LFM Review: Martin Scorsese’s Letter to Elia

Marlon Brando, in Elia Kazan's iconic "On the Waterfront."

By Joe Bendel. No director portrayed the immigrant experience or the struggles of the common man with greater sensitivity than Elia Kazan – but to this day, he remains widely reviled on the left. Even a figure of Martin Scorsese’s stature took heat for presenting Kazan a lifetime achievement Oscar at the 71st Academy Awards. Yet for Scorsese, Kazan’s influence extended far beyond his early stylistic debt to the great filmmaker. Scorsese explains Kazan’s significance both to cinematic history in general and himself personally in Letter to Elia, an hour-long documentary he co-directed with Kent Jones, which screened with Kazan’s epic America, America at the 48th New York Film Festival.

Director Elia Kazan.

Regardless of political controversies, Kazan’s reputation as an actor’s director is without peer. A co-founder of the Actor’s Studio, Kazan began his career on the boards before finding his calling as a theater director. Letter reminds us that it was Kazan who helmed the Broadway premieres of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Of course, he would revisit Streetcar on film with original cast-member and frequent collaborator Marlon Brando, one of several legitimate masterpieces he crafted. However, for Scorsese, East of Eden stands out first and foremost in his consciousness, claiming to have “stalked” the film through second-run cinemas as a boy.

Looking straight into the camera, Scorsese forcefully and lucidly describes Kazan’s contributions to stage and screen, with the help of generous clips from the director’s filmography. While Eden and the best picture nominee America, America capture the most screen time, Scorsese and Jones duly include Kazan’s arguably single most famous scene, Brando’s “could have been a contender” speech from On the Waterfront, the classic tale of union corruption.

In contrast, they are clearly uncomfortable addressing Kazan’s testimony to the HUAC committee. Kazan was a former Communist who became disillusioned after the Stalin-Hitler (Molotov-Ribbentrop) non-aggression pact came to light. Considering Communism a severely flawed ideology, Kazan defended his decision in an op-ed piece, but Scorsese and Jones largely ignore his motivations, preferring to gloss over the incident with vague language of “difficult choices,” which does little to serve Kazan’s memory.

Of course, Scorsese is on solid ground when celebrating movie history. Letter is definitely an effective commercial for Kazan’s rich body of work, which really speaks for itself throughout the documentary. However, if any of his masterworks is under-represented, it would be Gentleman’s Agreement, a powerful examination of anti-Semitism that won Kazan his first Oscar.

Truly, Kazan is due for a critical renaissance, unblinkered by partisan score-settling. Letter is a well intentioned, mostly well executed effort to spur just that. Due to be included in a forthcoming Kazan boxset, Scorsese and Jones’ film screened yesterday (9/27) with a rare big screen presentation of America, America at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of the 2010 NYFF.

Posted on September 28th, 2010 at 9:04am.

Musical Mission – 100 Voices: A Journey Home

By Joe Bendel. There were more righteous gentiles from Poland than any other country. No strangers to suffering, three million Poles also died under National Socialism, while the Polish resistance forces were the only organized underground with a division specifically dedicated to saving Jewish lives. Yet, the Nazis were grimly successful cleaving apart Polish and Jewish culture, though they had been closely intertwined for centuries. In an effort to mend that breach, a group of 72 cantors made an emotional tour of Poland last June, fortuitously captured in Danny Gold and Matthew Asner’s documentary 100 Voices: A Journey Home, which began a limited engagement in New York and Los Angeles last Wednesday, following a special nationwide one-night event-screening this past Tuesday.

Tuesday’s special screening was presented under the auspices of NCM Fathom, the in-theater event specialists, which is particularly apt considering their specialty simulcasting opera. Indeed, there is a strong affinity between opera and the cantorial music of Voices. In fact, the father of two tour participants probably saved his life during the Holocaust by convincing the Nazis he was an opera singer rather than a cantor. While their music is liturgical, most cantors’ delivery is expressive and dramatic, bearing a strong stylistic resemblance to full-voiced opera singing.

After providing viewers an essential grounding in cantorial music and great cantors past (including the jazz-influenced Moishe Oysher), Voices follows the cantors on their eventful tour, organized by the forceful Cantor Nathan Lam of the Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles. Adding additional tragic significance, Polish President Lech Kaczyński was in attendance for their tour-opening command performance at Warsaw’s National Opera House mere weeks before his fatal plane-crash. It was a heavy program featuring an original composition penned by Charles Fox (probably best known for “Killing Me Softly”) inspired by Pope John Paul II’s simple prayer left at the Western Wall.

Yet, the next performances were probably even more personally moving for the cantors, including memorial performances at Warsaw’s only surviving synagogue and at the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. However, the tour ended on a hopefully note, culminating with an open-air concert at the Krakow Jewish Cultural Festival, organized by the Catholic Janusz Makuch. Embracing the term “Shabbos goy” Makuch has worked to foster an appreciation of Poland’s Jewish heritage since 1988 (an effort greatly aided by the fall of Communism in 1989).

While the music of Voices may not be to all tastes, precisely for its operatic quality, there is no denying its power. Beautifully recorded and presented by directors Gold and Asner with cinematographers Jeff Alred and Anthony Melfi, it should lead to a deeper and wider appreciative of cantorial music, certainly outside Judaism and perhaps within the faith as well.

Indeed, Cantor Lam’s project was notable not just for the size of the tour, but the noble intent.  Recently, many religious leaders have acted provocatively, even insensitively, while claiming the mantle of intolerance (yes, I definitely mean the organizers of the World Trade Center mosque here). However, the Voices tour really was undertaken in the spirit of tolerance, seeking to strengthen ties and understanding between faiths and people. A well intentioned film executed with grace and dignity, Voices deserves an audience well past Oscar season. It plays in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles through September 28th.

Posted on September 26th, 2010 at 12:08m.

Heroic Filmmaking in the Face of Communist Occupation: Tibet in Song

By Joe Bendel. It can honestly be said Ngawang Choephel’s debut documentary was over six and a half years in the making. That is how long he was unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese Communist government for the crime of recording traditional Tibetan folk songs. Of course, they called it espionage. What started as an endeavor in ethnomusicology became a much more personal project for Ngawang, ultimately resulting in Tibet in Song, which opens this Friday in New York.

Though born in Tibet, Ngawang had lived in exile with his mother since the age of two. While he had few memories of his homeland, attending the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts instilled in Ngawang a passion for the traditional music of his country that would cost him his liberty. Though his mother strenuously advised against it, Ngawang fatefully returned to Tibet in hopes of documenting the traditional songs before they were completely lost to posterity.

In Lhasa, Ngawang discovered the unofficial Chinese prohibitions against Tibetan cultural, religious, and linguistic identity had largely succeeded. However, like a Tibetan Alan Lomax, he found people in the provinces, usually the older generations, who were willing to be filmed as they sang and played the music of their ancestors. And then a funny thing happened on the road to Dawa.

Suddenly, Ngawang was arrested and his film was confiscated. For years he endured the abuse of a Communist prison, but he still persisted in learning and singing traditional Tibetan songs. Eventually, the Chinese government relented to the pressure of a remarkable international campaign spearheaded by Ngawang’s mother – releasing the filmmaker, who would finally finish a very different film from what he presumably envisioned.

Song is a remarkable documentary in many ways. It all too clearly illustrates the unpredictable nature of nonfiction filmmaking, as events take a dramatic turn Ngawang was surely hoping to avoid. The film also bears witness to the Communist government’s chilling campaign to obliterate one of the world’s oldest cultures. Particularly disturbing to Ngawang are the ostensive Tibetan cultural revues mounted by the Chinese government that feature plenty of party propaganda but no genuine Tibetan music. In Orwellian terms, they represent an effort to literally rewrite Tibetan culture.

Indeed, what starts as a reasonably interesting survey of Tibetan song becomes a riveting examination of the occupied nation. Ngawang and the other former Tibetan prisoners he interviews have important (and dramatic) stories to tell, many of which express the significance of song to their own cultural identity. One of the few legitimate examples of heroic filmmaking, Song deserves a wide audience. Highly recommended, it opens this Friday (9/24) in New York at the Cinema Village, and in subsequent weeks travels to art house cinemas nationwide.

Posted on September 23rd. 2010 at 9:11am.

American Master — Cachao: Uno Mas Airs Tonight

By Joe Bendel. He played for Presidents FDR and W. In between, he revolutionized Latin dance music, endured the pain of exile from his Cuban homeland, and enjoyed a late-career renaissance thanks in large measure to the efforts of musician-actor Andy Garcia. His name was Israel López, but most knew him simply as Cachao. His life and insistently danceable music are lovingly remembered in Dikayl Rimmasch’s Cachao: Uno Mas, co-produced by Garcia, which airs today as part of the current season of PBS’s American Masters.

A classically trained bassist, Cachao co-wrote Mambo #1 with his brother Orestes. Simply titled “Mambo,” it was the first of his signature danzóns (Cuban ballroom dances), featuring jazz like syncopation and an infectious rhythmic drive. Needless to say, the mambo was a hit—everywhere—spawning the global mambo craze. Yet, Cachao usually was not the one in the spotlight. Hip musicians certainly knew who he was though.

According to Cachao, he and his brother wrote 1,500 danzóns each. He also recorded his classic Descargas: Cuban Jam Sessions in Miniature, thoroughly blurring the distinctions between jazz and traditional Cuban musical forms. He even penned “Chanchullo,” the original melody that would become first Tito Puente’s and then Carlos Santana’s “Oye Como Va.” That Cachao never received proper credit or compensation for those monster hits still visibly rankles Garcia, but the zen-like master bassist was apparently unconcerned with such worldly matters.

Unfortunately, worldly events would intrude into Cachao’s musical life. Though he initially supported the revolution against Battista, Cachao (like Garcia’s parents) chose the pain of exile as the oppressive nature of the Castro regime became painfully apparent. As the American Master himself explains: “Over there they say, ‘No, because of Fidel . . .’ and that’s it. Everyone is listening to you to hear what you say. If they don’t like it, you’re asking for trouble.”

Though Cachao passed away in early 2008, he was playing strong up until his final bar. Wisely, Uno Mas showcases his musical fire, fitting its profile segments around a scorching hot 2005 concert in San Francisco. Cachao swings like mad with an all-star ensemble including Garcia on bongos, John Santos on congas, Justo Almario on saxophone, and Federico Britos on violin (at one point engaging in some tasty call-and-response with the leader).

Utilizing nine cameras, Rimmasch shot some of the best live concert footage you are ever likely to see on television. He beautifully captures the unspoken back-and-forth between musicians, which probably gives a better sense of Cachao the man than any of the interview segments. Indeed, the music is so good, Uno Mas is probably destined to become a staple of PBS pledge break programming for years to come. While he does not perform in the film, trumpeter and Cuban defector Arturo Sandoval (played by Garcia in the under-appreciated HBO film For Love or Country) also adds some entertainingly animated musical commentary.

Cachao led a dramatic life and left behind an impressive body of absolutely joyous music. Like many Cuban exiles, he became a loyal patriot of two countries, making him a perfect subject for American Masters. Sometimes touching, but ultimately a blast of invigorating music, Uno Mas airs today (9/20) on PBS outlets nationwide.

Posted on September 20th, 2010 at 9:11am.

Model Turned Filmmaker: LFM Reviews Picture Me

By Joe Bendel. Prepare to be shocked: not only is there considerable drug use in the modeling business, some unscrupulous photographers sexually take advantage of the girls — and yes, in many cases they really are girls. Such are some of the revelations in super-ish model Sara Ziff’s video diary that she and her filmmaker boyfriend Ole Schell cut and shaped into the feature length documentary Picture Me, which opens in New York and Los Angeles this Friday immediately following the conclusion of the 2010 NY Fashion Week.

Though Ziff first started modeling at age fourteen, she really began pursuing it in earnest after graduating from high school – relatively late by modeling standards. Certainly beautiful, she seems quite successful, judging by the five and six figure checks she shows the camera. The close proximity of her supportive family is also an advantage, keeping her more or less grounded. Still, as we watch her over the course of a chaotic season, the exploitative nature of the business (even at Ziff’s rarified level) takes a toll on her.

Model, filmmaker Sara Ziff.

Ziff is probably rather bright and down-to-earth by industry standards, but that does not make her a fascinating personality on the big screen. She is, after all, a young woman in her early twenties with only a high school education.  (To her credit, she does enroll in college late in the film.) Frankly, her much less successful former roommate is a far more compelling figure. She can definitely tell a bad gig story, disturbing as it might be.

The real question is just what her freeloading b.f. did to earn his co-director, co-editor, and d.p. credits. In addition to being the subject, Ziff clearly shot much of the footage of her friends and fellow models herself. Hopefully Schell was very active in the editing bay. He certainly was not picking up any checks. In fact, some of the scenes he did indeed shoot feel almost as intrusive as the creepy lechers backstage snapping photos of the models as they change (a practice designers and agencies inexplicably tolerate, though it must violate American labor laws).

There are probably better modeling exposés available, but Picture should be sufficient to make parents think twice about allowing their daughters to pursue such a career. Even though one might expect it to have a glitzy E! sheen, Picture is a fairly dark and dingy looking affair, shot in backstage dressing rooms and crash pads on handheld consumers video cameras. Hardly glamorizing the model’s lifestyle, it shows the behind-the-scenes reality, zits and all.

It is hard to make a truly boring movie about beautiful women who are often skimpily clad. However, aside from a few insightful interviews with Ziff’s less successful colleagues, Picture is largely dependent on the sex appeal of its participants to hold audience interest. As a result, it is unlikely to make much of a lasting impression with viewers, unless they are fascinated by the modeling world to an unhealthy degree or have been stalking Ziff.  The film opens in New York and Los Angeles this Friday (9/17).

Posted on September 15th, 2010 at 1:24pm.

New Voices in Russian Cinema: The 2010 CEC Short Film Program

By Joe Bendel. Nearly every great Russian writer, including the likes of Chekhov, Bunin, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Babel, excelled under the rigorous self-imposed discipline of the short story format. Decades later, short forms seem to hold a similar appeal for emerging Russian directors. In cooperation with the Telluride Film Festival, CEC Artslink presents an evening of four short films by their independent filmmakers-in-residence tonight at the Tribeca Cinemas in lower Manhattan.

The first selection is also the longest and happily the best of the program. In many ways, Mikhail Zheleznikov’s For Home Viewing is an antidote to ideology. An autobiographical video essay, Zheleznikov tells his story of coming of age during the Brezhnev era and starting a family under Perestroika.  In the process, he largely eschews the macro-ideological clashes of time, aside from a gently cynical skepticism of all things political, which seems distinctly Russian.

Throughout Viewing, Zheleznikov demonstrates a keen visual sense. In addition to memorable vintage film and stills, he incorporates some clever animation techniques, but never to the point of distraction. His imagery is often simple but evocative, like a sequence involving an old scrapbook he assembled with his high school friends’ leftover passport photos.

From Tatiana Kevorkova’s "Spring."

For Polina and her boyfriend Klim, life is too beautiful to worry about current events in Tatiana Kevorkova’s Spring. Having stretched their date into the early spring morning, they appear ready to break into song. Once she returns to her flat, the film evolves into a pleasant enough situation comedy. However, the light and frothy Spring is quite well crafted.  Kevorkova has a fine eye for composition, particularly during her early street scenes, where cinematographer Sergey Komarov makes their picturesque neighborhood sparkle.

While Viewing and Spring suggest life and love continue more or less oblivious to outside forces, Konstantin Smirnov’s Kolyan is far less sanguine. The title character might euphemistically be called a disaffected youth. With his troubled home life and menial employment, he is ripe for recruitment by the local hate group. Yet he still feels more than just the stirrings of attraction for the Chechen girl in his neighborhood. At approximately fifteen minutes, Kolyan makes its point quite effectively, without getting melodramatic. It is also features some sensitive chemistry between its would-be romantic interests, which is really why the film works so well.

A Russian film titled Seagulls might be expected to evoke Chekhov, but Irina Volkova’s concluding short initially suggests more the spirit of Beckett. As two newlyweds stroll across a bleak winter beach, he supposedly decides to stay there permanently. After some absurdist back-and-forth, she more-or-less calls his bluff.  Frankly, who would blame her for leaving him there? Still, Maria Shalaeva has some strong moments as the woman, most notably when she double-dares her hubby to tuck into one of the dead gulls littering the beach.

Quite a strong program overall, CEC’s 2010 short film evening boasts one of the best short documentaries of the year in Zheleznikov’s Viewing. A perfect (though arguably superior) companion film to Robin Hessman’s My Perestroika (see the LFM review of My Perestroika here), it should thoroughly charm Russophiles and provoke nostalgia for Russian expatriates. By contrast, Kolyan will probably make the latter happy to have left, but it remains a strong short nonetheless.  The CEC Russian short film program has two screenings tonight (9/9) in New York at the Tribeca Cinemas, continuing on to DC for a special screening at the Russian Federation embassy the following Monday (9/13).

Posted on September 9th, 2010 at 12:24pm.