On Broadway: 'Wit": Donne Too Soon

Cynthia Nixon in Margaret Edson's Wit (photo by Joan Marcus)

Wit
Starring Cynthia Nixon
Written by Margaret Edson
Directed by Lynne Meadow
Previews began January 5, 2012; opened January 26; closes March 11
Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th Street, New York, NY
mtc-nyc.org

Margaret Edson has written only one play, but what a play! Wit has everything in such abundance--sympathetic characterizations, corrosive insight, lacerating psychology, welcome gallows humor in the face of impending mortality--that only a disastrous staging would undermine these sundry virtues. The new Manhattan Theatre Club production gives an excellent account of one of the best plays of the past two decades.

Vivian Bearing, an esteemed but notably difficult poetry professor, teaches the Holy Sonnets of John Dunne, the early 17th century metaphysical poet who tackled life’s great mysteries--death, the afterlife, the existence of God--with such forcefulness and precision that he, in the words of one character, “makes Shakespeare sound like a Hallmark card.”

Vivian, who has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer, realizes to her dismay that all her erudition and intellect--which includes endlessly reciting and analyzing Donne’s immortal works--are no help when coming face-to-face with the insidious disease and invasive chemotherapy which destroy her body, while her mind--keen as ever--is trapped. The words that always came so easily to her are useless against such opponents.

This might sound dreary, even boring, but Edson smartly backs up her title by having the hyper-articulate Vivian narrate her own story, warning us that the play--and her life--will end within two hours (it’s actually 100 minutes). She guides us through everything that happens at the hospital--invasive procedures, heartless research doctors’ discussions, talks with sympathetic nurses--alongside flashbacks to her early life and classroom discussions with her not-so-learned undergrad students.

Edson’s biting and bitter humor underlines the true pathos of Vivian’s losing battle, as the accomplished professor discovers that merely understanding Donne’s challenging poetry in the abstract fails when the fearsome reality of mortality rears its head. Edson’s brilliant balance between Vivian’s gargantuan life force and the brick wall that her cancer quickly becomes is such that, even at its bleakest, Wit remains optimistic and humane.

Lynne Meadow’s forceful staging is greatly assisted by Santo Loquasto’s spare but striking design, including moveable walls that reveal ever-mounting hospital horrors behind them. Happily, Michael Countryman and Greg Keller don’t overdo the doctors’ single-minded interest in Vivian as a mere research subject, Carra Patterson makes a sweetly personable nurse and Suzanne Bertish is nicely restrained as Vivian’s own professor, whose climactic hospital visit--as Donne is sidestepped for The Runaway Bunny--provides a devastating moment of catharsis.

My memory of Kathleen Chalfant in the original 1998 off-Broadway production is so strong that I was initially hesitant to accept Cynthia Nixon as Vivian. With her bald head protruding from a long, swan-like neck, Nixon first seems tentative, her speaking voice sounding affected rather than affecting. But she soon settles down and gives the role the emotional and physical investment it begs for, catching the humor, heartbreak and humiliation of this woman and her battered body.

Wit ends with the ultimate triumph: a final, shattering image of a nude Vivian released from her suffering gives Edson’s masterpiece an awesome (in both senses of the word) coda.

January '12 Digital Week IV

Blu-rays of the Week

Annie Hall, Manhattan
(MGM)
Woody Allen’s recent films have made it to Blu-ray, but these are his first classics to be released on hi-def: Annie Hall, his 1977 mainstream breakthrough, showcases Diane Keaton’s charming Oscar-winning acting; and 1979’s Manhattan--even more cohesive and assured--has Gordon Willis’ magnificent B&W widescreen photography and then-teenager Mariel Hemingway’s precocious, persuasive performance. On Blu-ray, Annie Hall (with wonderfully filmic grain) and Manhattan (with fabulous New York City vistas), are miles ahead of the previous DVD releases. Of course, there are no extras.

50/50
(Summit)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s sympathetic portrayal of a 20-something slapped in the face by cancer smoothes over rough patches in Will Reiser’s script (based on his own life), which often--thanks to director Jonathan Levine and costar-producer Seth Rogen--falls into unfunny Judd Apatow territory. Too bad a wooden Rogen goes for cheap laughs, which tramples the emotion in Gordon-Levitt’s performance. The women--Anjelica Huston (mom), Bryce Dallas Howard (girlfriend), Anna Kendrick (unlikely therapist)--are also handled poorly, but Philip Baker Hall is bravura as a patient who befriends our hero. The image quality is fine; extras include commentary, deleted scenes and featurettes.

Happy Happy
(Magnolia)
This fresh Norwegian comedy traces the falling apart and patching together of two marriages with good humor and insight by director Anne Sewitsky and her accomplished cast led by Agnes Kittelsen, who plays a mother and unhappy wife who begins a fumbling affair with her next-door neighbor with a winning combination of naiveté and strength. Rural Norway’s wintry landscapes are not overused as metaphors, and the Blu-ray image sparkles; no extras.

Hell and Back Again
(Docurama)
This powerhouse documentary--just nominated for an Oscar--tells the story of a U.S. soldier, wounded in Afghanistan, who returns home to be helped by his loving wife. Director Danfung Dennis--a veteran war photographer--has brilliantly photographed the horror of war and the horror of returning home, adroitly crosscutting between the two. On Blu-ray, Dennis’s photography is splendidly recreated; extras include a Willie Nelson music video, Dennis’s camera primer and deleted scenes.

The Moment of Truth
(Criterion)
Francesco Rosi, one of the greatest obscure directors, made this remarkable 1965 quasi-documentary about bullfighting that’s complete with actual footage of the running of the bulls and violence in the ring. The movie is not for the squeamish, so prepare yourself if the sight of dead animals (and people) bothers you. Rosi’s extraordinary eye transforms his raw material into a compelling and detailed character study that stars real-life bullfighter Miguel Mateo. The movie’s ultra-realism is perfectly rendered on The Criterion Collection’s grainy transfer; the lone extra is a 14-minute Rosi interview.

The Rake’s Progress
(Opus Arte)
Igor Stravinsky’s blissful 1951 neo-Mozartean opera was revived in 2010 at England’s Glyndebourne Festival, with all its salient virtues in place. Artist David Hockney’s whimsical designs, John Cox’s inventive directing, Miah Persson, Topi Lehtipuu, Matthew Rose and Elena Manistina’s strong singing and Vladimir Jurowski’s sensitive conducting add up to a superlative musical experience. Hockney’s visuals pop off the screen on Blu-ray; Stravinsky’s music is all-encompassing in surround sound. Extras include backstage featurettes.

Real Steel
(Touchstone/Dreamworks)
This 21st century crowd-pleaser is not only “Rocky with Robots”--as the cover blurb has it--but it’s robots fighting as men outside the ring “punch” as if they’re playing a boxing video game in front of their TV. This might work as a video game, but a two-hour movie with over-the-top dramatic crescendos and climaxes--with sentimental blackmail in the form of a “tough boy and childish dad” plot--alongside metallic bludgeoning is hard to take. The Blu-ray image is excellent; extras include on-set featurettes, deleted scenes, “second screen” app featuring director Shawn Levy and bloopers.

The Whistleblower
(Fox)
Rachel Weisz’s sturdy portrayal of Kathryn Bolkovac, small-town U.S. cop in Bosnia to help with the inhumanities occurring during the protracted civil war, centers this true story. Well-crafted but ultimately preaching to the choir, the film does little that’s compelling except to show that a) war is bad and b) government bureaucracies are bad. We knew that coming in, so even if those facts need constant restating, it isn’t enough. The Blu-ray image is solid; the lone extra is a brief interview with the real Bolkovac.

DVDs of the Week
The Bed Sitting Room, Hannibal Brooks, A Small Town in Texas
(MGM)
These three movies are part of the MGM Limited Edition Collection‘s latest release slate. Richard Lester’s absurdist, episodic The Bed Sitting Room (1969), starring Dudley Moore, Spike Mulligan and Peter Cook, has some moments of comic inspiration; Michael Winner’s Hannibal Brooks (1969) is a bizarre but uninvolvingly war movie starring Olive Reed and an elephant; and A Small Town in Texas (1976) has local flavor and Susan George’s sexy presence, but clichéd writing and directing hurt. The movies look acceptable; there are no extras.

Eclipse Series 31: Three Popular Films by Jean-Pierre Gorin
(Criterion)
These non-fiction films will come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Gorin’s agitprop documentaries he made with Jean-Luc Godard in the late 60s/early 70s. Based in San Diego, Gorin went on to record some remarkable--and remarkably ordinary--lives. The last of them, 1992’s My Crasy Life, is a rote examination of Samoan gangs, but 1986’s Routine Pleasures provides a memorable forum for critic/painter Manny Farber and model train fanatics, while 1980’s Porto and Cabengo (at 73 minutes, the most succinct of these occasionally incoherent documents) is a fascinating study of six-year-old twins and their supposedly made-up language.

Essential Killing
(Tribeca Film)
Jerzy Skolimowski’s visceral adventure about a Taliban insurgent (Vincent Gallo, in an intensely physical--and mute--performance) who escapes from U.S. clutches is superbly shot and edited but tends to ramble rather pointlessly. Still, there’s much to admire in the artistry of the film’s often pungent visuals, and Skolimowski’s closing shot--though far too metaphorical--is a beautiful and memorable image. The lone extra is a five-minute Skolimowski interview.

Punished
(Vivendi)
This exciting thriller about a rich father extracting revenge from kidnapers who murdered his daughter flies by with nary a moment to catch one’s breath. Famed action filmmaker Johnnie To is the producer, and director Law Wing Cheong follows his boss’s style with unsparing brutality and a sense of doom that is hanging over every character’s neck. It’s too bad that, in the final reels, the movie goes off the rails and loses its way. Extras include short on-set featurettes.

CDs of the Week
Schubert: Piano Trios
(Eloquentia and Bridge)
In the last year of his short life (he died at age 31 in 1828), Franz Schubert penned two piano trios that are among his masterpieces. The B-flat major trio is sprightly and effervescent; the E-flat major trio stately and elegant. On the Bridge CD, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio plays these weighty works with finesse, their stylish playing coalescing in the march-like tragic hymn of the E-flat major trio’s second movement. On the Eloquentia CD, Trio Latitude 41 finds musicality and whimsy within the E-flat major trio’s daunting framework and imposing length. Each ensemble also performs other Schubert chamber works.

January '12 Digital Week III

Blu-rays of the Week

Age of Heroes
(e one)
This crackerjack World War II adventure has a familiar story of heroic soldiers taking risks to defeat Hitler’s army, whose melodramatics take over, especially in the climactic battle scenes. Still, with a swarm of good actors and dazzling location shooting, the movie comes across as authentic, which is enough. The Blu-ray transfer delivers a solid visual experience; extras include cast and director interviews, deleted scenes, bloopers and bonus footage.

The Black Hills and the Badlands
and The Everglades (Mill Creek)
The awesome and--for now--unspoiled beauty of America’s National Parks is shown on these releases, which showcase the varied terrain and wildlife within two of our most remarkable park areas. The Black Hills and the Badlands features the distinctive landscapes that have filled visitors with awe for more than a century; The Everglades looks at the subtropical paradise that lives on in the state of Florida. Of course, both of these parks look amazing in hi-def, even if that’s no substitute for actually visiting them.

Carmen
(Teatro Real)
The art of flamenco is displayed in masterly fashion in dance maven Antonio Gades’ and film director Carlos Saura’s stylish production, which is visually reminiscent of classic Spanish painters Goya and Velázquez. Vanesa Vento is a vivacious and vibrant Carmen, the gypsy whose love for two men leads to her inevitable death; alongside Bizet’s familiar music, there’s much rhythmic flamenco music by various Spanish composers. The entire staging looks spectacular on Blu-ray; the lone extra is a short making-of featurette.

Dead Poets Society and
Good Morning Vietnam (Touchstone)
Two of Robin Williams’ Oscar-nominated performances are the calling card of these hi-def releases: Good Morning Vietnam features “funny Robin” as an outlandish DJ entertaining U.S. troops in Barry Levinson’s slight 1987 comedy; “serious Robin” appears in Dead Poets Society, the much-loved but pretentious 1989 Peter Weir drama. Both movies look excellent on Blu-ray; Vietnam extras include a production diary and uncut Williams monologues; Poets extras include a retrospective featurette with interviews (no Williams, however), featurettes and commentary featuring Weir, writer Tom Schulman and cinematographer John Seale.

Division III
(Image)
If you’ve ever wanted to see comedian Andy Dick as a hard-nosed, tough-guy college football coach, then here’s your chance. Be warned, however: the negligible movie’s attempts at humor are even less convincing than Dick himself in the lead. The football team’s nickname is the Blue Cocks, and the comedy goes downhill from there. There’s a good Blu-ray transfer; extras include a Dick and director Marshall Cook commentary, outtakes and deleted scenes.

George Gently, Series 1
(Acorn)
This absorbing crime drama stars a rock-solid Martin Shaw as a hard-bitten London detective (and widower) who begins work in the hardscrabble northeastern part of England during the volatile 60s, and begins butting heads with colleagues as well as criminals. With lovely locations and a fine supporting ensemble, George Gently is a must-see for anyone interested in these rapidly proliferating--and mostly superior--British crime series. The Blu-ray image is splendid; no extras.

Traffic
(Criterion)
Steven Soderbergh won a Best Director Oscar for this multi-layered 2000 dramatization of the Herculean task of fighting the drug war: we watch multiple plots about smugglers, users, sellers and law-enforcement officials. A superlative ensemble featuring Michael Douglas, Erika Christensen, Benecio del Toro, Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman give the movie needed realism, but it’s Soderbergh's guiding hand that builds the stories so powerfully. The color-drenched visual palette can be savored on the Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray; extras include three commentaries, 25 deleted scenes with commentary, unused footage and demonstrations of editing, dialogue editing and film processing.

DVDs of the Week
Bombay Beach
(e one)
Alma Har’el’s fascinating non-fiction study of the dead community now surrounding California’s Salton Sea--which was once a promise of America’s unparalleled greatness in the 1950s--goes beyond the bounds of documentaries. Her gracefully structured film includes much dance-like movement (choreographed wonderfully by Paula Present) and an eye for details that go a long way toward telling the story of lost souls living their lives far from the American dream. Extras include selected scene commentary, Har’el’s music videos and deleted scenes.

Dirty Girl
(Anchor Bay)
Writer-director Abe Sylvia’s sentimental tale of a sexually confused teenage boy and a sexually promiscuous girl from his high school is shallow and lazy filmmaking. Needless to say, opposites attract, as they help each other out of their varied (and myriad) difficulties. Still, despite the lameness of the humor and 1980s song cues, the movie’s worth watching for the acting of newcomer Jeremy Dozier and Juno Temple, who create an unlikely but lively pair. Support by Mary Steenburgen, Dwight Yoakam, Tim McGraw and Milla Jovovich also helps, even if Sylvia’s apparently autobiographical portrait remains uninspiring. Extras include Sylvia’s commentary and deleted/extended scenes.

Night and Day
(Zeitgeist/KimStim)
Korean director Hong Sang-soo has made an impressively sober but lightly comic drama about a Korean artist who, after a breakup, goes to Paris without knowing anything of the language and eventually befriends two younger expatriate Korean women. Leisurely paced at two hours and 24 minutes, Hong’s film nevertheless has a bracing balance of talk and immaculate silences, a remarkable drama that has sympathy, eroticism and insight in abundance.

Special Treatment
(First Run)
In this not very interesting S&M drama by director Jeanne Labrune, Isabelle Huppert plays a high-class call girl whose professional life has an emotional wrench thrown into it when she begins an offbeat relationship with her psychotherapist. That their professions are, in some ways, similar gives the movie its singular kick, but Labrune does very little with what could have been a probing psychological study. Even Huppert, who gives it her all, cannot overcome the thinness of the premise and its lack of resolution.

CD of the Week
Beatlesmania
(Naive)
Although the Beatles’ songs never received better performances than their own, there are many superb cover versions, and this two-disc set from France compiles some of them on the first disc: classic renditions like Stevie Wonder’s “We Can Work It Out,” Earth Wind & Fire’s “Got to Get You into My Life,” Ella Fitzgerald’s “Can’t Buy Me Love” and Al Green’s “I Want to Hold Your Hand” are wonderful interpretations. The second disc, however, comprises newer takes on the Beatles’ catalog by 20 artists whose techno versions sound similar--but inferior--to Paul McCartney’s own forays into experimental electronica. If nothing else, hearing Tamara Kaboutchek’s “Sun King,” Studio Paradise’s “I Am the Walrus” or others shows that, even if their covers are unmemorable, the Fab Four’s musical influence is widespread and enduring.

Musical Short Cuts: Terezin, Lang Lang, Aimee Mann, Wagner

Will to Create, Will to Live: The Music of Terezin

January 9-February 16, 2012
92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue and 92nd Street
New York, NY
92y.org

In Will to Create, Will to Live: The Music of Terezin, the multi-disciplinary series at the 92nd Street Y, the many talented composers murdered by the Nazis in concentration camps following their internment at Terezin in the former Czechoslovakia are represented by their woefully underrated music, which has unfortunately been ghettoized and not heard as often as it deserves. (There have been various recordings, notably Decca’s valuable “Entartete Musik” series from the 1990s, but rarely is this music heard in concerts.)

And the centerpiece of the series--which features a film, a symposium and other events--is a quartet of chamber music recitals featuring baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and the enterprising Nash Ensemble (above), whose members perform on these programs music by (for starters), Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Hans Krasa and Erwin Schulhoff, whose intensely personal works are played alongside music by Smetana and Janacek, two Czech composers held in high esteem by these men and often performed by them while at Terezin.

During the January 19th concert, Holzmair powerfully sang songs by Krasa and Ullmann, while the Nash members played Ullmann’s expressive String Quartet No. 3 and the endearing suite from Krasa’s children’s opera Bundibar, famously played dozens of times by the camp inmates. The series’ final concert on January 23 features Mahler songs, Debussy piano music and Holzmair and pianist Shai Wosner performing Ullmann’s brilliant musicalization of Rilke’s famous The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christopher Rilke, for speaker and piano.

New York Philharmonic: Lang Lang, Bartok and Prokofiev
January 18-21, 2012
Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, NY
nyphil.org

One of the best New York Philharmonic concerts in recent memory, the pairing of rock star pianist Lang Lang and Bartok’s scintillating Piano Concerto No. 2 gave Avery Fisher Hall an excited vibe it rarely has during most classical concerts. Lang Lang (above) played with a fiery aliveness, hitting all of the notes (well, most of them--one infamous passage in the second movement need three hands to be played correctly) and meshing beautifully with conductor Alan Gilbert to create a dazzling interpretation of Bartok’s masterly concerto.

The concert began with Feria, a forgettable curtain-raiser by Magnus Lindberg, which at least had the distinction of allowing the entire orchestra to show off. But a far better platform for the orchestra’s brilliance was the evening’s final work, Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, the Russian master’s longest, most thematically compact and musically diverse symphonic work, which Gilbert and his charges brilliantly built up, layer by layer, until the inevitable and volatile climax.

Aimee Mann
January 28, 2012
Zankel Hall, Seventh Avenue between 56th & 57th Streets
New York, NY
carnegiehall.org

One of our most literate pop songwriters for more than a quarter-century (was “Voices Carry” really that long ago?), Aimee Mann (left) graduated from the slick mid-80s hit machine ‘Til Tuesday to the brave new singer-songwriter world, which began in 1993 with her superb Whatever. She followed up with I’m with Stupid, Bachelor No. 2 (which includes tunes from the film Magnolia like the Oscar-nominated “Save Me”) and other solid discs.

Before her latest CD Charmer is released this summer, Mann is doing solo gigs that include her appearance at Zankel Hall on January 28. Mann has a always had an offbeat charm in a live setting, so be prepared for top-notch musicianship, impeccably crafted songs--she probably won’t admit it, but she’s definitely been influenced by the pinpoint melodic precision of Paul McCartney’s composing--and an off-the-cuff, slightly ditzy onstage personality.

Opera Orchestra of New York
Wagner’s Rienzi
January 29, 2012
Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, NY
operaorchestrany.org

One of the city’s musical treasures, the Opera Orchestra of New York has returned from the ashes this season. Founder Eve Queler (right), at age 80, takes to the podium for a concert performance of Wagner’s first successful grand opera, Rienzi, at Avery Fisher Hall January 29.

My first time hearing Queler and OONY was at Carnegie Hall 15 years ago for a wonderfully paced account of Wagner’s glorious Tristan und Isolde. Does Queler still have the stamina to lead her orchestra in another lengthy Wagner opera? That’s why I’ll be there to find out. Singing the leading roles are tenor Ian Storey, soprano Elisabete Matos and mezzo Geraldine Chauvet.

Botching the Bard

Fiennes and Chastain in Coriolanus

Coriolanus
Directed by Ralph Fiennes; based on Shakespeare's play
A Weinstein Company release

Modernizing Shakespeare is a time-honored tradition, but it often seems more generic than genuine. The reason that Shakespeare’s plays remain popular is because they remain relevant despite the 400 years separating them from us. So for Ralph Fiennes to take Coriolanus--about a disgraced Roman general who joins the enemy against the city--from its ancient setting to the war-ravaged present is an unfortunate reaction against the complexity of the language and the obscurity of the plot and setting to contemporary audiences.

Shakespeare’s Gaius Marcius, a military man through and through, is a Roman general with little thought--and even less use--for the ordinary people. His first appearance in the play, during a confrontation with rioting Roman citizens who want food from nearby stores of grain, shows his naked contempt for those not in the army; when he soon returns to Rome a hero after successfully fending off the advance of the hated Volscian army and their leader, Aufidius, at the town of Corioles, he’s talked into running for the office of consul by his controlling mother Volumnia and friendly senator Meninius, who has gotten him the honored title of “Coriolanus.”

But Coriolanus is no politician: he is unable to fake compassion for the citizenry, and when he is again confronted by (to his ears) insolent rabble-rousers from the public and the senate, he loses his temper and calls them out, bemoaning that it’s allowed for “crows to peck the eagles.” Needless to say, popular support turns against him and he is banished. In a rage, he offers himself to the Volscians, with whom he joins to attack Rome and gain his revenge.

In Fiennes’ film, ancient Rome has become an unnamed contemporary nation: the atrocities of the Bosnian war are recalled in this production that was shot in Serbia and peopled with Serbian actors in front of the camera and Serbian technicians on the set. It’s no earth-shattering revelation that a play written four centuries ago about a general who lived two thousand years before that is relevant to our tenuous times: history--and art--repeats itself. But trying to make every aspect of Coriolanus recognizable, if not meaningful, to those who would never be caught dead watching, attending or reading Shakespeare--forces Fiennes into a dramatic and thematic corner.

As director, Fiennes makes expressive use of Serbian locations which still bear scars of the murderous warring among political and religious factions. But the use of modern technology--around-the-clock TV news networks show the ongoing battles and help explain who’s who and what’s what for a presumably unfamiliar film audience-- undercuts Shakespeare’s dialogue, notably when Volumnia and Coriolanus’ faithful wife Virgilia waiting desperately for news of him. All they need to do is turn on the TV instead of waiting to hear from Meninius. And when Volumnia later tells Meninius that Coriolanus was wounded but is okay, why wouldn’t he already have known that through the 24/7 news cycle?

Fiennes helms gritty battle sequences in the shaky hand-held style of Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan, apparently to appease those who might wander in hoping for gory combat. When Coriolanus himself goes from door to door in search of hidden enemies (would a general, no matter how reckless, do such a thing alone?) and vanquishes a surprise attacker, his shiny bald head becomes caked in blood, a visceral image that substitutes Shakespeare’s complexity for mere black-and-white.

But the ultimate clash between Fiennes’ and screenwriter John Logan’s modern sensibility clashes and Shakespeare is the mano-a-mano fight between Coriolanus and Aufidius. Both armies are equipped with automatic weapons with scopes, but when these two men begin their brawl, they put down the modern weaponry and unsheathe glistening knives--which were seen in close-up being sharpened in the film’s opening images--before joining the battle. In another nod to mindless movie violence, they crash through a plate glass window and fall two stories into a dumpster: unbloodied and unbowed (and with no broken bones, apparently), they must be separated by their allies.

Brian Cox (Meninius), Gerard Butler (Aufidius) and Jessica Chastain (Virgilia) make solid contributions, while Vanessa Redgrave takes the scenery-chewing role of Volumnia and turns it into a tour de force more powerful because of her restraint. Fiennes’ Coriolanus, an equally strong screen presence, is able to make us sympathetic toward this fatally prideful man, effortlessly making Shakespeare’s words sound conversational even when confrontational: his spiteful pronunciation of “boy,” spit out at the Volscians before they take their knives to him, leads to a tremendously emotional climax.

But it’s too bad that Fiennes didn’t trust Shakespeare more often: his concerns are still ours, but making them obvious doesn’t make them any more clearer.

Spacey's Shakespeare

Spacey and Scholey in Richard III (photo by Joan Marcus)

Richard III
Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Sam Mendes
Previews began January 10, 2012; opened January 18; closes March 4
BAM Harvey Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, NY
bam.org

In Sam Mendes’ distressingly uneven production of Richard III, featuring Shakespeare’s most charismatic and evil villain, Kevin Spacey portrays the self-hating murderer with flamboyant verbal and physical tics that telegraph the Duke of Gloucester’s horrible behavior--he woos and weds a new widow, kills or turns the machinery that kills various other candidates in line to become king, among other dastardly deeds--as repulsive and attractive to the audience, just as Shakespeare wanted.

Richard’s opening soliloquy--“Now is the winter of our discontent”--is accompanied by so many winks and nods to remind the audience that it’s complicit in his connivance that it could just as well be the “Bard for Dummies” approach seen in Central Park each summer.

The talented Spacey overplays Richard’s “performing” throughout, looking to the audience conspiratorially or breaking character to comment--usually by gesture or eyebrow-raising, but once even imitating Groucho Marx--on his superiority to the others onstage. Some of this works, as we are supposed to go along for the ride against our will, but Spacey goes too far, and ends up beating to death Richard’s grotesquely roguish charm until it means nothing.

The volatility extends to the physical aspect of Spacey’s characterization. With a brace on his left leg, he walks with such a pronounced limp and twisted, even contorted movement that it’s painful to watch him stalk the stage. His tendency to bellow many of his lines (I’d say 75% of his dialogue is shouted) lessens the dramatic impact of his speeches, notably the final “My kingdom for a horse” speech, uttered so loudly he might as well be talking about how hoarse he is after a performance.

Spacey enunciates Shakespeare’s language so that it’s intelligible; his perfect diction helps in our being seduced by Richard’s words, especially in that amazing scene that only Shakespeare could pull off: Richard proceeds to beat down Lady Anne’s defenses and successfully woo her while her dead husband’s still-warm corpse is in the room. In this scene, Annabel Scholey impressively keeps up with Spacey’s breakneck pace, even while demonstrating that not shouting can make Shakespeare’s poetry equally compelling.

Mendes’ direction, swinging from the bravura to the mundane, never finds a proper tone or pace for a nearly 3-½ hour long evening. The two-hour long first act bounces around erratically, and even the second act’s swiftness doesn’t exonerate Mendes, who switches gears arbitrarily from realism to expressionism to surrealism in the final sequences with little forward thrust toward the inevitable catharsis. Even such gimmicks as Richard watching a grainy B&W movie at the beginning--he uses a remote to pause it before launching into his opening speech--or Richard on a giant video screen accepting the crown are never integrated into this modern-dress staging, but instead are left dangling on their own, like the desperate stratagem of projecting titles (“Elizabeth," “Richmond”) to help the audience keep characters straight.

Aside from Scholey’s Lady Anne, the forgettable supporting cast is topped by Haydn Gwynne’s nicely understated (but not underplayed) Queen Elizabeth. And Mark Bennett’s music--mostly drumming by ghostly cast members, with two side musicians doing double duty on more percussion--pounds away pointlessly, except maybe to drown out Spacey’s exhausting shouting.

Smoking Hot

Crazy Horse

Direction, sound & editing by Frederick Wiseman
Opens January 18, 2012 at Film Forum, New York, NY
filmforum.org

The dancers, who are drop-dead gorgeous, have their nude bodies caressed by the camera for much of the 134-minute running time of Crazy Horse. But since this is director Frederick Wiseman’s latest documentary, it’s not done in a leering or misogynistic way: rather, it’s another chronicle of the inner workings of a fabled institution: this time, it just happens to be the famous Parisian dance revue that’s done brisk business for 60 years since being founded by Alain Bernardin.

Wiseman’s 2009 film, La Danse, astutely showed viewers how the Paris Ballet is run. But even though he trades high for low culture, Crazy Horse is of a piece with his other films, which display a singular rigor and discipline, whether we’re watching the boxing gyms, race tracks or high schools he’s captured on film in his 39 documentaries since 1967’s breakthrough Titicut Follies.

The star of Crazy Horse is Phillipe Decoufle, director of the cabaret’s latest revue, Desir. In addition to showing him rehearsing the dancers, he’s also shown in several meetings, where he reveals his frustration with the club’s management, which is balking at allowing him more time to perfect his new show: ideally, he’d like to shut down the house for a week to make the necessary adjustments and improvements. (This suggestion isn’t feasible for a business that needs its customers to pack the house every night.)

The artistry of the performers is superbly showcased through Decoufle’s quasi-erotic choreography and Wiseman’s fluid camerawork, which intimately captures the dancers’ aesthetic beauty. Even with its ample female nudity--the dancers’ curvy, toned figures are central to the movie, naturally--Crazy Horse is more than a mere voyeuristic look at naked women…but the raincoat crowd (if there still is such a thing in this age of internet porn) will still enjoy it immensely.

Even though the dancers are seen backstage--at one point, they have a blast watching videos of Russian ballet bloopers--it’s too bad that Wiseman doesn’t individualize any of them. A group of gorgeous, talented and hard-working women, we meet everyone but learn about no one: they are simply cogs in the giant machine that makes Crazy Horse so spectacularly successful.

That flaw aside, Wiseman shows that he’s an unimpeachable master of the offhand insight, like a seemingly uneventful shot of the cabaret’s façade during the day: its small, unimposing storefront hides the eventful busyness going on inside. The director also shrewdly bookends his film with an anonymous pair of hands doing hand shadow puppets on a wall, which reiterates that the onstage entertainment at Crazy Horse is the ultimate in illusion, even as the daily drudgery that goes into its creation is anything but.

January '12 Digital Week II

Blu-rays of the Week

Anna Bolena
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Anna Netrebko might have sung Anne Boleyn at the Metropolitan Opera for the first time this season, but she was already a veteran in the title role, as last April’s Vienna staging makes clear: her ravishing presence and singing are on display throughout this bel canto classic, as are the equal talents of costar Elina Garanca as her rival for the British throne, Jane Seymour. Eric Genovese’s directing gets to the heart of this historical soap opera; Evelino Pido conducts the Vienna Opera Orchestra and Chorus for maximum effectiveness. Extras include Garanca’s charming German-language plot synopsis.

Belle de Jour
(Criterion)
Luis Bunuel’s sardonic 1967 study of a prim housewife (a brilliantly typecast Catherine Deneuve) who spends her afternoons as a high-class prostitute makes its points too obviously, but Bunuel’s masterly control helps keep things intentionally off-balance. The Criterion Collection release features a superb new hi-def transfer--this is the first Bunuel film on Blu-ray--but the extras disappoint: unilluminating video essay, brief interview with co-writer Jean-Claude Carriere and excerpt from a French TV program featuring Deneuve and Carriere interviews.

Finding Life Beyond Earth
(PBS)
This fascinating two-hour Nova program takes a tantalizing look at the possibilities of life on other planets through interviews with scientists and other experts along with glimpses at alien words via telescopic images and CGI effects. In addition to visiting far-flung places to test for conditions that might sustain life in what might be considered inhospitable environments, the show also speculates on the possibilities of even primitive life forms in our galaxy and throughout the universe. The Blu-ray image is, happily, spectacularly good; there are no extras.

Higher Ground
(Sony)
Vera Farmiga’s directorial debut is an unsentimental study of a closely-knit religious community thrown for a loop when one of their own begins questioning her faith. Farmiga herself plays the lead, a character based on Carolyn S. Briggs’ memoir. There’s a terrific ensemble cast of New York theater actors: Donna Murphy, Norbert Leo Butz, Nina Arianda, Jack Gilpin and Dagmara Dominczyk. The movie, which was shot on the Hudson River around Kingston, NY, has a believable small-town vibe and a big beating heart. The Blu-ray image is solid; extras include commentary, deleted/extended scenes, outtakes and making-of featurette.

The Poolboys
(e one)
This would-be soft-core comedy stars Matthew Lillard and Brett Davern as cousins who hope to get rich quick off a scheme involving prostitution. Needless to say, it soon goes off the rails, but not before they become good at pimping. The humor is coarse and--most damagingly--unfunny, while the women are lovely but simply window dressing and the acting is pretty much non-existent. The movie at least looks decent on Blu-ray; extras include a making-of featurette.

Sid and Nancy
(MGM)
Alex Cox’s 1986 paean to Sid Vicious and girlfriend Nancy Spungeon--whom he killed before committing suicide--unsettlingly mixes hero-worship and a cautionary tale. Despite Cox’s confusion over whether to excoriate or laud the couple, there’s no quibble with the acting: Gary Oldman’s Sid is dead on-target, while Chloe Webb--in a performance now seen as obvious typecasting (she was never as good in anything else)--is a sensational Nancy. Cox’s striking visuals look superb on Blu-ray; extras comprise two behind-the-scenes featurettes.

Sinners and Saints
(Anchor Bay)
This hard-hitting if derivative cop flick follows an unorthodox New Orleans detective whose tactics uncover a vast conspiracy pitting local gangs against violent mercenaries. Many violent scenes in this gritty picture might make some viewers look away, but despite the derivativeness, there’s decent acting and an energy level that helps gloss over the many shortcomings. The Blu-ray image is good; extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette and deleted scenes.

What’s Your Number?
(Fox)
This witless, crude sex comedy has an extremely dumb premises: before getting to 20 guys that’s she slept with in her life, a young woman decides to pick from the previous 19 to settle down and not be labeled “whore.” Anna Faris tries to make this absurd plot work, but even she can’t overcome outright inanities like playing a game of strip horse basketball or jumping naked into a harbor at night. Amazingly written by two women, this laughless comedy makes you wonder what gets green lighted in Hollywood. On Blu-ray, the movie looks sharp; extras include deleted scenes and a gag reel.

DVDs of the Week
Aurora
(Cinema Guild)
The slow accumulation of ordinary events to gradually reveal the underbelly of Romanian society worked in Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), but not here. For three hours, the antisocial protagonist (played by the taciturn director) goes about his menial business, rarely connecting with other. An hour in, there’s a murder, and the movie soon becomes risible. It’s daring of Puiu to choose mundane subjects to develop his singular style. (There are apparently four more films to come, snippets of life in Bucharest.) Long takes interrupted by startling cuts can either mesmerize or stupefy: Lazarescu did the former, Aurora the latter. Batting .500, Puiu is still a director to watch. The lone extra is Puiu’s 2004 short, Cigarettes and Coffee.

The Man from London
(Zeitgeist/KimStim)
Based on, of all things, a swift-moving Georges Simenon mystery, London plays like a flatfooted Bela Tarr parody: Mihaly Vig’s ominous music repeats itself ad nauseum, the actors (including a dubbed Tilda Swinton) spit out minimal dialogue, and those oh-so-slow camera moves are simply an exercise in lugubriousness. Tarr’s visual sense was borrowed from compatriot Miklos Jancso, who used elaborate camera choreography to more dynamic dramatic and psychological effect. But Jancso, the master, has moved on to recent films that are carefree and playful, unlike Tarr, who recently called it quits after his most recent film, The Turin Horse.

Protektor
(Film Movement)
Marek Najbrt’s handsomely mounted drama explores how Czechoslovakia dealt with the 1938 Nazi annexation preceding WWII. Emil (perfect everyman Marek Daniel), a Prague radio reporter with a familiar voice, is married to movie star Hana (subtle Jana Plodkova), who initially doesn’t blink when the Nazis come. But since she’s Jewish, she soon loses her status…and career. Najbrt understands Czech cultural history by smartly showing how Nazis utilized celebrities depending on their ability to be useful propagandists. The title has multiple meanings: “Protektor” (which refers to Emil as well as a murdered Nazi leader) can also be read as “Protect Her.” The lone extra is a touching animated short by Canadian director Ann Marie Fleming, I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors.

The Windsors from George to Kate
(Athena)
This matter-of-fact overview of the current British Royal Family is a treasure trove of archival footage of coronations, weddings and even--in the case of Edward VIII--abdication. Narrated by Brian Blessed, the 105-minute documentary includes original voiceovers from vintage newsreels, and takes viewers swiftly from Georges V and VI to Queen Elizabeth II and her offspring--son Charles and grandsons Harry and William, whose recent marriage to Kate Middleton closes out the program. Valuable extras include footage of George VI’s visit to FDR in Washington, DC and William and Kate’s wedding.

New Movies in Brief: Mellencamp, Murder and 'Margaret'

It’s About You

Directed by Kurt and Ian Markus
Through January 12, 2012
IFC Center, 333 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY
ifccenter.com

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Through January 17, 2012
Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, New York, NY
filmforum.org

Margaret
Directed by Kenneth Lonergan
Through January 12, 2012
Cinema Village, 22 East 12th St, New York, NY
cinemavillage.com

John Mellencamp in It's About You
It’s About You, Kurt and Ian Markus’ documentary, follows John Mellencamp through sessions for his most recent album, 2010’s No Better Than This, and the tour that followed. Using historic locations like Sun Studios in Memphis and primitive techniques like mono and a single mic (the producer was T Bone Burnett), Mellencamp's record superbly marries his roots-rock writing style with his usual social awareness.

When there’s recording, rehearsing or performing, It’s About You is first rate: Mellencamp accompanies himself on acoustic guitar on one of his strongest new songs, “Clumsy Ol’ World,” and he and his crack band literally shred both new and vintage tunes like “Pink Houses” onstage. But there’s an annoying self-indulgence at work, since Kurt Markus took Mellencamp’s admonition seriously when he started filming to make the film about himself--the filmmaker--instead of the musical artist we are interested in.

So Kurt’s sophomoric, stream-of-consciousness narration dominates the movie, and it comes off arty and pretentious. Too bad Markus couldn’t leave the wit and wisdom to Mellencamp’s songs and simply remain behind the camera: since Markus is a photographer, his 8mm footage is often striking, especially what’s shot in the studio and the tour’s cities and small towns. That imagery says more about Mellencamp’s ongoing lyrical concerns about the direction America is headed than any of Kurt’s outbursts.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s earlier films Distant, Climates and Three Monkeys were interesting but ultimately frustrating failures. His latest, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, is a leap forward for Ceylan and immeasurably superior in every way.

The movie begins as a police procedural: a group of law enforcement officers travels to a remote area with two murder suspects to find where they dumped the body. While spending interminable time waiting around, the men engage in small talk (including discussing the pluses and minuses of buffalo yogurt), and we gradually discover that those involved--the lawmen, a district attorney and a local doctor--have their own ethical and personal problems.

Ceylan’s long uninterrupted takes begin with the film’s haunting opening shot from afar, as headlights of three vehicles move through a deserted landscape. The magnificent compositions keep viewers alert, even when the narrative hits a snag or two: would the police really be so inept as to forget a body bag and not have room in any vehicle to fit a body, and would an autopsy be conducted with the victim’s wife and son right outside the room? The director’s singular visual talent compels us to keep watching for more than 2-½ hours of what turns out to be a shaggy corpse story.

Damon and Paquin in Lonergan's Margaret
The struggle to finally bring Margaret to the screen has been well documented: writer-director Kenneth Lonergan made this illuminating character study of Lisa Cohen, an Upper West Side teenager who witnesses a gruesome (and life-changing) bus accident, back in 2005. It has since been sitting on the shelf, and now--edited by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker--although clocking in at 2-½ hours, it’s worth catching wherever it’s playing.

Like You Can Count on Me, his excellent 2000 feature film debut, and his off-Broadway plays This Is Our Youth, Lobby Hero and The Starry Messenger, Lonergan’s Margaret is less concerned with plot than character and dialogue; the film’s textures are like real life, as people interact in ways that are completely antithetical to typical Hollywood movies. Showing scene after scene of Lisa at school, at home or dealing with the aftermath of the fatal accident, Margaret seems like a cinema-verite documentary or even a reality TV show--that is, if the latter had any brains or empathy for its characters.

The acting by Anna Paquin as Lisa and J. Smith-Cameron as her harried actress mother is impeccable; Lonergan himself has juicy scenes as Paquin’s divorced father, Josh Hamilton, Matthew Broderick, Mark Ruffalo, Matt Damon and Allison Janney provide smart support, and even Jeanne Berlin--normally an exasperating actress--is very fine.

Margaret doesn’t pretend to have any clear-cut answers for Lisa’s difficulties--the final sequence, set during a performance of The Tales of Hoffman at the Metropolitan Opera, is a perfectly pitched catharsis--making it mesmerizing but messy, like life.

January '12 Digital Week I

Blu-rays of the Week

Contagion
(Warners)
Steven Soderbergh’s nail-biting suspense drama realistically paints a horrifying portrait of the outbreak of an unknown disease that engulfs much of the planet. In a series of plausibly shot, edited and acted sequences, the movie scarily shows what our globally connected 21st century world might look like. A superb ensemble cast, from Matt Damon and Kate Winslet to Laurence Fishburne and Jennifer Ehle, make this a most entertaining but truly frightening film. On Blu-ray, Soderbergh’s stark, documentary-like style is preserved; the extras comprise featurettes about the film and the science behind it.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
(Sony)
In keeping with cowriter Guillermo del Toro’s cinematic obsessions, this semi-frightening thriller features a young child terrorized by monsters only she can see--and it appears that the adults can do nothing about it. Eerie and suspenseful moments are negated by the too-literal appearances of tiny creatures who are lethal except when it’s convenient that they’re not. Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes are wasted, but young Bailee Madison is a rip-roaring screamer of the first order. The movie’s hi-def image is very good; extras include a three-part making-of featurette.

The Guard
(Sony)
If you want to see the great Irish actor Brendan Gleeson knock heads with our very own Don Cheadle, then don’t miss John Michael McDonagh’s uproarious, pitch-black comedy about an unorthodox Galway cop who teams with a visiting FBI agent to bust a cabal of international drug smugglers. The maniacal Gleeson, on the same wavelength as the acidic script, expertly demonstrates how to walk the overacting tightrope without falling off. The Blu-ray image is super; extras are McDonagh’s short, The Second Death; deleted scenes/outtakes; and McDonagh, Cheadle and Gleeson’s commentary/film festival Q&A.

I Don’t Know How She Does It
(Anchor Bay)
He once made the better 2006 Truman Capote movie, Infamous, which did not have Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar-winning performance; now Douglas McGrath is reduced to helming an inoffensive but forgettable rom-com (from Allison Pearson’s novel) with Sarah Jessica Parker as the ultimate career woman who’s destroying her family. Parker is always one-note, but an appealing supporting cast--Greg Kinnear, Pierce Brosnan, Kelsey Grammer, Christina Hendricks and Olivia Munn--makes the 90 minutes palatable. The movie has a decent hi-def image; lone extra is a conversation with Pearson.

Proof
(Miramax Echo Bridge)
David Auburn’s magnificent drama--2001 Tony and Pulitzer Prize Best Play winner--reached the screen in 2005 to mediocre results, thanks to John Madden’s uninspired direction and a dull cast: Anthony Hopkins never convinces as Gywneth Paltrow and Hope Davis’s father, they are not believable sisters and poor Jake Gyllenhaal looks confused. If they kept the original stage cast, it would have worked far better: but Larry Brygmann, Ben Shenckman, Johanna Day and the incomparable Mary Louise Parker are apparently not big enough names. The muted Blu-ray image is an acceptable improvement over the original DVD release; no extras.

Puncture
(Millennium)
This compelling, strange-but-true story follows a lawyer (Chris Evans, who’s excellent) that’s also a drug addict, and whose personal-injury firm takes a case involving contaminated needles. Adam and Mark Kassen directed, and Mark plays Evans’ partner, giving the whip-smart attorneys a believable rapport. The movie is low-key for the most part, so its scenes of drug taking--culminating in a final, fatal instance--become that much more powerful. The hi-def image is solid; unfortunately, there are no extras.

Shark Night
(Fox)
A tongue-in-cheek shark-attack movie was done with far more wit and style than David R. Ellis’ cheesy 3-D mock-thriller: of course, I’m talking about Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, 36 years ago. Here, Ellis is stuck with a goofy premise, cardboard characters and a need to have stuff fly at the camera to induce 3-D effects for viewers. The lone time it works is the final shot; otherwise, the killings--and technique--stale quickly. The movie looks fine on Blu-ray even without the 3-D effects; extras are four behind-the-scenes featurettes.

DVDs of the Week
Eames: The Architect and the Painter
and Jane’s Journey (First Run)
Two terrific documentaries take the measure of three of the most important people in their respective fields in the past 50 or so years: Eames chronicles the extraordinary lives and artistry of designer Charles and his wife, painter Ray; Jane’s Journey is a straightforward portrait of beloved chimpanzee expert/activist Jane Goodall. Both intelligently made films include insightful interviews with their subjects, colleagues and close friends. Eames’ extras include deleted scenes; Jane’s extras include Angelina Jolie interview.

I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive
(Strand)
Veteran director Claude Miller and son Nathan’s thoroughly absorbing character study features a splendid cast of unknown faces in a true story about a young man, whose mother gave him and his little brother up for adoption, who tracks her down and begins an unsettling relationship with her and his half-brother. This sober, reflective tale is made all the more remarkable by the performances of its leads, Vincent Rottiers (son) and Sophie Cattani (mother),who lend an authenticity and immediacy that bigger stars would obviously lack.

Justified: Season 2
(Sony)
After shutting down a criminal family’s ruthless reign, U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens (a perfectly-cast Timothy Olyphant) returns to battle another menace to society in the form of Mags Bennett (splendid Emmy-winning performance by Margo Martindale). This fast-moving, very entertaining crime drama justifies its existence by equaling the taut short story by Elmore Leonard on which it is based. All 13 episodes are included on 3 discs; extras include outtakes, deleted scenes and on-set featurettes.

The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh
(Naxos)
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s epic fantasy opera needs a first-rate staging. In this 2008 production from Sardinia, Italy, it’s only partly forthcoming: director Eimuntas Nekrosius cleverly evokes the Russian folk tale about a city that miraculously holds off Mongol invaders but does not visualize all the story’s riches. Still, Rimsky-Korsakov’s glorious music is well-played by the orchestra under conductor Alexander Vedernikov and the vocalists, led by soprano Tatiana Monogarova and bass Mikhail Kazakov, are luminous. One quibble: the video and audio are not synched on disc one.

Transform Your Body with Brooke Burke
(Sony)
40-year-old Dancing with the Stars winner Brooke Burke is a mother of four, and these two workout DVDs display how she keeps her amazing figure. Each disc contains three separate workouts, so by getting both Tone and Tighten and Strength and Conditioning, women will have a half-dozen chances to try and look like Brooke, while husbands and boyfriends will have a half-dozen chances to look at Brooke. Extras include interviews with Burke and workout guru Greg Joujon-Roche.

CD of the Week
Reger, Violin Concerto
(Hyperion)
Max Reger’s Violin Concerto is, at 56 minutes in length, the ultimate in Romantic era music (Reger died at age 43 in 1916). Its surging strings and emotional washes of sound provide a sturdy orchestral base for the formidable solo lines for the showcase violinist, and this recording has a superb soloist in Tanja Becker-Bender, who dispatches this uneven but eminently worthy work with ease. Also on this disc are Reger’s Two Romances for violin and orchestra, played beautifully by Becker-Bender and the Berlin Concerthouse Orchestra under conductor Lothar Zagrosek.