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    Cuarón, Del Toro y González Iñarritu recuerdan sus experiencias al trabajar con Daniel Giménez Cacho

    Los tres cineastas más importantes del México contemporáneo recuerdan sus proyectos con el actor. “El mejor actor de nuestra generación”, dice Del Toro, quien le dio un papel en ‘Cronos’, su ópera prima.A los 24 años, cuando ya llevaba dos años de la licenciatura en Física, Daniel Giménez Cacho recibió una invitación informal para asistir a una clase de canto. Para consternación de su padre, que era ingeniero, aquella oferta inesperada desbarató el plan de una carrera científica y encendió en él un fervor por la actuación que duraría toda la vida.“Fue un descubrimiento físico, un renacimiento para mi cuerpo”, dijo Giménez Cacho durante una entrevista reciente en un restaurante mexicano de la histórica calle Olvera de Los Ángeles.Giménez Cacho, el aclamado actor que nació en Madrid pero se crio en el corazón de Ciudad de México, y quien ahora tiene 61 años, ha desarrollado un currículo ecléctico que muestra tanto su seriedad como sus dotes cómicas a lo largo de casi cuatro décadas.Desde el viernes lo podemos ver en Netflix como el alter ego del director Alejandro González Iñárritu, Silverio Gama, en Bardo, falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades, una fantasía onírica de reflexiones personales y políticas.Después de iniciarse en el teatro, Giménez Cacho se dio a conocer más ampliamente a través de la televisión en 1989 con Teresa, la popular telenovela que protagonizó junto a una joven Salma Hayek en el personaje protagónico.En aquella época, en México solo se producían unas pocas películas al año pero, poco a poco, una joven cohorte de cineastas comenzó a impresionar con historias audaces tanto en la pantalla chica como en la grande. El actor estuvo presente en los mismos círculos artísticos y desarrolló su carrera en paralelo a la de quienes estaban detrás de la cámara.Ser el único actor que ha colaborado con los directores mexicanos reconocidos con el Oscar y conocidos colectivamente como los Tres Amigos: primero Alfonso Cuarón, luego Guillermo del Toro y ahora Iñárritu, es evidencia del papel fundamental que Giménez Cacho tuvo a la hora de sentar las bases para el surgimiento del nuevo cine mexicano. Iñárritu comentó, riendo a carcajadas: “Hay que levantarle una estatua por ser el único sobreviviente de los Tres Amigos”.Fuera de México, lo han convocado titanes del cine como Pedro Almodóvar (La mala educación), Lucrecia Martel (Zama) y Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Memoria).Les pedí a Cuarón, Del Toro y González Iñárritu que recordaran cuándo conocieron al actor y cómo fue la experiencia de trabajar con él.El actor como alter ego del director Alejandro González Iñárritu en ‘Bardo, falsa crónica de un puñado de verdades’.Limbo Films, S. de R. L. de C. V. Cortesía de NetflixAlfonso Cuarón: ‘Se convirtió no solo en colaborador, sino en cocreador’El actor y el director se conocieron en el rodaje de Camino largo a Tijuana (1988), de Luis Estrada, donde Cuarón fue productor y ayudante de cámara.Cuarón señaló que se arrepintió de considerarlo de inmediato para protagonizar su ópera prima, la comedia Sólo con tu pareja de 1991, a pesar de que lo impresionó el lenguaje corporal preciso y dancístico del actor.“Tenía miedo de no haber visto todas las opciones, cuando en realidad fue muy tonto eso porque la mejor opción estaba enfrente de mi”, dijo Cuarón por teléfono.Giménez Cacho acabó protagonizando la película y Cuarón se siente afortunado. Al recordar que un invitado a una cena comparó al actor con Marcello Mastroianni por su capacidad para infundir levedad a dramas más bien emotivos, el director explicó que su ópera prima “dependía del interprete. Él tenía que llevar la película con una gracia y una ligereza”. Cuarón añadió que “Daniel se convirtió no solo en colaborador, sino en cocreador de lo que terminó siendo la película”.Giménez Cacho recuerda que estaba indeciso, pues era su primer papel protagónico en una película.“Yo tuve siempre muchas dudas” respecto al papel de un mujeriego cuyas travesuras le pasan factura, dijo Giménez Cacho. “Todavía las tengo, pero ya tengo 61. Siempre tuve mucha inseguridad, entonces fue muy lindo descubrir mi vena cómica”.Después de Sólo con tu pareja, Cuarón animó a Giménez Cacho para que probara suerte en Hollywood y lo ayudó a concertar reuniones con agentes.“Vine y dije: ‘Esto no es para mí’. Me dijeron: ‘Do you want to be rich and famous?’. Y yo les dije: ‘Quiero hacer películas chingonas de las que pueda estar orgulloso’”, recuerda el actor. “La gente William Morris Endeavor creo que me entendieron por ahí y dijeron: ‘Está bien, vete a México y ahí te vamos mandando cosas’. Nunca pasó y yo no lo busqué después”.Una década después, para su conmovedora película Y tu mamá también, Cuarón quería un narrador masculino que evocara a los de Masculino femenino y Banda aparte, de Jean-Luc Godard.“Hay un don que pueden tener ciertos actores, que no lo puedes cultivar, que es que la cámara los sigue, el público está atento”, dijo Guillermo del Toro. “Y esa es una de las virtudes que Daniel tiene”.Ricardo Nagaoka para The New York TimesMientras buscaba una voz objetiva que añadiera un contexto irónico, pensó en alguien con acento español y le pidió al director Fernando Trueba que lo intentara.Al final, Cuarón recurrió a Giménez Cacho (a pesar de que pensó que el tono del actor podría ser demasiado cálido para esa tarea) y se sorprendió por la concordancia orgánica entre la voz y las imágenes. El actor grabó el texto antes de ver el material visual.“Daniel no se me había ocurrido porque estaba buscando voces, no estaba pensando en actores, y otra vez, esa fue una tontería”, admitió Cuarón. “Él supo perfectamente que tenía que tener un cierto distanciamiento Brechtiano, pero a la vez no permitió que se arribara a la sequedad”.El actor comentó con una sonrisa de satisfacción: “Nunca he sido su primera opción. Pero como luego no le gusta nadie, no le queda de otra que decir: ‘Bueno, ya que lo haga este cabrón’”.Guillermo del Toro: ‘Estábamos de acuerdo que era el mejor actor de nuestra generación’Mucho antes de convertirse en director, Del Toro fue maquillador de efectos especiales y conoció a Giménez Cacho en 1990, mientras le aplicaba lodo falso y una barba artificial durante el rodaje de Cabeza de Vaca, la obra de época de Nicolás Echevarría que está ambientada en territorio selvático.Con una curiosidad incisiva, Giménez Cacho le hizo preguntas detalladas a Del Toro sobre el proceso de transformación. El futuro cineasta se dio cuenta de que el actor tenía un compromiso obsesivo con cada aspecto de su trabajo, algo con lo que podía identificarse. De inmediato, se hicieron amigos.Del Toro lo apodó el Niño Sapo, al reconocer en Giménez Cacho una alteridad afín. “Decíamos que éramos un par de freaks”, recordó el cineasta a través de una videollamada. Poco después, Del Toro fabricó una réplica del brazo del actor para una escena de Sólo con tu pareja, la película de Cuarón.Según Del Toro, al principio de la carrera del actor, tanto él como Estrada, Cuarón, Carlos Marcovich y otros cineastas “estábamos de acuerdo que era el mejor actor de nuestra generación. Y lo sigo pensando”.A partir de su relación y en el trabajo del actor con el grupo de teatro de vanguardia El Milagro, Del Toro le ofreció el ahora emblemático papel de Tito, un director funerario malhablado pero entregado a su trabajo en Cronos, su ópera prima de 1994.“Estoy muy agradecido de que me invitó a hacer este pequeño papelito en Cronos porque, aunque es un papel pequeño, brillaba mucho, era memorable”, dijo Giménez Cacho.Hoy, después de más de 30 años de amistad, Del Toro se maravilla de cómo la intensidad de la juventud de Giménez Cacho ha evolucionado a una humildad admirable considerando su talento.“Hay un don que pueden tener ciertos actores, que no lo puedes cultivar, que es que la cámara los sigue, el público está atento”, dijo el director. “Y esa es una de las virtudes que Daniel tiene”.Alejandro González Iñárritu: ‘Sabía que me iba a hacer mi trabajo muy fácil’Giménez Cacho y González Iñárritu coincidieron por primera vez en una fiesta en Los Ángeles tras el estreno de Grandes esperanzas, de Cuarón, en 1998, pero pasó un buen tiempo antes de que pudieran trabajar juntos en una película.González Iñárritu describió su primera reunión para trabajar en Bardo como una “conexión cósmica”, pues la afinidad compartida por la meditación y una comprensión mutua de la similitud de sus viajes interiores se convirtieron en la base poco convencional de su trabajo juntos.Aunque Iñárritu no había escrito el papel de Silverio Gama pensando en un actor en particular, sabía que Giménez Cacho daría en el clavo incluso antes de haber leído una sola página del guion.“Me di cuenta que estaba en el mismo lugar que yo a nivel personal, filosófico, espiritual e intelectual”, dijo González Iñárritu durante una videollamada. “Más allá de sus dotes artísticos, que son muchísimos, sabía que me iba a hacer mi trabajo muy fácil porque él compartía la sensibilidad de lo que yo estaba buscando”.Aunque González Iñárritu abordó detalles íntimos de sus propios recuerdos en Silverio, un documentalista que navega tanto por su mortalidad como por su identidad mexicana en viñetas fantasiosas, veía al personaje como una entidad ficticia, no como un reflejo exacto de sí mismo.“Lo que siempre hago en cualquier personaje es traer lo que soy, mis experiencias y mis memorias”, dijo Giménez Cacho.Ricardo Nagaoka para The New York TimesEl director le pidió a su estrella que no reaccionara ante las situaciones, sino que solo las observara: el objetivo era crear una disonancia entre Silverio y el mundo bizarro que lo rodeaba porque la historia se cuenta desde la conciencia del personaje dentro de un sueño.Esa búsqueda de identidad hizo eco en Giménez Cacho, quien a principios de la primera década del siglo XXI intentó hacer carrera en España, pero descubrió que no podía verse a sí mismo más que como mexicano. Para encarnar a Silverio, no imitó a Iñárritu, sino que canalizó sus propias inquietudes y preguntas.“Lo que siempre hago en cualquier personaje es traer lo que soy, mis experiencias y mis memorias, pero aquí aún más”, señaló Giménez Cacho. “Al no haber un personaje diseñado pues lo tenía que tratar de buscar en mí”.El actor se comunica a través de su mirada penetrante y el movimiento corporal hipersensual que se muestra en una escena ambientada en la voz aislada de David Bowie en “Let’s Dance”.Iñárritu compara a Giménez Cacho con el actor británico Peter Sellers por la flexibilidad de su registro y lo describe como un haiku encarnado porque con una modulación mínima puede lograr la máxima emoción.“En Bardo hace lo que pocos actores son capaces de hacer, que es desaparecer el artificio de la actuación para llegar a la esencia y la presencia de algo honesto y verdadero”, concluyó González Iñárritu. “Se necesita mucha confianza interna para eso. Es lo más alto que hay en la actuación”. 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    Stanley Drucker, Ageless Clarinetist of the N.Y. Philharmonic, Dies at 93

    He played in the orchestra for 60 years, performing under the baton of five music directors. He personified the orchestra’s brilliant, even brash, character.Stanley Drucker, who was known as the dean of American orchestral clarinets during a 60-year career with the New York Philharmonic, putting his mark on countless performances and recordings under a legion of celebrated conductors, died on Monday in Vista, Calif., outside San Diego. He was 93.His death, at the home of his daughter, Rosanne Drucker, was confirmed by his son, Lee.Mr. Drucker, who retired in 2009, was only the fourth principal clarinetist of the Philharmonic since 1920 when he took up the post. Few wind players at any of the great American orchestras served as long.He played for the Philharmonic music directors Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Zubin Mehta, Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel, presenting a style and sound that typified the Philharmonic’s character — soloistic, technically and sonically brilliant, flamboyant and on the verge of brash.Mr. Drucker combined shapely phrasing with impeccable fingerwork. With his iron-gray hair and a slightly crooked front tooth, he was known for his youthful look and energy well into his 70s. His nickname in the orchestra was “Stanley Steamer,” a reflection of his swift marches offstage to make the commute to his home on Long Island, in Massapequa. “That’s my exercise,” he often said, “running for the train.”Such a long tenure naturally meant that he encountered the same pieces over and over again, and he greeted them like “old friends,” he said. The different perspectives that various conductors would bring to the music, he added, kept things fresh.“You absorb the personality and talent of whoever’s up on the podium,” he said.Just as much, those maestri would defer to Mr. Drucker’s interpretations of clarinet solos. Such was his influence that when a clarinet-playing New York Times reporter put in a request to perform with the orchestra for an article in 2004, the final say rested not with the music director, Mr. Maazel, not the orchestra president, Zarin Mehta, not even the powerful personnel manager, Carl Schiebler, but with Mr. Drucker.Mr. Drucker’s longevity with the Philharmonic gave rise to impressive statistics: 10,200 concerts with the orchestra, including 191 solo appearances, and performances of nearly every major clarinet concerto and soloist on more than a dozen recordings. He also recorded most of the standard clarinet chamber music works.Mr. Drucker with Leonard Bernstein in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in about 1967. Mr. Bernstein was just one of the Philharmonic’s renowned music directors for whom Mr. Drucker played.Bert Bial/New York Philharmonic ArchivesHe was nominated twice for a Grammy — for recordings of the Aaron Copland Concerto for Clarinet, Strings, Harp and Piano, with Leonard Bernstein conducting, and of John Corigliano’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, with Zubin Mehta conducting. The Philharmonic commissioned the Corigliano for Mr. Drucker.The publication Musical America named him instrumentalist of the year in 1998, and he was one of the few living orchestral musicians with an entry in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.A measure for any clarinetist is the great Mozart concerto, one of the composer’s last works. Of a 2001 performance, Allan Kozinn wrote in The Times that Mr. Drucker gave a “lively, thoughtfully shaped reading” of the opening movement and “tapped all the aching beauty in the Andante.”“But it was in the finale that he really let loose,” Mr. Kozinn added, “both with phrasing turns that pushed against the constraints of the line and by conveying a sense of heightened dialogue between his instrument and the rest of the orchestra.”Mr. Drucker’s conceived of an orchestral wind section as one organism.“You give and take; you don’t only take,” he said in a 2004 interview with The Times. “It’s a chamber music situation. You play to enhance.” He urged orchestral players to become deeply familiar with an entire work and express “what you have inside, what your sensitivity is.”Stanley Drucker was born on Feb. 4, 1929, in Brooklyn to immigrants from Galicia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire when they had left it 20 years earlier. He grew up in the Brownsville and Park Slope neighborhoods. His father, Joseph, had a custom tailor shop. His mother, Rose (Oberlander) Drucker, was a homemaker.Like so many clarinetists of the era, Mr. Drucker was inspired by Benny Goodman. His parents, seized by the Goodman craze of the time, bought him a clarinet for his 10th birthday. “They figured it was better than being a tailor,” Mr. Drucker said.His main teacher was Leon Russianoff, a leading clarinet pedagogue of the latter half of the 20th century, after whom Mr. Drucker would name his son. Mr. Drucker attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.Astonishingly, he entered the Indianapolis Symphony at age 16. “The object was to play, and get out into the real world,” he said. “I thought I knew everything, but found out quickly I didn’t.” During the summers he would return to New York for lessons with Russianoff.Mr. Drucker’s first formal photo with the New York Philharmonic, in about 1948. New York Philharmonic ArchivesMr. Drucker spent a year touring with the Adolf Busch Chamber Players, a conductor-less ensemble led by Mr. Busch, a violinist, and then joined the Buffalo Philharmonic. By 19 he had joined the New York Philharmonic as assistant principal, after Mr. Busch suggested that the Philharmonic invite him to audition. His getting the post, in 1948, was front page news in The Brooklyn Eagle. “My parents thought I was Joe Louis,” he said.Despite his youth, Mr. Drucker caught up quickly, learning on the job. “It was a master class every day,” he said.Bernstein, the Philharmonic’s music director, appointed him to the principal clarinet position in 1960.In 1998, the Philharmonic commemorated Mr. Drucker’s 50th anniversary during the final subscription program of the season by featuring him playing the Copland concerto. At the time, he pointed out that he was not the oldest player there.“I’ve been there the longest, because I started so young,” he told The Times. “But time compresses, you know? Fifty years doesn’t really seem so long.”Mr. Drucker married Naomi Lewis, a clarinetist who has had a fruitful career in her own right, in 1956. Their son, Leon, who goes by Lee, is a bassist with the rockabilly band Stray Cats, performing under the name Lee Rocker. Their daughter, Rosanne, is an alt-country singer-songwriter.In addition to his wife and children, Ms. Drucker is survived by two grandchildren. He lived for most of his adult life in Massapequa.Mr. Drucker, right, with his son, Lee, a bassist with the rockabilly band Stray Cats, and Mr. Drucker’s wife, the clarinetist Naomi Lewis, in 2006.Richard Perry/The New York TimesAlong with the clarinet, Mr. Drucker and his wife had a passion for their 30-foot-long fly bridge cabin cruiser, which they christened the Noni, for Ms. Drucker’s childhood nickname. They would take it for a monthlong cruise every summer.Mr. Drucker edited numerous volumes of studies, solo works and orchestral excerpts for clarinet for the International Music Co. He taught at the Juilliard School from 1968-98.But he was not given to high-flown pronouncements about artistry or musicianship.“You learn all of this stuff,” he once said. “And after a point, somebody has to tell you, ‘Forget it all, just go out and play.’”Alex Traub More

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    Kim Simmonds, a Key Figure in the British Blues Movement, Dies at 75

    His band, Savoy Brown, never had a hit single, but it showcased his skills as a guitarist and songwriter and remained active for more than 50 years.Kim Simmonds, a fleet and commanding guitarist who for over 50 years led one of Britain’s seminal blues bands, Savoy Brown, died on Dec. 13 in Syracuse, N.Y. He was 75.His wife and manager, Debbie (Lyons) Simmonds, confirmed the death, in a hospital. Mr. Simmonds, who lived in nearby Oswego, had announced in August that he had Stage 4 signet ring cell carcinoma, a rare form of colon cancer that is seldom detected early enough to be treated successfully.Though Savoy Brown never had a hit single, and though only two albums from the group’s vast catalog broke Billboard’s Top 40, it held an important place in the British blues movement of the 1960s alongside bands like John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Ten Years After and the early Fleetwood Mac.Mr. Simmonds changed the band’s lineup often, bringing to mind a subway turnstile at rush hour, making it difficult to build an audience. The most notable firing happened in 1970, when he got rid of all the other members — who then went on to form a far more commercially successful band, Foghat. In all, more than 60 musicians played under the Savoy Brown banner.“I don’t want to stand still,” Mr. Simmonds told the website Music Aficionado in 2017. “Once I’ve climbed a mountain, I want to climb another. If a band weren’t willing to do that, I would get another band.”Throughout all the personnel changes, he maintained a musical vision anchored in the skill of his guitar work, the melodicism of his songwriting and his commitment to American blues.As a guitarist, he could be stinging or sweet, lithe or robust. He also drew attention for the speed of his playing, and for his ability to spin long solos without losing the melodic thread or breaking a song’s momentum. In addition to the blues, his music drew from jazz and — most notably on Savoy Brown’s highest-charting album (it reached No. 34 in Billboard), “Hellbound Train” (1972) — R&B.Savoy Brown at a festival in Sussex, England, in 1970. From left: Roger Earl, Dave Peverett, Mr. Simmonds and Tony Stevens. The band changed personnel frequently over the years, with Mr. Simmonds the only constant.Michael Putland/Getty ImagesKim Maiden Simmonds was born on Dec. 5, 1947, in Caerphilly, Wales, to Henry Simmonds, an electrician, and Phyllis (Davies) Simmonds, a homemaker. As a child, he was drawn to the early rock ’n’ roll albums owned by his older brother, Harry, who later worked for Bill Haley’s British fan club.“My brother took me to see all the rock ’n’ roll movies,” Mr. Simmonds told the magazine Record Collector in 2017. “I grew up with all that: Little Richard, Bill Haley and, of course, Elvis.”By age 10 he had moved with his family to London, where his brother took him to jazz record stores that sold blues albums. The singer and pianist Memphis Slim — “one of the sophisticated blues guys that could keep one foot in the jazz world and one foot in the blues world,” he told Record Collector — became a favorite.He bought his first guitar at 13 and began imitating the blues licks on the records he loved. So intent was he on a music career that he never completed high school.A chance meeting at a record shop in 1965 with the harmonica player John O’Leary led to the formation of what was initially called the Savoy Brown Blues Band. (The first word in the name echoed the name of an important American jazz and R&B label.) The group’s initial lineup featured six players, two of them Black — the singer Brice Portius and the drummer Leo Manning — making them one of the few multiracial bands on the British rock scene of the 1960s.While playing gigs with Cream and John Lee Hooker, the band developed a reputation for its intense live performances, leading to a contract with Decca Records in 1967. The band’s debut album, “Shake Down,” consisted almost entirely of blues covers. By its second album, “Getting to the Point,” issued in 1968, most of the lineup had changed. The most significant additions were the soulful singer Chris Youlden (who also wrote memorable original songs, often with Mr. Simmonds) and the forceful rhythm guitarist and singer Dave Peverett.Mr. Simmonds in performance in Nashville in 2017.Rick Diamond/Getty Images for IEBAHalf of the band’s third album, “Blue Matter,” issued in 1969, was recorded live, highlighted by a revved-up version of Muddy Waters’s “Louisiana Blues,” which became a signature piece. Its 1970 album, “Raw Sienna,” forged a dynamic new direction that reflected the emerging jazz-rock movement, best evidenced by Mr. Simmonds’s Dave Brubeck-like instrumental, “Master Hare.” When Mr. Youlden elected to leave for a solo career, Mr. Peverett stepped up impressively to sing lead on the band’s “Lookin’ In” album later that year.Mr. Simmonds’s desire to add more R&B influences led to the firings that paved the way for Foghat. The resulting sound on the album “Street Corner Talkin’,” released in 1971, earned heavy play on FM radio in the U.S., where the band enjoyed a larger following than in its native country.Though Savoy Brown’s subsequent albums weren’t as commercially successful, Mr. Simmonds kept producing them at a steady clip, resulting in a catalog of more than 40. His last releases, both in 2020, were a studio album, “Ain’t Done Yet,” and a set of live performances from the 1990s, “Taking the Blues Back Home.” He also released six solo albums.In addition to his wife, his survivors include their daughter, Eve Simmonds, and two children from a previous marriage, Tabatha and Justin Simmonds.Addressing his dedication to Savoy Brown in whatever form it took, Mr. Simmons told Music Aficionado: “A famous poet once said, ‘The deed can never be done without need.’ There’s something in me that’s gotta come out.”He added: “Throughout it all — the changes, the music, the 50 years — the one tie-in is my guitar playing. That’s what keeps it all going.” More

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    ‘Stars at Noon,’ ‘Vortex’ and More of This Year’s Streaming Gems

    A look back at some of the finest under-the-radar streaming picks of the year.December is upon us, prompting a glut of year-end best-of lists from film critics, awards-giving bodies and various experts. Most of those feature titles you might not have seen, and some you haven’t even heard of. In that year-end wrap-up spirit, this month’s guide to the hidden gems of your subscription streaming services consists solely of films released in the United States during the past calendar year. Check out some obscurities, and impress your friends and colleagues at holiday parties.‘Stars at Noon’Stream it on Hulu.Claire Denis’s erotic drama is immersed in the worlds of journalism, espionage and geopolitics, but the real subject is one of her standbys: the sexual dynamics between men and women, and the transactional nature therein. The participants here are Trish (Margaret Qualley), an underemployed American journalist in Nicaragua who’s doing a bit of sex work as a side hustle, and Daniel (Joe Alwyn), a British businessman who’s both buying and selling. Denis keenly observes how the power shifts between them, and rarely without a struggle; their dialogue scenes have a cockeyed unpredictability, particularly since one or both is always in a state of desperation. Alwyn is fine, good even, but Qualley is a revelation; she is, by turns, funny, sexy, savvy and broken.‘Vortex’Stream it on Mubi.The extremist Argentine-French filmmaker Gaspar Noé’s most recent effort is his gentlest, though only because he’s best known for provocations like “Irreversible,” “Enter the Void” and “Climax.” Here, he tells the story of a long-married couple (played by the Italian filmmaker Dario Argento and the French actress Françoise Lebrun) and how their idyllic retirement is ripped apart by her increasingly debilitating dementia. It sounds not unlike Michael Haneke’s devastating “Amour,” a similarly dour tale of aging and mortality, but Noé inserts an additional visual dimension: He plays out the events in split-screen, with her separative frame a devastating visualization of her mental isolation — a stylistic flourish that makes this harrowing drama all the more affecting.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Golden Globe Nominations: Here are some of the most eyebrow-raising snubs and surprises from this year’s list of nominees.Gotham Awards: At the first official show of the season, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won big.Governors Awards: Stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Brendan Fraser worked a room full of academy voters at the event, which is considered a barometer of film industry enthusiasm.Rian Johnson:  The “Glass Onion” director explains the streaming plan for his “Knives Out” franchise.‘The Survivor’Stream it on HBO Max.Once upon a time, a Barry Levinson-directed feature based on a true story, with an all-star cast and successful debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, would have been a shoo-in for Oscar consideration. In today’s peculiar marketplace, it’s bought up by HBO only to never be seen again. But this is a stellar historical drama, with Ben Foster in fine form (both dramatically and athletically) as Harry Haft, an Auschwitz captive who survived his time there by boxing, and later used those skills to make a career as a boxer in America. The fight scenes are brutal, the dramatic stretches wrenching, and Levinson orchestrates his first-rate cast with aplomb.‘Elesin Olba: The King’s Horseman’Stream it on Netflix.In 1943, in the region of Africa now known as Nigeria, the longstanding tradition of the tribal king’s horseman committing ritual suicide after the death of the king (and thus following him into the afterlife) was prevented by British colonialists. That true event inspired Wole Soyinka’s venerable play “Death and the King’s Horseman,” which was adapted into this absorbing feature film by the Nigerian novelist, playwright and filmmaker Biyi Bandele (who died just before its premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival). The portraiture of customs and rituals is fascinating, and the Brits are properly villainous. But the film truly comes alive in its closing scenes, a thought-provoking and thoughtful contemplation of mortality and responsibility.‘Navalny’Stream it on HBO Max.Between interviews for Daniel Roher’s documentary, but on a hot mic, the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny tells a friend, “He’s filming it all for the movie he’s gonna release if I get whacked.” That candor and fearlessness was part of what made Navalny a thorn in the side of Putin’s Kremlin, and as such, he was the target of a likely assassination attempt by poisoning in 2020. Roher’s cameras follow Navalny as he recovers, prepares to return to Russia and participates in an independent investigation of the poisoning, resulting in an explosive, accidental confession by one of the perpetrators. Roher carefully avoids outright hagiography (via evenhanded discussion of Navalny’s image and ethics), using his access and materials to assemble a first-rate, though nonfiction, political thriller.‘My Old School’Stream it on Hulu.The story of a supposedly 17-year-old secondary school student who was revealed, after over a year in classes, to be a 32-year-old former student caused a sensation in Scotland (where it occurred) and across Europe — so much so that it was slated to be adapted into a feature film, with the actor Alan Cumming in the leading role. That film was never made, but now the story has become a documentary, and since the film’s subject would consent only to an audio interview, Cumming appears on camera to lip-sync the man’s words. (Got that?) The rest of the tall tale is told via animation, archival footage and alternately funny and contemplative contemporary interviews with the classmates of “Brandon Lee,” who attempt to puzzle out why they were so easily fooled, and (in the stellar closing sections) how well they remember the entire affair. The director Jono McLeod tells the story straight, as they all heard it and as “Lee” told it, which makes for a wild, twisty ride indeed.‘Free Chol Soo Lee’Stream it on Mubi.Everybody loves the story of an innocent man, wrongfully accused and then rightfully freed, and it’s been a standby of documentary cinema since (at least) “The Thin Blue Line.” Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s film begins as that movie, relating how Chol Soo Lee was convicted and imprisoned for a murder in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1973, based on scant evidence and flimsy eyewitness testimony, only to become a common cause for the Korean American community until he was finally freed more than a decade later. But that’s only part of the story. With sensitivity and nuance, the filmmakers follow Lee’s troubled post-prison journey, reminding us that happy endings are often temporary. A riveting and often heartbreaking tale. More

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    SZA Lands First No. 1 With Long-Awaited Album, ‘SOS’

    The R&B singer and songwriter made a big splash on the Billboard 200, while holiday songs continue to dominate the singles chart.SZA, a singer and songwriter who for a decade has been one of the brightest lights in R&B, lands her first No. 1 on the Billboard album chart this week, while Christmas music keeps its icy grip on the singles chart.After early singles and EPs, SZA — born Solána Rowe in St. Louis, and raised in New Jersey — made a splash with her debut album, “Ctrl” (2017), which brought her a best new artist nomination at the Grammys. She has been teasing the follow-up for two years, and this month finally released “SOS,” which features guest appearances by Travis Scott, Phoebe Bridgers and Don Toliver, along with an unearthed vocal track by Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan, who died in 2004.In its first week out, “SOS” had the equivalent of 318,000 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate. That total includes 405 million streams, which Billboard said is a weekly record for an R&B album.Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” holds at No. 2 in its eighth week out, and Metro Boomin’s “Heroes & Villains,” last week’s top seller, falls to No. 3. Drake and 21 Savage’s “Her Loss” falls one spot to fourth place and Michael Bublé’s 11-year-old holiday LP, “Christmas,” holds at No. 5. Other than SZA’s album, the only other new entry in the Top 10 is “Me vs. Myself” by the Bronx-born rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, which lands at No. 6.Most of the top spots on the Hot 100 singles chart are decades-old Christmas chestnuts: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” holds at No. 1, while Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is No. 2, Bobby Helms’s “Jingle Bell Rock” is No. 4 and Burl Ives’s “A Holly Jolly Christmas” is No. 5. SZA’s new “Kill Bill” arrives at No. 3. More

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    Why the Queen of Christmas Refuses to Leave Battery Park City

    Home is important to Elizabeth Chan: “Every Christmas song I’ve written has been written here.”Elizabeth Chan is very clear on the matter: Christmas is not a competition.“You can love whatever you want about it as much as you want,” Ms. Chan, 42, said. “It’s how much it fills you with joy, and everybody has different levels of joy in their heart. But that doesn’t mean one way of being is better than another.”These are all very reasonable points. Very gracious, too. But there is no altering the fact that Ms. Chan wins Christmas. Hands down. Game, set and match.It is not because she named her daughters Noelle and Eva (for Christmas Eve). Or because the palette of her apartment in Lower Manhattan tilts toward a rich dark red and celadon green. Or because she has half a dozen Advent calendars in heavy rotation. Or even because the fragrance of the liquid hand soap in her kitchen and bathrooms is generally limited to gingerbread, peppermint, pine fir and such. (Ms. Chan stocks up when the holidays are over and everyone else has moved on from spiced plum and winterberry.)“My goal when I write Christmas music is to inspire thoughts of love, family and home to anyone who listens,” said Elizabeth Chan, who lives with her family in a two-bedroom rental in Battery Park City.Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesElizabeth Chan, 42Occupation: Composer and performer of Christmas songsA new perspective: “When I became a mother, my music changed immediately, because suddenly the story of the birth of Jesus and the story of trying to find a place for the baby became very relatable.”It’s because of this: Since leaving her job as a marketing executive a decade ago for what, at the time, seemed like a quixotic pursuit, Ms. Chan has written more than 1,000 Christmas songs (she stopped counting at 1,200) in assorted genres — pop, jazz, disco, electronic, you name it — and recorded 12 albums of her holiday-themed compositions. Some have turned up on Billboard’s adult contemporary and holiday charts. She also ghostwrites Christmas songs for performers who need a Santa’s helper.Like its predecessors, her latest collection, “12 Months of Christmas,” released in October, plays around the country in malls and stores like Walmart, Ikea, Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma, providing Ms. Chan with an annual income that she says is in the high six figures — there’s no business like Ho-Ho-Ho business — and prompting some in the industry to refer to her as the Queen of Christmas. (Last year, when Mariah Carey, she of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” filed an application through her company to trademark the phrase “Queen of Christmas” for future use on products like music, perfume, sunglasses and even coconut milk, Ms. Chan opposed the registration, believing that no one should have exclusive and permanents rights to the title. Ultimately, she prevailed.)Ms. Chan’s office, two floors down from the family home, is perennially decked out for Christmas.Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesCreatively and fiscally, Ms. Chan has gone far. Geographically, it’s a different story. She grew up in Battery Park City and has remained there even after 9/11 caused many, including her traumatized parents, to relocate.“I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go,” said Ms. Chan, who found a one-bedroom rental blocks away from her childhood apartment. “I thought it was going to be temporary. I think I’ve stayed because every Christmas song I’ve written has been written here.”When Ms. Chan married 13 years ago, her husband, Andy Fraley, who designed her website and also designs her album covers, joined her in the apartment. And when she decided to ditch corporate life and become a struggling artist, the couple stayed put, although it meant making room for six keyboards, three guitars, a ukulele, a Chinese stringed instrument called a gu zheng, speakers and then, eventually, their first child, Noelle, now 5, and the attendant baby paraphernalia. Oh, and did we mention the dog?Four years ago, through a local mothers’ group, Ms. Chan learned that a family in the building was moving to New Jersey and was hoping to find someone to take over their two-bedroom apartment.“My husband went to look at it, and things were in a crazy state of affairs,” Ms. Chan recalled. “There were crayon and magic-marker marks on every wall, and he said, ‘We’ll take it.’ He knew I was never going to leave the neighborhood — that I was never going to leave the building — because it’s home.”Shelves have been stripped of books to make space to display a Lego Christmas Village scene.Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesMs. Chan puts a heavy emphasis and great value on home. Many of her songs have the word “home” in the title or the lyrics. Home frequently figures in conversations with her. Dilating on the topic, she gets unapologetically weepy.Even though the family has settled fully into the more spacious apartment — their numbers now include Eva, 2 — Ms. Chan clings to the other space because that, too, is her home. It’s easily identified by the sleigh bell-encrusted Christmas wreath.“In the way you walk into your house and it smells familiar — that’s this place, for me,” she said.There she wraps and hides her children’s Christmas presents, writes songs, does business Zoom calls and records promos for the radio stations that play her music. Ms. Chan gets inspiration from the fully decorated artificial Christmas tree that, like the wreath, remains in place year-round; from the decorative holiday pillows, of which there are many; and from a photo of her maternal grandmother presiding over a Christmas pageant in her village in the Philippines. “She taught me what matters,” Ms. Chan said.“I usually take January off and start writing Christmas songs again in February,” Ms. Chan said.Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesOn a Friday morning in early December, the holiday spirit was ascendant two floors up, in the family quarters. The bookshelves had been given over to displays of Lego Christmas Village scenes and a Fisher-Price Little People Nativity set. Red stockings were hung with care over the red-painted wood console. A “Santa Stop Here” tree-topper was ready to be put in place, and the marble-topped dining table where Ms. Chan sat, a decade ago, to map out her business, had been cleared off to make room for a gingerbread house or two.“This is what Christmas looks like to me,” she said, gazing around the living room. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable living anywhere else. Since my songs are focused on love and family and home, uprooting would affect my music.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. More

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    Musical Adaptation of ‘Almost Famous’ Will Close on Broadway

    The show, a passion project for Cameron Crowe, opened on Broadway in early November, but has faced soft sales in a competitive market.“Almost Famous,” a stage adaptation of the acclaimed 2000 film about a teenager who travels with a rock band while endeavoring to become a music journalist, will close on Broadway on Jan. 8 after an unsuccessfully short run.The musical, which had one of the season’s biggest budgets and best-known brands, began previews Oct. 3 and opened Nov. 3. The reviews were mostly not good; in The New York Times, the critic Jesse Green wrote that, despite the film’s charms, “the stage musical misses every opportunity to be the sharp, smart entertainment it might have been.”The show’s grosses have been so-so, and insufficient to consistently cover its running costs: during the week that ended Dec. 11, it grossed $765,060, while playing to houses that were only three-quarters full. At the time of its closing “Almost Famous,” which stars Casey Likes, Drew Gehling, Anika Larsen, Solea Pfeiffer and Chris Wood, will have had 30 preview performances and 77 regular performances.The musical is a passion project for Cameron Crowe, who won an Oscar for the film’s screenplay, which was based on his experiences as an adolescent (he also directed the film). Crowe wrote the musical’s book, while Tom Kitt composed the new music, and the two collaborated on the lyrics. The show, directed by Jeremy Herrin, also features a few pre-existing songs, the best known of which is Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.”“Almost Famous,” produced by Lia Vollack and Michael Cassel, was capitalized for up to $18 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It has not recouped that money; the producers hope that the show will fare better beyond Broadway. (A cast album is to be released March 17, and the producers said in a statement that they anticipate “many productions in communities across the country and world, for years to come.” One probable destination: Australia, where Cassel is one of the biggest commercial producers.)Like Crowe himself, the show spent its formative period in San Diego: It had a pre-Broadway production in 2019 at the Old Globe Theater there. The Los Angeles Times declared it “an unqualified winner.” More

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    Amber Heard Says She Has Decided to ‘Settle’ Johnny Depp Defamation Case

    The long-running legal battle was heading for its next chapter in an appeals court, but Mr. Depp’s lawyers said Ms. Heard has agreed to pay $1 million to end it.The actress Amber Heard said on Monday that she did not plan to go forward with her appeal of the defamation case involving her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, writing in an Instagram post that she had decided to settle the long-running dispute following a defeat at trial earlier this year.In a statement, Benjamin Chew and Camille Vasquez, lawyers for Mr. Depp, said Ms. Heard agreed to pay $1 million to end the case — far less than the jury verdict requiring her to pay more than $8 million in damages.In June, the seven-person jury in Virginia found that Ms. Heard had defamed Mr. Depp when she described herself in a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” The jury awarded Mr. Depp more than $10 million in damages, but it also found that Mr. Depp had defamed Ms. Heard through a comment made by his lawyer, awarding Ms. Heard $2 million.Both sides had appealed the parts of the case that each had lost, indicating a long and costly battle was coming in Virginia’s Court of Appeals.But Ms. Heard said on Monday that she did not wish to continue the case, citing a financial and psychological toll.Our Coverage of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard TrialA trial between the formerly married actors became a fierce battleground over the truth about their relationship.What to Know: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard sued each other with competing defamation claims, amid mutual accusations of domestic abuse.The Verdict: The jury ruled that Mr. Depp was defamed by Ms. Heard in her op-ed, but also that she had been defamed by one of his lawyers.Possible Effects: Lawyers say that the outcome of the trial could embolden others accused of sexual abuse to try their luck with juries, marking a new era for the #MeToo movement.The Media’s Role: As the trial demonstrates, by sharing claims of sexual abuse the press assumes the risks that come with antagonizing the rich, powerful and litigious.“After a great deal of deliberation I have made a very difficult decision to settle the defamation case brought against me by my ex-husband in Virginia,” her post said.In their statement, Mr. Depp’s lawyers sought to counter any possible perception that the agreement was a victory for Ms. Heard, writing that the $1 million payment “reinforces Ms. Heard’s acknowledgment of the conclusion of the legal system’s rigorous pursuit for justice.”“We are pleased to formally close the door on this painful chapter for Mr. Depp, who made clear throughout this process that his priority was about bringing the truth to light,” the statement said. “The jury’s unanimous decision and the resulting judgment in Mr. Depp’s favor against Ms. Heard remain fully in place.”Mr. Depp’s lawyers said he planned to donate the payment to charity.Lawyers for Ms. Heard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.For weeks, the livestreamed trial became an internet preoccupation, with much of the vitriol targeting Ms. Heard, whose claims of domestic violence and sexual assault became the subject of memes and mockery. In her post, Ms. Heard indicated that the online abuse was a factor in her decision to not see her appeal through.“The vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimised when they come forward,” the statement said. “I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder.”She said in the post that the terms of the agreement did not restrict what she could say about the case.Mr. Depp has repeatedly denied abusing Ms. Heard, and throughout the trial, he portrayed her as the aggressor in the relationship.Mr. Depp and Ms. Heard have been locked in legal proceedings around the claims for years. In Britain, a judge had ruled that there was evidence that Mr. Depp had repeatedly assaulted Ms. Heard. That ruling came in a libel suit that Mr. Depp had filed after The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, called him a “wife beater” in a headline. The judge in that case had ruled that the defendants had shown that what they published was “substantially true.”Ms. Heard said in her post that she was not willing to see the claims aired in a court again — a possible outcome if her appeal was to succeed.“I simply cannot go through that for a third time,” Ms. Heard said in her post, later writing, “I cannot afford to risk an impossible bill — one that is not just financial, but also psychological, physical and emotional.”Since Mr. Depp’s victory in Virginia, he has tiptoed back into the public eye, appearing in a fashion show backed by Rihanna and working on films.Ms. Heard has remained almost entirely out of the spotlight. In federal court, she has been battling her insurance company, which has been seeking to avoid responsibility for shouldering the costs of the jury verdict. It was not immediately clear whether the insurance company would take responsibility for the $1 million payment. More