‘Artificial’ Luca Guadagnino’s Humorous, Scary Take on the Tech Bros With Andrew Garfield
In Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, we see one part drama, two parts humor, three parts awe, four parts horror blended in a compelling narrative that mesmerizes. Indeed, the director’s believable, stylized realism makes the two hour film speed by. With an exceptional score by Damon Albarn, Artificial‘s music captivates as much as it beautifully synchronizes the driving force of the film’s human/machine events. In fact synchronicity is the theme and watchword of this magnificently acted and directed film about the meld of human/machine consciousness. Artificial made its World Premiere in the Main Slate section of the NYFF 2026.
Artificial‘s chronicle moves the audience though two decades of machine learning research to arrive at the “believe it, see it” end of the rainbow of thinking machines and digital consciousness. Clearly, the powerful dramatization of real people and the milestones accomplished places AI front and center. Thus, Guadagnino’s subtle cinematic metric forces us to deal with AI’s possible doomsday reckoning. However, that may happen if the potential villains in Artificial nefariously exploit their evolving discoveries recklessly and if the potential heroes stop them.
The finely honed, lucid script by Simon Rich pierces the veil into the realms where mere mortals with 130 + IQs cannot go. To say that the content matter flies over the heads of a large percentage of the audience matters little. The actors authenticate the complexity of the information via Rich’s profound, well-thought out dialogue.Through it, they manifest the personalities and personas of the individuals responsible for perhaps too impatiently hacking the infinitely possible.
Guadagnino via Rich and the superb ensemble led by Andrew Garfield portraying Open AI’s Sam Altman, Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever and Mark Rylance as Geoffrey Hinton (the “Godfather of AI”) acquaint us with AI’s beginnings. Plunging us as gently as possible with brief stints translating the opaque into a layperson’s language, script and actors let us follow on the edges of theoretical mathematics and computer science fundamentals that underpin artificial neural networks and Deep Learning.
Most importantly, we catch fire with the relationships between Soviet-born computer scientist Ilya Sutskever and University of Toronto professor Geoffrey Hinton. Rylance, known for his amazing versatility from playing Shakespeare onstage to the character Sully in Guadagnino’s Bones and All, believably portrays the soft-spoken, reasoned Hinton. Additionally, the relationships between and among the OpenAI co-founders Sutskever, Altman and the tech bros like Musk and others fascinate.
Initially, when Borisov’s Ilya pushes himself into Hinton’s office in 2003, a three minute conversation reveals Ilya’s genius, making history. Hinton takes him on, mentors him and they progress together, but only move so far until their paths diverge. Interestingly, as they pursue their evolutionary discoveries, Hinton filters each through his moral center and thinks through its consequence before every development and manifestation. Ilya allows his impatient genius to get ahead of him and searches for others who feel as he does. Though they both work at Google, when Sutskever meets Sam Altman who recruits him as a chief scientist and part of the co-founding team creating OpenAI, Ilya finds a kindred soul. Joining with Altman others come onboard alongside figures like Elon Musk and Greg Brockman. Eventually, they become co-founders of OpenAI.
When Guadagnino presents the scenes of the bonding of the bros as they imagine they achieve and receive their next adventures into merging human consciousness with evolving machine consciousness, we join the ride. Swept up with their exuberance to reach beyond where others cannot and dare not go, the consequences evade them. Climbing upward they experience the high of their own genius. Will someone be able to reign them in if not one of their own steps up?
Guadagnino expertly shepherds the actors as he mines the relationship between Altman and Sutskever, all the more incredible when Sutskever and the board fire Altman for dishonesty. In a come to Jesus moment, Suskever seeks out his mentor Hinton and runs by his issues with Altman through Hinton’s righteous filters. After consideration, Sutskever speaks with others and gets Altman fired. He sees Altman as he sees Musk (Ike Barinholtze in a LOL portrayal) as a liar and a danger to everyone. Yet, Altman’s personality, charm and ability to manifest his beliefs and maintain his cool allows him to wriggle back into the good graces of the Board.
Guadagnino leaves us at the conclusion noting where the potential heroes and villains end up. Co-founder and CEO of Safe Superintelligence Inc.Suskever continues investigating and understanding the consequences of where AI can lead in order to provide a fail-safe mechanism to prevent it through safe use. Altman continues making advances with OpenAI. Coincidentally, around the World Premiere of Artificial, he announced the potential doomsday scenarios of AI. Finally, Hinton resigned from his position as a Vice President and Engineering Fellow at Google in May 2023 after working there for a decade. He resigned so he could freely speak out about the existential risks and dangers of artificial intelligence.
Then there’s Musk. He has proven himself by allowing the DOGE team to close down USAID causing the deaths of hundreds of children and families who depended upon the medicine and food worldwide. And then there’s his help with the computers, the beautiful computers and Republican elections.
Guadagnino has outdone himself with Artificial, a must see. For the NYFF 2026 write-up go to https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/artificial/ Artificial opens in a US theatrical release on December 25, 2026. It’s wide release begins in January, 2027.
Ava DuVernay’s ’14th’
Following DuVernay’s documentary 13th (NYFF54 Opening Night) which implicated the 13th amendment’s failures in the mass incarceration of Black Americans, DuVernay’s 14th expands our knowledge of the constitution’s importance in our lives. This is especially so for those not aware of all sections of the amendment. Additionally, the film with full force emphasizes the current administration’s attacks on our civil rights in an attempt to vitiate the 14th and the power it gives citizens. 14th made its World Premiere as the Closing Night film of the NYFF 2026.
DuVernay’s documentary codifies what law scholars refer to as the second constitution or “Second Founding” of our civil rights. To expound upon this she uses a chorus of experts. These include congresspersons like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), senators former and current (Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Alex Padilla (D-C), activists like Stacey Abrams and social commentators like Hasan Piker to name a few.
In covering the history of the amendment, DuVernay has experts discuss its necessity after the Civil War so Republican leaders could complete what the original founders began, to guarantee liberty for all. Thus, to insure that the bloodshed during the Civil War was not shed in vain, after President Lincoln’s assassination, Republicans worked to safeguard Lincoln’s plans of liberty for African Americans. John A.Bingham (responsible for birthright citizenship), Thaddeus Stevens and others expanded the people’s voice in their state and federal government.
Importantly, these second founders wrote the law as a weapon and shield against tyrannical governments. Indeed, the country could not afford to return to the southern states’ oppressive, institutional slavery. The second founders viewed liberty as paramount, as the Declaration of Independence proclaimed, and finally wrote it for all.
DuVernay selects Sherrilyn Ifill as the key narrator of the film because of her extensive knowledge. Ifill, the Howard University Professor who leads the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy, identifies the five section structure of the 14th amendment. For example, Section One, best known as the birthright citizenship section, includes equal protection under the law and due process if the state or federal government violates a citizen’s rights.
In exploring each of the sections Ifill and the other experts clarify lesser known details. With illustrations, video clips (past and present), archived photographs, and more, the commentators discuss what follows Section One citizenship rights. In Section Two, the 14th apportions representation and removes it if men have their voting power denied. Third, it disqualifies members of the branches of government from holding any office if they committed insurrection. Fourth, it validates public debt but not for insurrectionists. Finally, the “Second Constitution” gives congress the power to enforce each section of the amendment via legislation.
During the process of reviewing the amendment’s historical application, the film identifies its successes, during Reconstruction. Then, the unfortunate pivot follows. DuVernay experts discuss how the confederacy attempted to the dissolve its power in the South after Reconstruction until after WWII, for as long as possible.
Empowered by the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson’s separate but equal (the “equal” never was), the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), buoyed up the spirits of their communities from 1900 through the 1930s. Spinning romantic, nostalgic notions of “the lost cause,” the women reframed the brutal losses of the Civil War. Indeed, they propagandized a new invisible war against the union from which they dared not secede again. They celebrated their treasonous confederate leaders. Also, they flew their triumphant confederate flags and normalized their quaint confederate symbolism throughout the country.
During this propaganda war, the South rewrote history books and softened the horrors of slavery. To reinforce their power, and end their rights, they lynched and burned African Americans alive, and torched their successful businesses or communities. DuVernay includes archived photos of the Tulsa, Oklahoma Race Massacre. Also, she doesn’t shy away from showing photos of Black American lynchings.
As evidence of their disemboweling the 14th, DuVernay and her experts spend time on the power of the UDC’s propaganda to dupe, blind and distort the truth to great effect. This lasted well into the 21st century. For example, commentator Steve Schmidt says the confederate flag showed up in the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. Prior to that date, the confederate flag never entered the Capitol. Thanks to the Trump Administration and RNC stoking their paid for rioters to attack the Capitol, the white supremacists uplifted the “lost cause” in another treasonous rebellion.
From 1900 to WWII, the UDC women and their backers lifted their confederacy to iconic status. To do this, they erected from 830 to 1500 statues, monuments, memorial parks, etc. in every southern state. Though few had been erected after the Civil War, the massive spike paralleled the enactment of Jim Crow segregation laws and the disenfranchisement of Black Americans. Propaganda warriors, the UDC worked hard to nullify in practice the 14th in the South. And congress never enacted the enforcement Section V of the amendment to stop the misinformation, lies and traitorous behavior.
When the Civil Rights Movement awakened Northerners and celebrities to march and protest the 14th violations, the movement turned the hand of the Supreme Court in 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education. Then, after President Kennedy couldn’t get his legislation passed and was assassinated, President Johnson enacted the monumental Civil Rights legislation. And for the first time since Reconstruction, the 14th functioned to protect citizens’ rights with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
However, the struggle to dismiss the power of the 14th occluded by the myth of “the lost cause,” continues to this day with treachery. As DuVernay experts explain each section of the amendment, they also identify its violations by the Trump Administration using salient videos (i.e. George Floyd protests, January 6th insurrection, Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, immigration kidnappings and more).
DuVernay has the experts discuss the normalization propaganda of confederate symbols as a sub rosa acceptance of the power of white supremacy and racism. For example until recently (the George Floyd protests), the flag, the monuments and the names of confederate leaders on schools, roads, etc., in the North and South seemed acceptable. However, one commentator discusses the meaning can’t be acceptable because under the 14th, racism, bigotry, and celebrating slavery and treason are unlawful. However, white supremacists make excuses to keep their power symbols. DuVernay devotes a segment showing the backlash for taking down the Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues in Virginia. The company appointed to remove the statues received death threats. Finally, they removed the statues and melted them down. The myth of “the lost cause” dies hard.
Indeed, DuVernay’s experts draw lines from the racists of the past to the Trump administration’s attempts to vitiate the power of citizen’s rights of the14th in the present. This is especially so with immigrants kidnapped by masked, ill-trained ICE agents. DuVernay includes clips of ICE’s unsettling violence and excessive force with citizens, with senators, with migrants. Thus far, the murders of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti have received no justice. And to fulfill quotas to get monetary bonuses, agents pick up documented citizens. Children disappear into detention camps, more like concentration camps, where horror stories of inadequate conditions, abuse and violence leak out.
Ifill and the others affirm that equal protection under the law for anyone on US soil means exactly that; civil rights protection. However, the film provokes audience outrage at the Trump administration and complicit lawmakers of both parties. Thematically, DuVernay’s experts identify that congress has the inherent power to enforce the amendment. However, she proves throughout the film that both Republicans and Democrats don’t use the power they have against the Executive Branch. Thus, congress violates the amendment by not enforcing it. Trump violates every section of the amendment, even trying to get money for insurrectionists he pardoned. Additionally, states rights which could counter the illegality of the Executive haven’t been used, as seen with the accumulating murders by ICE agents.
DuVernay exposes painful truths between the sanctity of the amendment and the human lack of will and power at all levels to enforce it unequivocally through the decades, with some decades worse than others. On the other hand 14th makes a superb case for proving the high crimes and misdemeanors. This includes crimes of the president and his cabinet and the congress for not holding upholding the 14th but for dismantling it. Additionally, all who provoked and supported the treasonous insurrection are disqualified from holding office as illegitimate. Much should be done about this unconstitutional behavior, but nothing viable has happened thus far to remove the unfit and unqualified illegitimate law breakers and hold them to account.
Unfortunately, Ifill and the others in this time of acknowledged darkness, proclaim that hope lies with “we the people” and our votes. On that note the film concludes, as if the task of ending such an overarching, monumental film overwhelmed the filmmaker. And all she could come up with was a powerless anti-climax, telling us to vote. We do, we will. And as Robert Di Nero has spoken loudly, if Elon Musk or the Republicans get anywhere near the counting of Mid Term ballots, we say, “Get your stinking hands off our votes.”
Notwithstanding, DuVernay’s 14th shines with brilliance but sounds a terrifying warning with an unsatisfactory conclusion. 14th will be given a limited release in theaters around November 27, 2026. Netflix will stream it on December 4,2026. For the write up at NYFF 2026 go to their website https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/14th/
‘A Statement’ With the Excellent Paul Rudd, Amy Ryan, Paul Giamatti, John Turturro at NYFF 2026
With a superb ensemble who keep the potentially dry content popping, A Statement director, Tom McCarthy, crafts a drama with comedic elements. This important film by McCarthy, who also crafted the superb Spotlight in 2015, examines the historic weekend-long meeting congress commissioned about global warming. At this conference congress tasked participants to respond to a dire report on the environmental impact of fossil fuels. McCarthy’s A Statement made its world premiere in the Spotlight section of New York Film Festival 2026,
The director and fellow screenwriters Noé Debré and Thomas Bidegain use original verbatim transcripts of the 36-hour meeting recorded by a stenographer into an archived document over five hundred pages long. Additionally, they adapt Nathaniel Rich’s book Losing Earth:A Recent History for information and basics about the weekend conference that took place in late October 1980, days before the presidential election. However, for almost half of the film, the writers use the transcripts to chronicle the word for word interactions, arguments, agreements, disputes and stalemates among twenty scientists, activists and policymakers portrayed by a celebrated cast.
Paul Rudd as Clean Air Act advisor and moderator Tom Jorling opens the film with Evan Pet,ers as Friends of the Earth activist Rafe Pomrance who helps him set up the layout of tables into a large square. Between the battles and discussions Jorling counsels Peters not to “come off” like a ton of bricks, but listen and wait until he confronts the arguments that will arise.
As the others arrive, we note key experts with clout and empowerment. These include Paul Giamatti as Energy Department director David Slade and John Turturro as M.I.T. nuclear engineer and environmentalist, Dr. David Rose.
Playing lesser but dynamic roles, key women include two experts and the stenographer Bernadette (Nina Arianda). Amy Ryan portrays Annemarie Crocetti, the public-health scholar who sat on the National Commission on Air Quality. Tatiana Maslany, portrays law professor Edith Brown Weiss. Both women interject comments periodically. Oftentimes, the men patronize and dismiss them into silence. Meanwhile, Rose and Slade hold center stage with directed, if cynical remarks about players who might be obstacles to the conference members proposed actions. Nevertheless, Crocetti and Brown-Weiss convey impassioned arguments toward the conclusion of the film.
Throughout the individuals present suggestions and counter with rational cogent arguments as they discuss the effects of carbon emissions from fossil fuels. As the actors portray real individuals in their own words, we note this historic moment in time, more forward thinking than the present bogged down in misinformation and corporate greed of Big Oil. All in this group acknowledge fossil fuels’ carbon emissions’ catastrophic impact on the environment. Viewing this historic bi-partisan acceptance of scientific facts, one wonders how the propaganda and misinformation discounting climate change ever took hold to ignore science.
Thus, in late October with Jimmy Carter still president, the group collaborates. Under the limited time constraint, the experts from various backgrounds attempt to achieve consensus in wording their policy statement to congress. Because they agree about the dire report, their mission of how to address the dangers of carbon dioxide emissions seems facile enough. However, achieving consensus about the wording of the statement draws rancor and fractiousness among the participants. Oftentimes, the back and forth annoyances and ironic responses, thanks to the actors, provoke laughter. Their frustrations at spinning their wheels and going nowhere produces even more humor.
As the clock ticks and the hours count down, the tension increases. When experts like activist Pomerance come up with suggestions about how best to deal with limiting carbon emissions, Turturro’s Rose and Giamatti’s Slade reveal the complexities Pomerance has not anticipated. Indeed, his activism though passionate and noble reveals a lack of knowledge. Rose and Slade provide the hard truths, yet acknowledge Pomerance’s moral conscience. Clearly, the participants respect one another and learn from each other, but they are far from their goal.
McCarthy knows how to take the transcripts word for word and convert them into dialogue that integrates with the narrative. Also, he expertly shepherds the actors’ performances and employs an acute cinematography of close ups to capture the right pacing for edits of eye rolls or body language.
Additionally, he frees the characters from the conference room in the hotel and stages them in side meetings. For example, characters walk on the hotel beach and discuss various points. In a humorous segment Dr. Rose breaks with his erudite, professorial persona and crashes a wedding bringing other conference members with him during a fun break. Thus, McCarthy maintains audience interest and we become invested in the characters and hope that they can write a definitive statement that congress can work with to save the planet.
The film’s focus on this historical conference with the reasoned comments of the participants fascinates and appalls as a horrific reminder of our country’s retrograde position since then. How quickly did partisan disagreement about global warming spark a reversal of regulations spiking the use of fossil fuels and avoiding effective mitigation of carbon emissions? The liberal progressivism heard in the participants’ comments acknowledging climate dangers contrasts with the Trump administration’s vitiating climate change as a hoax. Clearly, the administration uses the hoax argument to justify corruptly bowing to the oil lobby and exiting the Paris Climate Agreement. Then, in October, 1980, the truth mattered even if the experts couldn’t agree what to do about it. Now, the truth is a lie.
Perhaps the fact that the participants failed to gain consensus in the wording of the “statement” speaks to the human tragedy of the current administration’s expedient inaction. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking.
A Statement will be released in theaters later in the year or in 2027. For a look at the film’s write-up on the NYFF 2026 site go to https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/a-statement/
‘The Dreamed Adventure,’ NYFF 2026
In its U.S. premiere in the Main Slate section of the 64th NYFF, Valeska Grisebach’s Cannes Jury Prize-winning film turns from an initial easy set up to a thriller with chilling moments of suspense. Full of twists and turns, Griebach defies narrative stereotypes and allows the authenticity of the local townspeople she uses to create tension, suspense and surprise.
Interestingly, The Dreamed Adventure begins like a Spaghetti Western (without Ennio Morricone’s music) in a setting lost to the modern age and peopled with gristled, thuggish looking types. There, a stranger drives into a scruffy town in a small car without air conditioning to do business. Initially, Grisebach features a middle-aged, craggy-looking, Said (Syuleyman Alilov Letifov) as the protagonist. The filmmaker follows this rugged mystery man’s actions in Svilengrad, a Bulgarian border town at the crossroads of Turkey and Greece. With a slow unraveling of action Griebach keeps us questioning the why and what of the set up with Said.
First, the filmmaker reverses the “hero” trope. When Said attempts to settle business with someone in the town, staying overnight to wait for him, an unknown thug steals his car. Though malevolent forces victimize him and make him helpless, he remains poker-faced and unemotional. Perhaps, the cronies of the man he waits for game him.
Then, the fates step in and he sees middle-aged Veska, an old flame (the sterling Yana Radva). An archeologist Veska currently works at a site in Matochina. After hearing about the theft, she suggests he help her on her dig. On the journey to the ancient site they reacquaint themselves. However, he reveals little information. With natural pauses and looks, we realize they had been together years before and may still have a bond. Said (a Muslim) references his life under Soviet era repression. In a peek beyond the veil, when he explains his parents changed his name to fit in and make it Bulgarian”acceptable” we note his ironic annoyance. Perhaps, this and later information we overhear about his possibly “disappearing” a bullying young man explain why he left the area.
As an omen of good luck, Said fixes Veska’s metal detector. This enables her to find a valuable artifact. Though we expect them to stay together, the filmmaker shifts the narrative’s direction.
In a surprising twerk, Said lopes off with another younger woman he meets in a bar after Veska drops him off. Swapping out Said, Grisebach turns the homespun, sharp-eyed, prescient Veska into the film’s protagonist. When Said disappears, we presume he carries on with the woman he met. However, we never find out what happens afterward. When he doesn’t show up for the dig the following morning, an upset Veska searches for him unobtrusively. Perhaps he faces danger.
Thus, in a relaxed way, she visits with the townspeople, in the cafe, the bar and in after-dinner get-togethers with women and men at their homes to find out what happened to Said. The groups connect with one another over smokes, drinks and conversation. In a fascinating contrast between the women’s and men’s groups, the cast (some locals with un-Hollywood-like faces) reveal the culture of this non-thriving border town.
The women discuss disappearances, and we understand how the town’s ripe position on the border promotes human trafficking. The men flirt with Veska and apologize for being “raunchy,” as she teases them and flirts back. Gradually, she discovers the criminal network’s theft of diesel, a payment needing to be made and the conflict between two criminal leaders vying for each other’s turf. Certainly, the patriarchy rules the town, but Veska rises above it cannily to search for Said, alive or dead.
As Veska continues on her journey, we realize she understands and manipulates the groups and can do this because fundamentally she participates in some way. As an observant anti-hero, she keeps a compromised morality and avoids sanctimonious self-righteousness to survive. Rather than to take the moral high ground, she blends in and gets along. If necessary, regarding the men in her past, apparently she used them sexually and allowed them to use her. In fact romantically she hooked up with one of the mafia locals. However, when another, younger group of men warn her to stop nosing around, she “plays it close to the vest” and leaves.
With each encounter, Grisebach ratchets up the tension. Hearing about about a package mentioned in conversation, Veska cleverly follows up and finds a gun and stashes it in her car. It comes in handy when a drunk young woman, followed by a group of young men after they leave a party, gets into a dicey situation. Veska safeguards her, a protector figure, challenging our impressions of her.
Toward the conclusion of Veska’s journey digging up the crime syndicate, our expectations twist once more toward surprise. Indeed, to help Said’s financial situation, she gives herself over to an unlikely, unappealing crony of the criminal network. Grisebach turns the idea of a romantic, sexual encounter Hollywood style on its head. Instead, she crafts the situation between Veska and the crony, both older adults, not typically visited by filmmakers, into a realistic encounter. The scenes are refreshing, unexpected. Somehow Veska seems all the more attractive in comparison to her sexual partner. Memorable irony.
By the conclusion we discover Veska literally and figuratively “comes out on top.” After an adventurous time, she finds her man, Said, and their exchange ends in the next encounter they have with each other, which we never get to see. Grisebach concludes in Svilengrad as if nothing really happened. Everything stays covered up with lives on the border who struggle to survive.
Grisebach gives an amazing portrait of a time place and characters which are more real than most films could ever achieve. For the write up at NYFF 2026 go to their website https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/the-dreamed-adventure/ Look for it on streaming online platforms.
‘Behemoth!’ With Pedro Pascal at NYFF 2026
How long does it take to work through one’s upbringing and create one’s own identity? Can one ever get off the train of unreconciled emotions and take control instead of playing the passive voyeur? Writer/director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) answers these questions by investigating Alex Serian’s (Pedro Pascal) life in Behemoth!. The comedic drama made its World Premiere as the Centerpiece film at the 64th NYFF.
With a superb performance that only Pascal can give, Behometh! draws in its audience with vignettes scored by nine of the industry’s stellar composers. Uniquely constructed like a symphony with movements, the film explores seminal moments in the cellist’s familial and romantic life. Each composer scores a different vignette/scene. Threaded together the scenes represent dramatic turning points key to Alex’s emotional upheaval in a flashback retrospective. Cleverly, Gilroy intercuts these events with Alex’s present. In a fascinating twist, the music, like a defining character, reveals Alex’s emotional and mental state during the various vignettes.
Initially, Gilroy shows Alex in Los Angeles where he joins the orchestra on a sound stage and meets old friends to record Hollywood film scores. There, we discover he also must resolve family business because his mother has dementia and can’t adequately care for herself. In the present while Alex plays film scores, Alex flashes back to the past in his mind, his loves, family arguments, his regrets. Indeed, he attempts to reconcile his emotional angst through his vigorous playing. Ironically, the film the Hollywood orchestra scores syncs with events in Alex’s remembrances. In parallel when he plays the film scores, he superimposes them on his memories. In effect he scores his own life in Behemoth! whose title symbolizes not only himself but a new family member.
With care Gilroy intercuts Alex playing the exciting, dramatic, calm, frightening music from the film scores in the present with Alex’s chaotic past. Thus, Behemoth!’s narrative can’t be linear. It follows the music he plays as the engineers record the film scores on the LA soundstage and the remembered events his mind reconstructs. In the flashback vignettes/scenes, we learn why Alex escaped to LA. Alex left his position with an orchestra in Chicago to escape a disastrous affair with the obsessed wife of the orchestra’s philanthropist.
A terrific and terrifying Olivia Wilde stalks and haunts Alex in a masterful portrayal of a privileged woman who never takes “no”for an answer. With humor and horror, Wilde’s Alex-possessed character runs amuck to keep Alex as hers. Instead of pressing charges for her stalking, or getting a court order against her, Alex runs away, an ineffectual response. Gilroy has her unexpectedly pop up, sometimes with shock and awe. The accompanying music to the frantic scenes of Alex running from her and from other situations expresses his panic and fear. Gilroy’s rapid editing and close-ups of Alex/Pascal’s face as he escapes draw in the audience to his personal inner struggle.
During various flashbacks, we learn about Alex’s identity as a former child prodigy from an old video clip friends watch when he performed on the Johnny Carson show as a kid. Apparently, music centers his life but he lives in the shadow of a storied musical family. His emotional chaos has him travel as an itinerant cellist, escaping to different cities and women. Thus, this state distracts him from his true potential. His abilities, characterized by love Nadia Hynes (Eva Victor) as a ” monster,” he should realize. However, he doesn’t. Thus, Nadia packs up and leaves their relationship after calling him out for his passivity and unreliability. However, theirs turns out to be a key relationship which Gilroy reveals at the conclusion as a surprise.
During the collection of original music compositions for Behemoth!, we understand that the music accompanies and comments upon Alex’s desire for balance and peace from his torments. Additionally, it resonates with beauty, for Alex receives healing and redemption from the music that builds to an epiphany. The nine composers include Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, Michael Abels, Emily Bear, Lukas Frank, Henry Jackman, Nami Melumad, Brandon Roberts and Alan Silvestri. Additionally, NYFF 2026 featured excerpts from the score during intervals in festival moments.
Gilroy’s Behemoth! celebrates the power of music in a love letter to those who make music and uplift our souls. Recognizing the nine composers of the film, their work highlights an incredible score which should be nominated for awards. Additionally, the ensemble work by Eva Victor, Alexa Swinton, Will Arnett and others helps to make this unique, elegant film by Gilroy a standout.
Behemoth! will screen in select theaters beginning on December 4, 2026. For the NYFF schedule see possible release of tickets on their site https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/behemoth/
‘Dia de los Muertos’ at New York Botanical Garden
Celebration of Memory, Life and Renewal at NYBG: October 3 through November 2, 2026.
Ofrenda and Table of Remembrance
For the holiday of remembrance and return, the Garden celebrates the memory of loved ones during a joyful tribute of vibrant, gorgeous artistic floral installations with music and craft programs. Look to celebrate family ancestors and fall’s lush beauty on select days. First, visit the ofrenda (altar of remembrance) near the entrance to the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden.
Just before the entrance to the journey of joy in the Everett Children’ Adventure Garden, visit the colorful, large multi-tiered community ofrenda (altar of remembrance). There, visitors may share pictures of loved ones and write notes remembering loved ones. Bronx artist from Mexico, Blanka Amezkua, curated the top three tiers of the ofrenda. the large bottom two tiers allow visitors to add their own items of meditation and reflections, either from home or created at the Garden with elements from a nearby Remembrance Table.
Enter the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden for Dia de los Muertos Fun
The Garden’s celebration of Day of the Dead takes visitors on a journey. Papel picado banners guide guests though a lovely landscape filled with representations of the celebration: marigolds, calaveras, pumpkins, gourds, flowers, spirit guide alebrijes of Mexican folk art that accompany souls.
Journey through the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden for Dia de los Muertos
Alebrijes lead the way
Look out for monarch butterflies, calaveras and marigolds
Enjoy encounters with artfully arranged calaveras (brightly decorated skulls and aluminum skeletons)
LA CATRINA
Posada created the figure around 1910–1913 as La Calavera Garbancera. La Catrina reminds us that we must not be presumptuous about wealth, status, money, power. Underneath the fine clothes and sophistication we are skeletons.
Views of La Catrina as a key symbol of Dia de los Muertos
A figure of hope and truth, La Catrina reveals death as a part of the life cycle. She is represented expressing joy, humor, and elegance. She manifests the spirit of Dia de los Muertos as families honor their ancestors. La Catrina is a symbol of Mexican pride in its meld of indigenous and European heritage. La Catrina has become a global symbol of Mexican art and traditio
November 1st celebrants may join the Dia de los Muertos Parade, led by musicians, dancers and larger-than-life puppets featuring La Catrina, calaveras and monarch butterflies. You will experience live performances, dance instruction, cultural activities, crafts, food offerings and communal remembrance. The parade begins at 2 pm, Sunday, November 1, 2026. November2, 2026 is the last day to bring a photo or other memorabilia and put it on the ofrenda. Make sure you have copies. The Garden will not be able to return it.
Check the Garden website periodically for updates on activities. https://www.nybg.org/
‘NAZA’ a Documentary Beyond Shocking at NYFF 2026
Directed by two of the co-directors of the 2024 Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s latest film NAZA places Israel’s responsibility for the mass murder of innocent Palestinians in Gaza front and center. NAZA which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month made its North American premiere in the Main Slate section of the 64th New York Film Festival.
Though Israeli leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu have vilified the filmmakers and threatened to revoke their Israeli citizenship for treason, “the Guardian will make NAZA available for global audiences for free.” After its theatrical run, they will “release NAZA via theguardian.com in late November as part of its commitment to fearless, independent journalism.”
The International Federation of Journalists report that the war or genocide in Gaza (the term depends upon whom you speak to) is the deadliest conflict for media professionals ever. In fact reports state that around 247-260 journalists have been killed since October 7, 2023. Because much of what has been happening in Gaza has been censored, journalists face the pressure of jail or death for writing or photographing what goes on there. In other words, Israel has established a punishing media blackout while affirming its democracy.
Knowing theirs and their subjects lives’ would be in danger, Abraham and Szor decided to report on the knowledge that global journalists and the global flotillas that tried to bring aid to the starving Palestinians already possess. So they risked their lives to get the information past Israel’s fierce media blackout. They did this knowing Israel’s leaders banned the use of the word genocide and persuaded countries like the UK and US to label as antisemitism anyone calling out Israel for its Gaza genocide. Indeed, Israel’s stance has been if massacres of families, men, women and children in the thousands happened, war/combat justified their deaths.
Thus, the filmmakers counted the cost as they canvassed individuals who corroborated and testified to atrocities happening in Gaza numbering over 100. But these were used as leads and for triangulated testimony. In this process of investigative journalism filmmakers wanted an insiders’ perspective to ring out loudly and clearly. They wanted those who agreed to go on record.
Why? Because it would be much more difficult to dismiss and deny insider whistleblowers who would describe their AI bombing technology like “Where’s Daddy” or “Lavender.” It would be harder to propagandize elite military confessing their feelings about killing innocents referred to as NAZA, a Hebrew military acronym for Nezek Agavi. NAZA translates to “collateral damage” or the estimated number of civilian deaths accepted during a military strike. Rather than use the words “baby,” “mother,” “children,” “old people,” NAZA became the preferred word to desensitize those giving the go ahead to bomb a building with numbers of civilians not in active combat against the IDF.
But how does one secure elite Israeli intelligence officials and military personnel to report on the AI technological systems and AI programs used to systematically hunt down, then bomb NAZA at night when they are at home?
On a fact finding mission, the film builds “on revelations first published by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, and the Guardian between 2023 and 2025.” Promising to protect their sources typical of investigative journalists, Abraham and Szor elicited 24 elite Israeli military officers to become whistleblowers. Maintaining their subjects’ anonymity, the filmmakers disguised their voices and placed them in shadows and darkness with only their outlines showing. As a backdrop, Szor and Abraham filmed the perpetrators of war crimes as Abraham interviewed them on the rooftops of buildings in Tel Aviv.
Symbolically, they shoot the footage of these 24 confessors and their interviewer against the beautifully modern, city lighted at night. Tel Aviv’s name in Hebrew means “white city.” Filmmakers include archived clips of the city “built on the sand” founded in 1909 by the Rothschild family and others.
The elite intelligence agents testified for various reasons. Some confessed out of curiosity or to be in a film. Others answer Abraham’s questions to promote themselves. As you listen to their testimonies you hear their emotions and attitudes. Some boast about enjoying killing as part of an elite, specially selected group with a vital mission.
Initially, right after the Hamas attack, the officers relished bombing Palestinians. Increasingly, they used AI technology. All Palestinians surveilled 24/7 via their phones had listed addresses and could be targeted down to the floor their apartments occupied to the number of people in the apartments. According to the intel officers, those in Gaza knew and know Israeli intel surveils them. At times these elites stated that from their screens hunting down their “prey” felt like a video game. However, as time progressed and these elite officers became self-aware, their attitudes changed and some regretted what they did.
The self-aware military intel talk to expiate their guilt. Interestingly, after the repetition of deaths in the thousands as the killings continue to this day, the subjects admit to making mistakes and to the AI programs making mistakes. For example sometimes no one from Hamas occupied the building. Only NAZA occupied the building. Whether 10 or 5 or 13, whether children or grandparents, aunts or uncles, the elite intel agent gave the order to bomb the NAZA, quantifiable as acceptable collateral damage. Daily killings happened regardless of Palestinian culpability whether Hamas were present or not. At the end one of the elite military whistleblowers calls what they did and still do a genocide.
Having written articles for the Guardian, and Palestinian outfits +972 Magazine and Local Call Abraham felt that live testimony by those elite officials systematically bombing neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street would explicitly define what Israeli leaders refused to characterize as anything but self-defense.
At times Szor’s cinematography picks up interiors of Israelis who enjoy enjoy dinner in their apartments with family, or watch the TV news. Obviously, they took this footage before Donald Trump illegally declared war (bypassing Congress) on Iran because Tel Aviv has been bombed and hundreds of Israelis have left the country. These facts Israel censors. However, the filmmakers’ edits contrasting Israelis enjoying their evenings at home versus the bombed Palestinians surrounded by rubble, their homes annihilated, stuns. We see how The Israeli government affords peace and comfort to one group at night while these elite military officers explain that they go on night hunts to kill because that is maybe when Hamas can be found with family.
One elite official proud of his stature and mission says “We bomb at night. That’s when they’re at home.” But we learn from the elite remote bombing squad that often, they missed the Hamas individual. Identifying how many NAZA occupy the building, the elite squad kills anyway because they have achieved an acceptable limit of NAZA. Regardless, Palestinians die; that is the point.
Importantly, the dispassionate, unloaded term NAZA objectifies children, mothers, aunts, fathers, family. Conveniently, it depersonalizes the empathy of elite intel officers. To form an expert killing machine, the term NAZA works to dehumanize. It also works as a film title to expose a genocide from the perspectives of elite military officers willing to go on the record to explain the systematic annihilation.
For the write-up at the NYFF 2026 go to https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/naza/
Sandra Hüller’s Astonishing Portrayal in ‘Rose’ at NYFF 2026
Starring Sandra Hüller, the film Rose, a haunting, historic drama with modern thematic overtones, made its New York Premiere in the Main Slate category at the 64th New York Film Festival. Unique, stark and boldly directed by Markus Schleinzer, he and co-writer Alexander Brom set the narrative in the 17th century. The story follows Rose, who fought as a soldier during the thirty years war in Europe.
Normally, women didn’t go into battle which was forbidden for them. However, Rose, disguised as a man, got away with her deception. We discover later she binds her breasts to flatten them. At times when she could be discovered, she wears a contraption which suggests male genitalia.
Throughout the stress to be careful to avoid discovery, Rose risked life and limb because of the autonomy and power she had as a soldier. As a result, she has the audacity and courage to continue masking her gender after leaving the battlefield. When she presents papers of inheritance and takes possession of a derelict, run-down property in a remote Protestant Village, she does so as a man. Clearly, the time and place dictate her choice and afford her the opportunity of a new independence. She will be beholden to no one, not to her commander, nor company nor comrades. Finally, “wearing the pants” places her beyond the oppression of a husband.
Told as a parable by a narrator (the effecting Marisa Growdalt) in voice over, Rose’s intriguing story gradually unfolds with very little dialogue by the characters in short, uncomplicated descriptions. Likewise, Rose says little, laconic, perceptive, present, careful. Without embellishment the narrator’s revelations and subsequent scenes in black, white and grey instruct its watchers without moralizing or preaching, Thus, unobtrusively, Schleinzer allows his camera to fall in love with the brave Rose as he follows her story through inspiration, hope and devastation.
Shepherding the talents and perceptions of the incredible, affecting Hüller, Schleinzer explores this character Rose whom we cheer on as she makes a new life for herself as a farmer starting from scratch. With her beauty deranged and disfigured from a bullet that tore through her face, her femininity disappeared. As a badge of honor Rose carries the bullet, flattened from impact, on a chain around her neck. From time to time she savors it in her mouth, a reminder she made it out alive and this might be a second chance for her. What she does, seems to be figuratively and literally biting the bullet on the razor’s edge to keep up the ruse.
Nevertheless, familiar with how to deceive numbers of men while she fought next to them, and saw them die, that experience in duplicity and bravery served her well. She knows how to keep her head down and take possession of land in a country she defended for years. Schleinzer never reveals her past other than her disfigurement and soldiering. One step ahead of the townspeople, we do know her gender, but must fill in the gaps of missing information making assumptions about her.
Thus, the mysterious stranger who hires townspeople to help with the farm, gradually makes her way through their suspicions and breaks them down so they accept her, when they once thought her a “misfit.” Ambitious and able, Rose restores the house and barn, managing her helpers who respect her. When her neighbors have trouble during a storm, she allows them to use her barn to protect their sheep. In another instance, Rose kills a bear and saves the life of a towns person. Her reputation becomes mythic. Hard working, dutiful to God, attending church and being a good neighbor, the townspeople trust her as one of them.
Two turning points occur which ratchet up the humor and the suspense and bring Rose’s secret defiance of an oppressive and judgmental patriarchal system to bear. In a negotiation with her neighbor to buy land and his stream, he tells Rose she can have access to his stream only if she marries his daughter Suzanna (Caro Braun). Interestingly, Rose takes the risk of marrying and being found out with a clever twist. After the marriage she tells the father that the most important quality is the sanctity of Suzanna’s virginity and she will preserve it.
However, the father insists the lineage be carried on along with the inheritance, so Rose does her duty. Schleinzer reveals this in the shadows. Somehow, Rose convinces Suzanna their marriage has been consummated. But one day Suzanna shows up pregnant to Rose’s great surprise. How did it happen? How much does Suzanna know or suspect? Suzanna keeps that secret and we, like Rose, can only surmise she committed incest with her father or was with someone else. Importantly, in a silent agreement between them, Rose has managed to convince Suzanna of the benefits of protecting their relationship. However, both women don’t discuss who the real father of the child is.
Life progresses with happiness after the child’s birth, then tragedy strikes their sweet family unit. In attempting to work on their beehive, the bees sting Rose and she collapses. In the process of ministering to her, the maid notes Rose’s gender. When Rose recovers she reveals the truth to Suzanna and their friendship deepens with understanding. Rose gives Braun’s Suzanna a choice to leave or stay. In Suzanna’s choice, we note she prefers freedom and safety, experiencing independence and the privileges of self identity she never would have as a husband’s chattel. Thus, she keeps Rose’s secret and they live in harmony, but the narrator warns of trouble ahead.
Schleinzer maintains a unity of dramatic elements throughout with quiet calm in keeping with the structure and grace of the parable. Thus, the most violent scene that occurs is the confrontation scene among the townspeople, Rose and Suzaanna. As both women attempt to dismiss the “rumors” and maid’s testimony, Hüller’s Rose explodes with justification. She questions the humanity of the people who once respected and grew close to her. It’s the first time she gives voice and power to her feelings. Ironically, it is as if she comes face to face with the inexorable fate of slavish womanhood in that century. This is the reason why she ran away to be a soldier rather than be the demeaned, objectified hausfrau. Can her words change their minds?
Braun and Hüller create an, unforgettable, breathtaking scene. We hope for the women whose sin was to want what the men and thereby women forbade them to have: their own created identity. However, it cannot be. They must be punished for their crimes. And though they attempt escape, they are captured, put on trial, found guilty and are punished.
Rather than to have a horrifyingly, brutal,visually numbing conclusion, Schleinzer allows the narrator with as few words as possible to tell Suzanna’s and Rose’s tragic fate. In her narration it feels like an understatement, but Schleeinzer’s choice to keep it simple and brief sharpens our empathy. By siphoning off the dramatic, the spare description of what happened is more heartbreaking. and powerful. Ahead of their time, they don’t belong. The townspeople enslaved to that time and place cannot allow them to leave or live in a peace they create for themselves, despite the fact that they hurt no one. Theirs is an offense worse than murder.
Rose will be at NYFF 2026 until October 7, 2026. https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/rose/ Look for it in theaters on December 11, 2026, and later on streaming platforms.
Adam Driver, Miles Teller, Scarlett Johansson in ‘Paper Tiger’ at NYFF 2026
Written and directed by James Grey, Paper Tiger, the opening night film at the 64th New York Film Festival, investigates the boundaries of family love and responsibility. Factoring in autobiographical elements and powerful emotions from his own life Grey elevates an ordinary family to myth and tragedy.
With a classicism and nuanced style found in his Armageddon Time and other films, Grey places his characters in a crucible. He allows them to be caught up in the inexorable fates unraveling from their soul flaws. The resulting heroes journey tests their inner strength toward making hard decisions that may jeopardize their own lives. Either they they bow down like cowards, run away, or make a noble sacrifice for others.
Grey’s oeuvre leads with a title screen in black and white of a quote from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. “Let there be wealth without tears; enough for the wise man who will ask no further.” Ah, but in the oligarchic driven economy of the United States, historically captivated by the American Dream of wealth “fit for a king,” is enough ever enough?
The quote infers one of the themes of Paper Tiger as an object lesson. In its exploration Grey proves the quote’s substance by examining the story of Pearl brothers Irwin (Miles Teller) and Gary (Adam Driver). Together, they embark on a project to make substantial money by cleaning up the Gowanus Canal. For Gary a former NYPD cop who works as a consultant, the money would get him though his financially draining divorce. For Irwin, the money would pay for their sons’ college, a lifestyle his sons and wife would respect, and a possible move to Great Neck where it’s safer. Also, the brothers would be working together, something they discussed for years, with Irwin, a civil engineer, providing the expertise and Gary providing the contacts.
Instead, of Gary’s contacts working seamlessly, the former cop, out of touch with the current NYC crime scene, naively hasn’t vetted the people they plan to work for. Unwittingly he entangles them in a scheme that involves a front man who covers for a global criminal network. The pursuit of more wealth, an evanescent dream, unearths the flaws in the Pearl brothers’ characters. Ironically, ego and a sub rosa competition with each other, stoked by Irwin’s sons, lead to their downfall. Thus, the comfortable family dynamic we note in the beginning of the film turns upside down. This occurs after a disastrous event that Irwin triggers. In fact he causes a devastating harm from which they will never recover.
Grey superbly lands this tragedy by making it intimate and personal. Beginning with the summer of 1986, Grey’s attention to various details and the film shot in 35 mm suggests the seediness and decay suffusing the neglected boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. In the city’s dark underbelly, where most of the action takes place, the rot and corruption sloughs off from illustrious Manhattan, the embodiment of the illusory American Dream.
Meanwhile, the Reagan administration, servicing the millionaire corporate class, is in the process of giving amnesty to an influx of illegal immigrants, many of whom are Brighton Beach Russians that are part of the Russian mob. It is these individuals Gary and Irwin attempt to work with, though the immigrants have no intention of cleaning up environmental pollution.
Contrasting the homely scenes of the Pearl family around dinner and breakfast against the dark murderous criminals dumping toxic waste into the canal, Grey heightens the film’s suspense. The sinister evil spills onto the family like a toxic acid. When Irwin mistakenly ignores Gary’s guidance and with pride takes his sons to see his new job site, he opens them up to danger. Two menacing thugs threaten Irwin’s sons in a terrifying car scene.
The acting is so well done, we consider that no child or teenager should have to experience such threats of violence. How they won’t come out without PTSD would be a miracle. This disaster, the wussiness of Irwin’s response and the fury of wife Linda (Scarlett Johansson) metastasizes. As the suspense builds chilling the audience to the bone with a home invasion of the Pearl family’s safety and sanctity, nebbishy Irwin and his medically compromised Linda come undone.
Unless the once competent Gary comes to the rescue, his assurances that the owner of the clean-up company is just a “paper tiger” (whose growl hides empty threats) are useless. On a fact finding mission to end the brutal intimidation, Gary runs head on into a brick wall that leaves him and the family bloodied with no way out. To make matters worse his friends at the NYPD and FBI tell him times have changed and they are all over their heads with the Russian global crime syndicate that makes the Genoveses look like pussycats. If this is the result of Reagan’s glasnost and the promise of amnesty for immigrants, who needs it?
The pressure intensifies when Irwin rejects Gary as family, then excludes him from his son’s graduation party. Obviously, Irwin’s pride of ego ignores his own accountability, failures, and jealousy of his brother as he projects his own foibles onto Gary. At that juncture Irwin humiliates himself and becomes the equivalent of a fussy, human worm. But only the audience notes what goes down in the argument between the brothers in a superbly acted scene between Driver and Teller. Grey heightens that personal intimacy when Gary, alone in his car, responds emotionally to the disastrous events that he promised Irwin he would clean up to stop the Russian mob terrorizing their family.
The question then becomes what must be done? The inevitability of that answer is both heartbreaking and hopeful in a conclusion that masterfully identifies the silent heroes, and proves, perhaps in the Pearl family, there are no paper tigers.
On a broader scale Grey’s storytelling references the 1980s as a deflection point in New York, the city of the world. In Grey’s Paper Tiger, the Russian global criminal network will stop at nothing to insure immunity for the harmful consequences effected during their unlawful pursuit of money and power. From Grey’s 1980s Reaganesque microcosm, evolved shadows of what we see today in a MAGA macrocosm: a proliferation of global terrorist criminal corporate cabals which own the US congress, the Executive and Judicial Branches and prevent justice in what has become an American nightmare for all but 1000 in the multi-millionaire/billionaire class.
Paper Tiger will be in select theaters in the United States on November 13, 2026, before expanding to a wide release on November 20. It’s a terrific film not to be missed. For information about NYFF 2026: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=1050493904
Jean-Michel Basquiat Celebrated, ‘In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat’
Who better to memorialize the artistic genius Jean-Michel Basquiat than a friend and a fellow creative Black performer who hung around with him in Venice, California? In his mesmerizing one man show at New York Theatre Workshop, Roger Guenveur-Smith cobbles together a thematically, ordered, series of stylized vignettes and images of his encounters, impressions and insights against the quixotic philosophical street wisdom of Basquiat. Importantly, Guenveur-Smith quietly illuminates Basquiat as a maverick and icon in the pantheon of Black artists/musicians running up against the annihilating, pathological, racist dynamic of white American culture. This is a necessary reckoning if we consider the current sociopolitical climate and thus, a must-see show.
The Obie Award-winning actor, playwright and director’s solo presentation follows his acclaimed sold-out run during Under the Radar Festival earlier in the year. As a testament to Guenveur-Smith’s profound, personal work about Basquiat and his legacy, the production has once more connected with audiences whose enthusiasm prompted its extension until October 10, 2026.
Accompanied with superb live sound design by Marc Anthony Thompson, and Ario Sanders’ atmospheric, symbolic lighting design, the 1 hour show zips by leaving one wishing for more. Standing barefoot in a natty suit, on a bare stage against the backstage wall a doorway reveals an intriguingly beautiful, mysterious space behind the performer.
At the mic Guenveur-Smith infuses his poetic delivery with an accompanying choreography of subtle movements. At times his subject possesses him and Basquiat’s presence feels palpable. The audience becomes fully immersed in the colors of sound and words melding in nuanced rhymes and rhythms. The immersion is a subtle plunge.
Gradually, the solo performer draws in the audience after he expresses the wisdom and encouragement his father gave him when he launched his own career as an actor. The father humorously reminds his son of the “challenges” (understatement) of Black identity. “You think you’re so goddamn clever/ You know if Van Gogh was Negro/He would have cut off more than his ear.” Also, his dad infers the commercial world’s exploitation. “Hell that boy didn’t live long enough/To see his shit really sell.” In an auction vignette Guenveur-Smith ironically conducts the auction for Basquiat’s “Untitled” which sold for $110.5 million dollars.
And, the father chides son Roger, “You go ahead, be an actor/But you’ll never act yourself out of this coffin called the US of A.” Finally, with love he uplifts him. “Be the best actor you can possibly be/And before it’s all over son, why don’t you act something out for your friend Jean-Michel and for me.”
Unlike Van Gogh, Basquiat did see his success translate into wads of money which he preferred as cash. Unfortunately, it sped him more quickly to his death which Guenveur-Smith narrowly pinpoints then moves on to more lyricism. The money afforded Basquiat greater access to heroin and an overdose at an age Basquiat uncannily predicted on canvas when he was twenty-one-years old.
Guenveur Smith’s lyrical account is a vibrant vision of the man whose candle lit up the skies then was extinguished by his own hands in 1988 when Basquiat was twenty-seven. Initially, the two met at an L.A. dance hall in 1982. Guenveur Smith, rapping under the name “Hollywatts” (Hollywood and Watts), hooked up with Basquiat at his career’s first blossoming.
Rather than examine the artist’s place in Neo-expressionism or define him as an appendage of Andy Warhol, Guenveur-Smith uniquely personalizes his friend with compelling metaphoric images that stick in one’s mind. For example when he and Baquiat met, he thought he was just “a cool kid with an electronic hairdo.” He didn’t know Basquiat was “incognegro numero uno writing acrylic poems and philosophy on concrete walls and canvas and refrigerator doors.” Together they see Martin Scorsese’s King of Comedy walking in late to the balcony moving in front of the projectionist. “His dreads are projected in silhouette onto the screen, obscuring Robert DeNiro and Jerry Lewis/The crowd is very confused then very amused/The King of Comedy crowned.”
Additionally, Guenveur-Smith punches up events and people in ironic synchronicity with Basquiat’s life. In 1960, the only survivor of a plane crash, a young “white boy burned black,” having fallen from the plane remarks that the city “looked like a magic fairyland.” Then he dies in the same Brooklyn hospital where three days after Basquiat is born. Hit by a car, Basquiat, a child, loses his spleen the same year Andy Warhol, shot by radical feminist Valarie Solanas, loses his. Basquiat’s father comes to Brooklyn in 1955, the same year Emmett Till was savagely murdered, the same year the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series on the backs of Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella.
The synced parallels continue throughout as touchstones centering Basquiat in time and out of time in this memorial. A history of Black musicians, singers, some of whom they listened to as Hollywatts rapped and Basquiat threw down on whatever medium he liked are referenced. These honorable mentions include everyone from Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Lady Day, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane and many more. Guenveur-Smith makes sure to indicate that the best of them took a stint in mental institutions or rehab centers. It’s part of the landscape of white American culture’s deadliness Guenveu-Smith’s father referred to earlier.
As Guenveur-Smith threads together stories of Black artists and activists, he intersects them with Basquiat. Basquiat’s father said he “Never needed a mic to politicize or a machete, but still he was a soldier.” This is especially so in Basquiat’s work Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart). Guenveur-Smith starkly describes the murder of Michael Stewart by MTA police with searing detail. It’s a lynching that brought no accountability to the officers. Recognizing that Stewart, the graffiti artist and model, could “have been him,” Basquiat gives homage to Michael Stewart in his acrylic marker on wood painting. After Guenveur-Smith’s jarring description, he revisits memories that inspired his own character “Smiley” in Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing.
Guenveur-Smith concludes his en memoriam as it should in a celebration of Basquiat’s legacy forever tied with a nation that looks to his astonishing work sometimes with apprehension but mostly with pure joy.
In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat runs one hour with no intermission at New York Theatre Workshop. https://www.nytw.org/show/basquiat/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=24057584595
