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      Sarah Polley Is OK With Oversharing

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      In her new essay collection, “Run Towards the Danger,” the actress and filmmaker examines intensely personal stories she’s still sorting out for herself.It’s been more than six years since Sarah Polley was struck on the head by a fire extinguisher, one that was unwisely hung over a lost-and-found box at her local community center, leaving her with a debilitating concussion.When its symptoms were at their worst, Polley, the preternaturally poised actor (“The Sweet Hereafter”) and filmmaker of probing dramas (“Away From Her,” “Take This Waltz”) could not concentrate on her family or her screenwriting. She suffered headaches and nausea, brought on by everyday levels of light and sound.But over a period of nearly four years, she recuperated, emerging with restored focus — and with an upgraded philosophical outlook that has infused nearly every aspect of her life.“When people say, ‘Are you better?,’ I’m like, I’m better than I was before the concussion,” she said last month, almost in disbelief at her own words.Her newfound perspective arises from her work with a doctor who instructed her not to retreat from the activities that triggered her symptoms but to seek them out and embrace the discomfort they caused.That guidance provides the title for Polley’s first book, “Run Towards the Danger,” a collection of autobiographical essays that Penguin Press will release on March 1.“Run Towards the Danger” is out next month.The essays often link moments from her childhood, adolescence and adulthood, spanning her experiences as an artist and entertainer, a mother, a daughter and a woman. What they have in common, she said, is that they chronicle events “from the past that have been fundamentally changed by my relationship to them in the present.”“They were things I didn’t talk about, because I didn’t know what the stories even were,” Polley, 43, added. “Part of this is figuring out, what the hell happened?”That includes her account of the concussion and her recovery, and while that accident was not her inspiration for writing “Run Towards the Danger” — “It’s a bit messier and more complex than that” — Polley said the book’s contents were informed by the paradigm-shifting worldview her treatment yielded and its exhortation to confront sources of pain.“The thing that will get you better is moving towards the things you’re avoiding,” she said. “But it’s kind of exhilarating, realizing that whatever story you’ve been telling about yourself — and everyone tells those stories — isn’t you. That got exploded for me as this prison I was living in.”On a Saturday morning this past January, Polley was speaking in a video interview from her home in Toronto. She sat in a brightly lit room, undaunted by the prospect of staring into a computer monitor for an hour or so and putting herself under a microscope.“I thrive on too-intimate conversations with people,” she said. “I don’t have this need for secrecy around almost every part of my life.”In its first chapter, “Run Towards the Danger” offers a melancholy reflection on Polley’s teenage struggles with scoliosis, her body horror juxtaposed with several anxious, frustrating months spent playing the lead in a Stratford Festival production of “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” Her mother died of cancer when Polley was 11; her father sank into a depression and by age 14 the author had left home to move in with an older brother’s ex-girlfriend and largely figure out the world for herself.This entry, titled “Alice, Collapsing,” is one that Polley said she’d made multiple attempts at completing since she was 19. “That essay’s written by four different people,” she said.Polley also revisits her work as a child actor in an essay called “Mad Genius,” about the making of Terry Gilliam’s 1988 fantasy “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.” That film, for which she was cast at the age of 8 to play the Baron’s young companion, Sally Salt, left her deeply traumatized.Sarah Polley, center, was 8 when she played Sally Salt in “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.”Columbia Pictures, via Everett CollectionFor one battle scene, she was repeatedly made to run a terrifying gauntlet of explosives and debris. She jammed cotton balls into her ears to drown out the noise. Another action sequence sent her to the hospital when a detonation startled a horse, causing it to thrust an explosive device in Polley’s direction.In the essay, Polley reproduces an email exchange she had with Gilliam several years later, writing to him that “i was pretty furious at you for a lot of years,” though she says “the adults who should have been there to protect me were my parents, not you.” (Gilliam replies with an apology for the chaotic film shoot, writing, “Although things might have seemed to be dangerous, they weren’t.”)Yet a few pages later, Polley finds herself regretting that she absolved Gilliam too easily, having bought into the archetype of “the out-of-control white male genius”: “It’s so pervasive, this idea that genius can’t come without trouble, that it has paved the way for countless abuses,” she writes.To this day, Polley told me her emotions surrounding “Baron Munchausen” are not easily categorized.“Was it worth my feeling like my life was at risk and people didn’t care enough about it?” she said. “Probably not.” But when she contemplates Gilliam, “it doesn’t help me particularly to think of him as a villain.” (A press representative for Gilliam said he was unavailable for comment.)In another chapter, “The Woman Who Stayed Silent,” Polley revisits what she used to call “a funny party story about my worst date ever” with Jian Ghomeshi, the musician and former CBC radio host who in 2016 was acquitted of five charges related to sexual assault.Describing the episode now without euphemism, Polley says that when she was 16 and Ghomeshi was 28, she left his apartment after he became violent during a sexual encounter in which he ignored her pleas to stop hurting her.Polley writes that, as other charges mounted against Ghomeshi in this era before the #MeToo movement, she was dissuaded from coming forward by friends, lawyers and other experts who warned that her memory and sexual history would be subjected to merciless cross-examination. Her subsequent interactions with Ghomeshi — friendly radio interviews and playful emails in the years that followed — could be used to undermine her credibility and attack her character.But after years of reconsideration, Polley said during our interview, “I felt a deep, ethical obligation, especially to the women who came forward in that case, to tell that story, and a deep haunting that I wasn’t able to tell it sooner.” (Ghomeshi didn’t respond to requests for comment sent to Roqe Media, where he hosts a podcast and serves as chief executive.)“I feel a relief in finally just standing up,” she said. “But I’ll always wonder if it’s just too little too late. That’s always going to be with me.”Polley is hardly a novice when it comes to untangling knotty personal narratives in front of an audience. She previously directed the 2012 documentary “Stories We Tell,” which used interviews with her family members and re-enactments to reveal that her own birth had been the result of her mother’s affair with a man who was not the father who raised her.Polley in a scene from her 2012 documentary “Stories We Tell.” Roadside AttractionsJohn Buchan, Polley’s brother and an on-camera subject in “Stories We Tell,” said in an interview that he had some hesitation about entrusting so much family history to her for that film.“I’m very open and I don’t have a lot of secrets, but who doesn’t have some?” Buchan said. “I’m indiscreet about myself sometimes. It’s different if somebody else is indiscreet about you.”But Polley’s choice to share herself in “Run Towards the Danger” did not make him anxious in the same way, and he praised her for taking the risk and acknowledging her own vulnerability.“She’s an artist,” he said. “You can’t be an artist unless you put yourself into it. You’re not just borrowing from yourself — you’re putting yourself on the line.”The filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who directed Polley in his movies “Exotica” and “The Sweet Hereafter,” said that not even his long friendship and past collaborations with her had fully prepared him for what he read in early drafts of her book.“As a director, you have conversations with your actors and you get to know things about their lives,” Egoyan said. “To be reintroduced to her world with such detail and such a brilliant sense of self-observation, so many years later, was really shocking.”Though Polley did not express misgivings about the films she made with him, Egoyan said he still felt guilty for her tenuous relationship to her past acting work.“In a strange way, I contributed to that,” he said. “I was hiring her as an actress. As generous as she’s been, I’m also part of that weird conspiracy against her ability to grow up normally.”(Polley responded in an email, “I had transformative, beautiful experiences working on Atom’s films. And I think the ship bearing my chance at a normal childhood/transition to adulthood had sailed long before I met Atom.”)“I thrive on too-intimate conversations with people,” Polley said. “I don’t have this need for secrecy around almost every part of my life.”Jamie Campbell for The New York TimesThe author Margaret Atwood, a longtime friend who also read drafts of “Run Towards the Danger,” said that she has seen Polley strive for greater honesty in her work and in her life.“I think actors are trained to go to the emotion in them that is most suitable for their character at that moment,” Atwood said. “But being candid doesn’t mean that you always know what the truth is. Being candid can also mean, I’ve got no idea. Did I really feel that? What was really going on?”While Polley was recuperating from her concussion, Atwood said she held the rights to her novel “Alias Grace” — a book that Polley first asked her if she could adapt when she was 17 — so that she could complete a TV mini-series based on it.During her recovery, Polley gave up her screenwriting duties on a film version of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” which instead was written and directed by Greta Gerwig. (Polley writes in the book that she saw Gerwig’s film, calling it “beautifully realized.”)Polley was in the midst of another film project, an adaptation of Miriam Toews’s novel “Women Talking” that she wrote and directed, when the pandemic forced its temporary suspension. This at least afforded her the time to finish the essays in “Run Towards the Danger” while her three children slept or her husband looked after them.(Polley said that she is still editing “Women Talking” and that she completed its production last summer without a single headache: “If I could get through that with three small children, I think it’s a pretty hopeful prognosis.”)Now, as she waits for a wider world to discover the sides of herself she reveals in “Run Towards the Danger,” Polley said that her sharing these stories doesn’t necessarily mean she is done with them — or that they are done with her, either.“There is just this messiness to the human experience that’s extraordinarily inconvenient if you’re trying to tell one story about it,” she said. “As I get older, I’m realizing it’s OK for stories to be messy or go down circuitous paths that don’t lead anywhere.”She added, “We create these clean narratives to make sense of our basically bewildering lives. Hopefully, over time, we can loosen our iron grip and let other complexities in.” More

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      How Jonathan Larson Taught Me to Become a Better Critic

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      In the film version of “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” about a composer who dreams of Broadway, a “Rent” die-hard discovers more to love in musical theater.I watched “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” Netflix’s film adaptation of the Jonathan Larson musical, four and a half times in the span of three weeks. I’ve listened to the soundtrack three times, with the exception of the opening song, “30/90.” That I’ve listened to at least a dozen times.When you replay a song that often, whole verses start to inscribe themselves into your memory. You begin to see beneath the surface, unearthing the bones of the music: a key change, a tempo shift, a bluesy bass line that sashays in and is gone in an instant.When I talk about Larson’s work, I get romantic. That’s been the case since I was 15, thanks to his Pulitzer Prize winning musical “Rent,” and now, thanks to “Tick, Tick … Boom!” But there’s a vital difference in the way I engaged with his work then versus now: Then, it was as a fan just beginning to discover an art form that would shape her personal and professional life; now, it’s as a critic who better understands the possibilities of musical theater.But I still have a ways to go — I’m continually learning how to be a better fan and critic of the theater, and 26 years after his death, Jonathan Larson is my unlikely mentor.Larson, left, with the director Michael Greif before the final dress rehearsal of Larson’s breakthrough show “Rent.”Sara Krulwich/TheNew York Times“Tick, Tick … Boom!,” Larson’s precursor to “Rent,” is a musical about the playwright’s attempts to get his dystopian rock musical, “Superbia,” produced. His ambitions and anxieties create tension with his girlfriend and his best friend, whom he pushes to the sidelines.Though Larson’s show stars a composer named Jon and is, in large parts, autobiographical, the film — written by Steven Levenson and directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda — bridges the gap between the writer and his work, making Larson himself the protagonist. We shift back and forth between his staged production of “Tick, Tick … Boom!” and the correlating events in his life.The film casts an affectionate eye on Larson’s life and legacy. Larson (Andrew Garfield, who was recently nominated for an Oscar for the role) is an innocently aloof artist and yet also intimately present, transparent to the audience through his songs, which seem to erupt from the top of his head in an effervescent gust of rhythm.Garfield bounces across the screen with the energy of a child on a trampoline; his downright kinetic performance is a flutter and flush of gestures, limbs jerking and flailing in all directions. In some scenes, Larson stops to consider a thought or a phrase; his head cocks to the side and his jaw relaxes open, just slightly, as though to make room for new lyrics to fly out. It’s kooky. And endearing.As is the world Miranda builds: a bespoke version of 1990 New York City for theater nerds, where André De Shields strolls in as a haughty patron at the Moondance Diner, where Bernadette Peters is having her coffee and where three of the original “Rent” cast members (Adam Pascal, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Wilson Jermaine Heredia) are bums singing on the street.That I even recognize so many of those faces is because of Larson.The original cast of “Rent,” which went on to a long Broadway run. Several of the performers show up in “Tick, Tick … Boom!”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesI’ve already written about my love for “Rent,” a love I share with my mother — how it provided a Bohemian fantasy that could be the repository of my teenage insecurities, anxieties, rages and woes. I also discovered the musical around the time I was taking baby steps toward becoming a critic, writing arts pieces for my high school newspaper.Larson taught me that the constellation of notes in a score has space enough to hold immense grief and irrepressible delights. That a musical doesn’t have to be breezy and carefree, nor campy and dated. It could be bold and contemporary — even tragic. Or as strange and subversive — “Rent” is full of sex and drugs, bonkers performance art and mentions of B.D.S.M. — as any form of art.The musical, I came to appreciate, has a nested structure: The book is the spine, and each song in the score contains its own micro-narrative, its own voice, conveyed through music.I still love “Rent” like I did when I was 15, but as my affections for it have aged, they’ve taken on the sepia tone of nostalgia.I’m not the same person I was a teenager — thankfully. I’ll raise a glass to la vie boheme but won’t stay out with the eclectic crowd at the Life Cafe for quite as long.Watching the “Tick, Tick … Boom!” movie for the first time, I immediately fell hard for “30/90,” which felt adapted from my own experience. Long before I became a critic, I was an artist, and I’ve always worked under a self-imposed sense of urgency; when I was a kid, I expected to be a famous poet, journalist and novelist by the time I was 25.When I turned 30, in the middle of our first pandemic summer, I had a monthlong existential crisis. Hitting that milestone age, as Larson sings in “30/90,” means “you’re no longer the ingénue.” I still fret needlessly about time and mortality, clinging to the same clichéd, self-important worries about one’s legacy that so many artists do, Larson included.Garfield, as Larson, struggles with anxiety about not fulfilling his creative dreams at an early enough age. Macall Polay/NetflixAt some point, as I rewatched the film after an anxious and depressed afternoon, I recalled how I used to do the same with “Rent.” Again Larson helps, not just in those joyless moments of mental panic but also in the moments of joy, when I sing along to the new film’s “Boho Days” while preparing dinner, shimmying over the kitchen counter.This is love.But I must admit that “Tick, Tick … Boom!” gave me pause when Larson’s work is being workshopped by Stephen Sondheim and a theater critic. Sondheim recognizes the potential in Larson and in the piece, while the critic quickly dismisses it. Seeing the critic’s closed-mindedness and pretentious posturing, I wondered: Have I done that? Have I failed a work of art in this same way?Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      ‘For Lucio’ Review: The Voice of Italy for Four Decades

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      A new documentary pays tribute to Lucio Dalla, a popular and passionate Italian singer whose songs captured the country’s political turmoil.Pudgy and hirsute, favoring floppy hats and round glasses, Lucio Dalla didn’t look much like a pop star. A jazz clarinetist who reinvented himself as a singer-songwriter, Dalla nonetheless became one of Italy’s most beloved troubadours in the later decades of the 20th century. His songs were rhapsodic and discursive, polemical and observant — often within the span of a single verse — and his voice could shift from conversational intimacy to full-throated passion just as quickly.“For Lucio,” Pietro Marcello’s new documentary, offers a portrait of Dalla that is both informative and enigmatic. More an essay film than a standard musical biography, it emphasizes personality over chronology, and dwells more on the work than the life. Instead of assembling the usual squadron of talking heads, Marcello concentrates on just two interview subjects, both of whom knew Dalla well.His manager, Umberto Righi — everyone calls him Tobia — appears alone in the first part of the movie, putting flowers on Dalla’s grave and recalling the early years of their association. Later Tobia is joined by Stefano Bonaga, who knew Dalla when they were children in Bologna. This being Italy, the two men sit and reminisce over a leisurely pasta lunch, pausing to sip wine and light cigarettes. Their conversation sometimes veers into abstraction, and the ways they describe their old friend (who died in 2012, at 68) don’t always paint a vivid picture. We hear that he was unpredictable, brilliant and generous, but there is a curious shortage of anecdotes that might bring those traits to life.More satisfying is the archival material Marcello assembles. We get to see Dalla in concert, on television variety shows, in proto-music-videos and in conversation with journalists. These moments go a long way toward explaining his appeal. They show a plain-spoken intellectual who could be impish, ardent or gnomic, and whose songs captured both the exuberant spirit of Italian popular culture and the country’s political agony and social turmoil in the ’60s and ’70s.Though Dalla released hit records through the ’80s and ’90s, it’s the earlier period that most interests Marcello, in particular the years in the early ’70s when Dalla collaborated with the left-wing Bolognese poet and writer Roberto Roversi. The filmmaker, who has made both documentaries and fictional features (recently, and notably, “Martin Eden”), is fascinated by histories of class struggle, ideological conflict and intellectual agitation. He juxtaposes images of war, poverty and labor unrest with Dalla’s songs to underline their messages and explain their context. A grim climax is provided by the bombing of Bologna’s central train station in 1980, an act of right-wing terrorism that was the deadliest single incident of political violence in an era known in Italy as the Years of Lead.Even when a song’s subject isn’t explicitly political — as in “Nuvolari,” a rambling ballad about a celebrated racecar driver — there is a feeling of urgency and struggle in Dalla and Roversi’s lyrics and in the voice that delivers them. One of the most striking passages in “For Lucio” is a performance, in front of an audience of factory workers, of “Itaca,” a song that evokes Homer’s “Odyssey” from the standpoint of ordinary sailors. That kind of romantic populism links Dalla to the Latin American Nueva Canción movement, while his music incorporates influences from Brazilian bossa nova and tropicália as well as European and North American popular styles.For all his cosmopolitanism, he remains a distinctively Italian figure, and “For Lucio” is a movie preoccupied above all with Italy’s cultural memory and identity. This can make it a bit of a challenge even for Italophiles or students of history, musical and otherwise. This isn’t “Lucio for Beginners” by any means. Nor is it a greatest-hits anthology or a “behind the music” tell-all. It’s a tribute and an invitation to further research.For LucioNot rated. In Italian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 19 minutes. Watch on Mubi. More

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      Alec Baldwin and ‘Rust’ Producers Sued for Halyna Hutchins’s Death

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      The suit charges that Baldwin “recklessly shot and killed Halyna Hutchins on the set” and that the production’s “aggressive cost-cutting” had endangered the crew.The suit, filed by the family of Halyna Hutchins, the film’s cinematographer who was fatally shot by Mr. Baldwin on the set, accused him and other defendants of reckless conduct and dangerous cost-cutting measures.Swen Studios/Via ReutersThe family of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer fatally shot by Alec Baldwin on the set of the movie “Rust” last year, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit on Tuesday in New Mexico against crew members and producers, including Mr. Baldwin.The suit, filed by Ms. Hutchins’s widower, Matthew Hutchins; her 9-year-old son; and the personal representative of Ms. Hutchins’s estate, accused Mr. Baldwin and the other defendants of reckless conduct and cost-cutting measures that endangered the crew, including failing to follow basic industry standard safety checks and gun safety rules.“Halyna Hutchins deserved to live, and the Defendants had the power to prevent her death if they had only held sacrosanct their duty to protect the safety of every individual on a set where firearms were present,” the lawsuit said, “instead of cutting corners on safety procedures where human lives were at stake, rushing to stay on schedule and ignoring numerous complaints of safety violations.”Ms. Hutchins, 42, was shot on Oct. 21 while the production was lining up camera angles for a scene in which Mr. Baldwin draws an old-fashioned revolver from a shoulder holster. Shortly before the gun went off, discharging a bullet that killed Ms. Hutchins and injured Joel Souza, the film’s director, the crew had been told that the revolver did not contain live ammunition and was safe to handle.The lawsuit said Mr. Baldwin “recklessly shot and killed Halyna Hutchins on the set.” Mr. Baldwin has said in the past that he was not to blame for her death. “Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property,” Mr. Baldwin said in an ABC television interview in December. “Someone is ​responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Aaron Dyer, a lawyer for Mr. Baldwin and other “Rust” producers, said in a statement that “any claim that Alec was reckless is entirely false,” arguing that Mr. Baldwin and other members of the cast and crew were relying on professionals tasked specifically with checking firearms.“Actors should be able to rely on armorers and prop department professionals, as well as assistant directors, rather than deciding on their own when a gun is safe to use,” the statement said.He noted that “everyone’s hearts and thoughts remain with Halyna’s family as they continue to process this unspeakable tragedy.”At a news conference, lawyers for Mr. Hutchins played a video that used animation to recreate what they say happened on the day of the shooting, based on interviews with crew members and at one point including Mr. Baldwin’s comments from the ABC interview.The lawsuit said that the defendants should not have allowed live ammunition onto the set, that Mr. Baldwin should not have pointed a gun at anyone, and accused the production of “aggressive cost-cutting” that it said had “jeopardized and endangered the safety of the cast and crew.” The suit claimed that the producers had hired an “inexperienced” and “unqualified” armorer, and that members of the production had ignored earlier firearms discharges on the set that had led to complaints about a lack of safety.Brian Panish, a lawyer for Mr. Hutchins, said at a news conference in Los Angeles: “There are many people culpable, but Mr. Baldwin was the person holding the weapon that, but for him shooting it, she would not have died. So clearly he has a significant portion of the liability, but there are others.”Last month, lawyers for the Hutchins family indicated that they were contemplating a lawsuit when they asked a court to appoint a representative in New Mexico for Ms. Hutchins’s estate. Under New Mexico law, half of any proceeds from the lawsuit would go to Mr. Hutchins and half would go to her son.Ms. Hutchins was a rising cinematographer from Ukraine; friends and colleagues described her as fiercely dedicated to the art of filmmaking.It remains unclear why live bullets were on the film set and how one of them got into the gun that Mr. Baldwin was handling. The sheriff’s office in Santa Fe has been investigating that question since the fatal shooting, but officials have made no new public disclosures about the inquiry since last month, when Mr. Baldwin turned his cellphone over to the authorities.Several other lawsuits have been filed in relation to the shooting. Two crew members filed separate lawsuits in California, alleging that cost-cutting measures by the production contributed to lax adherence to safety protocols and that Mr. Baldwin should have checked that the gun was safe to handle. Lawyers for Mr. Baldwin and other producers behind “Rust” filed a motion seeking to dismiss one of the lawsuits, arguing that Mr. Baldwin could not have intentionally shot a live bullet from the gun because he had been told it was “cold,” meaning it did not contain any live bullets.Mr. Baldwin has denied responsibility in the shooting, saying in the television interview last year that Ms. Hutchins was instructing him on where to point the gun when it discharged. He said he did not pull the trigger, suggesting that it could have been set off when he pulled back the hammer.The lawsuit accused him and others of not properly following safety protocols. Other defendants include Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, who the lawsuit accuses of being unqualified for the job; Dave Halls, the first assistant director, who told an investigator that he did not check all of the rounds in the gun before handing it to Mr. Baldwin; and Seth Kenney, a supplier of guns and ammunition for the film.Jason Bowles, a lawyer for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, said she inspected the gun before handing it over to Mr. Halls that day and asked that she be called back to recheck it later, but the production did not do so. Mr. Kenney and a lawyer for Mr. Halls did not immediately respond to requests for comment.“Had Defendant Baldwin, the Producers, and the Rust Production Companies taken adequate precautions to ensure firearm safety on the set of Rust or if basic firearm safety rules had been followed on the set of Rust on Oct. 21, 2021,” the lawsuit said, “Halyna Hutchins would be alive and well, hugging her husband and nine-year old son.” More

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      ‘Icahn: The Restless Billionaire’ Review: Right on the Money

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      The war stories of the famed financier Carl C. Icahn power this deft documentary portrait.To the uninitiated, the term activist investor can sound as if a shareholder is out on Wall Street with a picket sign and a cause. Carl C. Icahn, an activist investor par excellence, is a veteran of what the practice actually entails: buying a stake in a company and pushing for changes in management or strategy. Above all, as the genial documentary portrait “Icahn: The Restless Billionaire” explains, he’s dauntingly good at making money.The octogenarian Icahn anchors this deft pocket biography, with his appealing directness and dead-level stare, as he presides at the office and around the house. The Queens-raised son of a cantor and a teacher, Icahn has for decades targeted firms like Tappan, Texaco and Apple, while seeking out undervalued stocks.The director, Bruce David Klein, smartly builds out Icahn’s war stories in terms of problem solving and negotiation, not mere bets. Icahn’s triumphs, as well as his past tangles with the Transport Workers Union and the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, create ready-made drama, while visits with his family (and a wizardly synthesizer score) keep up a sunny vibe.But even for Icahn, a respected headline-maker who has taken the Giving Pledge, the profile can be a little soft. It blurs comparisons to corporate raiders in its rote account of the 1980s. The talking-head commentary is dominated by finance journalists (including Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times) and millionaires, without always clarifying Icahn’s financial maneuvers (or his political ones, such as his service under Donald Trump as a special adviser).The perspective — while producing something eminently watchable — may strike some viewers as old-fashioned and incomplete.Icahn: The Restless BillionaireNot rated. Running time 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on HBO Max. More

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      Isabelle Huppert Doesn’t Watch Her Past Films, but She Will Discuss Them

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      The Berlin International Film Festival is honoring the superstar of art house cinema with a lifetime achievement award. She took us through some career highlights.BERLIN — Isabelle Huppert isn’t fond of nostalgia. In her five-decade career, the 68-year-old French actress has appeared in over 120 films, including recurring collaborations with some of the most important filmmakers in postwar European cinema. Her ability to channel brittle vulnerability, intellectual forcefulness and icy hauteur (often simultaneously) in films like Michael Haneke’s “The Piano Teacher” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle” have made her one of the few true superstars of international art house film.The Berlin International Film Festival will award her an honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement on Tuesday, which Huppert will not accept in person after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to a news release from the festival.The festival will still celebrate her career by showing seven of her films, although Huppert said in a recent phone interview that she had little interest in looking back. She explained that the award was “as much about the present and the future than about the past.” She added that she rarely rewatched her old films: “I don’t have time to see new films. Why should I lose time watching my previous ones?”Huppert’s schedule is almost comically packed. She has one film (“Promises”) currently in French cinemas and three more set for release in the coming months. Another, “About Joan,” is screening at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. She is currently shooting “The Union Lady” with the French director Jean-Paul Salomé, and this year, Huppert is going on tour with two plays as well. She also revealed that she was slated to appear in the next film by François Ozon.Nevertheless, Huppert said she saw the Golden Bear “as a recognition for the directors I’ve worked with.” With that in mind, the actress shared insights about her experiences working on the films being screened at the Berlin retrospective. Here are edited extracts from that conversation.‘The Lacemaker’ (1977)In this slow-paced drama directed by Claude Goretta, Huppert plays Pomme, a shy salon employee who embarks on a romance with a university student.Huppert and Yves Beneyton in “The Lacemaker.”Jupiter FilmsI had done films before, but this was the film that defined me as a young actress, because it was so much about interiority. It was a great role as a career starter — one of these roles that imprints itself on you. She is a young lady who does not speak much, who has a relationship with this intellectual. It was very dramatic and emotional, but it didn’t play with the seduction and physicality that is usually connected to young people.I’ve never played soft characters. They were always very powerful, and very intense. They could be silent, but they were never soft. She expresses herself more with looks and with her eyes and her physical attitude than with words. Cinema is the perfect medium for revealing the unsaid, and “The Lacemaker” is really about this.‘Every Man For Himself’ (1980)In this French New Wave classic by Jean-Luc Godard, Huppert portrays a prostitute navigating her clients’ absurd fantasies.Huppert in “Every Man for Himself.”Saga ProductionsMy character was a very unusual way to show a prostitute: I didn’t really look like what you’d expect, and there was a poetry to it. The movie is about money and bodies, not really about prostitution, and there was very little sexuality shown in front of the camera.Godard has a special way of working: There was no script and there were very few people, sometimes just images or music. We went to a shopping mall and bought our costumes. It went against all principles of organization and preparation. I wasn’t intimidated by Godard. I was never intimidated by anyone, at least no directors. If you are intimidated, things become impossible. I was always confident.I like what Godard once said about me: “It’s visible when she is thinking.” That is probably one of the best compliments I’ve gotten in my life.‘La Cérémonie’ (1995)Huppert plays Jeanne, a postal worker in a small town with a grudge against a wealthy family, in this film by Claude Chabrol.Sandrine Bonnaire and Huppert in “La Cérémonie.”Jeremy NassifI’ve always worked with unsentimental directors who make no attempt to make people better than they are, and this was really Chabrol’s specialty. We were exactly in tune, like in music. He asked me which role I wanted and I said the post office girl. Compared to some of the previous characters I had played, she was very talkative. She kills with words and speaks and speaks and speaks.I don’t think much before I act. I just do it. It’s instinctive and very intuitive and certainly I don’t have thorough discussions with the director beforehand. The relationship between a director and an actress is so powerful and fascinating. Why does a director want to film you? Why is he interested in what you are, your face, your body, your way of moving or talking? It’s unconscious and conscious, it’s an invisible and mute language, but it is a language. It’s what I cherish and love most about cinema.‘The Piano Teacher’ (2001)Directed by Michael Haneke, Huppert plays a Viennese piano teacher who has a boundary-pushing sadomasochistic relationship with a student.Benoît Magimel and Huppert in “The Piano Teacher.”WEGA FilmAgainst all odds, Haneke is so easy to work with. He is very pragmatic and concrete. Even in the most daring scenes, the most incredible scenes, it’s about how to place the frame, it’s technical. Some scenes go quite far, but Haneke is a master of making the audience think they see things that he doesn’t show. His direction, his mise-en-scène is very protective for the actors. As an actress, I never felt exposed.I don’t think when you do a film you go, “Oh my God, I’m going to do a provocative film.” Of course, it’s also a game, to go as far as you want, to show things people have difficulty watching. At the end of the day, it’s a very strange love story, but it’s also an exploration of the mystery of love and of how this woman wants to impose her own view of love.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      The 5 Best Actors Who Have Played Hercule Poirot

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      Agatha Christie’s Belgian sleuth has inspired many interpretations, none exactly true to her novels, including Kenneth Branagh’s approach in “Death on the Nile.”Hercule Poirot is one of those literary heroes, like James Bond or Sherlock Holmes, whose image blazes brightly in the popular imagination. From his debut in Agatha Christie’s 1920 novel, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles,” through his final appearance in “Curtain,” published in 1975, the Belgian detective cut a simple, distinctive figure: a “quaint, dandified little man,” as Christie wrote, “hardly more than 5 foot 4 inches,” with a head “exactly the shape of an egg,” a “pink-tipped nose” and, in what is probably the most famous instance of facial hair in the history of English literature, an enormous, “upward-curled mustache” — which Christie later boasted was no less than the finest one in England.Christie wrote more than 80 novels and short stories about Poirot, and nearly all of them have been adapted for film and television. Many actors have stepped into the role over the years, each trying to give it his own spin, much as a stage actor might take a fresh crack at King Lear. Tony Randall, in Frank Tashlin’s 1965 mystery-comedy “The Alphabet Murders,” played it for laughs, exaggerating Poirot’s exotic pomposity with farcical zeal. By contrast, Alfred Molina, in a made-for-TV version of “Murder on the Orient Express” from 2001, brought a subtler, more muted touch, softening the character’s sometimes cartoonish extravagance. Hugh Laurie once even donned the iconic ’stache for a cameo in “Spice World,” letting Baby Spice (Emma Bunton) get away with murder.But of the dozens of takes on Poirot over the last century or so, only a handful have truly endured, leaving a permanent mark on the character. These are the interpretations that come to mind when most people think of Hercule Poirot, and in their own way, each of these versions seems to some extent definitive. As Kenneth Branagh’s “Death on the Nile” arrives in cinemas, we look back at the most famous and esteemed versions.1931-34Austin TrevorAustin Trevor in a scene from “Lord Edgware Dies” (1934).Real Art ProductionsAs he was young, tall and (unforgivably) clean-shaven, the dashing leading man Austin Trevor was a conspicuous — some might say egregious — departure from the source material. He starred in three adaptations of Poirot’s adventures between 1931 and 1934, of which only the last, “Lord Edgware Dies,” survives today (available on YouTube). Trevor’s portrayal, while pleasant in its own right, differed enough from Christie’s description that the magazine Picturegoer Weekly ran an editorial lambasting it, under the headline “Bad Casting.” The most flagrant change is to the world-famous Belgian’s nationality: This Poirot has been inexplicably made a Parisian.“Lord Edgware Dies,” based on a Christie novel known as “Thirteen at Dinner” in the United States, concerns a wealthy American actress and socialite (Jane Carr) who commissions Poirot to secure her divorce from her obstinate husband, Lord Edgware (C. V. France). Edgware soon agrees, then turns up dead; Poirot, intrigued, investigates the murder. Detective films were popular in the early 1930s, and Trevor’s Poirot feels indebted to other charming, debonair sleuths of the era, in particular those played by William Powell in films like “The Thin Man” and “The Kennel Murder Case.” In all, it’s an adequate if unfaithful rendition, but it’s a relief that Christie’s creation was later realized with more fidelity.1974Albert FinneyAlbert Finney, false nose and all, in “Murder on the Orient Express.”United Artists/AlamyAmong other virtues, Albert Finney’s portrayal in Sidney Lumet’s “Murder on the Orient Express” (available to stream on Paramount+) is a major feat of makeup and prosthetics: a full-face getup encompassing wrinkles, jowls and false nose, designed to make the trim, 38-year-old Finney look the part of the world-weary Poirot in portly middle age. Lumet’s adaptation of one of Christie’s most celebrated books is a New Hollywood love letter to the Golden Age, with Finney leading an ensemble that includes such luminaries as Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bacall. A rail-bound chamber drama structured around long, loquacious interrogation scenes, it’s an acting showcase of the classical variety. (Incidentally, this is the only Poirot performance to be nominated for an Oscar.)Finney’s Poirot is curt and flinty, his clipped accent gruff and gravel-throated. While he embodies many of the qualities characteristic of Christie’s original — cunning, headstrong, fastidious about his appearance — he is more serious and vehement, and scrutinizes the evidence grimly, with great intensity, like a predator carefully circling his prey. The film’s climax is explosive, with Finney rattling off his conclusions about the case in a frenzied fever pitch.1978-88Peter UstinovPeter Ustinov in “Death on the Nile” in 1978, the first of his Poirot outings.AlamyThe English actor Peter Ustinov appeared as Poirot a half-dozen times, beginning with the magnificent “Death on the Nile” in 1978 (streaming on the Criterion Channel). This Poirot is playful, boyish, even a bit whimsical; Ustinov imbues him with a light, teasing air, finding a latent amusement in even the most diabolical matters. Fans who prefer Ustinov in the role tend to respond to his immense warmth: He has a grandfatherly manner that makes him instantly likable, which also cleverly belies his brilliance and perspicacity. You sort of expect Finney’s Poirot to get to the bottom of things, but with Ustinov, the sudden penetrating deductions feel like more of a surprise.Ustinov took to the part so naturally that he continued to play Poirot onscreen for 10 more years. “Death on the Nile” was followed in 1982 by “Evil Under the Sun,” co-starring James Mason and based on the novel of the same name, and then several made-for-television films, including “Dead Man’s Folly” and “Murder in Three Acts.” Curiously, the TV movies did away with the period setting of the previous features, transplanting Ustinov’s Poirot from the 1930s to the present day — a poor fit that finds Poirot visiting such incongruous locales as the set of a prime-time talk show.1989-2013David SuchetDavid Suchet in his series’ take on “Murder on the Orient Express.”ITV for Masterpiece“You’re Poirot?” a woman asks, aghast, in the opening minutes of the pilot episode of “Agatha Christie’s Poirot,” the ITV series about the detective. “You’re not a bit how I thought you’d be.” David Suchet, the star, shrugs: C’est moi. Ironically, for most viewers, Suchet is not just like Poirot, he’s synonymous with him. The actor played him on television for nearly 25 years, appearing in 70 episodes, ultimately covering Christie’s entire Poirot corpus, concluding with “Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case” in 2013. Each episode is like a self-contained movie, telling a complete story and often running to feature length.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      ‘Oscar Peterson: Black + White’ Review: Never Mind the Talking Heads

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      The flashing fingers of this jazz piano icon, and his mesmerizing tracks, are all the perspective we need.At one in point in “Oscar Peterson: Black + White,” Barry Avrich’s documentary about the Canadian jazz pianist, Billy Joel is raving about the speed of Peterson’s hands on the piano. “You’d try to watch what he was doing,” he explained, “but it’s a blur.”True enough, but completely redundant: We’re already watching Peterson’s hands flash across the keys, in the crisp archival concert footage Joel is talking over. The breathless praise adds nothing; in fact, it distracts from the pleasure of seeing a jazz great perform. As a recent viral tweet skewering this music-doc convention sarcastically pointed out, we don’t need a bunch of interviews with experts “to put the band in historical context.” Seeing Peterson play is more than enough.“Black + White” does feature plenty of Peterson’s music, including several cover renditions performed in tribute for the film by a contemporary ensemble. But at almost every opportunity, Avrich undermines these numbers by cutting to one of an endless lineup of talking heads, usually to repeat predictable platitudes about Peterson’s brilliance. The footage of Peterson at work is an infinitely better testament to that brilliance than words of admiration from artists he influenced. What’s more, the relevance of the interviewees varies wildly. Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock are understandable. But if, like me, you wonder why we’re hearing so much from Randy Lennox, a pretty nondescript corporate media executive, stay through the credits: he’s one of the film’s producers. If you don’t already believe Oscar Peterson was a genius, I doubt he’ll be the one to convince you.Oscar Peterson: Black + WhiteNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 21 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More