From The Soho News, October 6, 1981. I’m embarrassed to confess that over three decades later, I have no recollection at all about Tighten Your Belts, Bite the Bullet apart from what I wrote about it, although I’m happy to report that the film is still in distribution, and available from Icarus Films. — J.R.
September 22: From a global or even a continental perspective, much of this year’s New York Film Festival belongs under the staunch division of Business as Usual. This basically means that the festival is involved in ratifying certain important discoveries (of ideas or filmmakers) that were made during the 60s or 70s, often by the very same members of the selection committee, rather than risking its self-image or self-composure in order to seek out many new challenges or talents.
This makes New York precisely the reverse of the more footloose, friendly, and unpredictable film festival in Toronto. There the specialty tends to be, rather, a flavorsome if occasionally warmed-over newness of look, sound, and/or signature: an underground movie about everyday life in the Watts ghetto (Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep), a corrosive and shocking black comedy about the mourning business in Israel in relation to war memorials (Yaky Yosha’s The Vulture), a flaky German film based on a French best seller about Proust by his maid, played by Fassbinder alumnus Eva Mattes (Percy Adlon’s Celeste). Read more
This powerful paranoid thriller set in Santa Barbara, adapted by Jeffrey Alan Fishkin from Newton Thornberg’s novel Cutter and Bone (the film’s original title), is probably Ivan Passer’s best American feature (1981, 105 min.). Jeff Bridges and John Heard play two friends, the latter a crippled Vietnam war veteran, who stumble upon what looks like a murder committed by a wealthy local citizen. A major statement about post-60s disillusionment, with a wonderful performance by Lisa Eichhorn and shimmering, hallucinatory cinematography by Jordan Cronenweth. (JR) Read more
Painter Julian Schnabel’s 1996 biopic about Jean-Michel Basquiat (Jeffrey Wright), a black graffitist in New York who became famous in 1981 and died seven years later. Art critic Robert Hughes titled his obituary for Basquiat Requiem for a Featherweight, and part of what’s so interesting and unexpected about this picture is that it makes fresh observations without refuting that judgment. It’s also quite energeticthere isn’t a boring shot anywhere, and writer-director Schnabel is clearly enjoying himself as he plays with expressionist sound, neo-Eisensteinian edits, and all sorts of other filmic ideas. What emerges may be unfocused as narrative, but it’s lively as filmmaking. Others in the cast include David Bowie as Andy Warhol, Michael Wincott as Rene Ricard, Paul Bartel as Henry Geldzahler, and Elina Lowensohn as art dealer Annina Nosei; the actors playing fictional characters include Gary Oldman (as an apparent stand-in for Schnabel himself), Christopher Walken (in a brilliant bit as a slimy interviewer), Willem Dafoe, and Courtney Love. 108 min. (JR) Read more
The problem with most jazz documentaries is combining talk with music without allowing either to ride roughshod over the other. Peter Bull’s recent feature about Thelonious Monk disciple and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy is a stirring object lesson in how to do this without compromising either the performances of Lacy’s inventive sextet or the interest in what Lacy has to say about his career. The mesh isn’t quite so fine in Ken Levis’s short about another postbebop saxophonist. Jackie McLean has some acute things to say about politics, racism, and the music business, but it’s a drag to hear them interrupting his solos; only in an outtake from Shirley Clarke’s The Connection is he allowed to stretch a little. (Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Sunday, August 23, 6:00 and 8:00, 443-3737) Read more
