MOVIE CAPSULES
Edited by Armond White
New York’s Review of Culture • CityArtsNYC.com
Signs of the Beast Barbarian art mocks religion By Maureen Mullarkey
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s religion the new pornography? DC Moore Gallery, pitching its group exhibition of “American (ir)religiosity” in the exhibition Beasts of Revelation, hopes so. Censorship battles over sexually explicit imagery have been won. That old X-rated thrill is gone. Nowadays, organs and orifices are as transgressive as your parish bulletin. Only demon blasphemy has enough life left to pinch-hit for beaver shots and bull whips—or so the gallery wants to think. On one level, Beasts of Revelation is a standard publicity caper, the kind that banks on the Catholic League to rise to the bait. Nothing boosts box office like a picket line of retired Knights of Columbus at the gallery door. Moreover, this is an election year, as civic minds at DC Moore remind us. The gallery is primed for Nov. 6 with latter-day riffs on Christian iconography, stand-ins for the social conservatism identified with a Republican candidacy. To underscore the point, two LDS-raised artists are showcased for their upbringing, not talent. But where is the sacrilege? The trumpeted irreverence comes gilded as a testament to “Christianity’s insidious aquifer of metaphorical power.” (Insidious /adj/ 1. cunning, deceitful 2. deleterious.) Downwind of Andres Serrano, Chris Ofili, and a thriving Broadway lampoon of Mormonism, DC Moore’s claim that religion is a taboo subject in the art world is risible. Here, promotional blather about religion diverts attention from the crucial question: Is the art any good? Some of it is, much is not. Even so, Rosary Society matrons will have a hard time finding offense. This is an unexceptional summertime porridge of appropriations and approximations of traditional iconography. Several pieces achieve a seriousness that is no less real for being unintended. The only insidious item on show is the press release. Roger Brown’s “The Beast Rising From the Sea” (1983), the keynote piece, holds its
Lyle Aston Harris, “Untitled,” 2008, part of Beasts of Revelations.
ground as a modern version of an ancient motif. The seven-headed symbol for Satan and his wiles has warned against mistaken conceptions of God—i.e., against idolatry— since The Book of Revelation was written early in the common era. Chris Hammerlein follows Brown with a ceramic Whore of Babylon astride a suitably grotesque version of the Beast. The sculpture accompanies a suite of sketchy illustrations of the Passion. Hammerlein’s line is weak, yet several of the compositions do justice to the emotional tenor of the Stations of the Cross. Robert Smithson’s expressionist drawing “Christ Carrying the Cross” (1960) is a glad surprise. A bent, bloody, striped figure, rendered in red-purple ink, evokes the lethal brutality of a Roman scourging. It recalls Lovis Corinth’s “The Red Christ” (1922) and reveals how far Smithson traveled to become himself. Kay Rosen’s stylish stained-glass design using the letters of the name Jesus would be welcome in rectories anywhere. By contrast, Dana Frankfort’s graphic and semantic nullity, “TSIRHC” (2011)—Christ spelled backward— suggests a high schooler trying to be cool. Carrie Mayer’s portrait drawing “Head” (1999) is eligible for inclusion on the assumption that a generic Haight Ashbury melancholic, ’60s vintage, is a ringer for a 1st-century Palestinian Jew. It is a popular cliché, a secular parallel to
the products of Sulpician piety. Erika Rothenberg’s signboard announcing parish activities in moveable letters is a delicious send-up of typical church notice boards. Social service (“Tues: Eating Disorders; Wed: Abusive Spouse; Sat: Soup Kitchen”) takes precedence over prayer; the social gospel trumps the Synoptics more often than not. Janine Antoni’s photo of a woman cradling her own leg in the attitude of a madonna and child is a pitch-perfect image of amour propre. Meant to burlesque a conventional composition, “Coddle” (1999) rises in spite of itself to a sharp comment on narcissism. The Spirit blows where it will. Art is both the work of hands—craft—and an act of mind. Joyce Kozloff’s “JEEZ” (2012) runs a deficit either way. Its inane gigantism and crude execution is the apotheosis of every adolescent, aimless or resentful thread elsewhere in the ensemble. Unequal to the grandeur of the inheritance it cannibalizes, Kozloff’s altarpiece, an anarchy of fragments and fribbles, tries an end-run around creative debility. Enamored as we are of the idea that art is a civilizing force, we forget that barbarians, too, have their art. Beasts of Revelation Through Aug. 3. DC Moore Gallery, 535 W. 22 St., 212-247-2111, dcmooregallery.com.
Ted: On a mission to sully everything, TV showrunner Seth McFarlane denigrates childhood’s teddy bear totem by turning it into an alter-ego for infantile 35-year-old Boston bachelor John (Mark Wahlberg). Voiced by McFarlane, bear and boy-man share potty-mouth immaturity—the same vulgarity as in Bad Santa but with McFarlane’s rabid sarcasm. Fans of TV’s Family Guy and American Dad won’t ask for meaning (which personalized Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson’s The Beaver); instead, McFarlane’s repertoire of crass jokes insists that brazen, anti-religious tastelessness is enough. Ted gets described as “a Christmas miracle. You’re just like a baby Jesus,” an easy way to pervert the poignant super-ego identification (and innocence) of the teddy bears in Spielberg’s movies. McFarlane avoids confronting surrealism (“A miracle is what seems impossible but happens anyway”) by resorting to Family Guy cliché, as in a raucous battle royale between Ted and John. Despite some funny lines in the blackout-sketch narrative, there’s not even enough thought to satirize Luke Skywalker’s allegiance to Yoda or Elliott’s to E.T. Ted is a vulgar fantasy without a decent sense of wonder—or decency. Co-starring lewd Mila Kunis. To Rome with Love: What’s the polite term for a filmmaker who keeps “rebooting” himself? Woody Allen used to call it “Sex with someone I love”; now critics praise his routine ventures into bourgeois narcissism, no different from Midnight in Paris, Vicky Cristina Barcelona or Match Point. This time, Allen’s Club Med excursion docks in Italy with at least four interconnected tales of lust, privilege, infidelity and, maybe, insanity. Romantic? No, just formulaic. Enlisting trendy actors Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg and Greta Gerwig doesn’t make the film fresh, it merely shows how bad these young performers can be without a filmmaker who cares to direct them. Mumblecadette Gerwig would be forgettable if her posture weren’t so regrettable, a clear sign of Allen’s deep-seated contempt for audiences and shill critics. Unforgivable: A head- and heart-spinning ensemble of love-searchers in the year’s deepest and most dazzling human display. Carole Bouquet and Andre Dussollier discover middle-aged passion comparable to the confused young sexual experimenters surrounding them. Set in the teeming waters and secretive streets of Venice, their unpredictable modern-day lives evoke each character’s complicated past. Relationships with their friends and their children reveal the eternal conflict of private emotion and social imperative. It’s the rare movie about personal truths we all recognize—one of director André Téchiné’s best. [Armond White]
CLASSICAL CITYARTS
Patriotism and Fervor The Philharmonic’s New Yorky Fourth By Jay Nordlinger
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he New York Philharmonic gives an annual Fourth of July concert, and this year the orchestra gave it three times. I attended on July 3. As usual, the concert was conducted by a Brit, Bramwell Tovey. He is one suave and talented Brit, too. I have always called him “your genial host,” for he talks charmingly to the audience: twitting latecomers, riffing on Kim Kardashian, etc. He has the verbal facility you expect from our cousins. I was shocked to hear him say “For you and I . . .” The concert began with Three Dance Episodes from Bernstein’s On the Town. I have often wondered why someone who could write so brilliantly in this idiom would ever have bothered with classical music. Tovey and the Philharmonic were really good in the dance episodes, really swingin’. They were not merely fun, they were excellent. I had the feeling they had actually rehearsed. Now, the Philharmonic is supposed to be good in New Yorky music. But I have to ask:
Why should Chinese-born young people who join the Philharmonic be better in this music than Chinese-born young people who join other orchestras? Traditions linger, somehow. Tracy Dahl, a coloratura soprano from Canada, took the stage to sing “Glitter and Be Gay,” the glittery and gay aria from Bernstein’s Candide. She gave it the old college try. Her heart was in the right place, and so were the notes, mainly. Her E flat had no vibrato, but it was bang on pitch. Even suaver than Tovey is Gershwin’s Promenade, or “Walking the Dog,” the next piece on the program. The orchestra played it nicely, and this was especially true of Pascual Martínez Forteza, the principal clarinet. “Walking the Dog” gives the clarinet a delicious part. Tracy Dahl returned for four songs by Gershwin, in which she was superb—both tasteful and heartfelt, both formal and informal, if you know what I mean. Every inflection was right. The arrangements were done by Tovey himself, who also played the piano. In “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” the singer sings, “The way you sip your tea . . .” Here, Tovey tinkled a bit of “Tea for Two.” As he did so, he gave the audience sort of a proud look.
Bramwell Tovey.
His arrangement for the verse of “Fascinating Rhythm” sounded like Carmina Burana, so help me. Weird but effective. As a pianist, Tovey may not threaten André Previn’s reputation; he was sometimes stiff and jabbing. But he was creditable. Besides, Previn doesn’t always play like Previn either. The second half of the program featured ensembles from West Point, as well as the Philharmonic. We heard big-band music and marches. We also heard some patriotic
and pro-military statements spoken by the West Pointers. I wasn’t sure this would fly in Manhattan, but it seemed to. The evening ended with John Philip Sousa’s masterpiece, The Stars and Stripes Forever. Let me quote Bernstein, in a humble and discerning mode: “I would give five years of my life to have written that piece.” It was a long night, but a wonderful one, and this was thanks largely to the manifold talents of Tovey—and also to those of Sousa, Gershwin, Bernstein, et al.
THEATER CITYARTS
BAM Takes Shape Melillo enables artists and audiences By Elena Oumano Responsive and initiating in just the right proportions, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), at 38 Lafayette Ave. in Fort Greene, seems inextricably linked to its home borough, with BAM’s offerings—all the performing arts, cinema, a café, even hosting Memorial Day weekend’s sprawling outdoor African bazaar—radiating and refining the scrappy but worldly consciousness that has come to define today’s Brooklyn. Joseph V. Melillo, BAM’s executive producer since 1999, first came to the cultural institution nearly 30 years ago to produce the first Next Wave Festival, and his sage leadership is clearly the point of equilibrium from which every BAM element flows and, at the same time, ingathers. One of his more recent successes is the completion in June of the Richard B. Fisher Center, a flexible black box space that seats 300 designed to nurture young, more experimental talent. It joins the Academy’s 2,100-seat Howard Gilman Opera House and 900-seat Harvey Theater. Melillo was a fun-loving English major when a chance encounter in his college cafeteria steered him towards the theater. “I saw
a group of kids being colorful and boisterous, and my friend said they were theater majors, so I inveigled myself into their social network and started taking theater courses, which I enjoyed immensely. It started as a social outlet. I like people very much. “After graduate school, I realized my path was not as a director but a producer, enabling artists to do their work. After producing a theater festival in Miami, I was hired by Harvey Lichtenstein [BAM founding executive producer] to produce Next Wave and I never left. The early years gave me a tremendous education that broadened my perspectives in music and dance.” Enabling artists working in many different forms has been a matter of “training,” Melillo says, “Pavlovian conditioning. It’s in my DNA now. A lot of research goes on with my assistants in my office. I go to performances nightly — if not here, then somewhere else. I was in Paris and Le Havre over the weekend, then at American Ballet Theatre’s gala. I’m constantly in the game and talking with colleagues about artists and projects. It’s a specific kind of existence when servicing an institution like BAM—I spend a lot of time thinking and reflecting upon a work of art I’ve experienced or researched or individuals I’ve engaged in conversation. “Most artistic seasons are shaped by that research and experience. It’s also concomitant
Joseph V. Melillo.
for someone of my age and in my professional life to give license to a younger curator that invites a new generation into your cultural institution. I produced Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, but I hired twin brothers, Aaron and Brice Dessner, guitarists in The National, to curate it for us. They live in the borough and know the younger generation of indie musicians. “The truth is I just follow my instincts on
how to service New York City and BAM-at the same time, as an international cultural capital, we have the opportunity to broaden our understanding of the globe by experiencing work coming to us from pockets of artistic energy all over the world.” Check www.bam.org for the calendar of events and other information.
film CITYARTS
He’s Got an Oeuvre An Oliver Stone retrospective in Savages By Armond White
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liver Stone’s cinematic command turns Savages, his 19th film, into a reconsideration of his entire previous oeuvre. Its story of three white California-carefree young adult progeny whose post-hippie, post-yuppie initiative in the drug trade conflicts with a Mexican cartel recalls Stone’s past hits: the martyred youth Vietnam saga Platoon, the hyperbolic satire Natural Born Killers, the noir-sinister U-Turn and the drug dramas he wrote but did not direct, Midnight Express, 8 Million Ways to Die and the epochal Scarface. Stone is as much an aesthete as Terrence Malick, deliberately manipulating fancy cinematic grammar to stimulate viewers’ awareness. But he’s also politically attuned, a different motivation than mere “social consciousness” that suggests a concern for contemporary issues of community interaction and public welfare. Stone, a political gadfly, likes to examine wayward social behavior, especially implicating his pro-
tagonists. The high-living menage a trois in Savages waste their privileges—trophy chick Ophelia (Blake Lively), their intelligence, Ben (Aaron Johnson), who devises high-THC weed then barters it hypocritically, ignoring the mercilessness learned from warped military experience by his Afghanistan-vet partner, Chon (Taylor Kitsch). These spoiled products of their generation are contrasted with Mexican drug lords Lado (Benecio del Toro) and Elena (Salma Hayek), who also pursue privilege but with a ruthless, self-conscious sense of power; they’re hungry for what the Cali kids take for granted. It’s hard to think of another American movie that so sharply conveys the difference between the haves and have-nots. Stone doesn’t go for naïve Occupy petulance. In Savages, Stone depicts the cultural fallout of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the recent history of international disparity. He breezily, boldly outlines race and class differences but also the United States’ and Third World’s common ruthlessness. The sequence of Ophelia shopping at the Sun Coast Galleria unaware of indulgent cartel princess Magda (Sandra Echeverría) alongside her is as brilliant as the earrings montage in Stone’s underrated Money Never Sleeps.
Lively and Kitsch in “Savages.”
Both American and Mexican characters refer to each other as “savages,” uninterested in the corrupted mores they share. Stone dares to illustrate this cutthroat comedy with a prodigious cinematic wit, though toned down from his usual extravagance, leaving the avant-garde extreme to Neveldine-Taylor. Having already shot the moon in Natural Born Killers, he goes for a more mature, post-9/11 sense of horror — yet this is where Stone’s own aesthetic irony gets confused with his characters’ moral chaos, a genre glitch. His double ending is less effective than the ironic endings of Death Race and Chronicle. Still, Savages presents an exciting, principled satire of modern decadence.
Unlike ivory tower Malick’s quasi-biblical allegories, Stone charts evolving public mores. Johnson, Kitsch and Lively are strikingly perfect petulant types and Del Toro and Hayek only fall short of full tragic dimension-not their fault; their roles call for a different dramatic quality than Stone practices. But Stone dares to challenge his own previous statements about the extremes of political engagement among leaders (Alexander, Nixon, JFK, W.), civilians (Any Given Sunday, Scarface, Salvador, Talk Radio) and plebians of unique dedication (World Trade Center, Born on the Fourth of July, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps). It’s an unusual oeuvre, oddly conscientious for this period of large-scale, unembarrassed escapism. In Ophelia, Ben and Chon’s fates, Stone muddles his sense of American privilege and opportunity run amok. Yet Savages’ study of arrogance as national character is amusingly epic. It evokes the classic paradoxes of Westerns-pleasure vs. satisfaction, business vs. idealism-with war movie metaphors (externalized psychic conflicts) all over the place. This abundance keeps Stone ahead of most of his contemporaries. Follow Armond White on Twitter at 3xchair. Also read John Demetry’s “Stone Images,” an exclusive CityArts online series analyzing Stone’s Interrogation shorts.
CITYARTS DANCE
The CityArts Interview Béatrice Massin By Joel Lobenthal
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éatrice Massin is a specialist in Baroque dance. She was co-choreographer of Lully’s Atys when the opera was presented by Les Arts Florissants at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last fall. She has choreographed for several films and directs her own dance troupe, Compagnie Fêtes Galantes, and school, the Atelier Baroque. She brings her company to Bard College July 6-8 to perform Massin’s work, Let My Joy Remain. What drew you to baroque dance? I think two reasons. First, I was a contemporary dancer before. I worked with a lot of people. When I discovered the baroque, I had the sense that music and space were together. The dancers, the dance was showing the space of the music. And the second thing [is] the idea that this dance is not an old dance—that
if I was able to really go to the fundamentals, the way to move from the inside, I will find the contemporary dance. And that’s my big project: to show something so clear, not so much connected to the story, with the history, but connected really to the way of moving in the body. No one was more influential to baroque dance and the genesis of classical ballet than Louis XIV. How was it performing at his old stomping grounds at Versailles? Of course it was incredible. But for me, it’s more important to perform baroque dance in the streets than in Versailles, because in Versailles we are waiting for this kind of dance. But how to bring it, for example, here in the streets? To have the difference between the buildings, the contemporary way of life, and this dance? How is it possible to bring them together? It’s interesting that even though the pace of Atys was very slow, the attention level was high at BAM.
The audience was able to respond to stately rhythms and tempi. How do you develop that kind of performing capacity in your studio, the Atelier Baroque? By a way of working with the floor, using the floor, using the idea of the volume of the body. That’s something very important in the baroque period, this idea that the body is not flat but is really a volume, like in sculpture. It has to do with a way to move in the space, bringing out all the volume. Which creates dynamism also— even in stillness you have a sense of a potential. Yeah, moving inside. Which you’re supposed to have in ballet, but you don’t see it a lot today. Perhaps everyone in ballet should spend some time at your school! Maybe they need to go back to the basics. Read more by Joel Lobenthal at Lobenthal.com
Béatrice Massin.