Lucid Culture

Maysles, along with his late brother David, is one of the great pioneers in documentary filmmaking. Their most famous works include the groundbreaking Salesman (1968), the immortal Rolling Stones movie Gimme Shelter (1970) and the cult classic Grey Gardens (1976). Albert Maysles’ latest documentary, The Gates, chronicling the notorious Christo installation in Central Park two years ago, premieres on HBO this coming February 26. The shots on display here, from the just-published A Maysles Scrapbook: Photographs/Cinemagraphs/Documents fill four walls of the gallery, beginning with over two dozen from the Soviet bloc in 1955. In one black-and-white photo, Albert Maysles casually leans against the bumper of an old World War II surplus truck somewhere in Czechoslovakia, beer in hand, as the locals have just offered him as much as he can drink and as much gas as his scooter will hold. It’s an indelible moment, and sadly, unlike the vast majority of what’s on display here, it’s not for sale.

Other black-and-white shots from the Maysles’ trip behind the Iron Curtain that year include several of inmates at a mental institution, including one particularly scary character posing up against his hospital’s marble steps. Others are alternately troubling and lighthearted: a series depicts weary, clearly out-of-sorts travelers in the Moscow airport, including a family sleeping huddled together, as well as some amusingly sarcastic portrayals of Soviet-era women’s fashions, or what posed for fashion in a society that denied its citizens the right to express any esthetic sensibility that could conceivably be considered individualistic.

The stars of this show occupy the final wall, several large color montages from Grey Gardens. Popular in the gay community because of its camp factor, it’s actually a harrowing look at the effects of mental illness, tracing the twisted, symbiotic relationship between the aging, reclusive septuagenarian Kennedy clan member “Big” Edith Beale and her equally crazy wannabe-chanteuse daughter, fiftysomething “Little Edie” Beale over the course of several months in the duo’s rotting, rodent-infested Long Island mansion. Grey Gardens (which was adapted into a popular musical last year) is an incredibly funny movie, but the humor is completely unintentional, as far as its subjects are concerned. “Al Maysles is a great artist. He’s also a great photographer. He is also of Russian descent. My best friends were all Russian, but they were royalty,” Little Edie is quoted as saying, which speaks volumes.

Several of the most classic scenes from the film are here: a series of six shots of Little Edie cavorting with an American flag, as well as larger shots showing her doing sit-ups in her bathing suit on the decaying back porch, posing in the dunes, perusing an astrology book through a magnifying glass, demonstrating how to wear pantyhose underneath a dress and reclining on a bed while gazing at herself in a mirror with considerable trepidation. What may be the film’s most immortal scene is included here, where Big Edie, sitting bloblike and practically falling out of her dingy green dress, reprimands Little Edie to stop her incessant singing, threatening to leave the room and go hang out with the cats instead. The show’s scariest moment is the final shot, a black-and-white photo of Little Edie posed on the porch in a short skirt, dark scarf around her waist, pulled up to show her thigh. But there’s no seduction here. The frightened bewilderment on her face stops just short of complete self-awareness: only a crazy person would let someone take a picture like that. And as you leave the gallery, thinking you’re seen it all, there’s another black-and-white shot just to the left of the elevator, this time showing a smiling Little Edie shooting with Albert Maysles’ camera. This is a must-see exhibit whether you are a fan of the Maysles’ work or not yet a convert. The show runs through March 15 at the Steven Kasher Gallery, 521 W 23rd St. just west of 10th Ave., second floor, 11 AM – 6 PM Tues-Sat.

Giving away the ending to a film may be the biggest faux pas a critic can commit, but what if the film doesn’t have an ending? That seems to be the case with Joshua: it’s as if the producers of this low-budget indie suspense flick ran out of money three-quarters of the way through and decided to wrap it up on the spot rather than looking for new backers. So we’re supposed to believe that little Joshua did all those bad things simply because he’s gay  - he’s NINE YEARS OLD, for chrissakes!?!?! -  and all he wants to do is get away from his family and hang out with his swishy uncle?

It’s too bad the movie ends that way (looks like the producers ran out of money for focus groups too), because getting there is a good ride. Joshua (Jacob Kogan, marvelously deadpan and eerie in his screen debut) lives with his yuppie parents (Brad, played by Sam Rockwell and Vera, played by Laurie Metcalfe lookalike Vera Farmiga) and his newborn sister in an impossibly large apartment on New York’s upper east side. Dad is a clueless type who seems to be sleepwalking through parenthood and his job at a nameless Wall Street financial house; mom had trouble with postpartum depression after Joshua was born, and it seems to be happening again, worse than before.

Trouble follows Joshua like New Jersey cops after a carful of black people. The gerbils in his classroom have mysteriously died, his little sister cries for no reason, constantly waking screaming up in the middle of the night, and his mother does the same thing. Drawing heavily on The Bad Seed and the original When a Stranger Calls as well as the Stephen King playbook, co-writer/director George Ratliff finds dread everywhere, in the most mundane places. There’s one scene where the door to an appliance  - can’t tell you which one - opens, that pushes the scare factor way into the red. Otherwise, the director gets the max out of his low-budget set (the film is shot mostly in the apartment, with a few outdoor scenes at the Brooklyn Museum and what appears to be Morningside Park), shooting into the shadows for what turns out to be usually not there. 

The film’s best scene finds Joshua onstage at a piano recital. He’s been practicing Bartok (not implausible: he’s talented, and Kogan actually learned how to play a few of the pieces that appear on camera), but what he pulls out of the woodwork has to be the most eerie musical moment to appear in any film drama since Michael Caine did his immortal, faux-badly-sung version of Roy Orbison’s It’s Over in Little Voice. Joshua keels over immediately after finishing his little jam. Yet nobody gets what’s going on (the filmmakers could have had a lot more fun satirizing pampered New York yuppie parents than they do).

 After something particularly nasty happens to Joshua’s bible-thumping, proselytizing grandmother (played to the hilt by Celia Weston), Brad seems to get the picture, but he can’t stop what’s about to happen. And then the movie ends, before any hell breaks loose: Joshua could have gone on for another 15 suspenseful minutes and wound up either on a deliciously grisly or righteously just note. It screams out for a remake. David Cronenberg, people will have forgotten all about this in ten years’ time, are you listening? 

 I Wonder if Heaven is filled with Pie…

By Christine Lloyd

The Waitress has the mixed blessing of being actress/director and writer Adrienne Shelly’s wide-screen release directorial debut and swan song. Prior to the The Waitress, Shelly directed four small, little known films: Lois Lives a Little, Sudden Manhattan, I’ll Take You There, and The Shadows of Bob & Zelda. The Waitress is Shelly’s first film to make it into the top ten Box Office films, and win critical recognition at Sundance.

As anyone living in New York knows by now, the media reported that Shelly was murdered in her bathroom last year by a construction worker who’d been doing some work on the floor below. According to news reports, Shelly had complained about noise below her apartment and threatened to call the authorities. Police reported that an argument ensued, the worker (a Salvadoran immigrant) allegedly killer her and tried to cover up the crime by making it appear to be a suicide. Tragic, considering the actress left behind a small child: Shelly died before her film was accepted into Sundance or was distributed to theaters. Her husband,  Andrew Ostroy, set up the Adrienne Shelly Foundation (http://www.adrienneshellyfoundation.org) to award film scholarships and grants to women filmmakers. 

Prior to directing, writing and acting in The Waitress - a story that deals with Shelly’s own experience as a struggling artist about to have an unwanted child - Shelly was best known for her work in several independent films by director Hal Hartley,  notably The Unbelievable Truth.

Knowing this doesn’t affect your enjoyment or appreciation of the movie all that much, except perhaps to make it more bittersweet, particularly when you realize which character Shelly is playing - a somewhat pasty-faced, not overly attractive co-worker and friend of the lead.

The film stars Keri Russell (from the tv sitcom Felicity) as Jenna; Ms. Shelly, as Jenna’s close friend and co-worker, Dawn; Andy Griffith - of Matlock and the Andy Griffith Show fame - as Joe, owner of the diner where Jenna works; Nathan Fillion, most recently seen in the television series Drive, as well as the feature films Slither and Serenity; Jeremy Sisto, as Jenna’s husband Earl; and Cheryl Hines as Becky, Jenna’s older co-worker.

With a running time of approximately an hour and thirty minutes, The Waitress is a feel-good character piece centered around the lead, who makes pies at Joe’s Pie Diner, a small, somewhat beaten down joint in central New Jersey. Jenna lives and breathes pies and has created over 147 different types throughout her career, a new one every day. She dreams up her pies while arguing with her abusive and controlling husband, or while sitting at the bus station.

The film is shot from Jenna’s perspective: we only see the other characters when she’s present, and only see what they tell Jenna or Jenna thinks about them. Shelly, unlike other directors, never cheats or pulls back from her lead’s point of view and utilizes dream sequences where Jenna is dreaming up a new brand of pie as a means of exploring her inner turmoil in a comedic way. For example, when Jenna discovers in the first five minutes of the film that she is pregnant by her no-account husband, she dreams up Bad Baby Pie, describes the filling and how it will be cooked. The next day, we see Joe, played by Andy Griffith, asking Jenna - after he learns of her pregnancy - to bring him a piece. When she visits her obstetrician,  she brings Marshmallow Mermaid Pie, which she holds like a shield against her stomach as she envisions all the pregnant women around her naked, cringing at the thought.

The story’s central arc addresses Jenna’s struggles to come to terms with her pregnancy and having a baby, how it will change her life, how it will effect her relationships and her dreams. At first, she hates the child within her belly. She sees it as an inconvenience and a parasite that will take away everything she has worked so hard to accomplish,  notably her chance to leave her husband and start a new life. As her co-workers make clear at the beginning, while Jenna is prettier than they are, has an attractive husband and a talent for piemaking, they wouldn’t want to be in her shoes. We find out why when we meet him. In the first ten minutes of the film, we see Jenna retreating into herself out of fear and loathing. We never see Earl outside of Jenna’s perspective, so he remains the film’s only two - dimensional character.

Yet, as testament to the director’s talent, there’s never a black-and-white villain. We come to know why Jenna got involved with him: there are glimpses of vulnerablity and insecurity beneath the sneers and abuse. Earl objectivizes Jenna, treating her as a possession without regard for her emotional wellbeing. Without falling into cliché, Shelly depicts a marriage gone bad.

The other male lead, a doctor portrayed by Nathan Fillion, is perhaps more complex and three-dimensional. He’s nebulous, yet empathetic, comical with a charm and restraint evocative of Cary Grant or a young Tom Hanks. At once bemused and taken aback by Jenna’s attraction to him, he seems more perplexed than manipulative, the happily married man who can’t help but find himself falling in love with the waitress who reminds him a bit too much of his childhood crush. Their relationship is both funny and bittersweet, but also manages to avoid cliche.

Outside of Earl and the Doctor, whose name escapes me - she rarely calls him by his first name - the other two characters portrayed in the film are Dawn and Becky, an older waitress, who has a little secret that Jenna discovers mid-way through. All three are fully developed characters, yet we never see them outside of Jenna. Unlike most romantic comedies, The Waitress does not employ stock characters in supporting roles: no “quirky best friend and confidant,” “wiser older friend,” or “wise old man.” At first glance, each of these characters may appear to fit those models, but their lives are their own, and it’s clear that they don’t simply revolve around Jenna. For example, there is a short and sweet little romantic subplot involving Dawn and a blind date, who stalks her with spontaneous poetry until she eventually accedes, much to her friends’ alarm. Shelly’s characters, unlike the typical blockbuster movie personage, have great verisimilitude: they actually resemble the kind of people you could meet and befriend in a small New Jersey diner, if only for a little while.

The film’s only weakness may well be its surreal ending, which in jarring contrast to the rest of the picture is filmed in bright cheery colors and flashes. Is it a dream or is it real? We’re not sure. Upon first viewing, I assumed it was meant to be real, but after discussing it with a friend, I am no longer certain. Without giving too much away, it is shown as a montage and does not quite fit with the overall tone, style, and color scheme of the rest of the picture. It is a slight difference, but enough of one to make you ponder its intent. If it is meant as a dream, then the film is an artistic achievement for reasons you will understand when you see it. If not, the fact that there is a question mark about it gives it a resonance it may have lacked otherwise.

The Waitress, albeit a small film in an action-packed summer of bigger, shinier fare, is that rare piece that resonates with you long after it is over, much like Little Miss Sunshine last year. It is a testament to Shelly’s craft and in a way a fitting memorial to her life, however tragic and shortlived.