What To See This Week
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
“Before and After: Jean-Luc Godard” (BAM) A small but splendid program of Mr. Godard’s underrated and rarely screened work unspools at BAM this weekend. Playing once tonight at 7 p.m., “Detective” deconstructs, obfuscates, and illuminates genre conventions with impish intricacy. The notoriously dense and desultory “King Lear” (April 23) messes up Shakespeare beyond all recognition: Molly Ringwald stars as Cordelia. “For Ever Mozart” (April 24), a stubborn meditation on the opposing forces of war and creativity, is a pivotal film in late Godard.
The sublime “Hail Mary” (April 25) is among the gentlest of Mr. Godard’s films, arguably his finest achievement of the 1980s and a definitive rebuke to anyone who dismisses him as a cranky collagist incapable of sensitivity or serious spiritual inquiry. Nevertheless, the film generated great controversy in its day for having the effrontery to recast the immaculate conception in contemporary terms. It will be screened, as is customary, with Anne-Marie Mieville’s excellent “Book of Mary.” The series concludes with an invaluable collection of short films: The highlight is “Dans le noir du temps” (April 26), Mr. Godard’s contribution to the undistributed omnibus film “Ten Minutes Older: The Cello.”
“The Big Lebowski” (MoMA) Los Angeles plays itself affably in this lightest, most relaxed of all Coen Brothers films. Jeff Bridges is pitch-perfect as The Dude, a lackadaisical stoner who stumbles his way though a soft-boiled crime comedy. John Turturro French-kisses a bowling ball, and Julianne Moore gives a scene-stealing turn for the ages as a razor-tongued performance art weirdo.
“A Perfect World” (MoMA) One of Clint Eastwood’s most unusual and intriguing films: a fugitive thriller-cum-existential parable starring Kevin Costner.
“Beauty #2” (MoMA) Andy Warhol was at the height of his powers as a filmmaker when he shot this riveting two-reeler. An implacable camera locks sight on Edie Sedgwick as she lounges in bed while undergoing interrogation by a man off-screen. As in the greatest of Warhol’s movies – and this one’s right up there – the perfunctory scenario operates with surgical precision, while the strict formal parameters frame and release a slow burning epiphany on the nature of performance, personae, and cinema.
