Judith Malina
1926 - 2015Signals Through the Flames
Sheldon Rochlin
Julian Beck, Judith Malina
Signals Through the Flames is at once a history and a celebration of the Living Theatre. Founded in the late 1940s by husband-and-wife performers Julian Beck and Judith Malina, the Living Theatre was for many years the predominent American outlet for the avant-garde movement. There were occasional self-imposed exiles to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, but the group returned full-force during the Aquarius Age to entertain a new generation of theatregoers.
Signals Through the Flames
Dog Day Afternoon
Sidney Lumet
Al Pacino, John Cazale
Based on the true story of would-be Brooklyn bank robbers John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturale. Sonny and Sal attempt a bank heist which quickly turns sour and escalates into a hostage situation and stand-off with the police. As Sonny's motives for the robbery are slowly revealed and things become more complicated, the heist turns into a media circus.
Dog Day Afternoon
Awakenings
Penny Marshall
Роберт Де Ниро, Robin Williams
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.
Awakenings
New York Memories
Rosa von Praunheim
Michael Bloomberg, Judith Malina
In this filmic memoir, German director Rosa von Praunheim returns to New York, a city he knew and loved in the woolly 1970s, to see what he might find and also to check in on the colorful protagonists of his 1989 documentary, Überleben in New York. Both a personal journey and a historical survey, New York Memories captures a transformed city by charting the shifting course of gay life, from Warhol Factory figures to the AIDS ravaged, within it.
New York Memories
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Mary Jordan
Jack Smith, Nayland Blake
In this entrancing documentary on performance artist, photographer and underground filmmaker Jack Smith, photographs and rare clips of Smith's performances and films punctuate interviews with artists, critics, friends and foes to create an engaging portrait of the artist. Widely known for his banned queer erotica film Flaming Creatures, Smith was an innovator and firebrand who influenced artists such as Andy Warhol and John Waters.
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Radio Days
Woody Allen
Danny Aiello, Jeff Daniels
The Narrator tells us how the radio influenced his childhood in the days before TV. In the New York City of the late 1930s to the New Year's Eve 1944, this coming-of-age tale mixes the narrator's experiences with contemporary anecdotes and urban legends of the radio stars.
Radio Days
The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man
Ron Rice
Taylor Mead, Winifred Bryan
“New York plays itself, as Taylor Mead and Winifred Bryan regale in pas de deux among the trashcans and the towers. The Studiedly Goofy and the Monumentally Grand are joined in masterly pas de don’t [...] The awed couple do battle with the status quo and teach the world to dance on the head of a bin. Rice detects real dignity in Bryan and amazing grace in Mead as they essay solitary promenades through the parks, subways and streets of a wintery New York landscape. Photographed and directed by Ron Rice, edited and scored by Taylor Mead.” –Edward Leffingwell
The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man
The Addams Family
Barry Sonnenfeld
Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston
When a man claiming to be long-lost Uncle Fester reappears after 25 years lost, the family plans a celebration to wake the dead. But the kids barely have time to warm up the electric chair before Morticia begins to suspect Fester is fraud when he can't recall any of the details of Fester's life.
The Addams Family
Wheel of Ashes
Peter Emmanuel Goldman
Pierre Clémenti, Katinka Bo
A stripped-down account of a young man's existential reckoning. "As dust hides a mirror, lust hides the self," reads one of the film's Vedanta-sourced intertitles. And indeed, while the Pierre Clementi protagonist's inner life remains obscure, the Saint-Germain-des-Pres neighborhood that offers his temptations appears in harrowing detail.
Wheel of Ashes
Living & Glorious
Alfredo Leonardi
Julian Beck, Judith Malina
Leonardi's film about the Living Theatre is less concerned with a straight documentary presentation of the exile theatre group from New York, but rather is concerned with the specific atmospheric factor which is indicated by their name, and which constitutes the highly suggestive effect of their playing. Cutting, for Leonardi, is the most decisive aesthetic device. The result is a wonderfully composed furioso of pictures. The hand-held camera catches rehearsals, conversations without sound, bits of theatre and daily life actions (which, for Living Theatre people, is very often intermixed).
Living & Glorious
Histoires d'Amérique
Chantal Akerman
Mark Amitin, Eszter Balint
Belgian director Chantal Akerman avoids her usual "real time" technique in Histoires d'Amérique. The anecdotal nature of the subject matter compels Akerman to fragment her narrative, rather than offer it in one, uninterrupted continuum. Still, another Akerman trademark -- permitting the "drama" to emanate from the actors rather than the situations -- is very much in evidence. This informal history of Jewish life over the past 100 years is related in a series of eyewitness accounts, re-created by a group of largely unknown actors. Also known as American Stories, the Belgian/French Histoires d'Amérique began building an audience when it was shown at the Berlin Film Festival.
American Stories
