The Vontrapp children from The Sound of Music
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu
Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu
Although The Sound of Music didn’t play at the 1965 New York Film Festival, it nevertheless says it best: so long, farewell. We bid you adieu until next year, but before you go and “leave this pretty sight” you've got one more chance to take in some of the best films of the 2012 festival.
Two Masterworks are bound to surprise and enlighten: Re-Introducing Marnie and Richard III. Writer William Rothman has a lot to say on Alfred Hitchcock’s last masterpiece, Marnie. It’s another psychological thriller, starring that wonderful Tippi Hedren and charming Sean Connery, but it’s distinct from Hitchcock’s previous thrillers because it delves deeper into the female psyche than even Hitchcock’s most notorious Vertigo. Why is Marnie so afraid of thunderstorms? Why does she hate men and the color red? All this uncovered, and more, with Rothman as guide. On the flip side, Laurence Olivier’s Richard III screens at 3:00pm with an introduction from none other than Martin Scorsese. With a fantastic British ensemble including John Gielgud (The Elephant Man), Claire Bloom (The King’s Speech), Ralph Richardson (Doctor Zhivago), Stanley Baker (The Guns of Navarone), and Olivier in an Oscar-nominated role, Richard III will be shown in fully restored Technicolor from the original VistaVision negative. It’s a wonderful way to send off the 50th New York Film Festival. Rush tickets available!
Kevin Funk's Saint Pierre
Sunday is also the day of two Shorts Programs. Offering up 12 short films, the two Shorts Programs have something for everyone. Program 1 features Crescendo, about a piano’s intervention into a music-less life; Up the Valley and Beyond (with filmmaker Todd Rosken in person), about sexploitation; A Story for the Modlins, about a peculiar American family; A Brief History of John Baldessari (with filmmaker Henry Joost in person), about, well, Baldessari; Saint Pierre, about a dishwasher’s dreams; and Frank-Etienne in which Gérard Depardieu plays a sad sack traveling salesman.
Program 2 features Curfew, about babysitting; Things I Heard on Wednesdays, a nostalgic look at family and national history; Night Shift, about a girl’s new job on the airport night cleaning crew; Zombie, a young boy’s coming to terms with his grandfather’s aging; Nothing Can Touch Me, about a teenager seeking vengeance (with filmmaker Milad Alami in person); and Kavinsky, about a first-date. Program 1 starts at 1:00pm and Program 2 at 3:30pm. Rush tickets available!
Following Richard and Marnie is another round of Cinéastes/Cinema of Our Time with Erich von Stroheim, one of the few Cinéastes about a filmmaker unavailable for an interview. Von Stroheim is known as “the man you love to hate” for frequently being cast as a German villain. Despite that sobriquet, he is also the man you should love to love. After all, where would the world be without Beethoven in Napoléon, Dr. Andre Crespi in The Crime of Dr. Crespi or Max Von Mayerling in Sunset Blvd, or his direction in Greed, The Merry Widow or The Wedding March? This is a can’t-miss Cinéastes, especially with rush tickets available. Two other Cinéastes round out the festival with Eric Rohmer, Evidence and Jean-Pierre Limosin’s Alain Cavalier: 7 Chapters, 5 Days, 2 Kitchens (rush available), about Cavalier’s career, which began big and has become intimate.
For the Main Slate the final day consists of Tabu at noon and The Dead Man and Being Happy at 3:00pm. If you’ve missed Miguel Gomes’ Tabu’s previous screenings here’s another chance to catch what The New Yorker calls “a brilliantly nuanced, deeply imagined psycho-excavation of modern Europe.” Balancing that comes Javier Rebollo’s third feature, The Dead Man and Being Happy, about a cancerous hit man who sets off on one last assignment. It's screwball comedy and road movie at, perhaps, it’s best. Rush tickets available to both films!
Then finish the festival (and the day) with Robert Zemeckis’ grand return to live-action, and see the World Premiere of our Closing Night film Flight. Starring Denzel Washington as a pilot who crash lands a plane after an all night no-holds-bard party, which stirs up moral and legal turmoil when he is heralded as a hero. Flight is a thrilling look at addiction and the ambiguities of life. Co-starring John Goodman, Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo, and Kelly Reilly, Flight is edgy and exciting and the perfect note on which to end the historic 50th edition of the New York Film Festival.
Full Schedule:
Main Slate:

12:00pm – Tabu (Rush Available)
3:00pm – The Dead Man and Being Happy ​(Rush Available)
6:00pm – Flight (Standby Only)
6:15pm – Flight
6:30pm – Flight

9:00pm – Flight
9:15pm – Flight
9:30pm – Flight
NYFF Shorts Program:
1:00pm – NYFF Shorts Program 1 ​(Rush Available)
3:30pm – NYFF Shorts Program 2 ​(Rush Available)
Masterworks:
11:30am – Re-Introducing Marnie: William Rothman on Hitchcock’s Last Masterpiece
3:00pm – Richard III ​(Rush Available)
Cinéastes/Cinema of Our Time:
11:00am – Eric Rohmer, Evidence
1:30pm – Erich von Stroheim ​(Rush Available)
3:45pm – Alain Cavalier: 7 Chapters, 5 Days, 2 Kitchens ​(Rush Available)
