Film Forum Podcasts

RADIO UNNAMEABLE: Bob Fass: midnight to 5 a.m., 5 days a week, his soothing voice was heard over the airwaves on WBAI-FM. Anyone living in NYC in the 1960s and ‘70s and who experienced even one night of insomnia remembers that voice. A pioneer of free-form radio, Fass let the talk and music flow all night long, as some of the city slept and some of it followed him to a “Yip-In” at Grand Central Station, the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, and a “human fly-in” at JFK airport. An amazing roster of guests – Arlo Guthrie, Allen Ginsberg, Kinky Friedman, Abbie Hoffman, Bob Dylan, Carly Simon – showed up unannounced and unedited. Long before Twitter or Facebook, before shock-jocks and reality TV, before Occupy Wall Street and flash mobs – Bob Fass helped change the face of media and brought the counterculture face to face with the rest of America. RADIO UNNAMEABLE collages archival footage of NYC from this era with tapes from some of Fass’s most memorable programs – emulating its subject’s own commitment to immediacy, honesty and irreverence. Bob Fass continues to be heard on WBAI Thursdays, from midnight until 3 a.m. This podcast episode is a recording of a Q & A with radio personality BOB FASS, recorded September 21, 2012 at a screening of RADIO UNNAMEABLE at Film Forum.

FOR ELLEN: Paul Dano gives a tour-de-force performance as a punk rocker caught up in a messy divorce/custody battle in the middle of nowhere. An actor who has previously played nerds and oddballs with tremendous panache, Dano here conveys charm, narcissism, immaturity and compassion in equal parts – all in one very complicated person who refuses to give up the relationship that he has barely begun to have with his young daughter. So Yong Kim, director of TREELESS MOUNTAIN, tells a tough, modern tale with a young man at its center who is as happy dancing alone to heavy metal in a bar, drunk, as he is sharing an ice-cream sundae with the stranger who is his child. Once again the filmmaker demonstrates her extraordinary ability to get a naturalistic performance from a very young child, who almost -- but not quite -- steals the show from the über-talented Dano. This podcast episode is a recording of a Q & A with actor PAUL DANO, recorded September 15, 2012, at a screening of FOR ELLEN at Film Forum.

PREMIUM RUSH: Q&A with David Koepp, recorded August 13, 2012.

PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD: Holed up in an isolated beach house following a nervous breakdown, supermodel Faye Dunaway flashes back to how she got there. First film by photographer Schatzberg. This podcast is a recording of the Q & A with Jerry Schatzberg, recorded August 1, 2012, at a screening of PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD at Film Forum.

Marina Abramović: seductive, controversial, fearless, outré. Her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (March - May 2010) featured an extraordinary performance, experienced by 750,000 people, many of whom waited hours for the chance to sit silently across from her at a small table, where she remained for 7½ hours daily, without eating, drinking, or moving. The intensity of her gaze, the intimacy of the act (paradoxically in a huge, brightly lit room, filled with onlookers) moved some to tears and other acts of extreme emotion. Matthew Akers’s film records the artist as she prepares herself physically and spiritually for the ordeal -- as might be expected -- with tremendous discipline, humor and guile. With comments by MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach, art critic Arthur Danto, gallerist Sean Kelly, and hundreds of members of the public (including James Franco) who were fortunate enough to attend this landmark event. This podcast is a recording of the Q&A with MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach, recorded June 28, 2012 at a screening of MARINA ABRAMOVIC THE ARTIST IS PRESENT at Film Forum.

Marina Abramović: seductive, controversial, fearless, outré. Her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (March - May 2010) featured an extraordinary performance, experienced by 750,000 people, many of whom waited hours for the chance to sit silently across from her at a small table, where she remained for 7½ hours daily, without eating, drinking, or moving. The intensity of her gaze, the intimacy of the act (paradoxically in a huge, brightly lit room, filled with onlookers) moved some to tears and other acts of extreme emotion. Matthew Akers’s film records the artist as she prepares herself physically and spiritually for the ordeal -- as might be expected -- with tremendous discipline, humor and guile. With comments by MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach, art critic Arthur Danto, gallerist Sean Kelly, and hundreds of members of the public (including James Franco) who were fortunate enough to attend this landmark event. This podcast is a recording of the Q&A with the filmmaker Matthew Akers, recorded June 13, 2012 at a screening of the film at Film Forum.

THE MERCENARY: (1968, Sergio Corbucci) Polish gunslinger Franco Nero moves smoothly from a silver shipment escort job to armaments adviser to revolutionary leader Tony Musante, all leading to bullfight arena showdown with boutonniere-sporting Jack Palance. This podcast is a recording of the Q & A with Tony Musante, moderated by Bruce Goldstein, FF director of repertory programming, recorded June 4, 2012, at a screening of THE MERCENARY at Film Forum

5 BROKEN CAMERAS: Emad Burnat is a Palestinian farmer who lives with his wife and four small children in the village of Bil’in in the central West Bank. Teamed with Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi, the two men document Burnat’s experiences with his neighbors, the Israeli army, and Israeli activists as his village is increasingly drawn into a multi-year conflict over the construction of a barrier that will confiscate much of the village’s cultivated land. His “five broken cameras” are all shot or smashed in the course of nonviolent demonstrations by the villagers: olive trees are burnt; buildings are bulldozed and lives are lost. A prize-winning film at both Sundance and IDFA (Amsterdam’s famed documentary festival), 5 BROKEN CAMERAS takes an international tragedy and reframes it in light of its impact on one family’s life. The film illuminates the warning of Israeli Knesset member Daniel Ben-Simon: “Israel is making a mistake in its unwillingness to recognize a Palestinian state.” This podcast is a recording of the introduction to 5 BROKEN CAMERAS by Richard Lorber and Q & A with filmmakers Emad Burnat & Guy David, recorded June 3, 2012 at a screening of the film at Film Forum.

5 BROKEN CAMERAS: Emad Burnat is a Palestinian farmer who lives with his wife and four small children in the village of Bil’in in the central West Bank. Teamed with Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi, the two men document Burnat’s experiences with his neighbors, the Israeli army, and Israeli activists as his village is increasingly drawn into a multi-year conflict over the construction of a barrier that will confiscate much of the village’s cultivated land. His “five broken cameras” are all shot or smashed in the course of nonviolent demonstrations by the villagers: olive trees are burnt; buildings are bulldozed and lives are lost. A prize-winning film at both Sundance and IDFA (Amsterdam’s famed documentary festival), 5 BROKEN CAMERAS takes an international tragedy and reframes it in light of its impact on one family’s life. The film illuminates the warning of Israeli Knesset member Daniel Ben-Simon: “Israel is making a mistake in its unwillingness to recognize a Palestinian state.” This podcast is a recording of the Q & A with 5 BROKEN CAMERAS filmmaker Guy Davidi, recorded May 30, 2012

ELENA: From the acclaimed director of THE RETURN comes a film noir fueled by class warfare in Putin’s new Russia. Sixtyish spouses Vladimir and Elena share his expensively decorated glass and chrome Moscow apartment. He’s a virile, wealthy businessman; she’s his dowdy former nurse who “married up.” Estranged from his own wild-child daughter, Vladimir openly resents his wife’s ne’er do well son and family. But when a sudden illness threatens Elena’s potential inheritance, she must hatch a desperate plan. This stylish, suspenseful domestic thriller is punctuated by Philip Glass’s entrancing, Hitchcockian music. This podcast is a recording of the Q & A with ELENA Filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, recorded May 16, 2012, at a screening of the film at Film Forum

PAYBACK: Margaret Atwood’s brilliant 2008 essay, “Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth” is the jumping off point for this fascinating, far-ranging cinematic essay by Jennifer Baichwal, who previously gave us MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES, a journey into the hellish beauty of Chinese environmental disaster. Here the filmmaker, working from Atwood’s premise, explores the multifaceted notion of debt: financial, economic, moral and spiritual. She visits with both sides in a contemporary Albanian blood feud, involving automatic weaponry; with Conrad Black, the disgraced media mogul, imprisoned for mail fraud; with environmentalists who describe the degree of responsibility BP has taken (not enough) for the Gulf oil spill; and with Florida tomato growers who ultimately reconcile with their workers over improving working conditions. But PAYBACK is no dry academic treatise on conscience. In riveting, literate passages from her writing, Atwood focuses on the urgent issue of the debt we each owe to the larger social good. This podcast is a recording of the Q & A with author MARGARET ATWOOD and filmmaker JENNIFER BAICHWAL, recorded April 25, 2012,

THE ISLAND PRESIDENT: Mohamed Nasheed is the handsome, young, crusading president of the Maldives, a paradise composed of 1200 tiny islands, set jewel-like in the Indian Ocean. In a David v. Goliath scenario, he is battling the climate change that threatens to destroy his nation. His candid, intelligent, often humorous speeches and asides make for a totally refreshing experience in political activism, as he builds a democracy that replaces decades of oppression and corruption that previously held sway. But as he pointedly notes: “It won’t be any good to have a democracy if we don’t have a country.” The Indian Ocean is rising, and if carbon emissions continue at their present levels or if they climb, the Maldives will definitely disappear. Filmmaker Jon Shenk captures this real-life drama and the charismatic man who is leading the charge to save his 3000-year-old nation — and maybe the rest of us too. This podcast is a recording of the Q&A with THE ISLAND PRESIDENT subject Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, recorded March 28, 2012, at a screening of the film at Film Forum.

GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING: “It’s pointless to talk about painting.” — Gerhard Richter (1965). Richter, considered one of the world’s greatest living painters and now nearly 80 years old, agreed to talk about his work, as a small film crew documents his creative process. Blunt, provocative, unashamedly curmudgeonly and iconoclastic (but never cynical), the artist says he’s “interested in things he doesn’t understand,” that “painting is a secretive business,” and that “each painting is an assertion that tolerates no company.” “You have to distrust your parents and see through them.” Born in 1932 in Dresden (which became East Germany), he left for the West nearly 30 years later. When his American gallerist Marian Goodman visits, they recall a 1984 show which began their relationship. Extensive contemporary scenes of the artist painting and interviews from the 1960s and ’70s give a sense of his creative development — his colorful abstractions, photorealist portraits, and paintings inspired by politics and history as well as more intimate statements. His final words as he applies and then scrapes off vast globs of paint: “Man, is this fun.” This podcast is a recording of the introduction by ROBERT STORR, author of two books on Richter, recorded March 14, 2012 at a screening of the film at Film Forum.

This podcast is a recording of the introduction to COLONEL BLIMP by THELMA SCHOONMAKER, recorded November 19, 2011, at Film Forum at a screening of the film.

TAXI DRIVER: (1976) “You talkin’ to me?” Robert De Niro’s insomniac cabbie Travis Bickle, amid his nocturnal 12-hour shifts, yearns in moody voice-over for a rain that’ll “wash all the scum off the streets”, while he ferries presidential candidate Leonard Harris (then Channel 2 entertainment critic) and Scorsese’s own hopped-up cuckold; tentatively tries for a date with campaign worker Cybill Shepherd; and silently spectates as pimp Harvey Keitel yanks 12-year-old hooker Jodie Foster out of his cab; as Bernard Herrmann’s brooding score — his last — presages the blow-ups to come. Shot during a sweltering NYC summer-cum-garbage strike, Scorsese’s contribution to the Bicentennial was inspired by the diaries of Arthur Bremer (would-be assassin of presidential candidate George Wallace), Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground, and screenwriter Paul Schrader’s own near-nervous breakdown. In one of his legendarily obsessive role preparations, De Niro drove his own shifts on a temporary cabbie's license, lost over 20 pounds, and listened to tapes of Bremer’s diaries, then ad-libbed his memorable soliloquy to a mirror. Today, still one of the screen’s greatest evocations of urban alienation — and a time capsule of a long-gone world of dial phones, Kris Kristofferson LPs, Checker cabs, and 42nd Street grindhouses — all stunningly shot in lurid color by Michael Chapman, though the blood-spattered finale had to be desaturated to get an R rating; Scorsese claims he now finds it more shocking that way. Palme d’Or at Cannes, and four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture; it lost to Rocky. A SONY PICTURES REPERTORY RELEASE. This podcast episode is a rebroadcast of the recording of the introduction to TAXI DRIVER by DAVID YASSKY, recorded March 22, 2011, at Film Forum before the screening of the film.