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.”

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.

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.

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.

John Slattery, Steve Buscemi, Michael Shannon at Tribeca: Actors Direct

Among the pleasures of Tribeca this year, actors have taken the helm of movies, working well with other actors, and finding stories that reveal their strengths as directors.

Actor John Slattery, well known for his role in Mad Men, is not just another pretty face. He premiered a film at the Tribeca Film Festival as director: Maggie Moore(s), scripted by Paul Birnbaum, could not be funnier given that two, not one, women named Maggie Moore are murdered. Slattery’s Mad Men pal Jon Hamm—let’s just say he’s not the Don Draper heart throb we knew, --leads a cast of loony characters. Hamm plays a lonely widower who works as the cop on this bizarre coincidence of a case. SNL alum Tina Fey, nutty as a peeping tom neighbor, is divorced and their relationship grounds the dramatis personae, including a pedophile, a dumb fast-food store manager, a closeted Nazi freak, and a large, scary deaf man for hire.

Sad things happen and make you laugh but no one you really know and love gets hurt in the making of this madcap movie. Well, maybe except one.

And, big reveal, Slattery does fine work making all the comedy and poignance land.

Patricia Field Inspires Happy Clothes at Tribeca

Invited to a party to celebrate designer/ costumer Patricia Field and the fine documentary about her life and career premiering at Tribeca, one ponders the question: what to wear? After the Tribeca screening of Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field directed by Michael Selditch, a colorful romp through her decades-long career in the business of fashion: the 8^th Street retail shop, her genius pattern combinations (plaids with florals that work) and accessories for the cultural icons starring in Sex & the City and The Devil Wore Prada, the better question is, is my outfit happy enough?

We all accepted Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw in a tutu, making it New York street attire no less, awkwardly avoiding a splashing puddle; that image adorned the sides of buses for years, and the tasteful matching of Anne Hathaway’s dressy shirts with giant cuffs and mini-pleated skirts, curated by Stanley Tucci for the pleasure of a white haired Miranda Priestly—that is, Meryl Streep styled to look like the supermodel Carmen dell Orifice, not Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Even the detail-oriented Darren Star capitulated to Field’s eye, her unique combos and stylings—for the diva and Everywoman, trans or not.

Unscripted: The 76th TONY Awards

The Writers’ strike was on everyone’s mind at the 76^th annual TONY awards on Sunday night. Opening with a gorgeous dance number on the expansive United Palace Theater stage, the TONY show was its own Broadway show on upper Broadway that is, in the heights, Washington Heights. We do know that Lin-Manuel Miranda has enormous influence in the theater community, and he also has some inspiring ideas. Ubering in, guests missed Radio City Hall for a moment but took in the glamor and glitz of this spectacular venue. TONY host Ariana DeBose welcomed everyone in her own language of movement, with that exuberant dance opening, breathless as she welcomed everyone, acknowledging writers— the lack thereof, --and saluting Puerto Rican day. This was the quintessential New York night.

Pre-televised, some awards for lighting and sound design were given out, with a wonderful tribute to John Kander whose New York, New York is now wowing audiences. Beowulf Borritt won Best Scenic Design of a Musical for that show, explaining how the sets were hand-painted, not video screened in his acceptance speech. Both Kander (96) and Joel Grey (91) were celebrated with Lifetime Achievement Awards—Grey receiving his from his daughter, Jennifer Grey. A star from the very start of his career, winning his first TONY for Cabaret (and an Oscar for the movie), Grey was the son of a Yiddish actor which goes far to explain his pre-pandemic production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. He said, you never know when something you are offered that you don’t think is right for you, is actually right, such as Anything Goes in which he starred with Sutton Foster.

Many such legendary figures were on hand. When Leopoldstadt won for Best New Play, writer Tom Stoppard joined the cast and crew onstage; similarly, when Parade won for Best Musical Revival, writer Alfred Uhry spoke, followed by the “In Memoriam” reel accompanied by Juaquina Kalukango, last year’s winner for Paradise Square, singing “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from Phantom of the Opera. Without saying so, the performance was a nod to Andrew Lloyd Weber who would not have a Broadway show in production for the first time in decades. Even though Funny Girl was not eligible this year, Lea Michele’s “Don’t Rain on my Parade,” was irresistible. And Will Swenson, starring as Neil Diamond in A Beautiful Noise, led a sing-along to “Sweet Caroline.”

Vadim Perelman’s Persian Lessons: How Do You Speak Holocaust?

A hit at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, Vadim Perelman’s Persian Lessons, a fiction film of a quasi-true story of Holocaust survival might have a hard time being made today. Perelman, a Ukrainian born Canadian filmmaker has been on my radar since his 2003 feature, House of Sand and Fog which starred Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly who forge an unlikely friendship. Based on 14 pages of notes for a short story by the German writer, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Perelman’s Persian Lessons is similarly grounded in an unlikely frenemy-ship between a concentration camp inmate and the German head of the camp’s kitchen. As Perelman told me on Zoom recently, a co-production among Russia, Belarus, and Germany, would be impossible today, given the war. And yet, with antisemitism a continued issue worldwide, such stories are imperative to tell.

Persian Lessons might be considered a masterfully told fable. Gilles (Nahuel Perez Biscayart), a French-speaking Jew rounded up for execution improvises a survival strategy, guaranteed to give him one more moment of life. Claiming to be Persian just as the commandant is looking for someone who can teach him Farsi—for when the war is over, so he can open a restaurant in Teheran—this commander, Koch (Lars Eidinger) proceeds to take lessons in Farsi from Gilles, to tragicomic effect. A relationship ensues, life-saving, yes, comic at times, amidst the barbarity and random cruelty of concentration camp agenda, but mutually sustaining. The conceit of the film is how Gilles creates a language that does not exist.