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    Frank Wakefield, Who Expanded the Mandolin’s Range, Dies at 89

    A bluegrass innovator, he recorded numerous albums as a leader, and his list of collaborators included both Leonard Bernstein and Jerry Garcia.Frank Wakefield, an innovative bluegrass mandolinist whose sweeping musicality led to collaborations with the New York Philharmonic and Jerry Garcia, and whose unique voicings and technique expanded the parameters of his instrument, died on Friday at his home in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. He was 89.Marsha Sprintz, his companion of 47 years, said the cause was complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.In a career that spanned seven decades, Mr. Wakefield played with a host of bluegrass luminaries, including Jimmy Martin and the Stanley Brothers.He first made his mark in the early 1950s after joining a band led by the singer and guitarist Red Allen as a vocalist and mandolin player. Working in Ohio and the Upper Midwest and, by 1960, the Baltimore-Washington area, the band developed a hard-driving, harmony-rich brand of bluegrass that inspired not only other musicians in the genre, but also bluegrass-inclined rock bands like New Riders of the Purple Sage.While still a teenager, Mr. Wakefield mastered the heavily syncopated “chop” chord of the bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe, whom he met in 1961 and who immediately recognized Mr. Wakefield’s prowess as a mandolinist.Mr. Wakefield in 2010. Despite suffering from emphysema for years, he toured and recorded well into the 2000s.Michael G. Stewart“You can play like me as good — or near as good — as I can,” Mr. Wakefield, in a 2022 interview with the Hudson Valley Bluegrass Association, recalled Mr. Monroe saying at their initial meeting. “Now you’ve got to go out and find your own style.”Heeding Mr. Monroe’s advice, Mr. Wakefield did exactly that. He devised his own sound by alternating up and down strokes on his instrument with equal force to produce a clear, ringing tone and sustained rhythm, which he likened to a sledgehammer striking a steel rail in a 1998 interview with the bluegrass website Candlewater.com.At other times, plucking the strings with multiple fingers, he produced a richly textured effect suggestive of two or three mandolins playing together.David Grisman, a student of Mr. Wakefield’s and a mandolin virtuoso in his own right, said in an often quoted passage from Frets magazine that Mr. Wakefield had “split the bluegrass mandolin atom” by taking the instrument beyond where Mr. Monroe had.The 1964 album “Bluegrass,” which Mr. Wakefield recorded with the singer and guitarist Red Allen, pushed the boundaries of the genre.Folkways Records“Bluegrass,” the album that Mr. Wakefield made with Mr. Allen for Folkways Records in 1964 (and that a 19-year-old Mr. Grisman produced), proved ample confirmation of that claim: It featured versions of two of Mr. Wakefield’s most enduring originals, “New Camptown Races” and “Catnip,” both of which, with their developments in melody, tunings and chord changes, pushed the limits of what then constituted bluegrass.Mr. Wakefield’s innovations didn’t stop there, though. By the mid-1960s he had begun composing sonatas for the mandolin and arranging classical pieces for traditional bluegrass ensembles. He performed with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in 1967 and made a guest appearance with the Boston Pops orchestra the next year.The Greenbriar Boys (from left, Bob Yellin, Mr. Wakefield and John Herald) in performance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. David Gahr/Getty ImagesMr. Wakefield’s forays outside bluegrass extended into pop territory as well, including a mid-1960s stint with the Greenbriar Boys, an urban folk revivalist group. During this period, he also performed with country bluesmen like Lightnin’ Hopkins and Son House and, later, rock acts like the Grateful Dead.Franklin Delano Roosevelt Wakefield was born on June 26, 1934, in the Emory Gap enclave of Harriman, Tenn., the 10th of 12 children of Simpson and Bertie (Isham) Wakefield. Growing up poor, he was forced to leave school after second grade to help work on the family farm.Enthralled by DeFord Bailey’s performances on “The Grand Ole Opry,” young Frank took up the harmonica at an early age and soon also became adept at playing the guitar.His father, who worked as a brakeman to supplement the family income, froze to death in a local railyard when Frank was 13. Several of his sisters moved 300 miles north to Dayton, Ohio, as part of a Depression-era migration. Frank and his brother, Ralph, were left to move between orphanages until Frank finally ran away to join his sisters in Dayton, where a brother-in-law introduced him to the mandolin.Billing themselves as the Wakefield Brothers, Frank and Ralph, who played guitar, made their first public appearances at house parties and on local radio in 1960. Two years later, Frank joined Red Allen’s band, and his path as a musician was set.However, his tenure with Mr. Allen was fraught with conflict, much of it brought on by Mr. Allen’s abusive behavior, especially when he was drinking. Nevertheless, apart from a period with the Detroit-based Chain Mountain Boys in the mid-1950s, Mr. Wakefield persevered with him until 1965, when he joined the Greenbriar Boys to replace Ralph Rinzler, who had left the band to become Bill Monroe’s manager.Mr. Wakefield in a New York recording studio in 1966, at around the time he embarked on a solo career.David Gahr/Getty ImagesAfter recovering from a near-fatal automobile accident in the late 1960s, Mr. Wakefield moved to Saratoga Springs and embarked on a solo career. Over the next five decades, he released albums for a variety of bluegrass-aligned record labels, including Takoma, Flying Fish and Patuxent Music. His 1972 Rounder album, called simply “Frank Wakefield” and featuring the New York bluegrass band Country Cooking, is widely regarded as a touchstone of the movement known as newgrass, which incorporated elements of rock, jazz and classical music into traditional bluegrass.Despite suffering from emphysema for years, Mr. Wakefield continued to tour nationally and to record well into the 2000s.Besides Ms. Sprintz, Mr. Wakefield’s survivors include a sister, Susie Norton; a son, Greg Wakefield; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.Despite his musically omnivorous appetites, Mr. Wakefield was unfamiliar with Mr. Garcia, who would later produce the 1976 album “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” a string-band collaboration between Mr. Wakefield and others, when they started playing shows together.“Whenever Garcia played with me and David,” Mr. Wakefield explained, referring to David Nelson of New Riders of the Purple Sage in a 2006 interview with candlewater.com, “we would always have a full house. I thought it was because of me.”“It took me a while,” he added, “to realize that people were coming to the shows because Jerry was playing with us.” More

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    ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ Review: Nature vs. Nurture

    Ryusuke Hamaguchi follows up his sublime drama “Drive My Car” with a parable about a rural Japanese village and the resort developer eyeing its land.Late in “Evil Does Not Exist,” a man who lives in a rural hamlet an easy drive from Tokyo cuts right to the movie’s haunting urgency. He’s talking to two representatives of a company that’s planning to build a resort in the area that will cover a deer trail. When one suggests that maybe the deer will go elsewhere, the local man asks, “Where would they go?” It’s a seemingly simple question that distills this soulful movie’s searching exploration of individualism, community and the devastating costs of reducing nature to a commodity.“Evil Does Not Exist” is the latest from the Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who’s best known for his sublime drama “Drive My Car.” This new movie is more modestly scaled than that one (it’s also far shorter) and more outward-directed, yet similar in sensibility and its discreet touch. It traces what happens when two Tokyo outsiders descend on a pastoral area where the spring water is so pure a local noodle shop uses it in its food preparation. The reps’ company intends to build a so-called glamping resort where tourists can comfortably experience the area’s natural beauty, a wildness that their very patronage will help destroy.The story unfolds gradually over a series of days, though perhaps weeks, and takes place largely in and around the hamlet. There, the local man, Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), a self-described jack-of-all trades, lives with his daughter, Hana (Ryo Nishikawa), in a house nestled amid mature trees. Together, they like to walk in the woods as she guesses whether that tree is a pine and this one a larch, while he carefully warns her away from sharp thorns. A photograph on their piano of Hana in the arms of a woman suggests why melancholy seems to envelop both child and father, although much about their past life remains obscure.Hamaguchi eases into the story, letting its particulars surface gradually as Eiko Ishibashi’s plaintive, progressively elegiac score works into your system. The company’s plans for a glamping site give the movie its narrative through line as well as dramatic friction, which first emerges during a meeting between residents and the company reps, Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) and her brash counterpart, Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka). The company — its absurd name is Playmode — wants to take advantage of Covid subsidies for its new venture. During the meeting, it emerges that the site’s septic tank won’t be large enough to accommodate the number of guests; the locals rightly worry that the waste will flow into the river.The scene, one of the longest in the movie, is emblematic of Hamaguchi’s understated realism, which he builds incrementally. The meeting takes place in a basic community center crowded with residents — some had dinner at Takumi’s home the night before — who sit in chairs facing the reps, who, armed with technology, are parked behind laptops and seated before a projector screen. As the reps play a video explaining “glamorous camping,” there’s a cut to Takumi intently watching the promo. The scene soon shifts to a tracking shot of deer tracks in snow and images of Hana playing in a field as a bird soars above; it’s as if Takumi were thinking of his joyful, distinctly unglamorous daughter. The scene shifts back to the meeting.The site will become “a new tourist hot spot,” Takahashi sums up, badly misreading his audience. “Water always flows downhill,” a village elder says in response, his thin, firm voice rising as he sweeps an arm emphatically downward. “What you do upstream will end up affecting those living downstream,” stating a law of gravity that’s also a passionate, quietly wrenching argument for how to live in the world.Lapidary, word by word, detail by detail, juxtaposition by juxtaposition, “Evil Does Not Exist” beautifully deepens. For the most part, the movie is visually unadorned, simple, direct. Hamaguchi tends to move the camera in line with the characters, for one, though the exceptions carry narrative weight: images of nearby Mount Fuji; a rearview look from inside a car at a fast-disappearing road; and a lovely traveling shot of soaring treetops, their branches framed against the sky. The canopied forest echoes an image in a short film by Masaki Kobayashi, who began directing after World War II; the title of his trilogy, “The Human Condition,” would work for every Hamaguchi movie I’ve seen.I have watched “Evil Does Not Exist” twice, and each time the stealthy power of Hamaguchi’s filmmaking has startled me anew. Some of my reaction has to do with how he uses fragments from everyday life to build a world that is so intimate and recognizable — filled with faces, homes and lives as familiar as your own — that the movie’s artistry almost comes as a shock. The dreamworld of movies often feels at a profound remove from ordinary life, distance that brings its own obvious pleasures. It’s far rarer when a movie, as this one does, speaks to everyday life and to the beauty of a world that we neglect even in the face of its calamitous loss. When Takumi asks “where would they go,” he isn’t just talking about deer.Evil Does Not ExistNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters. More

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    Review: A Conductor Surprises by Embracing the Ordinary

    Esa-Pekka Salonen is known for unusual, ambitious projects. But at the New York Philharmonic this week, he succeeded with standard repertory works.The conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen tends to get noticed for his ambitious, even outlandish projects.Perfume cannons puffing out scent alongside the music. A rare performance of one of the piano’s most gargantuan concertos. Contemporary opera in the concert hall. A roboticist being included among his artistic collaborators. Ample helpings of his own works. (Salonen is the rare maestro who is also a successful composer.)But once all the perfume has dissipated, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Salonen, who led the New York Philharmonic on Wednesday at David Geffen Hall, is, at core, simply an excellent conductor.The Philharmonic program was unusual for him in that it was so, well, uncreative. No premieres, no stagings, no intriguing juxtapositions. Just two classic pieces — Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” — that, in the style of old-fashioned orchestra programming, seemed to have been thrown together arbitrarily. And yet it was a terrific concert, overseen by Salonen with his characteristic fiery clarity.Fiery clarity is a good way of describing his most recent career move, too. Classical music is, outwardly at least, meticulously polite. Few musicians leave positions amid publicly verbalized anger.But in March, when Salonen announced he wouldn’t renew his contract as the music director of the San Francisco Symphony, he told the truth — or at least his truth. He had made his decision, he said, “because I do not share the same goals for the future of the institution as the Board of Governors does.”By the industry’s standards, this was an expletive-ridden rant. It quickly became clear that the problem was money. The San Francisco Symphony has hobbled out of the pandemic even more deficit-laden than it was before; its expensive promises to Salonen — like that team of artistic collaborators, roboticist and all — were going to need to be curtailed.The funny thing about Wednesday’s concert in New York is that it was exactly the kind of program that would be his future had Salonen chosen to remain in San Francisco: meat and potatoes repertoire, without the fancy trimmings.But even without them, the Philharmonic played beautifully for him on Wednesday. The Shostakovich concerto was dotted with eerily mellow rips of brass near the start, a hushed dusk in the strings at the start of the second movement and characterful pierces from the winds in the final Allegro. Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the soloist, played with a rich yet focused tone, and he didn’t indulge in excessive emotion. This resulted in a performance that was modest, straight-faced and fundamentally serene — but also a little cool, a little efficient. The piece seemed to sail by briskly.It was hard to remember the concerto at all after the monster that is Berlioz’s “Symphonie.” Last year, I wrote that the Philharmonic’s rendition of this score under Herbert Blomstedt was “leisurely, mellow, thoroughly pastoral.” That could hardly have been further from Salonen’s neurotically unsettled, icy-hot take, which grabbed every opportunity to emphasize off-kilter rhythms and changeable textures.The opening “Reveries, Passions” section had a dewy freshness to the sound that could shift, in a moment, to intense fullness, and then back again. Salonen couldn’t keep the long central “Scene in the Fields” section from feeling like it lingers. But it had quietly been building tension, with an undercurrent of anxiety — an anticipation of the trembling violas a little later on — even in Ryan Roberts’s quiet, plangent English horn shepherd calls.Salonen embraced the sudden swerves and floodlit brashness of the “March to the Scaffold,” which was, as it is too rarely, genuinely scary. And the finale, “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath,” was raucous but never messy — a ferocious, fantastic party.New York PhilharmonicThis program continues through Saturday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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    Palestinian Flags Fly at Protests Worldwide. They Won’t Be at Eurovision.

    The organizers of the glitzy singing contest said that attendees would be allowed to wave only the flags of participating nations — including Israel’s.Protesters are waving Palestinian flags on American college campuses and in cities around the world to put pressure on Israel to end the war in the Gaza Strip. But there is one place where that symbol will be absent next week: inside the Eurovision Song Contest.Attendees at this year’s event in Malmo, Sweden, which starts on Tuesday, will not be allowed to bring Palestinian flags or wave banners with slogans about the war between Israel and Hamas, a spokesperson for the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the contest, said on Thursday.Ticket buyers at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest are allowed to bring and display only flags representing the 37 participating countries, the spokesperson said in an email. That includes Israel. The only exceptions are rainbow and pride flags representing L.G.B.T.Q. people, the spokesperson added.Eurovision has long billed itself as an apolitical contest. The spokesperson said although the flags policy was reviewed every year, it had not changed since the last edition, held in Liverpool, England. But the rule has upset some Eurovision fans who for months have been calling for the event’s organizers to ban Israel from taking part because of its military campaign in Gaza.Inga Straumland, an Icelandic fan, called the decision to disallow Palestinian flags “appalling” and said in an interview that the move was “a strong limit on freedom of expression,” especially given that the flag of Israel, a Eurovision contestant, would be present.Although Israel is not in Europe, the country is eligible to compete because its broadcaster is a member of the European Broadcasting Union. The country has won Eurovision four times since first entering in 1973.This year, the 20-year-old singer Eden Golan will represent Israel with the song “Hurricane.” Until European Broadcasting Officials intervened, its original title was “October Rain,” and Eurovision fans have widely interpreted it as a statement about Israeli grief after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks that Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people.The Eurovision Song Contest is the world’s most watched cultural event. Last year, over 56 million viewers tuned into the competition final live on television, with some 7.6 million more watching on YouTube.Since Eurovision began in 1956, the European Broadcasting Union has banned political statements from the stage, insisting the contest should unify countries rather than dividing them. But this year it has struggled to stop the war in Gaza from making its presence felt.In the months after Israel began its military campaign in Gaza, thousands of musicians and fans from countries including Iceland, Ireland and Sweden signed petitions urging Eurovision’s organizers to ban Israel from the event over the high rate of civilian deaths and the widespread destruction in the occupied territory, where the United Nations says the population is now on the brink of famine.The campaigners say that Eurovision’s ban on Russia participating after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine set a precedent. But Eurovision’s organizers reject the comparison. “We understand the concerns and deeply held views around the current conflict in the Middle East,” the broadcasting union said in a statement in January. Still, it added, Eurovision is “not a contest between governments.”In a more recent statement on its website, the broadcasting union said it would not clamp down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations outside the arena during this year’s finals. The union “is a firm advocate for freedom of speech,” the statement said, adding: “We understand that people may wish to make their voices heard and support the right of those who wish to demonstrate peacefully.”Dean Vuletic, an author of a book on Eurovision’s political history, said in a telephone interview that its organizers had clamped down on flags in 2016, in part to prevent the display of the symbols of terrorist groups like the Islamic State. They also banned flags from disputed territories and those promoting separatist causes — much to the annoyance of fans from Kosovo and Catalonia. Even the European Union’s flag, which was previously allowed, is now not permitted, Vuletic added.Some fans said they accepted the policy. Sophia Ahlin, the chair of a Swedish Eurovision fan club, said in a text message that “it’s nothing unusual” to allow only flags from participating nations.But others said the contest’s decision had turned them off. Straumland, the Icelandic fan, said she would not be watching this year’s event because of Israel’s involvement, even though Eurovision was “the biggest source of happiness in my life along with my son.” Instead, she said, she would be going to an alternative party, where drag and burlesque acts would cover old Eurovision hits.And, she added, she would be taking a Palestinian flag. More

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    Universal Music Artists Will Return to TikTok

    The two companies reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that kept some of pop’s biggest stars off the platform.TikTok and Universal Music Group have reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that had blocked songs from some of pop’s biggest stars from the influential social media platform.In a joint announcement early Thursday, the two companies said that they had agreed to a “multi-dimensional” new deal that included “improved remuneration” for Universal’s roster of artists and songwriters, and would address the label’s concerns over the growth of A.I.-generated content on the app.In statements that accompanied the announcement, Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, called music “an integral part of the TikTok ecosystem.” Lucian Grainge, the chief executive of Universal — the world’s biggest music company, with a roster of artists including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Drake and U2 — called the deal a “new chapter in our relationship with TikTok” that “focuses on the value of music, the primacy of human artistry and the welfare of the creative community.”In an internal email to Universal employees, a copy of which was seen by The New York Times, Grainge said that under the new agreement, “artist and songwriter compensation will be greater than under our prior TikTok deal.”The agreement ends the music industry’s biggest and most contentious dispute with a tech platform in years. Both companies hurled public accusations at each other, and artists from across the spectrum worried about whether their careers would be hurt by the absence of their music from TikTok, which has become a vital promotional platform and boasts more than 170 million users in the United States alone.But the deal also comes amid wider uncertainty for TikTok as the app faces a possible ban or sale in the United States because of national security concerns over the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance. Last month, President Biden signed a bill that would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States if it was sold in nine months, though the company is expected to challenge the law in court.Universal began to withdraw permission for its music from TikTok on Feb. 1, after an impasse in negotiations to renew its previous licensing agreement. At the time, Universal said that TikTok “attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth.”Millions of videos that included Universal music — including many artists’ own official music videos — were muted on the platform. TikTok said that by withdrawing its songs, Universal had “put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”TikTok and Universal have not commented on their negotiations since then. But the dispute seemed to shift three weeks ago, when Swift — the biggest and most influential artist on Universal’s roster — broke ranks with the label and returned her music to TikTok, ahead of the release of her most recent album.Her move may have weakened Universal’s leverage. But since the ban took effect, fans noticed that songs from many other Universal artists, including Grande and Camila Cabello, had returned, often in sped-up or slowed-down versions that may have been uploaded to the platform by fans.In their announcement, TikTok and Universal did not offer any specifics about the financial terms of their deal. The companies’ statement says they will work together to “realize new monetization opportunities” through e-commerce, and that TikTok will “invest significant resources” in building tools like data analytics and ticketing.The companies added that they were “working expeditiously” to return Universal’s music to the platform. That could take a matter of days or weeks. More

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    ‘Slow’ Review: We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off

    The second feature by the Lithuanian filmmaker Marija Kavtaradze asks what a relationship looks like when you factor out the sex.“Slow,” a relationship drama from Lithuania with a delicate touch, offers an understanding of intimacy that is rare in romance movies.Elena (Greta Grineviciute), a contemporary dancer, meets Dovydas (Kestutis Cicenas), a sign language interpreter, at a class for deaf adolescents — she teaches the steps and he translates her instructions for the students. After the first session, the two 30-somethings begin a modest flirtation that inches toward the physical, but Dovydas pulls out a wild card when Elena invites him to her room: He is asexual.The second feature by Marija Kavtaradze, “Slow” takes this difference as its point of departure. What does a relationship look like when you factor out the sex? It’s clear that Elena has a hard time accepting Dovydas as he is, a frustration that links back to her childhood self-esteem issues.The couple’s journey is predictably bumpy, in part because the film aligns too consistently with Elena’s normative outlook. Dovydas’s sexuality baffles her, and Kavtaradze struggles to justify why the couple makes sense together despite this friction. Scenes meant to illustrate their special chemistry seem plucked out of a run-of-the-mill indie movie (an awkward-but-cute dance; in another scene, eyes locked from across the bar).Grineviciute and Cicenas, however, give depth to a story that becomes stuck on the sorrows of the couple’s discrepancies. Dovydas alternates between sheepish and resolute, making his bouts of jealousy feel organic and vulnerable; Elena — we see in fierce, breathy interludes of her dance rehearsals — wields her physicality and thwarted desires as extensions of her personality.Throughout the film, we see Dovydas enthusiastically performing a kind of sign language karaoke against a vivid blue backdrop; his facial expressions are like a lovesick balladeer. The film makes too little of this intuitive connection between lovers, both adept, in their own ways, at communicating passion by other means.SlowNot rated. In Lithuanian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Jeanne du Barry’ Review: A Versailles Scandal at Its Snooziest

    Maïwenn wrote, directed and stars in the film, playing opposite Johnny Depp, who is Louis XV. Though he declares he loves her, their chemistry is weak.In the wake of a tabloid-friendly divorce featuring multiple allegations of abuse, Johnny Depp’s Hollywood profile rests at a rather low point. The French actress and filmmaker Maïwenn, for her part, has made headlines in her home country — including last year, when she reportedly assaulted a journalist.One might expect a film pairing these two actors would produce combustible results. But “Jeanne du Barry,” written, directed by and starring Maïwenn, is an ultimately snoozy historical period piece.Given recent trends, it may go without saying that the picture tries to make something of a “girl boss” out of Jeanne, the most prominent mistress of King Louis XV. She transcends her humble roots, entrances the King and flouts 18th-century Versailles protocol.But she also has a, um, kind heart. At a royal dinner she is given Zamor, an enslaved person, as a gift. She befriends him. What fun they have running through the halls of Versailles! She also defends his humanity to Louis’s nasty daughters, who make the evil stepsisters in Disney’s “Cinderella” seem understated. Louis-Benoit Zamor, an actual historical figure, played a role in the eventual fate of the real Jeanne du Barry.Since Maïwenn created Jeanne for herself, it may seem paradoxical to state that she’s all wrong for it. Nevertheless, her broad performance is a consistently unfortunate case study in “whatever she thinks she’s doing, this isn’t it.”As Louis, Depp takes his role, spoken entirely in French, seriously — no Captain Jack Sparrow-style winks are called for or delivered — but the film doesn’t give him much to work with as a character.The meticulous and lush production design by Angelo Zamparutti, captured with practically dewy appreciation by the cinematographer Laurent Dailland, makes the movie easy on the eyes, but every so often its prettiness edges over into souvenir-shop kitsch.Jeanne du BarryNot rated. In French with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg’ Review

    Subtitled “The Story of Anita Pallenberg,” this documentary gives the life of the actress and model a thorough downer of a treatment.If Anita Pallenberg was, in the words of her obituary in The New York Times in 2017, “best known for her relationships with members of the Rolling Stones,” the documentary “Catching Fire,” directed by Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill, shifts the focus to Pallenberg herself: the model, actress and life force who embodied a certain image of ’60s freedom.Made in collaboration with Pallenberg’s son Marlon Richards, “Catching Fire” is a redemptive portrait that nevertheless plays like a downer. Pallenberg’s story involves an unremitting cascade of drugs, addiction, volatile relationships and parenting tragedy, along with a 1979 incident in which a 17-year-old shot himself at her home, possibly playing Russian roulette. No excess is too excessive for this film, until it’s time to chronicle the later (and admittedly less sensational) period when Pallenberg calmed the turbulence surrounding her. To that, the doc devotes 10 minutes.The narrative’s spine comes from an unpublished memoir by Pallenberg. Scarlett Johansson reads excerpts in voice-over. We hear of Pallenberg’s upbringing in wartime Europe (“I didn’t learn to walk — I ran”), her encounters with Andy Warhol and Allen Ginsberg, and her abandonment of modeling for psychedelics (“You couldn’t do both, and I loved acid”). While her relationship with the Stones’ Brian Jones fell apart, a result of his reputed drug use and physical abuse, she landed in the arms of Keith Richards, the Stone closest to her rock. We’re told that, as a child, Marlon was treated as the household’s adult.There is plentiful — maybe too much — archival footage to illustrate all this. The film amasses an insightful array of talking heads, from Volker Schlöndorff, who directed Pallenberg in her film debut, to Theda Zawaiza, a former nanny for Marlon who describes Pallenberg at the time as being a virtual prisoner of a record company. Pallenberg is finally in focus. But the picture is tough to look at.Catching Fire: The Story of Anita PallenbergNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More