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Photo Reva Blau
Howard Karren (left) and John Ives worked with Joe Fiorello and the Art Association to create a new film series. |
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Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider in “The Passenger,” PAAM’s first showing in its new film series. |
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PAAM series targets the art found in film
By Reva Blau
Banner Correspondent
For the avid film buff, the Northeast can seem as parched as the Sahara desert. This is why the new film series at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum called FilmArt @ PAAM tastes as refreshing as the bottle of water drunk by Jack Nicholson’s character in an early scene in “The Passenger,” the 1975 psychological thriller by Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni.
“The Passenger,” one of the most beautifully hypnotic and deeply haunting films ever made, will launch the series on Thursday, April 26, at 6 p.m. at PAAM, 260 Commercial St., Provincetown. It gives a good sense of the kind of movies that we can expect from the new Provincetown film venue at PAAM.
Since the renovation of the museum building a few years ago, Christine McCarthy, PAAM’s executive director, and the board of PAAM have been successfully working to expand the diversity of the museum’s exhibitions, as well as to intensify its educational mission. While displaying the museum’s permanent collection in improved facilities, the museum has been able to highlight contemporary artists, such as Nancy Webb and Irene Lipton. Exhibitions in the new space, which is engineered for video projection and incorporates moveable walls for large installations, have also reflected the relevance of different media in the context of Provincetown’s renowned tradition as a thriving art colony.
The film series is the collaborative effort of Howard Karren, John Ives and Joe Fiorello, all film buffs. Their goal is to present great films as a community event, followed by refreshments and discussions about the film led by guest speakers.
Karren was an editor at Premiere magazine, the well-known publication that did in-depth reporting on Hollywood before the proliferation of entertainment reporting. Karren also writes a regular DVD-release column and does movie reviews for the Banner. Fiorello is a visual artist. He has been on the board of PAAM for a year, and has been an active member and museum volunteer for 18 years. Ives worked in the entertainment industry for 25 years as a lawyer (offering counsel to producers and writers), a producer, and owner of two successful film companies. He started Cinecom, one of the earliest independent film companies and a forerunner to companies like Miramax.
Ives, Karren, and Fiorello had each independently thought of a film series in Provincetown. They each had conversations with McCarthy about the possibility and she brought them all together. Each man initially had a different vision.
Fiorello was interested in films about artists that emphasize the creative process — films about art. “I saw the film series from an artist’s point of view,” said Fiorello. “I was interested in showing films that I remember from art school, films that could be informative about the way artists work.”
Upcoming screenings that fulfill his vision include “The Mystery of Picasso,” a documentary about the legendary painter’s process. “It’s basically just Picasso standing there painting. I am not sure he even talks in it,” said Fiorello with a chuckle. Instead, Picasso paints on one side of a clear scrim, while the camera shoots his application of paint from the other side. Someone washes the scrim and he paints again.
Ives and Karren were more interested in offering terrific films — films that are themselves art. Karren explains that, although the movie in this country has always been a popular form, he grew up with a “particular passion for the artistic vision in a film. It was something that I lived my life around.”
The works that all three have decided to screen the first season are films, whether they be art or about art, that are not easy to see outside of large European capitals that actively support revival houses.
“We were interested in presenting movies that weren’t necessarily radically experimental, like a Mathew Barney film [in which, for example, Richard Serra throws hot Vaseline down the ramp of the Guggenheim], but rather films in which the narrative of film is itself a work of art.” He continued, “It’s about not being afraid to provoke people. We hope people feel passionately about what they see, maybe even agitated a little.”
Interestingly, Ives, whose parents were members of the Art Association, began his long career in the movie industry in Provincetown. Ives ran The Movies, where he screened diverse films, often back to back, in the repertory theater at Whaler’s Wharf. His movie house was actually a reincarnation of a film house at Whaler’s Wharf called Provincetown Theater. It was where the group of international bohemians who summered in Provincetown during WWI, including Eugene O’Neill and the Provincetown Players, went to see films. It was a movie house, in other words, in the early 20th century, when the silent film was still the norm, even out of Hollywood studios.
“The controversy about the museum’s new building coincided with the fear that Provincetown is becoming a resort for wealthy vacationers,” said Ives. “But the history of Provincetown is as an art-based community. The museum helps to expand the reach of cultural institutions and build the viability of the town as a year-round community. In our small way, we can contribute to that.”
The series also offers a much-needed venue to lovers of cinema who enjoy sitting in the dark with other people watching movies on a big screen, the way the art was intended, rather than in private living rooms where movies are often interrupted by life.
“The Passenger,” which will be screened on Thursday, is a psychological thriller in which a journalist, David Locke, played by Jack Nicholson, is trying to make a documentary about a guerilla movement in Africa. He is stuck and approaching burnout, much like his Jeep when he drives it into the sand of the desert. Back at the hotel, he finds a dead man. Without explanation, he decides to assume this man’s identity, stealing his passport and his date book, trading in his own life for the destiny of a random stranger. David Locke’s escape from himself is never complete, leaving the quest for self open to interpretation. His journey to find meaning turns into an odyssey of self-destruction as he realizes that the dead man is a gunrunner kindling the very war that Locke was supposed to document on English television.
In one scene, Locke, on the run from his enemies from the civil war in Africa as well as from the wife of his former life, tells his young, dark-eyed paramour, played by Maria Schneider (“The Last Tango in Paris”), a story. In it, a blind man is elated when he has an operation and regains his sight in middle age. Yet, after a certain time seeing, he becomes depressed. He stops crossing the street because he sees the latent danger and violence in the stopped cars. “No one had told him how much dirt there was, how much ugliness. He notices ugliness everywhere,” says Locke with resignation. While the story of blindness is a metaphor for the alienation at the heart of Antonioni’s world view, nothing could be more stunning than the means by which the film frame conveys this sense of alienation. The long sequence at the end, featuring one of the long shots that Antonioni is famous for, is about as beautiful as it gets, which make it perfect for an art museum.
Upcoming screenings include Bill Condon’s Oscar-winning film “Gods and Monsters,” starring Ian McKellen, on May 17; and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s “The Mystery of Picasso” on May 31. Discussion will follow each screening. Call (508) 487-1750 for more information.
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Apr 26th, 2007