“Thief” (1981), dir. Michael Mann, Brooklyn Academy of Music, February 5-7“Thief” was the first feature film directed by Michael Mann, who began his career in television (to which he returned a few years later with the superinfluential “Miami Vice”). The movie stars James Caan in one of his best and most restrained performances, as a jewel thief attempting to go straight with his new girlfriend, played by Tuesday Weld. Of course, things go haywire quickly. This early film already displays many of the Mann hallmarks: the visual precision, the neon nighttime, even the staging of major scenes in diners. But the pervading melancholia is both deeper and more present here than in his later work, where it remains an undercurrent. “Thief” opens “Heat & Vice: The Films of Michael Mann,” a retrospective of the director’s work at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that runs through February 16.“Ornette: Made in America” (1985), dir. Shirley Clarke, Museum of Arts and Design, February 5Part of a series at the Museum of Arts and Design celebrating the work of Shirley and Wendy Clarke (which also includes “Portrait of Jason,” highlighted last week), “Ornette: Made in America” is an infinitely knotty documentary about jazz musician Ornette Coleman, who died last year. Combining interviews with reenactments and live performances in an intricately interrelated web, this is the perfect example of a film that matches its subject in formal complexity instead of trying to simplify or make it palatable.“Love on the Ground” (1984), dir. Jacques Rivette, Film Society of Lincoln Center, February 5“Love on the Ground” is one of the lesser-known (at least to me) films of Jacques Rivette, who died last week at the age of 87. Starring Jane Birkin and Geraldine Chaplin in a typically Rivette-ian mixture of theater and ghosts set inside a mansion, the movie is screening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of a series dedicated to the cinematic work of Birkin and her daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg. Alongside the Film Society’s series pairing Rivette’s films with those of David Lynch and the theatrical release of his 13-hour epic “Out 1” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music late last year, it makes a strong argument for a full retrospective of the director’s work in the near future.“I Knew Her Well” (1965), dir. Antonio Pietrangeli, Film Forum, opening February 5Dedicated readers, if they exist, will recall that this column wrote about “I Knew Her Well” back in November, when it screened as part of a series of Pietrangeli’s films at the Museum of Modern Art. A 4K digital restoration of the film by the Criterion Collection is now getting a weeklong release at Film Forum.“Woodstock” (1970), dir. Michael Wadleigh, Museum of the Moving Image, February 5If you’ve never seen this film, here is your chance, via what is sure to be a beautiful 35mm print with magnetic soundtrack. “Woodstock” is more than a documentary about the legendary music festival, which took place over three days on a farm in Sullivan County, New York, attracting roughly 400,000 people and thrusting itself in the collective cultural consciousness. Edited in a frenetic style, the film aims to throw you into the event’s crazy mix of music, drugs, and hedonism.
↧