DAVID HOCKNEY FEATURED IN NEW DOC
British painter gets his moment in the spotlight as the subject of a new film by director Randall Wright
Hockney + Harry Benson: Shoot
First at the Bloor: Two iconic imagemakers get their due in new docs at the Bloor this week. And while the careers of both men are more than sufficiently fascinating, their many intersections with other key cultural figures and events provide these portraits with plenty of additional texture.
In the case of David Hockney — the British painter who’s feted in the new film that bears his name — those figures are the movers and shakers of the Swinging London scene in which he first emerged, as well as the Californian bohemian types he befriended after he developed a very un-English appreciation for sunshine.
Yet director Randall Wright’s film is not just a primer on Hockney’s pictures of swimming pools, his influential designs for the stage or his famous friends — it’s also a tribute to a vibrant era of gay culture that was tragically curtailed by the AIDS epidemic. (The painter later said he lost the majority of his American friends to the disease.) Featuring frank and engaging interviews with the still-spry septuagenarian artist, Hockney plays Friday to Wednesday at the Bloor.
Another new doc that plays the Bloor’s Doc Soup Sundays program,
Harry Benson: Shoot First is a reminder of the impact and intensity of Beatlemania in the mid-1960s. A Scottishborn photographer, Benson got pulled into the orbit of the Beatles when the Daily Express in London assigned him to shoot John, Paul, George and Ringo during a trip to Paris in early 1964. That visit was the beginning of a highly fruitful collaboration that yielded some of the most remarkable shots in the band’s history. Benson would photograph a whole lot more people and events during his subsequent tenure at Life magazine in the ’70s and the decades that followed (indeed, the 85-year-old is still at it). Benson and his wife Gigi Benson join producer Heather Silverman for a Skype Q&A after the screening. Purple Rain: The late, great Prince stars in Purple Rain Saturday at the Bloor cinema. DJ Moe Berg will be doing a set before the screening and there will also be a pre-show tribute. Check bloorcinema.com for tickets and screening times. Chris Ying at Food on Film: Though some of us remember Diner because of that thing with the popcorn box, Barry Levinson’s well-loved story of
six buddies in 1959 Baltimore is apparently remarkable for its culinary-related content, too. It’ll all be up for discussion when Lucky Peach editor and Zero Foodprint co-founder Chris Ying joins host Naomi Duguid to talk about the movie and sign copies of his new book after the screening on Wednesday. Michaëlle Jean: A Woman of Pur
pose: The former governor general will be present both on screen and onstage when the Bloor devotes an evening to Michaëlle Jean: A Woman
of Purpose, a new hour-long NFB documentary by her filmmaker spouse Jean-Daniel Lafond that depicts her efforts to bring change to some of the most troubled parts of the globe. Jean and Lafond join the CBC’s Anna Maria Tremonti for a
discussion after the screening Friday. Juliana Huxtable at Images Festival: A provocative artist and writer who couldn’t be any hotter in the American art world, Juliana Huxtable caps off the Images Festival this weekend with the first international presentation of There Are Certain Facts That
Cannot Be Disputed. Co-commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art and Performa, Huxtable’s piece mixes performance, poetry, music, sound and video to convey the complicated business of human evolution in the digital age.
The Power Plant is the place to be for the event and the party that follows. Ten Thousand Saints: Adapted from Eleanor Henerson’s very fine novel by the American Splendor team of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini,
Ten Thousand Saints is a family drama set against the gritty and tumultuous backdrop of New York’s hardcore-punk scene of the late 1980s. (Hence the excellent soundtrack of songs by the likes of the Replacements, Black Flag and Social Distortion.)
True Grit’s Hailee Steinfeld co-stars with Hugo’s Asa Butterfield, Ethan Hawke and Emile Hirsch in the film, which debuted at Sundance in 2015 and arrives in Toronto for a Carlton run beginning Friday.
In brief:
A hard night of partying goes very wrong (don’t they always?) for three young women in Body, an American thriller that opens for a run at the Carlton on Friday.
A1977 kung-fu classic featuring action choreography by the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping, The Invincible
Armour plays Kung Fu Fridays at the Royal on Friday.
The MUFF Society and Etheria Film Nights celebrate the achievements (?) of schlock-horror queen Jackie Kong on Friday at the Carlton.
Director Haile Gerima appears at the Lightbox to present her recently restored 1983 film Ashes and Embers, a key work in the movement of African-American filmmakers known as the L.A. Rebellion.
A sultry 1958 flick that teamed Cyd Charisse with director Nicholas Ray,
Party Girl plays the Ladies of Burlesque series at the Royal on Thursday — the night also includes a live performance by Laura Desiree.