Hudson Valley Crucial Viewing: June 21- July 4

Greetings film buffs! Welcome to a hot hot summer installment of the Crucial Viewing newsletter. No better way to stay cool on one of these brutally humid days than inside the friendly confines of an air conditioned movie theater, taking in some classic cinema, and we’ve got some great options for you over the next two weeks.

New theater alert! The fine folks over at Story Screen have opened a new theater space in Hudson that features three screens plus a pinball arcade and a bar. They have an excellent mix of first and second run programming coming up, and I’d imagine you’ll see them featured in future iterations of the list.

Speaking of which, let’s turn it over to Bel for…

Satyajit Ray's PATHER PANCHALI
Reher Center, Kingston – Friday, June 21, 7:30pm

The rest of the newsletter this week will be a bit silly, but I often feel like I can get away with rambling to y’all when it comes to movies I think a lot of people have seen or, at the very least, have heard of. I don’t really want to do that here. As westerners, our relationship to international film tends to find itself squarely situated in Europe or Japan, forgetting that the landscape of cinema is truly international. We forget that the movies we love, or could love, movies that tell incredible, poignant, specific, and human stories, are being told all over the world, we just might not have the resources to see them or the knowledge to seek them out. Pather Panchali is a film like that.

Made in newly-independent India in the mid-1950s, this was arguably the first film to put Indian cinema on the map critically. I didn’t hear about this movie until recently, and I’ll admit my knowledge of Indian filmmaking is incredibly sparse. I imagine, like a lot of people, I knew about the domination of Bollywood and action movies, and very little else. Pather Panchali operates in a stylistic realm similar to Italian neorealism, focusing on true, humanistic details in the lives of Apu and his family. It spurred the international recognition of a burgeoning Indian film movement known as Parallel cinema, which centered filmmakers working outside of the mainstream and often focused on sociopolitical realism.

I don’t entirely know how to tell you that you need to watch this film, but you do. It’s the first in a trilogy that Satyajit Ray wrote and directed. There are some amazing essays on Criterion about the film’s lasting legacy and its importance that I encourage you wholeheartedly to read if you feel like you’re on the fence. [Editor’s note: the film will be preceded by a video essay, made by yours truly, which will give some helpful context if you’re coming in blind.] The amount of work that was put into restoring these films is unbelievable. Ravi Shankar did the soundtrack and it is truly incredible. Ray’s name should be as household as the likes of Kurosawa or Kiarostami. If you only see one film in the next two weeks that we’ve recommended here, I think it should be this one. (1955, 120min)

Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton’s THE CAMERAMAN
with live score by Order of the Illusive
Orpheum, Saugerties – Sunday, June 23, 7:00pm

There are lots of inane “are you this or that” questions you can ask someone on a first date. “Star Trek or Star Wars?” (I plead the fifth…) “The Beatles or the Stones?” (I hate to say it but probably the Stones…) “Vanilla, chocolate, or swirl?” (The only right answer is swirl…) You know what I want to know, though? Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, and there is no right answer. There are no two figures more important to the outset of cinema than these two, in my opinion. With no empirical data to back me up, I’ve always felt like the world remembers Chaplin more. In some ways, I understand. City Lights, The Great Dictator, Modern Times… His films are so emblematic of the early decades of Hollywood, are so ubiquitous, so heavily referenced. But there’s something I’ve always really, really loved about Buster Keaton. I think it’s got something to do with his long face and enormous, expressive eyes. There’s a whiff of tragedy around him, a sort of hapless, accidental nature to his characters. It feels sometimes like everything that happens to him is just happening around him, without any cause.

The Cameraman marked in many ways the end of Keaton’s career in Hollywood. He was uncredited as co-director, and his contract with MGM allowed them to remove his creative control on any future projects. In retrospect, his character’s troubled romance and abuse as an up-and-coming cameraman for MGM’s newsreel department seems to mirror his real experience. It’s a kind of eerie 20/20 hindsight that gives the film context and a tragic air. At the same time, The Cameraman is an exceptional example of his ability. At its heart a romance between him and a secretary, the film manages to excellently balance the slapstick pantomime with a genuine emotiveness throughout its runtime. 

I think seeing a silent film these days really challenges us to focus and pay attention to what’s happening on screen. It’s worth revisiting these movies (or watching them for the first time!) to witness the incredible choreography at play, as well as to see some exceptional performances in a style we’re so unfamiliar with now. Plus, I love that Orpheum is doing these screenings with a live score. I can’t imagine what this movie will sound like, set to a 12 string bass, a handmade percussion (maybe?) instrument, and a guitar. I think you’d be missing out if you didn’t go.(1928, 67min)

Sergio Leone's FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
Rosendale Theatre, Rosendale – Thursday, June 27, 7:00pm; Friday, June 28, 4:00pm

When I think about “spaghetti westerns” I think about Sergio Leone. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that his name is probably the most recognizable in the genre. His relationship to Clint Eastwood in the “Dollars” trilogy, and his singular visual style make him a standout in the world of westerns, Italian-produced or otherwise. He owes as much to John Ford as he does to Akira Kurosawa, and the dirty, quiet, sprawling quality to his imagined western frontier are, I think, the images most people have in their mind when they think of the mythic “American West.” 

I’ve always loved the cinema that came out of Europe in the decades following WWII. If you’ll allow me to go a bit undergraduate lecture mode… the fascination a lot of (mostly French and Italian) filmmakers had after WWII with Hollywood films produced some of the 20th century’s most interesting filmmaking.  There’s a fascinating interplay between deeply specific post-war stories in Europe and the fantasy escapism of chasing the Hollywood aesthetic following the war. I could talk about it for much longer than the space I have here. 

I haven’t said much about For a Few Dollars More in particular yet, but I think these movies are better within their context (even if they’re great without it.)  I saw this for the first time when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, sitting on my grandparents floral couch. TCM westerns (as I have always thought of them) were my favorite pastime when I was there, and in some ways all these sorts of films live in my memory as the hazy recollections of a child. I think about the way Leone frames Mortimer’s face when he’s first introduced, his black Bible lowering slowly to reveal his narrowed eyes. I think about Ennio Morricone’s excellent score. The frantic movements of gunfights, the way the filthy extras made me feel queasy as a young kid. I can’t even start with Eastwood’s iconic performance as “the man without a name.” In a lot of ways there’s nothing I can say to convince you to watch this movie, other than to say if you haven’t you’re missing out on a huge piece of the puzzle not just about our fucked-up mythologizing of America, but of cinematic history as a whole. (1965, 132min)

Jeff Mertz’s SEVEN SENTINELS
Denizen Theater, New Paltz – Sunday, June 30, 3:00pm

Brian here, quickly hopping back in to tell you about this fine documentary film produced by our friends at the Hudson River Maritime Museum. Seven Sentinels is a documentary about the seven remaining lighthouses on the Hudson River, and the thoughtful, hardworking people who have maintained and championed the preservation of these monuments to life at sea. Both Kingston and the Hudson Valley at large are rich with history, and a lot of that history happened along the river. We had an opportunity to see a screening of the finished film at the museum, and it is fantastic. Informative and entertaining in equal measure, and definitely worth seeing on a big screen. (2024, 85min)

Stanley Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE
Hi-Way Drive-In, Coxsackie – Monday, July 1, 8:30pm

I love Peter Sellers. I love Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther. I love Peter Sellers in Casino Royale. I love Peter Sellers in probably every movie I’ve ever seen him in but I don’t think anything can really hold a candle to his performance(s) in Dr. Strangelove. In many ways though, that’s not so much him that makes the performances exceptional as it is the movie that builds up around him. The titular Dr. Strangelove isn’t even really introduced until nearly an hour into the film. This movie is exceptional for so many reasons, the performances being just the first on a long, long list. It’s why this is one of the most beloved movies of all time. (It still is, right? I stopped reading the BFI’s updates to The 100 Greatest Films of All Time a while ago…)

When I saw it for the first time I was in high school, and I fell in love with it because of its incredible title sequence (done by Cuban-American designer Pablo Ferro) and its stark, dollhouse-like sets. Nowadays I find myself drawn to it as one of the few truly successful pieces of satire. Parody is easy, comedies are a dime-a-dozen, but the art of satire is so delicate and so challenging and so often failed. Easy to attempt, hard to execute, it’s so rare to find one that can so decisively cut down all of what it’s criticizing, especially with so much slapstick humor. This is the movie that I think about when I think about Kubrick’s lasting legacy. He was a deft, intelligent, witty, and biting filmmaker and it all comes together in perfect symphony here. This movie set a very high-bar for any film following it that wanted to find a way to be critical of the US government after WWII. Go see this at Hi-Way and afterwards go home and watch Deal of the Century (Billy Friedkin’s 80s attempt at a similar premise) or Burn After Reading (you don’t need me to tell you about this one,) and hope we get some more satire with this level of thoughtfulness and self-awareness. We need it. (1964, 94min)

Brian again - hopping back in to let you know about a film related event that falls a little bit outside of our normal calendar. Next Friday, June 28, ArtPort Kingston is screening a selection of short films from emerging Hudson Valley filmmakers. The program was developed in collaboration with Hudson Valley filmmaker Jack Warren and features short films by N’namdi Andersen, Jack Fessenden, Max Friedlich, Olive Milford, Hudson Price, Benny Rendell & Leo Lion, Cody Victor and Jack Warren.

The approximately 60-minute screening will run from 8:30 - 9:30PM and be followed by a short moderated and audience Q&A session with participating filmmakers. We recommend arriving early to chat and network among Kingston’s creative community and eat & drink from the variety of local food trucks and vendors onsite! This is a great opportunity to see work by filmmakers from our own backyard. Check out the flyer below.