Thursday, June 5th
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Not even Staten Island is safe from clove-smoking cinéastes! The fifth borough has its own film festival, kicking off with Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, which we’re pretty sure we slept through once in college. Mr. Welles’ eldest daughter, Manhattanite Chris Welles Feder, introduces the film and answers questions. “I think it’s a masterful study of evil and corruption, and it really shows my father’s special gift for creating a monster,” she said when we called her up. “But then at the same time, showing him to be human, vulnerable, so that the audience sympathizes with him.” (Isn’t that always the problem, honey?) Ms. Feder added, “The film was taken away from him in the editing process, so he lost artistic control. The studio just took it away from him and just started changing all kinds of things, which was upsetting for him. He did write a very long memo, I think it was a 56-page memo, to the studio, pleading with them to respect his directorial vision for the film, but they ignored the memo.” Later the memo was recovered and the film reconstructed. Who are the modern directors Ms. Feder most admires? “I think some remarkable films are coming out of China these days,” she said. Afterward, speed back on the Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan, where it may seem like it’s gay pride month every month, but it’s actually just this month! The New York City Gay Men’s Chorus celebrates with a show, “Vibrate!”, which music director Charlie Beale explained is “an eclectic mix of music; pop, and we’re also doing some South African music”—in recognition, of course, of South Africa, where “same-sex marriage has been legal since 2006.” Mr. Beale added that his group was encouraged by the recent news from our governor. “Governor Paterson has said that he wants recognition of same-sex marriage in New York State,” said Mr. Beale. “It takes a blind man to see the light.”
[Tough of Evil screening, College of Staten Island Center for the Arts, 2800 Victory Boulevard, 2 p.m., www.sifilmfestival.org; Vibrate!, FIT’s Haft Auditorium, 27th Street and Seventh Avenue, 8 p.m., www.nycgmc.org]
mbryan@observer.com
