FILM CLASSICS

KEITH UHLICH

Russian Ark

The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley, UK/United States)

You will believe a frog can bike in the first feature-length outing for Kermit the Frog and company. A bare-bones plot—the Muppets trekking cross-country to find success in Hollywood—provides just the right foundation for a series of hilarious vignettes featuring all your felt-covered favorites. The one-liners come fast and furious (“Have you tried Hare Krishna?”) as do the celebrity guest stars (Steve Martin is especially wonderful as a most contemptuous waiter, as is Orson Welles as the stogie-smoking studio head who has a “rich and famous contract” at the ready). Miss Piggy steals the show, of course, her lust for her green companion only outdone by her hunger for fame. And the Paul Williams songs, particularly “Movin’ Right Along” and “Rainbow Connection,” are eminently hummable.(Streaming on Disney+.) Russian Ark (2002, Aleksandr Sokurov, Russia/Germany/Japan/Canada/Finland/ Denmark)

Utilizing the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg as his setting, director Aleksandr Sokurov explores several generations of Russian history from the 19th-century to WWII, not necessarily in chronological order. A catty French aristocrat acts as onscreen guide and commentator (as does Sokurov himself via omniscient voiceover). Though Russian Ark’s primary hook is that it was filmed by cinematographer Tilman Büttner in an astonishing single 87-minute shot (the movie runs 96 minutes with credits). Technical prowess and all other gimmickry aside, the one-shot method is apropos of Sokurov’s view of the past as a fluid thing subject to the whims of the present. There may be victors to whom the historical spoils go, but they are all of them eventually absorbed into the equalizing flow of existence. (Streaming on Filmatique.)

Young Frankenstein (1974, Mel Brooks, US) It’s pronounced “FrAHNkenstEEN,” as you surely know. That’s just one of the hilarious tweaks writer-director Mel Brooks makes in his comic retelling of Mary Shelley’s classic tale of a brilliant doctor reanimating a corpse. Gene Wilder is the mad (in all senses of the term) scientist, Marty Feldman his deformed subordinate (whose hunchback keeps switching sides), and Teri Garr the buxom blonde assistant who likes taking a “roll in zee hay.” Add in Peter Boyle as the singing and dancing monster, Madeline Kahn as his

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EO (Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski). Starring: Sandra Drzymalska, Isabelle Huppert, Mateusz Kosciujiewicz. The latest masterful feature from 84year-old Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski has both a youthful vibrancy and a wizened frame of reference. Ostensibly a modern remake of Robert Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar (1966)—a canonical classic about the life and death of a donkey (and so much more besides)—EO quickly proves to be its own strange beast. A jackass is again the principal character, his rovings from owner to owner becoming increasingly surreal and outlandish. He might find himself the object of affection for a lonely young woman or a target of scorn for soccer hooligans. He may also wander into an incestuous mother-son melodrama featuring Isabelle Huppert or through a nighttime forest scarily lit up by the neon-green laser sights of hunter rifles. The movie reinvents itself moment by moment, shifting the interpretive ground beneath our feet while its animal protagonist (his every hollow grunt and dead-eyed stare only adding to his metaphorical nebulousness) navigates a world off its axis. [N/R] HHHHH Bones and All (Dir. Luca Guadagnino). Starring: Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance. Director Luca Guadagnino reunites with his Call Me By Your Name co-star Timothée Chalamet for this underwhelming love story/horror feature. Taylor Russell plays a young cannibal named Maren, wandering the American ‘80s midwest while trying to come to grips with her flesh-devouring urges. She meets several people like her, including a predatory older man-eater, Sully (Mark Rylance), and Chalamet’s much more endearing anthro-

Jeremy Strong and Anne Hathaway in Armeggedon.

pophagite Lee. They move from small town to small town, dealing will all the normal growing pains and plenty of aberrant ones, too. The two leads have little chemistry, and Rylance overplays his character’s villainy to a risible hilt only outrivaled by fellow Call Me By Your Name alum Michael Stuhlbarg as a redneck cannibal who seems like he stepped out of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. A few inspired, very Guadagnino touches, such as Chalamet dazzlingly getting down to KISS’s “Lick It Up,” can’t make up for the overall tedium of this road trip through a pastoral hell. [R] H1/2 n

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riotously catty bride, and Cloris Leachman as a wart-faced hausfrau whose name makes horses recoil in terror, and you have a recipe for the drollest of delights. Beware Gene Hackman’s doting blind man, too…particularly if he’s gonna make espresso. (Streaming on HBOMax.)

Prince of Darkness (1987, John Carpenter, United States)

What if Satan himself took up refuge in an ancient cylinder of green goop hidden in a Los Angeles monastery? That’s the inciting question of writer-director John Carpenter’s horror feature, which manages to be at once gleefully goofy and extraordinarily terrifying. A group of grad students investigates this demonically sentient liquid at the invitation of a Catholic priest played by Carpenter regular Donald Pleasance. Possessions and killings are soon rampant, in addition to some creepy business with a zombie homeless guy memorably embodied by shock-rocker Alice Cooper and a jump-scare laden finale that lingers nightmarishly in the mind. Carpenter is on composer duty as per usual, and his and Alan Howarth’s synth stylings are a perfect match for the material that, in its brilliant B-movie way, manages to communicate the growing apocalyptic anxieties of the time. (Streaming on Criterion Channel.) n

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Godmother.” They’re also linked to Vonnegut’s alter ego, Kilgore Trout, the centerpiece of his Deadeye Dick novel of 1982 and the spy-centric leader behind Mother Night, respectively. It’s famous that the author himself once looked to another calling as a back-up. “What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist,” Vonnegut once said. “I mean jazz, not rock and roll. I mean the never-thesame-twice music the American Black people gave the world.”

In the press legend for his new album—with reed players Lucas Pino and Patrick Laslie, trumpeters Alphonso Horne and Riley Mulherkar, trombonist Mike Fahie, vibraphonist Yuhan Su, bassist Danny Weller, drummer Jay Sawyer and alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón—Vonnegut fan Yeager rhapsodizes about getting to the king of satire in the first place.

“I consider Vonnegut to be a virtuoso writer, but one who also writes page-turners,” the pianist stated in his introduction to Unstuck in Time. “He doesn’t complicate his language unnecessarily; it’s very pleasurable and easy to read his works. I see him as a Thelonious Monk figure in the world of fiction because he seems to break many of the rules I remember being taught in English class. It also took a long time for both of them to find wider acceptance and appeal. Monk is one of my musical touchstones, and Vonnegut has a similarly unique voice and is unapologetically himself.”

Weirder still, the pianist’s grandfather and great-grandfather were architects based in Indiana during the mid-20th century, as was the writer’s father, Kurt Vonnegut Sr. For several years following World War II they were partnered in the firm of Vonnegut, Wright & Yeager. Coincidence? I think not.

Vonnegut’s wide-ranging work could never be placed in a box,” he says. “He’s a satirist, a science fiction writer, a humorist, a fantasist and any number of other sobriquets”

Then again, Yeager told me that being difficult to categorize or conveniently manageable is what he’s looking for when it comes to inspiration for his study and execution as a jazz pianist and composer.

The activist politics of one and the caustic joyous texts of the other—respectively when it comes to New Songs of Resistance and Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite—are what focuses Yeager as an artist, centers his responses, pushes him to develop complexly comported music to match his intellectual prowess and that of his subjects.

“Each are about not putting the technical aspects of music making front-and-center, and that’s a good thing,” says Yeager with Benko sitting beside him. “The arrangements are tight and the melody needs to be compelling, something thematic, or thematic unity behind a project such as Unstuck in Time, where there is a focus that makes the music both more streamlined and more cogent. And while Hand in Hand doesn’t have an explicit literary, social or even a genre theme, it is very structured, too, because Julie and I are partners in life and music, and that album is a way of celebrating that.”

To all this, Benko radiates pride in not only the couple’s new work together, Hand in Hand, but double when it comes to Unstuck in Time. “The Vonnegut album and New Songs of Resistance are both excellent music, but each of these records allows people to see who Jason is: a person of deep thought and great integrity. Vonnegut is funny, and Jason is as well—and quirky—and that also comes through in the music. Vonnegut allows artists to open up that side of themselves.” n

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He is also well known for his extraordinary multiple-axis turning techniques and the way he incorporates carving and turning with seamless craftsmanship. The multi-axis pieces require a lot of calculation and planning. Mark turns what can begin (and end) as a large piece of wood, cutting from the areas that conform to only the first axis. Then he repositions the block in the chucks, sometimes adds counterweights, and turns it around that axis for the next portion. This has to be done slowly, as the wood is off-center and hard enough without the lathe hopping all over the place. Portions of the block that aren’t solely of one or the other turned part are hand-carved to bridge the composition or create an independent form, but it all flows naturally, which is impressive in itself. A visit to his website, www.marksfirri.com, will give you an idea of what I mean.

Mark uses this technique to create furniture, sculpture, and even figures. These geometric forms seem to have an inner life. Mark has an exquisite eye for curves, proportions, rhythms, and relationships, and a lot of that is that is math-based. But it’s the kind of math that’s associated with organic forms.

Mark has work in the Museum of Art & Design, The Renwick, The Carnegie Museum, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The LA museum of Art, and the Yale Art Gallery. It was a treat to paint him working. We gabbed. We made art. It was a good day.

It reminded me of my friend Jeff, who was not only a woodworker but had mastered many other construction crafts. He knew how to plaster, using techniques that few people still use today. Jeff was on vacation one year in Istanbul, walking through a market district with his wife. She went to look at rugs, and he was taking photographs. Jeff wandered into a shop that was under repair. When his wife circled back and found him, he was working side by side with the Turkish shop owner, helping him finish his plaster walls, and showing him some ways to deal with tricky problems. Sometimes people do things for others simply because they can. It’s a most human of reasons, and perhaps the best. Mark Sfirri is like that. A helper. A teacher. A mentor. Someone who doesn’t keep score.

The Center for Art in Wood in Philadelphia acquired a set of Mark’s bats last year. Karen Schoenewaldt, manager of collections and registrar, contacted the Baseball Hall of Fame to see if they would be interested in borrowing and displaying the Center’s set. Instead, the HOF selection committee decided they would acquire a set of their own for their permanent collection.

Mark is pleased about having a set of his bats in Cooperstown. “It is the biggest stage for the sport,” Sfirri said. “My father would be proud.” The president of the Hall, Josh Rawitch, was excited to add it to their permanent collection. “Our museum continues to display and collect one-of-a-kind artifacts and objects that help tell the history of our great game,” Rawitch said, “and Mark’s work certainly falls into that category,” along with other baseball-related art by artists Norman Rockwell, Armand LaMontagne, Elaine De Kooning, Alexander Calder, and Andy Warhol.

At the moment, Mark has gone off in another direction. His son was getting married in a museum, and they often don’t allow flowers (due to the pollen), so Mark created two large floral arrangements out of various kinds of wood, painted and not. He turned each blossom first, then carved the petals into them. He also made the bride’s bouquet, the groom’s corsage, the boutonnieres and additional flowers, turned two large pedestals, and threw the ceramic vases. It all looked fabulous, was collection-friendly, and will last a lot longer than garden variety flowers. n

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don’t”). (15 N. 4th St., slightly north of Northampton Street, Easton; 610-252-0711; lafayettebarjazz.com. Shows run 9 p.m. to around midnight. Bobby Kapp Meets Meant 2B Trio, Nov. 19; Steve Fidyk Quartet, Nov. 26)

I like trails that keep making me disappear and reappear. Monocacy Way is a civilized wilderness that contracts and expands, making Bethlehem seem invisible and more visible. A narrow corridor along the Monocacy Creek, canopied by elderly trees and shrouded by overgrown vegetation, opens vividly to a lavish kitchen garden sloping up to Burnside Plantation, a restored estate created in 1748 by Moravian missionaries and once the home of a renowned pipe-organ builder. Hikers, bikers and dog walkers pass impressive weeping willows. railroad tracks, a limestone quarry, a meadow sloping up to a dog park and woodsy wetlands with paths winding to the creek. The journey ends with a blast in a park with serrated stone walls, stone picnic pavilions and a cantilevered waterfall erected by government relief workers during the Great Depression. (Union Boulevard over Schoenersville Road to Illick’s Mill Road. Park in lots by Illick’s Mill Road or by Route 378 overpass. bethlehem-pa.gov)

The folks who run Lehigh University’s galleries specialize in publicservice public art. Their latest community booster shot is “What Mat-

28 ICON | NOVEMBER 2022 | ICONDV.COM ters Most,” an outdoor display of images and app-activated talks illustrating such critical concerns as housing security, racial equity and trauma. Two-sided billboards along the South Bethlehem Greenway pair works from Lehigh’s permanent collections with bar-coded lectures by leaders on and off campus. Hear Lisa Jordan, Touchstone Theatre’s artistic director, stress the value of listening while puzzling over a photograph of a communication between Buddha-esque and bear figurines. Plug into the power of education in Diego Rivera’s lithograph of an open-air school in Mexico, a poster for a healthy open-air mission. (Greenway runs between 4th Street and 3rd Street/Route 412 from South New Street to the Wind Creek Casino; parking in ArtsQuest lots; luag.org; bethlehem-pa.gov)

The Greenway is a gateway to Café The Lodge, an extremely vital restaurant and occupational school/home for people recovering from mental-health challenges. Clients make and dish fresh, refreshing soups, salads, quiches, egg scrambles (try the feta/sundried tomato combo) and paninis (the Cuban is hard to beat). Cheery, spic-andspan dining rooms are enlivened by paintings by recovering artists. And everything tastes better on the long, lovely backyard patio, a sanctuary with carnival-colored chairs, shrouding oak and dogwood trees and a lily-pad pool. (427 E. 4th St., Bethlehem; 610-849-2100; cafethelodge.org) n

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because our worlds and stories are shared. Not that I’m from her Eastern Europe and she’s from my California, but rather the same important place: being an artist.”

Yes, there are biographical elements of Balint’s life within the framework of I Hate Memory, and its trek through Downtown NYC circa 1978-85, a moment that included living as part of that area’s treasured avant-garde dramatic troupe, the Squat Theatre storefront space founded by her father, along with a long association with painter Jean-Michel Basquiat.

As part of the legend of I Hate Memory, Balint spoke of home life spilling onto the streets of New York City, an “open and revolving door welcoming the most adventurous musicians, filmmakers, visual artists, performers, writers and painters of the time, as well as some of the renegades of hip hop culture.” As Stew was both a player in (his band, Stew & the Negro Problem), and an attendant to this same scene, the stage was set for something daring and co-joined between them.

This means the kinship that she felt with Stew had blossomed into a trust, one where a life weirdly lived could become a work of musical fiction, especially when it came down to the songwriting process, something that Balint has forever executed autonomously. “Our shared sensibility is so hard to put into words, but Stew gets the hardto-figure-out contradictions of life and art,” says Balint. “That’s where I like to live—the tension between seriousness and humor that cannot be easily resolved.” n

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SOLD OUT months in advance), but I’m not hoping for much.

From November 2 to the 13th, Les Miserable and the story of 19th-century France’s social and political upheaval in the face of poverty via Cameron Mackintosh’s production of the Tony Awardwinning musical is back on the boards and soon to hit the Academy of Music. Playing devil’s advocate, however, couldn’t we just save the money and open the window?

One-time First Lady Michele Obama is coming to The Met Philadelphia for two days of her The Light We Carry tour, where she’ll speak to Gayle King on November 18 and 19. Mrs. Obama is a wise and witty woman who doesn’t need her husband to sell out any theater, arena, or concert hall. She does, however, have to get on Barack to get on Joe Biden to instill some heat under the Dems this midterm.

One-time ICON cover star and standard bearer of Tin Pan Alley and Basin Street song Harry Connick Jr. is starting his live Holiday Celebration 2022 tour with dates in Hershey (November 18, the Hershey Theatre) and Philadelphia (November 19 at the Academy of Music). Yeah, I’m a little annoyed that the pianist and singer Connick didn’t speak to ICON for this November issue, but that’s all right. Michael Buble phoned and said hello, instead. n

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