that, as if they were an ongoing radio--back-sound being the point—punctuated by Danny Elfman’s music and a surprise joyful ending from LCD Soundsystem: to “new body rhumba.”

Alec Baldwin Returns to East Hampton for Summerdocs: Skywalkers: A Love Story

Even more than meeting any Hollywood star, Alec Baldwin loves documentarians, he said this week, after a screening of Skywalkers: A Love Story, the first film screened at the newly refurbished Guild Hall and the first of the series, Summerdocs. The elite doc series, a cornerstone of HamptonsFilm programming, founded by Artistic Director David Nugent and Chairman Emeritus Baldwin, has since its inception showcased crowd-pleasing, feature-length nonfiction films that have gone on to Oscar nominations and wins (think Navalny). With its international focus, outstanding cinematography and core romance, expect Skywalkers to be an awards contender as the season approaches.

Baldwin, despite legal battles around the accidental shooting on set making Rust, was in top form interviewing Tamir Ardon and Maria Bukhonina, the filmmakers of Skywalkers, on the frontier of a new era of cutting-edge documentaries. Two Russian rooftoppers, Vanya Beerkus and Angela Nikolau, already popular on social media, team up and fall in love. Challenged to climb the tallest construction site in the world, in Malaysia, they allow a film crew along for the trip, but, as Bukhonina pointed out, Vanya was already an expert drone photographer. They climb a 118-story building and spire, a nail-biting journey, and perform a balletic stunt atop, with Vanya holding Angela, a trained gymnast, as she “flies.” Believe him when he tells her, “I will never let you fall.”

Prior to the film coming to the Hamptons, I had the opportunity to speak to director Jeff Zimbalist and producer/ director Maria Bukhanina:

 What was the most difficult part of making your film?

Jeff Zimbalist: Our primary challenge was safety. We developed a protocol with Vanya and Angela's families to reassure them that our crew wouldn't distract them during their most daring climbs and we had an agreement with Vanya and Angela that they wouldn't do anything for our cameras that they wouldn't do otherwise. We kept reminding them, this isn't a film about the fear of falling from heights; it's about the fear of falling in love. Like the metaphor Angela uses in the film about trapeze couples, there's the flyer and the catcher, sometimes we found ourselves grounding our subjects when their heads were in the clouds and other times, they grounded us, and fortunately for a film about trespassing and death-defying stunts, that led to a process with few injuries and no arrests.

Diane Von Furstenberg, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minelli: Icons at the Tribeca Film Festival

Opening the Tribeca Film Festival, DIANE VON FURSTENBERG: WOMAN IN CHARGE, features the famed fashion designer who was to the late 20^th century what Coco Chanel was to the early century, a game changer on how women dress. Her signature wrap frock, effortless and affordable, was in every closet, and made DVF’s name. Asked, how she became a princess? In my case, I married a prince, she deadpans in the movie. A celebrity life ensued including liaisons with many men (and one girl), respite in Bali, and marriage to Barry Diller. She attributes her success to the lessons in fearlessness taught by her mother, a survivor of Auschwitz.

As she tells it, upon liberation, her emaciated mother was fed by her parents using a medicine dropper. To those of us who share second generation Holocaust legacy, some essential details are missing in this otherwise informative, vivid documentary of a fascinating life. Belgian Jews, how did her grandparents elude Nazi round ups? Focusing instead on her life in America, two-time Oscar-winning director Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy takes us through DVF’s insecurities and pleasures as a mother, the glitz and glamor of Studio 54, the devastation of AIDS, feminist activism. It’s a lot. And nothing says icon more than the portrait of her by Andy Warhol.

Of course, Elizabeth Taylor was famously a Warhol subject too. In the new documentary, ELIZABETH TAYLOR: THE LOST TAPES, we are reminded of Liz as child actor, the many beloved films such as NATIONAL VELVET, FATHER OF THE BRIDE, among them, and Liz in the tabloids, the many marriages including Nicky Hilton (enough said), Mike Todd (probably the love of her life), Eddie Fisher (not so much), Richard Burton (twice). Her friendships with Debbie Reynolds (America’s sweetheart) and Cybil Burton, women whose marriages she broke up is not much mentioned. Then again, much of the story comes from Liz Taylor herself, from an interview for a book by journalist Richard Meryman.

Given these “lost tapes,” documentarian Nanette Burstein had access to Taylor’s personal archives. In a zoomed conversation Burstein said she was most surprised by Elizabeth Taylor’s insecurities. Yes of course Taylor was uniquely beautiful, but she wanted to be known for her art. Awarded her first Oscar for BUtterfield 8, Taylor had a mixed response: she plays a prostitute during a period in her life when her love life was intensely scrutinized. Burstein strategically shows a scene where her character confronts her mother. In real life, her father had called Liz a whore.

Steve Van Zandt: Disciple at the Tribeca Film Festival: It’s More Than Rock ‘N’ Roll

Wearing orange leathery skinny pants and his signature bandanna, Steve Van Zandt, greeted guests as they attended the premiere of Bill Teck’s documentary about him, Steve van Zandt: Disciple, to air on June 22 on HBO. Many were friends and family, and many knew him simply as Bruce Springsteen’s guitar partner in the E Street Band. Everyone got a refresher on decades-long dedication to R&B. In a riveting two and a half hours, Van Zandt’s energy provides evidence, even in his ‘70’s, there’s more to come: the film limns his early Asbury Park/ Stone Pony years, ups and downs in his music/ songwriting career, acting in the HBO’s “The Sopranos,” and in a Netflix series, “Lillyhammer.” His political activism led to a boycott of Sun City that resulted not only in Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, but to an end to apartheid and change for South Africa’s black community. What’s next? Above all, rock ‘n’ roll has legs, and heart.

As with many subjects of biopics, seeing his life in a cogent narrative was startling, “more coherent than the way I lived it,” said Little Stevie at the Q&A. Director Teck promised to follow the work, and “Disciple” gave him focus. He worked hard to get the ok, and thanked Stevie’s wife Maureen for her help in finally securing it. Copious research gleaned pictures from their hippie-style wedding, and a two-shot of Van Zandt with Nelson Mandela. Yes, that really happened.

Bernstein’s Wall: Leonard Bernstein Uptown

An elite group gathered this week for a special screening of BERNSTEIN’S WALL, a documentary about the great composer/ conductor/ educator, a fixture of 20^th century American cultural history. Well-timed, the riveting documentary comes after Bradley Cooper’s success with MAESTRO, his Oscar nominated biopic of the legendary artist. But here, with Leonard Bernstein’s own words dancing across the screen, we get the inner life of this creative genius.

This week’s screening and dinner at Jean-Georges’ new Four Twenty-Five restaurant hit every high note, hosted by Spectrum One’s Frank DiLella—not far from the Philharmonic where Bernstein’s illustrious career was launched at 25, when, as an understudy conductor filling in, he garnered raves. Ditto for this exceptional movie. Not quite a biopic, as filmmaker Doug Tirola makes clear—a proper one might be hours long—this film, comprised only of Bernstein’s own voice from tapes and readings from personal letters, recounting the importance of music, his own process, how music informs his life, still manages to touch all bases: his political activism—starting with the Berlin Wall, and coming to the “Kotel” in Jerusalem.

BERNSTEIN’S WALL was actually ready prior to MAESTRO, and the filmmakers—including producer Susan Bedusa-- strategically held it back. Bradley Cooper’s focus on the Bernstein’s marriage to Felicia Montenegro and homosexuality was a point of contention. What about Bernstein’s politics? At an early BERNSTEIN’S WALL screening put together by Peggy Siegal, Peter Duchin, who had attended Bernstein’s legendary parties, remembered the infamous one Tom Wolfe sensationalized in his Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Chasers. Duchin said the encounter was Lenny’s wife Felicia’s idea to bring the Black Panthers to the Dakota: Let’s just hear what they have to say. A not-so-outrageous event that nevertheless made headlines.

Tirola illuminates these subjects: Black Panthers, McCarthyism, Bernstein’s Talmudic style as a teacher. His pulse attuned to the politics of the day, and mensch that he was, Leonard Bernstein did not turn away. Jewish, he fixed neither his nose nor his name. And even though Bernstein clearly states that at age 10 he wished his strict immigrant father dead—he was dismayed at his son’s career choice—Lenny came to understand and to love him.

The Commandant’s Shadow: Rudolf Hoss’ Secondhand Smoke

“I had the best part of my life in Auschwitz,” says Hans Jurgen Hoss, son of the killing camp’s commandant, Rudolf Hoss—without a trace of irony. A fictional version of his time there can be seen in the Academy Award winning, THE ZONE OF INTEREST; he’s one of the five children who frolicked in the garden beside the camp’s walls, oblivious to what was going on. As he says in the documentary, THE COMMANDANT’S SHADOW, he thought it was a prison and was happy to be able to live where his father worked. In his late ‘80’s, taking the filmmakers around the house, he shows where the crematoria could be seen from an upstairs window, noting there were fewer trees then. He does not recall a stench. His son Kai, Rudolf Hoss’ grandson says, understating the difficult matter of his father having been a child next to the murder of millions, “I think my father has repressed memories.”

Astonishing but true, awaiting trial for war crimes in Nuremburg, Rudolf Hoss wrote his autobiography, segments of which form a compelling narrative of what exactly went on in Auschwitz, providing a detailed account and perhaps varnishing his reputation, a confession. He watched as children were torn screaming from their mothers and thought of his own family, he writes. Director Daniela Volker was amazed that his book was not more widely known. Even Hans only read it for the film.

Is it merely a German boast when Kai Hoss asserts repeatedly, “My grandfather was the most successful mass murderer in human history?” Tasked with creating an efficient killing machine as the Fuhrer demanded the Final Solution for the Jews, Hoss was hands on. Now a man of the church, his grandson Kai copes with this legacy through scripture, God’s grace, and his ministry to others in Stuttgart, he tells me at the film’s New York premiere at the Whitby Hotel.

Also present was Maya Lasker-Wallfisch, the daughter of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who, as a young woman transported to Auschwitz, was in luck. The orchestra needed a cellist; playing music kept her alive. In the film we see her celebrating her 98th birthday in London. Distant and tough on her daughter, Anita’s mothering was no-nonsense. Now a psychoanalyst, Maya sees her life as a mess.  Moving to Berlin, she memorializes her murdered grandparents who she never met in the effort to reclaim what might have been-- had life in Germany been possible. Despite a hopeful and generous world view, Anita’s open hyper-criticism of Maya is evident. “Your Auschwitz is different from my Auschwitz. I did not know if I would live another hour,” she tells her daughter even as Maya is desperate to know more. Anita triumphs hosting Hans Jurgen Hoss for coffee and fruit pie in London—an utterly remarkable, historic meeting, given the sides of the wall each occupied in the war years. This coming together is the film’s climax, and summing it up, Anita delivers the film’ zinger: “Isn’t that beautiful?”

Sigourney Weaver in Christopher Durang’s Whimsical Take on Chekhov: Celebrating Theater at Lincoln Center

Some of the original cast of Christopher Durang’s Vanya, Sonia, Masha, and Spike brought this theater gem to life for the Theater at Lincoln Center gala this week, where the show began over a decade ago, before it made its logical move to Broadway’s Golden Theater winning a TONY award for Best Play. Now, taking over the Vivian Beaumont stage on a set designed for the current production of Uncle Vanya, this Chekhovian mash-up retains its brilliance, even gaining some according to Sigourney Weaver, reprising her role as Masha, a narcissistic actress returning to her ancestral home in Bucks County, PA, in time for a neighborhood costume party.

Whenever I am blue, I can snap out of it conjuring Sigourney Weaver’s image as Snow White. Act I is a sendup of Chekhovian tropes with prescient views on real estate and familiar philosophical exclamations like “I’m in mourning for my life!” In Durang’s whimsical mix master, here directed by Bartlett Sher with a scant three-day rehearsal time, the tragic—and neurotic-- circumstance of everyday life turns to high hilarity.

Weaver’s character, Masha, in fact a superstar action hero like Weaver herself (think Alien, Avatar), makes for a most vulnerable Snow White, too tall, her lips too thin, mistaken for Norma Desmond, BoPeep, a Meissen figure. Coming home to the house in which she was raised with her boy toy, Spike (Billy Magnussen in the original but in this production a fine David Hull); this cougar is at the cusp of keeping up the sexual acrobatics, humping him, while suffering this shallow hunk’s wanderlust.

Jeff Bridges Brings his Dude-ness to Lincoln Center: The Chaplin Awards

Named for the first recipient, Charlie Chaplin, this yearly Film at Lincoln Center honor was the place to be this week to honor Jeff Bridges. Of the Bridges family of actors—with dad Sea Hunt’s Lloyd Bridges, mom Dorothy, big brother Beau Bridges, and sister Cindy, Jeff famously would not embrace being an actor until his 10^th movie. Blase, is not the word; “relaxed” was on every presenter’s lips.

Those included Barbara Streisand, videoed in to pay tribute to Bridges. She directed and starred with him in THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES. Because she loved that he insisted on dancing with her every night of shooting, she made that the ending of the movie.

Beyond “relaxed, add:” “He’s a good man.” Coming from Sharon Stone, that’s a lot. At last year’s NYWFT Muse Awards luncheon, the Basic Interest actress spoke at length about the horrors of men in the industry back in the day. Offering only kudos to Bridges, she said she saw him in STARMAN and wondered if such a kind being would fall her way from the sky. She starred with Bridges and Nick Nolte in a Sam Shepard Play, and felt lucky to be with such good men.

Rosie Perez raised a glass from the Alice Tully Hall stage, in remembrance of a drink she did not have with him when he championed her for a role in FEARLESS. He was so relaxed, “it pissed me off.” And, get this, she said, they were reluctant to have an interracial couple. “Jeff,” she addressed him, “it would be so easy for you to be an asshole.”

Blythe Danner, who can go ditsy on cue, forgot some details about the film she did with Bridges, and when he shouted out the references from the audience, she was impressed by his good “projection”—given he’s a movie actor. Ditto, John Lithgow on video sang his praises. But it was Chris Pine, most hilarious, on their friendship after making the film HELL OR HIGH WATER, quoting some of Bridges’ signature lines.

“Ok, if I quote you?”

“Go for it man.”

And he did THE BIG LEBOWSKI’s Dude speech: “Yeah, well, . . . that’s just your opinion.”

Bernadette Peters’ Joke: Posh Meets Borscht Belt as Guild Hall Returns to the Rainbow Room

Guild Hall Academy of the Arts President, the painter Eric Fischl got to hone his comedy chops at this year’s spring gala, fashioning a speech on a string of cliches—thanks to A. I. That set the night off in good spirits, against The Rainbow Room’s customary spectacular panoramic views of the city now fogged in, but as Board Chair Marty Cohen observed, “When it comes to Guild Hall, there’s no such thing as bad weather.”

Sure enough, we were expecting no shows but most showed: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sunny Hosten, Fern Mallis, April Gornik, Ross Bleckner, Rufus Wainwright, and the robust theater crowd to celebrate Daryl Roth. That included her son Jordan Roth, head of Jujamcyn, clad in an elegant ensemble accessorized with his grandmother Sylvia’s matching clutch. He opened his speech with, “My mother loves gay people.” That broke the ice, as a proud, even gleeful son spoke of Roth’s collection of 13 Tony Awards and counting.

She had just signed Julianne Margulies and Peter Gallagher to a show adapted from Delia Ephron’s Left on Tenth she’s hoping to stage in the fall, with Susan Stroman—also present-- directing. As I congratulated her, Roth pulled me aside to say, she has yet to find a theater. Ah, the perils of producing!

Her pal Bernadette Peters took the stage and before singing two numbers from Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods told a joke about a frog who, upon getting a kiss from an elder gentleman, promised to turn into a gorgeous blond who would make love to him every night for the rest of his life. The man took the frog home and went to bed, explaining that at this point in life he preferred to have a talking frog.

The jokes did not end there. Howard Marks, who with his wife Nancy were also honored, with a Special Award for Leadership and Philanthropy told one about a boy who got a part in a school play. His mother asked, what part? The Jewish husband. Her reply: Couldn’t you get a speaking role?

Alex Bornstein at the NYWFT Muse Awards: “You Are Enough.

“Do not fuck with a woman from NYC,” exclaimed comedian/actress Alex Bornstein, accepting her award for The Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment Made in NY Award at this year’s NYWFT Muse Awards.

The “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star reminded 700 guests seated for a sumptuous steak dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street this week, she was not actually “made in New York,” but everyone seemed to think she was, maybe because as Susie Myerson, she epitomized the brash, pushy person who could be a New York bred talent agent.

Her parents never called to congratulate her for any of her work, but they did for “Mrs. Maisel.” “You were good,” said her mother, while her father asked, “Why weren’t you the lead?” Her mother replied, “Because the skinny one with the perfect tits is the lead.” This may have bothered her growing up, but as the Muses dispense advice, now she knows: “You are enough.”

Canadian actress Tantoo Cardinal whose personal story informed Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, had gratitude to family, particularly her grandmother who picked her up from the “dregs of genocide.” When her grandfather spoke her name, she said, “I knew he knew me.” And when he died, she wore an eagle feather in her hair for him. That was brave, she told the crowd. Of indigenous descent, she was taught to be ashamed of who she was.

The WONDERSTRUCK and A QUIET PLACE actress Millicent Simmons accepted the Loreen Arbus Changemaker Award. Her mother was discouraged from learning to sign by doctors who thought that would slow her, a deaf baby, in learning to speak. A riveting performer, in A QUIET PLACE II, she leads the cast including writer director John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, often giving them notes. Actress Kyra Sedgwick has taken on directing. Her husband Kevin Bacon advised her: she was great at directing, if only she would never say “I’m sorry,” as she worked—as in, I’m sorry but we’re doing another take. This gave the audience a hearty, knowing chuckle.

Water for Elephants: An Awesome Spectacle on Broadway

This circus show comes with no disclaimer. No animals were hurt in Water for Elephants, opening this week at the Imperial Theater. Some human characters, yes! But if you know the story from the movie and the book on which it’s based, you know that certain bad leaders get their just desserts. The animals, so appealing in their puppet form, make for the heart and soul of this beautiful theater piece.

When Marlena, a gorgeous aerialist (Isabelle McCalla), married to the ringmaster (Paul Alexander Nolan), must put down her prized, overworked show horse, he ascends to the heavens in a white sash, carried aloft in the acrobatics of Antoine Boissereau, an elegant performer from France in his Broadway debut. Here is a riveting moment, the essence of this production: the audience must suspend disbelief; awed, you see the divine in the art.

Now, of course, Marlena must find another act, and soon an elephant with long curled eyelashes wraps her in its trunk. The elephant act works well to rescue the Depression era failing Benzini Brothers Circus. Along with a talented troupe of acrobats and one funny clown (Joe de Paul—the Playbill says he really did run away with the circus), the circus thrives. The day is saved! Until . . .