The Tribeca Film Festival, running April 16-27 in multiple theaters across Manhattan, is large enough to seem incohesive. Or maybe incohesiveness is the programming strategy? It’s hard to tell. Founded 13 years ago by producer Jane Rosenthal and actor Robert De Niro, it’s best thought of as the glitzier, more corporate-sponsored cousin of the New York Film Festival — the champagne to the former’s boxed wine. But if we’re being honest, champagne can be cloying, and it’s only fun to drink in small doses.
And that’s how we feel about the Tribeca Film Festival. To help out those new on the festival scene, this year we’ve provided a starting map charting some of the themes of the festival. These pairings of films, possible double-features if you choose to view them that way, offer paths to follow — films for music fans, the literary minded, those who like great narrative cinema (or at least that which is based on a book by James Franco), or documentaries that highlight the creative process.
“Time is Illmatic”
“Super Duper Alice Cooper”
Is the music documentary format is tired? It seems that every year, a new film is vying for our attention, attempting to bring a fading rock star back into the spotlight. This year, the festival presents “Super Duper Alice Cooper,” a portrait of the aforementioned shock-rock star whose more recent presence on golf courses and on reality shows has disfigured his legacy as a pioneering rock ’n’ roll performer. On the flip side, we have “Time is Illmatic,” a documentary about the rapper Nas that will bring in the hometown crowd, which is why it was selected for opening night, even if it looks like nothing more than a puff piece.
“The Kidnapping of Michel Houllebecq”
“Regarding Susan Sontag”
Famous writers take over the screen in two widely different films. “Kidnapping” is a meta-fictional comedy starring Houllebecq as himself, a controversial fiction writer who is kidnapped. The story takes a real-life scandal as its inspiration — in 2011, the writer disappeared during a book tour, and his whereabouts have never been explained. The film proposes to tell what happened, and the audience is thrown into a strangely comic farce involving a rotating cast of bumbling characters who are desperately trying to be successful criminals but failing at every turn. On the flip side, there is “Regarding Susan Sontag,” a rote informational documentary about the titular writer that covers all the main events of her life but only tangentially examines her work. The film is worth it for all the vintage footage (as well as still-image montages created by Lewis Klahr), even if the talking-head interviews are tedious.
Two docs that attempt to uncover hidden political narratives and highlight the underbelly of our current democratic system. “Newburgh Sting” focuses on an FBI plot to stop a purported terrorist attack deriving from a mosque in Newburgh, New York. There was no plot, it turned out — although you wouldn’t know it from the way former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly puffed their chests in front of cameras. “1971” tells the story of a pre-WikiLeaks group called The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, which attempted to break into a federal bureau office in Pennsylvania with the intention of stealing files and leaking them.
Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves” tells the story of eco-terrorists who plot to blow up a dam, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard. Reichardt directed “Old Joy,” “Wendy and Lucy,” and Meek’s Cutoff,” three of the best films of the last decade, so this one should be a no-brainer. “Palo Alto,” on the other hand, we’re not so sure about. It’s based on a collection of short stories by ARTINFO favorite James Franco that tackle teenage lust and ennui. It also might have been the foundation of what some seem to believe to be a recent publicity stunt by Franco, although we think he just might be a pervert.
Two films about the creative process with much different aims. “Art and Craft,” about serial art forger Mark Landis, who passes off impeccable reproductions to art institutions all over the country for the thrill, not the money, brings forward the question of authenticity in art —just because the artist makes copies does that not make him a real artist. “Ballet 422” is quite different, a process documentary not unlike the work of Frederick Wiseman that follows Justin Peck, a young choreographer for the New York City Ballet, as he constructs a new production from scratch. It’s a film that relies little on explanation — for the better — but stresses the collaborative efforts that go into making the greatest works of art.
