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      ‘Invisible Beauty’ Review: The Battle to Diversify

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      This documentary presents a vision of the fashion industry through the eyes of Bethann Hardison — a model, agent and champion of Black representation.The documentary “Invisible Beauty” presents a history of the modern fashion industry through the eyes of Bethann Hardison — an octogenarian model-turned-advocate whose life has acted as a proof of concept for Black style. Hardison co-directed the film with Frédéric Tcheng, and through a combination of archival footage and present-day interviews, the pair show the impact of Hardison’s efforts to expand the fashion industry’s view of what constitutes beauty.Hardison was born in 1942, and in interviews, she recalls with pride that she grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. She summered with family in Louisiana, and there, she observed the injustice of racial segregation — an institution which failed to intimidate Hardison. Her unshakable sense of self-worth happened to coincide with a striking exterior beauty and a city girl’s instinct for how to accentuate her strengths. It was this combination of pride and personal style which opened doors for Hardison in the fashion scene of 1970s New York. She became a model, participating in famed fashion events such as the 1973 Battle of Versailles, where Black American artists stole the show from the established French elite. Later, Hardison’s vision of Black style led her to start her own modeling agency, and finally, to push for equal opportunities, hiring and pay.The documentary shows how Hardison embodied a vision of public life; to meet her gaze was to look into a future that was diverse, powerful and unapologetic. Hardison and Tcheng use interviews to show how Hardison acted as a mentor for generations of Black artists, from Iman to Naomi Campbell to Zendaya. At times, the film is hampered by the sheer amount of information there is to condense from across a 50-year career, but Hardison is never less than a fascinating subject — an artist whose medium is industrial disruption.Invisible BeautyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Inventor’ Review: Leonardo da Vinci in the Limelight

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      This playful movie uses stop-motion and hand-drawn animation to pay homage to Leonardo as a thinker and tinkerer.More than once in “The Inventor,” an animated feature about Leonardo da Vinci, powerful patrons tell that Renaissance polymath to behave “like a good little artist.” This advice comes first from Pope Leo X (voiced by Matt Berry) and later from Louise of Savoy (Marion Cotillard), the devoted mother of King Francis I of France.The notion of a great mind that is both beneficiary of and handmaid to the agendas of the powerful runs throughout this admirably artisanal appreciation of Leonardo’s intellect and innovative spirit, which follows him (Stephen Fry) as he leaves Rome to become King Francis’s maestro. The directors, Jim Capobianco (who also wrote the screenplay) and Pierre-Luc Granjon, keep the artist’s paintings secondary to his exploits as a thinker and tinkerer. Their engaging voice cast also includes Daisy Ridley as Leonardo’s royal champion, Marguerite de Navarre, and Gauthier Battoue as the king, who proves to be in dire need of an ego-stroking statue.The filmmakers use stop-motion puppetry and hand-illustrated animation to capture Leonardo’s story. This brings to life his fears and fascinations, while drawing out both the wonder and the tribulations he experiences as he searches for the “answer to life itself,” while struggling to work under the command of the powerful. (Here, “The Inventor” shares a theme with a decidedly less child-friendly recent big-screen portrait, “Oppenheimer.”)In honoring this beautiful mind, the plot’s forward motion lags at times. “The Inventor” is rife with somewhat didactic lessons — about power, innovation, curiosity — yet a presumably unintended one might be that lessons themselves, however insightful, are not always captivating.The InventorRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Mr. Jimmy’ Review: Trying for That Perfect Page Re-Creation

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      Akio Sakurai is obsessed with sounding exactly like the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. This documentary plumbs the depths of his devotion.The Led Zeppelin founder Jimmy Page is the envy of guitar players, and nonplayers, the world over. Mike D of the Beastie Boys expressed the wishful thinking of many when he boasted in a rap, “If I played guitar I’d be Jimmy Page.”No one understands this better, it happens, than Akio Sakurai, a Japanese musician who has devoted decades to playing guitar in the varying modes that Page applied in his years as Led Zeppelin’s lead instrumentalist. He recalls one day off from his job as a kimono salesman, seeing the Zep concert film “The Song Remains The Same,” and being mesmerized by the power of Page’s playing. He became obsessed with recreating it.The first hour of the movie contains lots of guitar wonkiness as Sakurai, nicknamed “Mr. Jimmy,” consults with technicians, working on getting his own axes and amps as close to Page’s gear as he can. After Mr. Jimmy elaborates on the idiosyncrasies of Les Paul guitar pickup guards, one of the artisans he works with comments, “We understand Jimmy’s obsession. It’s very Japanese.”The film, directed by Peter Michael Dowd, centers on Sakurai’s upending his life to move to Los Angeles and install himself in a Zep tribute band; he lasts a couple of years, leaving because the other members didn’t share his single-mindedness in reproducing Page’s onstage work.“That is the meaning of tribute. Not showing myself at all. There is no ‘me’ to begin with,” Sakurai, who is now 59, says at one point. This is a terrifying notion, but the movie doesn’t choose to run with it, instead sticking to Mr. Jimmy’s career travails in the States before landing with a “Spinal Tap”-redolent happy ending.Mr. JimmyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Marquee Writers Push for Negotiations, but Their Clout May Not Matter

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      Some showrunners, eager for progress in the Hollywood strike, want the Writers Guild of America to meet with studios. How much sway they still have is in question.With the Hollywood writers’ strike stretching into its fifth month and the financial toll on people across the entertainment industry becoming increasingly grim, A-list showrunners have grown impatient.Some have called union leaders to ask pointed questions about the stalled talks. Why can’t you get in a negotiating room with studio representatives and not come out until you have a deal? Isn’t it time to bring in mediators? Others have pushed for a sit-down to hear their union’s strategy for resolving the strike. Union officials are scheduled to meet with Kenya Barris (“black-ish”), Noah Hawley (“Fargo”), Dan Fogelman (“This Is Us”) and other restless showrunners in the coming days. Whether marquee writers have enough juice to help end the dispute — as they did during the 2007-8 screenwriters’ strike — is an open question, however. The power dynamic has changed inside the union since then, longtime Hollywood observers say, and showrunners no longer hold the same sway.“You’ve seen a weakening of showrunner influence and a resurrection of rank-and-file writer influence,” said Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chapman University’s film school.The Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,000 television and film writers, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains for studios, have not held talks for three weeks. Last month, studios sweetened their offer — and then, in an unusual move, publicly disclosed the details, hoping rank-and-file guild members would be satisfied and pressure their leaders to make a deal.“This was the companies’ plan from the beginning — not to bargain, but to jam us,” guild leaders said shortly afterward. “It is their only strategy — to bet that we will turn on each other.”Union leaders have since insisted that the onus is on studios to keep improving their offer. The studios have rejected that demand, but it is a position supported by many Writers Guild members, including numerous showrunners. On Tuesday in Los Angeles, writers like Alexi Hawley (“The Rookie”) and Scott Gimple (“The Walking Dead”) helped stage a well-attended “showrunner solidarity day” picket at Fox Studios.“I don’t think anybody is really second-guessing and looking for ways to cause some disruption in the leadership of the guild,” Steve Levitan, whose credits include “Just Shoot Me!” and “Modern Family,” told a reporter for an entertainment trade publication at the event. “We’re just always trying to see if there are any ways anybody can help.”Behind the scenes, however, frustration among elite Writers Guild members has been mounting.Ryan Murphy, the writer-producer behind television hits like “American Horror Story” and “9-1-1,” recently had a heated conversation about the strike with Chris Keyser, a senior Writers Guild official, according to two people close to Mr. Murphy, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe a private discussion. Mr. Murphy set up a financial assistance fund for idled workers on his shows and committed $500,000 as a starting amount. Within days, he had $10 million in requests, the people said.Tyler Perry was among the show creators planning to meet with guild leaders.A spokesman for the Writers Guild declined to comment.At 135 days, the strike is one of the longest in the history of the Writers Guild. (The longest was 153 days in 1988.) The union has called this moment “existential,” arguing that the streaming era has deteriorated its members’ working conditions and compensation levels. Studios have defended their proposal as offering the highest wage increase to writers in more than three decades, while also offering “landmark protections” against artificial intelligence.Studios have also signaled a willingness to negotiate with the guild on the sticky matter of staffing minimums in television writers’ rooms. (The studio alliance declined to comment for this article.)In July, tens of thousands of actors represented by SAG-AFTRA joined writers on picket lines, the first time both unions have been on strike at the same time since the 1960s.The result has been a near-complete shutdown in Hollywood production. Writers and actors have lost income, of course. But the collateral damage is also mounting, with crew members and support staff beginning to feel a severe financial squeeze. Hollywood workers have taken $45 million in hardship withdrawals from the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plan since Sept. 1, according to a document compiled by plan administrators that was viewed by The New York Times. Workers have been allowed to pull $20,000 each from their retirement funds for the time being.Showrunners like Mr. Murphy and Mr. Fogelman employ thousands of crew members across their productions, putting them in the position of being besieged by people who ask when they can get back to work and having no answers.Conventional wisdom in Hollywood held that the strikes would be resolved by Labor Day. Now time is running out to salvage the year, given the time it takes to reassemble casts and crews, a complex process complicated by the coming holidays. Preproduction (before cameras roll) for new shows can take up to 12 weeks, with movies taking roughly 16 weeks. Even if the Writers Guild and studios can come to an agreement in the coming weeks, studios need to engage with the actors’ union, and no talks in that dispute have been scheduled, either.Showrunners have gotten more involved as studios have suspended first-look deals worth millions of dollars. Last week, Warner Bros. suspended deals with J.J. Abrams, Mindy Kaling, Greg Berlanti and Bill Lawrence.Yet despite the real implications that this strike is having on all ranks of the business, no guild member wants to be seen as agitating against the union’s leadership. Prominent showrunners are concerned about having their names in public and are instead trying to push things forward without looking like elites who aren’t in alignment with guild leaders. The appearance of dissension in the ranks scuttled a meeting this week between showrunners and Writers Guild officials, with both groups subsequently bickering over who canceled on whom.As the 100-day writers’ strike in 2007 wore on, a group of showrunners pushed union leadership to settle with the studios. But several entertainment executives said showrunners were more of a power center within the Writers Guild 15 years ago. For one thing, there were just a few dozen of them.In recent years, as the showrunner pool has expanded to hundreds, some Hollywood observers have argued that their influence within the union has waned. The limits of their power were on display four years ago in a failed attempt to wield influence to end another Hollywood stalemate.In 2019, Writers Guild leaders told thousands of screenwriters to fire their talent agents over what they described as significant conflicts of interest. As months passed, with the agency standoff showing no signs of resolution, some marquee writers went public with objections over the union’s strategy. They said the dispute with the agencies was a worthy one, but they objected to a seeming lack of urgency in returning to negotiating.One of the opposing writers, Phyllis Nagy, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2016 for her “Carol” screenplay, ran for president of the Writers Guild’s West Coast branch. She was vying to unseat David Goodman (“Family Guy”), who was standing for re-election. A who’s who of showrunners and writers — including Mr. Murphy, Mr. Berlanti, Shonda Rhimes and Ava DuVernay — endorsed Ms. Nagy.But Mr. Goodman won re-election with a strong majority. He is currently a chair of the Writers Guild’s committee squaring off against studios for a new contract.In the fight with agencies, the Writers Guild held firm for nearly two years. Many people in Hollywood have credited that lengthy dispute — ostensibly won by the Writers Guild — as galvanizing union leaders in the current standoff with studios. More

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      ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ Musical to Open on Broadway This Winter

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      Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James will reprise the roles they played Off Broadway earlier this year.“Days of Wine and Roses,” a musical adaptation of a midcentury story about a loving marriage destroyed by alcoholism, will come to Broadway early next year starring the acclaimed stage performers Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James.The production had a 10-week run earlier this year at the Atlantic Theater Company, an Off Broadway nonprofit. Writing in The New York Times, the critic Laura Collins-Hughes called it a “jazzy, aching musical,” and praised its “glorious sound.”O’Hara is a seven-time Tony Award nominee who won the award in 2015 for her performance in a revival of “The King and I.” James is a four-time nominee, most recently for last season’s revival of “Into the Woods.”The Broadway production, directed by Michael Greif (“Dear Evan Hansen”), is scheduled to begin previews Jan. 6 and to open Jan. 28 at Studio 54 for a 16-week run. The lead producers are Kevin McCollum, Mark Cortale, Lorenzo Thione and Joey Monda.“Days of Wine and Roses” began its life as a teleplay in 1958; it was then adapted into a film in 1962. The musical features a score by Adam Guettel and a book by Craig Lucas; they previously collaborated on the 2005 musical “The Light in the Piazza,” and both of them have spoken about their own struggles with substance abuse.Guettel said he’s not sure when he first encountered the film, but that it immediately resonated. “I was really streaming tears at that point,” he said. “I had a sense of how alcohol and drugs had affected my life, and even though I had escaped the clutches of all that, the vivid recognition of it really spurred me on, not to create some sort of cautionary tale, but to depict how being addicted affects your life and the people around you.”The musical, like many, has had a long and bumpy road to Broadway. Guettel said he first discussed the idea with O’Hara two decades ago, when the two were working on “The Light in the Piazza,” and that he had developed the score for her.“It seemed like the right role for her, even then, in terms of the tenderness and the strength,” he said.James joined the project in the earliest days as well; he and O’Hara are friends who performed together in “Sweet Smell of Success.”There have been others who have come and gone — at one point, John Logan was the writer; at one point, Scott Rudin was the producer; at one point, Lincoln Center Theater was going to stage the show.“The fact that it is coming through the steeplechase intact is incredible,” Guettel said. More

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      ‘Moonlight’ Writer Tarell Alvin McCraney to Lead Geffen Playhouse

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      The prominent Los Angeles nonprofit chose the playwright to oversee its artistic programming at a time of crisis for American theaters.Tarell Alvin McCraney, an acclaimed playwright who won an Oscar for writing the story that became the 2016 film “Moonlight,” has been named the next artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse, a prominent nonprofit theater in Los Angeles.The Geffen, like many regional theaters in the United States, has been hit by a downturn in the field — as of this spring, its subscriptions were 40 percent below prepandemic levels. But it was among the more innovative theater companies when theaters were closed during the pandemic, producing some popular virtual shows, and it is now in better shape than many.McCraney, 42, said he was fully aware of the crisis facing the field, which he said was the impetus for him to decide to step into leadership.“We’re at a place where, if I really love this, if I really want to effect change, I have to get in,” he said. “I can’t just sit on the sidelines. Across entertainment and across the arts there is a strong shift for everybody. Everybody is feeling this new something — that something else is coming — and I could wade through it, or I could be helpful by being in leadership.”McCraney, an important figure in the American theatrical landscape, won a so-called genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation in 2013, and he recently wrapped up six years as chairman of the influential playwriting program at Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama. He is also a member of the ensemble at Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago, and an associate artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Britain.His play “Choir Boy,” about a gay adolescent at an elite prep school, was staged on Broadway in 2019 and has been performed in theaters around the country, including at the Geffen. Among his other plays are “The Brothers Size” (a part of his “Brother/Sister Plays” trilogy), which has been discussed for a possible Broadway production, and “Head of Passes.”“Moonlight” was adapted from a script McCraney wrote called “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue”; in 2017 he and Barry Jenkins shared the Academy Award for adapted screenplay.McCraney said he would keep writing his own work, for the Geffen and for other theaters, even as he assumes this new role, in which he will choose the productions staged at the Geffen and oversee their artistic development.Stepping into a leadership role, he added, is not as much of a swerve as it might seem. “It’s been something that’s been with me for a long time,” he said. “As a young person in Miami, I always imagined I would run the Coconut Grove Playhouse, which has been shuttered for years.”The Geffen, founded in 1995, has two stages — the 512-seat Gil Cates Theater and the 149-seat Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater. The Geffen has 45 full-time staffers (and another 150 part-timers) and a $12 million annual budget. McCraney succeeds Matt Shakman as artistic director; Gil Cates Jr., whose father founded the theater, serves as its executive director and chief executive.McCraney currently lives in Miami, which is where he grew up; he said he would relocate to Los Angeles. He has worked in Los Angeles, not only on “Moonlight,” but also in the writers room for the television show “David Makes Man,” and for a variety of other projects, including a production of “Head of Passes” at the neighboring Center Theater Group.“Los Angeles is a city that is reminiscent of Miami,” he said, “and it has a theater scene that is often thought of as secondary, but I always thought it had a rich community of artists who were hybrid, and that’s exciting for me to connect to folks who have those multi-hyphenate careers.”Building stronger relationships with U.C.L.A., which is across the street from the Geffen, will be among his priorities, he said, as well as nourishing playwrights in a way that he felt nourished by nonprofit theaters early in his career.“We don’t necessarily take care of our artists,” he said. “I want to be more intentional about that.” More

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      Talking Heads Reunite for Restored ‘Stop Making Sense’

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      Appearing together for the first time since 2002, the band celebrated the film in a Q. and A. with Spike Lee at the Toronto International Film Festival.The hottest ticket at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival was not for the new auteur film from Hayao Miyazaki or Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the latest vehicle for Kate Winslet or Sean Penn, or grand prizewinners at Cannes and Venice. No, the most feverishly in-demand screening was for a 39-year-old movie that everyone in its sold-out audience could have watched at home, at the push of a button.But this isn’t just any 39-year-old movie. “Stop Making Sense,” directed by Jonathan Demme, is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of the form, a joyful documentation (and celebration) of Talking Heads’ 1983 tour supporting their album “Speaking in Tongues.” The Toronto festival screening marked the debut of A24’s new restoration of the film ahead of its theatrical and IMAX rerelease later this month.But the real draw in Toronto was the band’s reunion for a Q. and A. conducted by Spike Lee after the screening (and simulcast to IMAX theaters across the globe). “This is the greatest concert film ever!” he enthused with the musicians sitting next to him. “I can say that! You might not want to, but for me, I’m going on record, around the world: this is the greatest concert film ever.”The 25-minute chat was the first time the band members had appeared together since they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. That reunion was an event in itself, following what the frontman David Byrne recently described, with characteristic understatement, as an “ugly” breakup in 1991. His former bandmates haven’t been quite so delicate. In 2020, the drummer Chris Frantz published a memoir in which he accused Byrne of frequently diminishing the contributions of his fellow musicians, while the bassist Tina Weymouth referred to him as, among many other slurs, “a vampire.” (Byrne has since granted that he was “more of a little tyrant” in those early years.)But in Toronto, it was all good vibes for Byrne, Frantz and Weymouth (who are married) and the keyboardist and guitarist Jerry Harrison. “I’m very grateful to be here tonight, and to be able to watch this and to enjoy it so much,” Frantz said warmly at the beginning of the conversation. Byrne concurred: “When I was watching this just now, I was thinking, this is why we come to the movie theaters. This is different than watching it on my laptop!”And indeed it was. From the opening image — of Byrne’s scuffed-up white sneakers striding onto the stage, as he sets down a boombox and announces, “Hi, I got a tape I wanna play” — seeing “Stop Making Sense” in IMAX was like seeing it anew. The image, blown up from the original 35-millimeter negatives, was crisp and rich; the sound, an early digital audio recording, felt like it had been laid down last night. The restless, roving, participatory nature of Demme’s cameras make it much more than a standard concert documentary. It’s an exhilarating record of a group of talented people, at the peak of their considerable powers, having a great time making groundbreaking music that you can still dance to.A scene from “Stop Making Sense,” which was restored from the original negatives and shown in IMAX on Monday in Toronto.via A24Demme, who died at 73 in 2017, was attracted to the material, Byrne recalled, because the show they’d assembled told a story, with a beginning, middle and end. The picture starts, quite literally, with the forming of the band, as Byrne is joined by each additional member, one by one, and their show is built out from the bare stage on which it begins. By the midpoint, this odd little man and his friends have become a family, and when Byrne sings the kind and welcoming lyrics of “This Must Be the Place” (“Home/is where I want to be/but I guess I’m already there”), it’s as heartfelt and moving an emotional beat as you’ll find in any narrative film.Byrne recalled realizing that Demme, working with the editor Lisa Day, was actually making an ensemble film. “Like, you would have a bunch of actors in a location and you get to know each character, one by one,” Byrne explained, adding, “You get familiar with them, and then you watch how they all interact with one another. And I thought, I’m in my own world. But he saw that, he saw what was going on there.”The sheer visceral impact of the filmmaking, when shown at IMAX proportions, was staggering as well. Demme’s striking, out-of-the-box lighting choices and close-up compositions are jaw-dropping on the big screen, and Byrne comes across as even more like a (seemingly impossible) movie star, from his first reveal in the iconic Big Suit (“It was really big tonight,” Frantz quipped) to his serpentine slithering during “Life During Wartime.” He’s aware of the camera and plays to it savvily — not just singing the band’s songs, but performing them (and understanding the difference).But he’s far from the only attraction, and the detail of the IMAX restoration (coupled with Demme’s preference for long takes and wide shots) provides the viewer with plenty of opportunities to observe the dynamics, throughout the frame, between the group, additional musicians like the keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and the crew. The cameras capture their nonverbal communication, the little cues and asides and flashes of encouragement they’re throwing at one another through the entire show.“There’s all these moments that he caught, where one of us looks at the other, looks over at Bernie or Bernie looks at us, all those little quick interactions,” Byrne marveled. “And I thought, that stuff is amazing.”From left, Frantz, Weymouth, Harrison and Byrne reunited on the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival.Shawn Goldberg/Getty ImagesHarrison said that “one of the reasons for the lasting power of the film is you see that we are having so much fun onstage,” adding that “the audience is brought right into it. We say, you’re part of this too. And I think that every time anybody watches it, it brings back that wonderful emotion.”That was certainly the case in Toronto. The rowdy crowd applauded every number, cheered for the band’s introductions and clapped along with the breakdown in “Take Me to the River.” One guy hollered, “Encore!” when the movie ended.Both “Once in a Lifetime” and “Burning Down the House” brought audience members to their feet, just like their onscreen counterparts, to dance in the aisles. To be fair, they’re very hard songs to not dance to. In the seventh row, at his aisle seat, David Byrne was on his feet with them, bobbing his head and rocking back and forth, once more, for old times’ sake. More

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      Documentary on New York City’s 1970s Fiscal Crisis Wins Film Prize

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      A documentary about the city’s fiscal crisis of the 1970s, co-directed by the son of one of its saviors, wins the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film.On Oct. 29, 1975, Mike O’Neill, the editor of The Daily News, and Bill Brink, the managing editor, returned from lunch and asked whether President Gerald R. Ford, while addressing the National Press Club in Washington, had agreed to help New York City avoid bankruptcy.The editors were read the definitive sentence from Ford’s address: “I am prepared to veto any bill that has as its purpose a federal bailout of New York City to prevent a default.”As I recall — I was a reporter and editor at The Daily News at the time — Brink initially summed up the president’s rejection with what was sometimes quaintly described back then as a two-word barnyard epithet. Then they refined the hulking front page tabloid headline, a cri de coeur that encapsulated Washington’s response to the city’s plight and that would help cost Ford the presidential election the following year, ultimately becoming a metaphor for New York’s resilience: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”Those days of urban desolation, despair and painful recovery a half century ago are captured in the forthcoming documentary “Drop Dead City — New York on the Brink in 1975,” which on Monday was awarded the fifth annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film.“Drop Dead City” was directed by Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn, a filmmaker and musician who had a unique perspective: It was Michael’s father, Felix G. Rohatyn, an investment banker, who was recruited in 1975 by the heroic Gov. Hugh L. Carey of New York to help stave off the state’s municipal bankruptcy.Michael Rohatyn was only 12 when his father helped save the city. Perusing the old footage from that time and filming 200 additional hours, he said in an interview, “I was very moved to see his charm and his intellect right there on the surface. I think he would be really proud of the film. He might think there’s not enough of him in it, and he might be right.”Felix G. Rohatyn, who helped rescue New York City from insolvency in the 1970s, was the father of one of the filmmakers.William E. Sauro/The New York TimesThe prize, awarded by The Better Angels Society, the Library of Congress and the Crimson Lion/Lavine Family Foundation, and funded by Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine, includes a $200,000 grant for final production and distribution of the film, a sum that, the award-winning documentarian Ken Burns recalled, was more than the entire budget for his first film, on the Brooklyn Bridge, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1982.“Drop Dead City” serves as a vivid reminder for today’s negativists of how bad the bad old days were. The contrasting scenes are poignant: a theater poster for “Man of La Mancha” — the Impossible Dream — and streets clogged with cabs juxtaposed with the carcasses of burned-out buildings, abandoned skeletal public works, graffiti-shrouded subway cars, and mobs of justifiably choleric municipal workers whose promise of lifetime civil service job security was suddenly jeopardized. Its protagonists were mostly men with long sideburns in smoke-filled rooms, palpably fearful over the uncharted consequences if the city could no longer fool some of the people all of the time to pay its bills.Who would have first claim? The bondholders from whom the city had borrowed? Or the police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers and teachers on whom New Yorkers depended every day? Or the beneficiaries of public assistance who depended on the city?And who would bear the blame? Former Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, whose worthies conceived of “moral obligation” bonds to enable more borrowing for good causes? Former Mayor Robert F. Wagner, who was re-elected in 1961 after granting the unions collective bargaining rights? His successor, John V. Lindsay, undone by the cost of good intentions? Or his successor, Abraham D. Beame, who had warned against fiscal gimmickry when he was the city’s comptroller but sanctioned it anyway by voting for the unbalanced budgets, only to find that the buck stopped with him when he was elected mayor?And who should bear the brunt of the sacrifice? Public officials had long maintained low mass transit fares, free tuition at City University and other services, and had granted organized labor generous benefits not only to get re-elected, but to preserve the city’s legacy as a global beacon of opportunity. Bankers should have known that the city was selling tax anticipation notes without having the slightest notion of how much tax revenue was anticipated, even as they reaped hefty commissions on each borrowing that sent the city deeper into debt.“They made the accounting sexy,” Burns said of the filmmakers. “They made the people who get dismissed human and dimensional. The headline became the haiku of the fiscal crisis.”Hundreds of films were submitted to the Better Angels Society, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to educate Americans about their history through documentaries. It winnowed the submissions to six and presented two to Burns and to Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress. The runner-up was “The Disappearance of Miss Scott,” directed by Nicole London, which recounts the story of the jazz pianist and civil rights pioneer Hazel Scott, who went into exile during the Red Scare of the 1950s.The mid-1970s evoked by “Drop Dead City” are even more distant from today’s audiences than the ancient history of the 1929 stock market crash was from New Yorkers who lived through the city’s fiscal crisis. But, as Hayden explained, what gives the film vitality and relevance is that “it puts history at the forefront.”“Drop Dead City” deftly melds archival footage of frustrated and gravely conflicted negotiators, ordinary New Yorkers and aggrieved rank-and-file union members with candid reflections by the surviving protagonists. Unfortunately some, like former Deputy Mayor John Zuccotti, didn’t survive long enough to be interviewed on video. (Zuccotti died a day after the filmmakers spoke with him off-camera.)Viewers might also have welcomed more of Felix Rohatyn’s pithy observations. (He once likened default to “someone stepping into a tepid bath and slashing his wrists — you might not feel yourself dying, but that’s what would happen.”)The city came so close to default that a declaration was signed by Mayor Beame’s shaky hand, but never invoked; it later hung in the home office of the New York corporate lawyer Ira Millstein.Asked at the time, though, whether an agreement with the municipal unions and the State Legislature to fend off bankruptcy would survive, Felix Rohatyn replied: “I don’t give odds any more. I think it has to work.”But Rohatyn was aware of the costs, predicting that the sacrifices inflicted to satisfy the banks and the Ford administration would mean that even if New York survived, “this city will be a much lesser place.”Yost, the film’s co-director, explained why, even though New York remains very much alive, “Drop Dead City” is still very relevant.“Intellectually, it’s resonant at a time when we’re all at each other’s throats,” he said. “That was a moment when it could have gotten ugly and rude like New York, but seemingly irreconcilable things came together to keep the city from going over a cliff. To me that holds a lot of lessons for us today.” More