FILM CLASSICS

PORTFOLIO

KEITH UHLICH

Fat City. Jeff Bridges in

Fantômas (1913, Louis Feuillade, France) Binge-watching being the new normal, why not point and click (and click and click again) on this classic silent-film serial from master of the form Louis Feuillade. His most popular production, spread over five, cliffhanger-laden parts, tells the thrilling story of master criminal Fantômas (René Navarre), whose exploits attract the attention of a police inspector, Juve (Edmund Breon), and a crusading journalist, Fandor (Georges Melchior). There are murders and thefts and daring escapes (including from the guillotine), and the general characters makeups— the obsessive law-abiders and the elusive transgressors—will be familiar to anyone who enjoys a good, ceaselessly involving thriller. In the process, you’ll also get an education on how many of the motion-picture formulas that we now take for granted came to be. (Streaming on Filmatique.) Fat City (1972, John Huston, United States) A prime 1970s drama directed by one of the Hollywood Golden Age’s most reliable hands, Fat City tells the story of past-his-prime boxer Billy Tully (Stacy Keach) who befriends and mentors up-and-coming pugilist Ernie Munger (Jeff Bridges). Theirs isn’t the realize-your-dreams character arc of Sylvester Stallone’s four years in the future Rocky, but a more boozy, trance-like shuffle from place to place, from ring to barstool and back again. Keach and Bridges are both exemplary, as is Susan Tyrrell as the barfly who Tully gets sweet on. Director John Huston, meanwhile, easily adapts to the early-’70s American cinema’s emphasis on flawed characters and downbeat outcomes, helming this quiet symphony of disappointment with an old master’s confidence and a young man’s (re)invigoration. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.) The Fly (1986, David Cronenberg, U.S.) One of Canadian cult filmmaker David Cronenberg ostensibly mainstream efforts, The Fly is in reality a most distressing and upsetting treatise on death disguised as a creaturefeature scare flick. Jeff Goldblum is nerdy scientist Seth Brundle, who seduces Geena Davis’ journalist, Veronica Quaife, with his massive intellect and the promise of a teleportation device that will change the face of humanity. One night, when testing the machine with himself as subject, a fly gets in the works and transfers its DNA to Brundle’s body. He slowly begins to display the fly’s sensory powers and topsy-turvy abilities, though his human body decays in the process, leaving Veronica increasingly terrified and at a loss what to do. Made at the height of the AIDS epidemic, the film resonated deeply with those who watched loved

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FILM ROUNDUP / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

The Woman King

historical epic, rising from a field of reeds into a full-on warrior’s pose. She’s Nanisca, leader of the all-female army of the African country of Dahomey, a steely soul whose emotions have been buried deep within due to several undealt-with traumas. With the arrival of a new recruit, the innately rebellious Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), Nanisca feels the stirrings of a long-forgotten motherly fervor, a reaction that may not be entirely metaphorical. The action scenes are fun, if strangely bloodless, as if there was some contractual obligation to avoid an R-rating. But Prince-Bythewood is more interested in, and proves an adept handler of, the melodramatic aspects of the tale, particularly in how Nanisca and Nawi’s personal longings interweave with the larger political structures of the slave-tradetolerating Dahomey regime. All the actors are terrific, but it’s Davis who anchors the proceedings, which play to her emotive strengths while also allowing her to show off a commanding physical prowess that she has until now rarely been able to display. [PG-13] HHH1/2 Tár (Dir. Todd Field). Starring: Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss. Never less than compelling, the first film in sixteen years from writer-director Todd Field (Little Children) follows megastar conductor Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) as her rarefied existence comes under increasing scrutiny. The character can turn on a dime from mentor to monster, something evident in an early scene, captured in a brilliantly choreographed single take, in which she gradually alienates a black pansexual student over his dislike of the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. The power she’s attained over years of cultivating public image and private connections has made her the worst sort of human, and one extremely vulnerable to our modern vogue for vengeful accusation and takedown. So Lydia’s life slowly unravels, which allows Blanchett to do the sort of capital-A acting that’s frequently lauded with praise and gold statuettes. It’s impressive at times, certainly. But there’s some crucial bit of humanity missing in Blanchett’s performance, in addition to Field’s overall approach to the materi-

26 ICON | OCTOBER 2022 | ICONDV.COM al, which requires more of a mordant wit than this rather humorless artist possesses. Tár is still very much worth a look for Florian Hoffmeister’s chilly cinematography, as well as a movingly naturalistic performance by Nina Hoss as Lydia’s long-suffering personal and professional partner. [R] HH1/2

HHH1/2 Pinocchio (Dir. Robert Zemeckis). Starring: Tom Hanks, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cynthia Erivo. The latest live-action adaptation from Walt Disney Studios is interesting mainly for the poison-tipped provocations conjured by cowriter-director Robert Zemeckis. While adhering generally to the structure of the 1940 animated film (save for one major change to the ending that is quite the thorny note to go out on), this Pinocchio is noticeably its own beast from scene one, in which Jiminy Cricket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) engages in a schizophrenic dialogue with himself. That’s an apt embodiment of a movie that seems to hate its own existence. From there, Zemeckis spends nearly half-an-hour in the workshop of lonely Geppetto (Tom Hanks) as he builds the wooden boy (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) who will be given life by the Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo). This effective, and affecting, one-act drama is the film’s high point, after which Zemeckis seems more and more constrained by his Mouse House masters. Yet there is a distinctive vision at play here, one that quite evidently enjoys biting the hand that feeds. [R]

HH1/2 n

Solution to IN OTHER WORDS

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MARIA MENDES / CONT. FROM PAGE 18 GOOSERIDE / CONT. FROM PAGE 5

desire to interpret songs as creatively as I am committed to arranging them. Even my own compositions end up going through an arranging process. My last studio album, Close to Me, led to the new album, a live recorded album Saudade, Colour of Love.”

The subject of collaborators, past and present, brings up one constant in her musical life, John Beasley and Metropole Orkest. Why does Mendes put such trust into Beasley’s orchestrations, and why is this musical teaming and meeting of the minds always empathetic to her voice and its goals?

“When partnerships are filled with good energy, love, and respect, they tend to last,” says Mendes. “Close to Me was a result of these values, and that is why Saudade, Colour of Love, came after. I believe curiosity has its own reason for existing, therefore seeking to create together, valuing the input of who I’ve trusted to work with as a learning process, and developing myself as an artist. Beasley has 30 to 40 years more experience on the road and in music than I do, which makes his vision and expertise different than mine. We had great creative and challenging moments together.”

As Saudade is a live recording and expansion of her previous effort, the challenge of getting things “right,” came down to one song.

“As a vocalist and arranger, I would say that one song is Quando Eu Era Pequenina, the 7/4 song. It’s one of the oldest Portuguese folk songs , so it was challenging to take it far from the repetitive and simple original melody. The fact that Beasley and I have given a continuous modulated melody on a 7/4 groove helped revive this song’s spirit. It took me time to feel this 7/4 integrated into my flesh and bones. These arranging tools— modulation, odd meters—tend to, in the moment of playing or singing, be very intellectual, making it sound robotic. So, my main goal was to have a great refreshing, inventive and playful rhythmic result.”

Returning to the jazz that centers her Fado roots in the past and present, Mendes says that jazz is the epiphany of freedom and the purest form of connecting with one’s fullest expansion as a human being and as a creator. “Jazz shows me every day the reality that slowly is the fastest way to get me where I want to be. I devoted myself to being at ease with the regular study of music and my instrument. That is why it always feels so refreshing and joyful whenever I make music on a studio recording or stage, and playing the same song always feels different.” n

28 ICON | OCTOBER 2022 | ICONDV.COM mend a visit when you are next in the city. It’s just north of the Central Park Zoo.

That sculpture has been residing in my consciousness for years. Why? Because of the language. The sculptor, Fredrik Roth, was able to draw a direct line from the form he created to a place of enchantment using not just his interpretation but pretty-much everybody’s common cultural understanding. He created the sculpture in 1938, a time when the world was heading toward war.

It’s interesting that when I searched the sculpture to refresh my memory for this essay, it looked different than I remembered. But the feelings it evoked were the same. That’s because art is a language, and it doesn’t matter what is said; it matters what is heard.

References to Mother Goose have been around since the origins of the fairy tale genre and children’s poetry in the 1600s. There was an actual Mrs. Goose, but her role is murky. An 1860s chapbook shows her wearing the witchy hat and astride a goose. Artists and illustrators had to deal with the ergonomic impracticality of mounting a bird, and a flying one is even more problematic. Fredrick Roth planted Mrs. Goose on top of the goose’s back, but the swirls of her robe obscure how she manages to stay there.

That is something I deal with when trying to describe a feeling or create an impression in a studio painting done from imagination. While I might eliminate or add elements to a life painting, the mechanics are there for me to examine right in front of me. Not so in something I have to imagine, like a lady riding a flying goose.

When creating an image of something that doesn’t exist, or in this case, can’t exist, I need to keep the impracticality from interfering with the overall narrative. I doodled proportions and viewer angles until I located a way to present it in a manner that felt plausible, or at least not impossible.

I also needed to determine where this gooseflying would be happening. Obviously, in the air, but possibilities are wide-ranging, each presenting a different narrative based on the viewer’s location, the setting, what Mrs. Goose is doing at the time, and pretty much everything else in the painting.

I could take you through hundreds of considerations, but in the end, we find ourselves up with the woman on the bird, flying over Lambertville at night, broom in hand. The elevated and tilted horizon puts you above and floating independently of Mrs. Goose, with a scattering of bats trailing behind, which seems a Halloweeny thing to be happening. Lambertville likes its Halloween—thank you, Deloris—and you can’t have too many bats.

The name of the painting, Lambertville Gooseride, comes from a whaling term, “Nantucket Sleighride.” That’s what they called it when a whale was harpooned, and it would take off at high speed, dragging the whaleboat behind, sometimes for miles. It was a perilous and often disastrous experience.

Speaking of which, this image was coming together along with the news from Washington that a little more than half of the Supreme Court had dismantled the Roe vs. Wade decision. The one they swore was established law. That put an edge on all my thoughts and considerations, and I gravitated toward having her hold her straw broom as if she is leading a charge. (Soundtrack: “Gooseriders in the Sky.”) I see the broom as something that can be used to deliver a twohander across the back of a hypocrite’s head. I don’t want to encourage more violence here, but a guy can dream. n

FILM CLASSICS / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24

ones literally broken down by disease. Few horror movies are as tragically romantic and moving as this one. (Streaming on HBOMax.)

Funny Girl (1968, William Wyler, U.S.) The recent Broadway revival of the musical that made Barbra Streisand a star garnered much catty gossip for a miscast Beanie Feldstein, as well as a mid-run recast with controversial Glee alum Lea Michele. So what better time to go back to the film adaptation of Funny Girl, in which Streisand recreates her stage role as Ziegfeld Follies girl/comedienne Fanny Brice and gives the loosely biographical material her own astounding here-I-am-world! spin. Whether singing or speaking, Streisand owns the screen throughout. You could say she upstages her costars, such as Omar Sharif as Fanny’s scamming inamorato Nicky Arnstein, but really, how could anyone compete with a star being born to this degree? Not even Lady Liberty can hog the spotlight from resplendent Babs as she belts out “Don’t Rain On My Parade” from the bow of a tugboat. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.) n

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REBECCA PIDGEON | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20

disposal. I will say, however, that the new songs of Parts of Speech Pieces of Sound came to me in one flow. So quickly did it come that halfway through the process, I looked up and realized that I might be writing an entire album.

A.D. Amorosi: It had to do with the experiences of yoga—thinking it. Doing it. Living it. Rebecca Pidgeon: Parts of yoga practice, yes. It had to do, also, with being inspired by the teachings of Sri Prashant Iyengar. I was a student of Iyengar when we went on lockdown online during the pandemic, and I believe that

I benefitted from that intimacy, and am still benefitting from all that time. I drew on that primarily. And all the lyrics that came from that experience—just came flowingly.

A.D. Amorosi: Can you guess why the whole mind-body-soul experience of yoga, or at least THIS experience of yoga, had that effect on your work—be it their teachings or the vibrations that you may have felt from it? Rebecca Pidgeon: Because it was musical. The teacher was informing us about mantras with a technique through pranayama, and within that technique, you’re working with inner sound. It is as if you’re speaking a mantra silently in your mind. Apparently, that helps produce subtle vibrations within. For instance, everyone knows the mantra ohm. Her impression is that the ohm mantra is the sound of the universe, a primordial sound. That was impressive to me, that the universe is reverberating with sound, like dark matter. And that same sound is reverberating within each of us as well. Then she taught us about this instrument, the tanpura, which I had never heard of before, but is an Indian drone instrument. I looked it up, and it reminded me of the bagpipes. I was born in, but I grew up in Scotland, in Edinburgh, and with Scottish folk music. That was a major part of my upbringing and influenced me a lot going forward. So, I felt very at home with that sound—like my lyrics, the music, and the melody flowed from the tanpura. So, on this new album, I worked with drone sounds and drum loops and approached its writing on a keyboard rather than my usual guitar. That’s all very unusual for me. So anyway, the yoga practice was like music, observing its own inner dance—all of which I found very joyful. That in and of itself was inspiring as well. Presehakar once said that we are all inhabited by celestial bodies. In the tradition of yoga, its

philosophies, Hinduism, and its gods and goddesses, we’re very peopled inside. All of our organs, the presiding deities, are like a courtly dance going on within me.

A.D. Amorosi: Within all of us. Rebecca Pidgeon: Yes. And I found that quite inspiring and a lot of fun and joyful. Having said that, I’m making it sound as if this is a YOGA record.

A.D. Amorosi: You mean all New Age-y and blissed out. Rebecca Pidgeon: Right. And this record is not that. It is not meditation music. It is not music to do yoga to. It is pop art, or art pop contemporary music—that is what I write.

Rebecca Pidgeon and playwright David Mamet have been married since 1991

30 ICON | OCTOBER 2022 | ICONDV.COM Stephen Louis Grush and Rebecca Pigeon in Sex With Strangers at the Geffen Playhouse in L.A.

A.D. Amorosi: One of the things that struck me about the use of the drones you mentioned and the concept of art pop is that that idea goes directly to Welsh composer, violist, and Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale. Not Scotland, but Wales, so close enough. Cale’s drone made what Lou Reed was writing so much more dramatic. Now, I might not call what they or he did ‘pop’ per se, but his use of drones, too—like yours—would never fall under the rubric or meditation. Rebecca Pidgeon: I would put what Cale does within the category of ‘art,’ and what I do, art pop, I guess. And the drone is ancient and goes throughout so many cultures, and that is also a sound, a reverberation, common to all.

A.D. Amorosi: Is it easy finding musicians to do this particular brand of music with? Who understood the subtleties and points you were working toward? Rebecca Pidgeon: My producer and I were working on one album when I shifted gears and wanted to do this album. He thought this new album had visions or feelings of world music. He then invited our violinist, a table player, and a dynamic drummer because rhythm is the heart of everything. Lucky me, all of these musicians were up for it, very open to hearing and playing. Five of us concocted this thing. You are right, though. When I was sitting in my home studios with the original demos, I couldn’t help but wonder who would be able to play this with me. But, you find people through networks. Plus, I know lots of people. During the thousands of years that we are on this planet, you meet others. I was just being a bit shy.

A.D. Amorosi: I hear something prayerful and reverent in Parts of Speech Pieces of Sound. Can you talk about this album being a more holy work than your previous recordings without being connected to something directly religious? Rebecca Pidgeon: Oh yeah. Definitely. Throughout my writing, I have tried to do it from the point of praise to express gratitude. Everything before this that I attempted in that vein, I threw away. I believe it was because I had not yet experienced anything of life to make such praise. Now I have that experience or have experienced more of life. I think, so I feel as if—even though I am not a yogi, a fullyrealized person, or a saint—that I am wise, that I have a deep feeling of communion with something beyond me, other than myself. And, I feel as if I can express that in ways that are true. And I’m glad you recognize that in me because I wanted that to happen. n

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VALLEY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

of special events (Musikfest, the Celtic Classic, Christmas) and at night when the Hotel Bethlehem’s Palladian windows glow and Central Moravian Church’s bell tower doubles as a lighthouse. And there’s no better place in the vicinity for scouting people and pups. At least twice a day, Jake, my Schnoodle companion, scarfs rolls at Mama Nina’s and scoots for treats at the Moravian Bookshop, America’s oldest seller of what I write for a living. (visithistoricbethlehem.com; getdowntownbethlehem.com)

Many serious senior actors consider King Lear a holy grail of a role, their Great White Whale. Bill George’s Lear is Odysseus, whose epic quest ends with him finding home, himself, and humanity’s many complexes. Next month the veteran soloist will solo as Homer’s hero, accompanied only by an ambient musician, at Touchstone Theatre, the adventurous, experimental ensemble he founded in 1981with his wife, Bridget. In this new adaptation, George skips those harrowing encounters with the Cyclops and the Sirens and focuses on the many moods and revelations of Odysseus, his loved ones, and his comrades. The character is an ideal vehicle/crucible for exploring and embracing the fears and hopes of a performer in his eighth decade who hasn’t shared a stage in three years. Expect all of the trademarks--elastic movements, wry humor, volcanic eruptions, bone-marrow sorrow— that George has displayed in characters as disparate as Don Quixote and a shopping-cart Christmas philosopher, the narrator brother in The Glass Menagerie and an unemployed steelworker chained to a 27-ton ladle in a ruined iron works and named for Prometheus, another mythic pilgrim. (Odysseus, Nov. 2-6, Touchstone, 321 E. 4th St., Bethlehem; 610-867-1689; touchstone.org)

The Valley’s plushest park anchors the greenest belt. Lehigh Parkway in Allentown is a 629-acre, five-mile-long crown jewel set into an urban suburb’s rural valley. The lovely Little Lehigh Creek, a paradise for fly fishing, winds among six-plus miles of graceful paths for walking, running, and biking; an arboretum of magnificent trees; seven bridges, including a covered one, and grassy hills begging to be rolled down and sledded. Unusual attractions for a park abound: log cabins, hex-signed barns, a trout nursery, and a museum of Native American artifacts. A drive-thru display of Christmas lights illuminates an already spectacular sanctuary. (allentownpa.gov; “Lights in the Parkway” runs Nov. 26-Dec. 31)

I grew up in downstate New York with great ocean beaches and terrific antique stores. The Valley makes me accept lakes with merely pleasant shores and fair-to-middling co-ops specializing in old bric-abrac. A rare exception is S. Seem Antiques & Artisans, which offers a relatively diverse selection of relatively high-quality furniture, jewelry, pictures, and curios. Especially pleasing are an Underwood typewriter—a true-blue letter-piano—and a whirligig with two characters sawing a log. Even more satisfying is a charmingly stripped brick building with beckoning windows and heavily worn floorboards, the residue of an original role as a 19th-century purveyor of dry goods. The corner structure stands out on a magnetic street with two pristine, handsome 19th-century Germanic stone houses, the former site of the country’s first homeopathic hospital, and two large, rugged bars with porches that could be mistaken for Wild West saloons. (100 S. Chestnut St., Bath; 610-390-0403) n

32 ICON | OCTOBER 2022 | ICONDV.COM CITY / CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

And yeah, I know, Post can rock out with Ozzy Osbourne and do the street thing when he needs to. But he doesn’t really seem to need to as of late, and we get this amorphous blob of music that is somehow, well, just nice. I like it. Two days after Post Malone, things get harder on Oc-

Post Malone.

tober 8 at Wells Fargo Center when WWE Extreme Rules hits the mat. Are there rules? Did you know that Lincoln Financial Field will host Wrestlemania in 2024? This is disturbing.

Midtown Village Fall Festival. Photo: A. Ricketts.

Really back to really real reality in October: there are two massive outdoor autumn celebrations in the South Street Fest, the Meet Me on South Street Thursdays and the Midtown Village Fall Festival. The last time I was on South Street during the evening, bullets whizzed by me. I’m not saying don’t go. I’m just saying listen for the whirr, look for the flash, and duck. If you don’t hold those skills, Pumpkinland at Linvilla Orchards may be a better fit.

Did you know that October is American Pharmacists Month? Take your druggist to lunch.

Did you know that October is Country Music Month? Take Morgan Whallen to lunch. And leave him there.

Did you know that Delco has an Arts Week, October 1-9? See, it is only because I saw Mare of Eastown again that I laugh at what seems to be an oxymoronic idea for an art fest. I could have thought the same thing about the Lansdowne Arts on the Avenue Festival (October 2, 2022) or the Fall Into the Arts Festival in Glen Mills (October 8, 2022). None of these places seem like tony Gallery Row in Old City or New York. It’s just me. I’m probably crabby about Modigliani at the Barnes and Matisse in the 1930s at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Reprobates. n