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A Stephin Merritt-Presented Film Series
With an appearance by the Magnetic Fields frontman himself
Stephin Merritt (Photo: abbyladybug, via Flickr)
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Stephin Merritt, lead singer/genius of the Magnetic Fields, and I have so much in common. We both interned at Time Out New York. Well…that’s about it, considering I’m a blogger and he’s one of the greatest lyricists of all-time (yeah, I said it). He’s also quite the interesting guy, as you’ll soon see in Strange Powers (see below).
Tonight at the 92Y Tribeca is the beginning of “Gatherings at Country Houses: A Film Series Curated by Stephin Merritt,” who says, “It seems strange to me that video stores don’t have a section for Gatherings at Country Houses, because to me this is one of the best film genres, defined by its setting like the western, or backstage musical, or space opera. Most of my dreams take place in such environments, which probably explains which movies I’ve picked.”
The movies being:
And Then There Were None
October 22, 7 p.m.
An iconic country-house mystery by Dame Agatha, in which the house has an island to itself, where someone is picking off the colorful characters one by one. The house seems to have been built for this very purpose (shades of H.H. Holmes), which makes the house arguably the real killer.
(Merritt is introducing And Then in person)
Chinese Roulette
October 22, 9 p.m.
One of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s most sadistic movies, as his camera whirls tauntingly around the actors and glass cabinets while they play elaborate psychological games (onscreen and off) in a mansion so bleak it looks like an indictment of something… but what?
Smiles of a Summer Night
October 23, 6 p.m.
The bubbly basis for A Little Night Music (currently enjoying a Broadway revival) is not your typical Bergman film, but it was his first international hit and unlike his dozens of tragedies has never gone out of fashion. Its Wildean dialogue and stylized acting make it more like a play than a movie, but it’s really all about the sets.
The Draughtsman’s Contracts
October 23, 8:15 p.m.
Peter Greenaway’s first feature stars the exquisite manor and endless garden rather than the poor actors, who are got up in ludicrous wigs and made to proclaim absurd dialogue outlining a labyrinthine plot one needn’t try to follow, ever upstaged by Michael Nyman’s mock-classicist score
The Rules of the Game
October 24, 4 p.m.
A bittersweet upstairs-downstairs tragicomedy of love triangles at a chateau, considered the pinnacle of deep-focus action, where there are often three different events happening in three planes of the elegant scenery. It became the template for films as different as Last Year at Marienbad and Gosford Park.
Mister Lonely
October 24, 6:30 p.m.
The film parodies the idea of acting and personality itself, by making all its characters celebrity impersonators, with the inevitable identity crises, stuffed into a rambling Scottish commune with a talent show to put on and real chickens to feed. And if that isn’t a metaphor for life itself, I am Marie of Romania.
For more information, please click here.
As for Strange Powers, we’ll have more about it next week, including an interview with one of the film’s directors, Kerthy Fix, but for now know that the documentary, which follows Merritt and the Magnetic Fields for a decade, premieres at the Film Forum on Wednesday, October 27. The entire band, Fix and her co-director, Gail O’Hara, will all be on hand, too. To purchase tickets, please click here.