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      Naples, a City of Contradictions, Is Once Again a Home for Cinema

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      For “The Hand of God,” the director Paolo Sorrentino has returned to his hometown, whose cultural profile has been lifted in recent years by the Elena Ferrante novels and films like “Gomorrah.”NAPLES, Italy — Paolo Sorrentino’s latest film “The Hand of God” begins with a bird’s-eye view of Naples, his hometown, at dawn, with a lone vintage car traveling along a seafront road while the rest of the city uncharacteristically sleeps.As a backdrop to this autobiographical coming-of-age story, Naples is at turns fantastical and decadent, sunny and unpredictable, comfortably familiar and ultimately confining.Off camera, it is even more.In the 20 years since Sorrentino last made a film here — his directorial debut “One Man Up” — the city has also matured as a center of movie making in Italy. These days, film and television crews are a common sight on Neapolitan streets, both downtown but also in its rougher hinterlands. These productions have nurtured the formation of a local industry, including actors, specialized technicians and cinematographers.A mural of Peppino and Totò, the Italian comedy duo, in the Sanità district of Naples.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times“The Hand of God” shot on location in Naples, with a view of Vesuvius.Gianni FioritoFabietto Schisa (Filippo Scotti) is Sorrentino’s character in the film.Netflix“There’s been enormous growth,” said Maurizio Gemma, the director of the local Film Commission of the Campania Region, which has focused on attracting and facilitating the work of film and television productions since 2005.Back then, Gemma said, there were 10 or 12 projects shooting in the area. Today, “we are shooting nearly 150 projects a year,” he said, including big-budget television shows like HBO’s “My Brilliant Friend,” based on the best-selling Elena Ferrante novels.“Our greatest satisfaction is that inside these important titles there’s the work of many professionals in our region,” Gemma said. But then, he added, “we’ve always had a propensity toward show business, culture; it’s part of our history, it’s in our DNA.”Naples is a city of contradictions, of ornate Baroque palazzos alongside derelict housing, of unrelenting and unruly traffic and an official unemployment rate of 21.5 percent, twice the national average. But it is also a city of culture, both highbrow and popular, and the birthplace of songs like “O sole mio” and “Santa Lucia.”“We’ve always had a propensity toward show business, culture; it’s part of our history, it’s in our DNA,” said Maurizio Gemma, the director of the region’s film commission. Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesIts shabby grandeur, narrow alleys and sweeping views of the Bay of Naples with Vesuvius as a backdrop make the city a natural open air film set.In recent years, production sets have been drawn to the suburbs of Naples, and its less salubrious underbelly. The bleak 2009 film “Gomorrah” by Matteo Garrone, who is Roman, and the popular TV series of the same name brought these derelict areas to a wider international audience.The director Antonio Capuano, who features prominently in “The Hand of God,” said at a recent screening of his 1998 film “Polvere di Napoli” — which he wrote with Sorrentino — that “Gomorrah” had become a “the postcard of Naples, and this is horrible.”Pasquale Iaccio, the author of several books about Neapolitan cinema, said that “Gomorrah” was merely one “aspect of Naples among many other” clichés about the city that still held court.He offered as proof an anecdote from the Neapolitan shoot for the film “Eat Pray Love,” where producers paid the residents of a downtown Naples alley to hang clothes and sheets from their windows, because an alley without them “just wouldn’t be Naples for the American script,” he said.A portrait of the Italian actress Sophia Loren in Naples. Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThe 2009 film “Gomorrah” was set in the Neapolitan suburb of Scampia.Mario Spada/IFC FilmsA scene, filmed in Naples, from “Eat Pray Love.”Columbia PicturesThe cinematic attraction of Naples is keeping the city busy. “Let’s just say there’s a lot to do,” said Gea Vaccaro, a Naples city official overseeing the office that helps production companies navigate city bureaucracy and permits. “Naples is a complex city,” she said.One of the ways the city helps visiting productions is to provide them with office space, setting aside rooms in a massive palazzo in the city center — Sorrentino’s team for “The Hand of God” occupied an airy room with ceiling frescoes.Mayor Gaetano Manfredi, who was elected in October, said in an interview that the fertile cinematographic season “reinforced the international brand of Naples,” and permitted the considerable diaspora of Neapolitans living abroad to maintain a connection with their city.“The economic angle should also not be discounted,” Manfredi said.Last year, Italian regions set aside some 50 million euros ($57 million) to attract television and film productions, supplemented by other government funds and tax credits, according to Tina Bianchi, the secretary general of the Italian Film Commissions, the umbrella group for regional cinematic commissions.The staircase at the Palazzo dello Spagnolo, a popular filming location.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThe industry’s rapid growth has been some time in the making, according to Francesco Nardella, the deputy director of the arm of Italy’s national broadcaster that co-produces “Un Posto al Sole,” (“A Place in the Sun”) a wildly popular Italian weeknight drama set in Naples, as well as other series here.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      The 1947 ‘Nightmare Alley’: A Dark View of Class as Destiny

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      With Tyrone Power in the lead, the first adaptation had to find ways to tell a story of soul sickness that wouldn’t offend censors.At the premiere of his new drama “Nightmare Alley” this month, the director Guillermo del Toro told the audience he had read the 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham — the film’s official source material — before seeing the classic 1947 adaptation with Tyrone Power. But there’s no question the first movie was a significant influence on del Toro and Kim Morgan, who wrote the screenplay together. Their parting line comes straight from the original script, by Jules Furthman.Like the update, the 1947 version (available to stream on the Criterion Channel), follows a carnival worker, Stan, eager for higher stakes. Stan (Power, in the role now played by Bradley Cooper) picks up some tricks from a washed-up vaudeville couple, Zeena and Pete, whose former ambitions have been reduced to a small-time fairground routine. Eventually Stan runs off with a co-worker, Molly, and they start a mentalist act targeting Chicago high society.The movie has long been a favorite of repertory programmers and noir festivals. But its enduring appeal is not easy to pin down.You can’t chalk it up to auteurism. The director was the British-born Edmund Goulding (“Grand Hotel”), whom Andrew Sarris, in his pioneering survey of Hollywood filmmakers, “The American Cinema,” placed in the “lightly likable” category: “talented but uneven directors with the saving grace of unpretentiousness.” Sarris noted that even Goulding’s best films, “Nightmare Alley” included, were seldom thought of as his, and pointed out that “Grand Hotel” won best picture without a nomination for direction.Sarris also called Goulding’s career “discreet and tasteful,” but “Nightmare Alley” is hardly that. In an extra on the Criterion Channel, Imogen Sara Smith, author of “In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City,” notes that Goulding may have had an unexpected affinity for the material. In private life, she says, he “had quite a scandalous reputation,” adding that “he struggled with drinking and drugs, and he was rumored to host wild bisexual orgies.”“Nightmare Alley,” made under the restrictions of the Production Code, would never have been able to show anything that sordid. But it is a dark and cynical film, and it makes a good test case for film noir, a category that resists clear definition. As has often been written, noir is not quite a genre, a mood or a style. “Nightmare Alley” isn’t a mystery or even much of a thriller. But it induces a soul-sickening feeling that courses through your system like the wood alcohol that poisons one of the characters. The sense of fatalism, a noir staple, is pervasive.The original film also isn’t subtle in its depiction of class as destiny. Early on, it’s made clear that Zeena and Pete (Joan Blondell and Ian Keith) have “already been in the big time” but have reverted to their natural place: an unsatisfying life of traveling carnival work, with Zeena performing a mind-reading act while a perpetually soused Pete provides covert assistance. A main attraction of the carnival — and an act that fascinates Stan — is the geek, who appears to bite the heads off chickens. (“I can’t understand how anybody could get so low,” Stan says at the film’s beginning, in an indication both of his confidence and his poor awareness of his station.) When Stan finally meets his match, Dr. Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker, in the role Cate Blanchett plays in the 2021 movie), it’s significant that she’s a psychologist — not just someone who understands how Stan ticks, but a person with money and status, which give her a decisive advantage over Stan as a con artist. (Blanchett’s introduction is another element del Toro borrows more from Goulding’s film than from the text.)Rooney Mara and Bradley Cooper in the same roles Gray and Power played in the first adaptation.Kerry Hayes/Searchlight PicturesWhile the new film has Zeena making advances on Stan, the 1947 adaptation had to be more allusive. There’s a real smolder in a simple moment when Power plants kisses on Blondell’s arm and she returns them with a caress. But for Stan, in the 1947 version more than in the book or the new film, sex seems to be an ancillary interest. “I’ll not even look at another fella. Never,” Molly (Coleen Gray) promises him shortly after they are married. But at the moment she makes that promise, Stan isn’t even looking at her. He’s staring offscreen with stars in his eyes, thinking of the money they’ll make together.The positioning of the actors — with Power slyly grinning and looking away from the prospect of a happy home life — is the kind of touch that suggests Goulding knew what he was doing. The cinematography by Lee Garmes isn’t filled with the smoky, jaw-dropping shots that Garmes did for Josef von Sternberg on “Dishonored” or “Shanghai Express,” but the cluttered, tarp-filled carnival scenery affords him ample opportunities to bathe the actors in menacing shadows. (On rarely screened, flammable nitrate film, Garmes’s images pack an especially silvery chill.) Apart from two street shots in a taxi scene, Chicago is conjured almost entirely through set design, dialogue and rear projection.Ultimately, what makes “Nightmare Alley” enduring may be its suggestion that we’re all susceptible to being taken in — and perhaps even want to be. In both movies, the story builds to a moment when Stan, nearing the bottom of a downward spiral, suddenly comprehends that he’s become a sucker.While del Toro’s update adds details from the novel that wouldn’t have passed censors in 1947 and closes with more of a gut-punch, on a bleaker line (while overelaborating much else), the 1947 version is still the definitive one, leaner and meaner. More

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      ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Breaks Franchise Records and Brings Hope to Box Offices

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      After nearly two years of lackluster box office sales for theatrical releases, Spidey breaks through to do what superheroes are supposed to do.LOS ANGELES — For nearly two years, ever since the pandemic brought moviegoing to a halt, Hollywood has been consumed with a creeping dread. What if the movies never bounce back? What if the naysayers writing big-screen epitaphs are right?So the sense of relief — elation — that washed through the movie capital over the weekend, as “Spider-Man: No Way Home” arrived to sensational ticket sales, was palpable. “Have you seen The Daily Bugle headline?” Thomas E. Rothman, Sony’s movie chairman, said by phone, referring to the tabloid newspaper in the Spider-Man comics. “Spidey Saves the Day!”“No Way Home” collected an estimated $253 million at theaters in the United States and Canada, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. Not only did more than 20 million people leave their homes to see a blockbuster movie, prying themselves away from their streaming services, but they faced down the Omicron variant to do it — a reflection, box office analysts said, of the film’s novel “multiverse” storytelling, a pent-up desire to be part of a big cultural moment, and, perhaps, weariness with the impingement of the pandemic on their lives.It was the highest opening-weekend result in the 19-year history of the eight-film, live-action Spider-Man franchise. And it was the third-highest in the overall Hollywood history books, behind “Avengers: Endgame” ($357 million) and “Avengers: Infinity War” ($258 million).Some theaters in the New York area, where infection rates have been skyrocketing, played “No Way Home” to sold-out crowds. In contrast, Omicron has cast a shadow on numerous other cultural offerings, from the Rockettes’ canceling the remainder of their holiday run to Broadway shows’ missing performances to an abrupt decision by “Saturday Night Live” to forgo a live audience.Explore the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe popular franchise of superhero films and television series continues to expand. ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’: The web slinger is back with the latest installment of the “Spider-Man” series.‘Hawkeye’: Jeremy Renner returns to the role of Clint Barton, the wisecracking marksman of the Avengers, in the Disney+ mini-series.‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’: The superhero originated in comics filled with racist stereotypes. The movie knocked them down.‘Eternals’: The two-and-a-half-hour epic introduces nearly a dozen new characters, hopping back and forth through time.No movie has managed more than $90 million in domestic opening-weekend sales since “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019, according to Comscore. (Sony-produced “Venom: Let There be Carnage” collected $90 million over its first three days in October. Like “No Way Home,” the “Venom” sequel played exclusively in theaters, with no simultaneous streaming option.)“We can legitimately say that we’re in recovery mode,” Mark Zoradi, chief executive of Cinemark, one of North America’s largest multiplex chains, said by phone. He added, “This is a major shot in the arm. I think it’s going to propel a satisfying Christmas season.” Cinemark, which, like other chains, has implemented wide-ranging safety protocols, said on Friday that “No Way Home” delivered the company’s biggest opening-night gross ever.IMAX’s chief executive, Richard L. Gelfond, called “No Way Home” ticket sales “an emphatic reminder of the unique power of the theatrical experience.” IMAX had its best weekend since 2019.“No Way Home,” directed by Jon Watts and re-teaming Tom Holland as Peter Parker and Zendaya as MJ, collected an additional $334.2 million overseas, according to Sony. The studio said the film’s $587.2 million worldwide total was a record for its primary division, Columbia Pictures, which was founded in 1918.“No Way Home” cost Sony and Disney at least $200 million to make, not including the price of a megawatt marketing campaign.Movie theaters continue to face enormous obstacles, of course, not the least of which is the Omicron coronavirus variant, which has prompted a global surge of infections and tightened safety measures. “The ‘Spider-Man’ numbers are sensational, but until Covid recedes and is considered something like the flu, the business is not out of the woods,” David A. Gross, who runs the film consultancy Franchise Entertainment Research, said in an email.Look no further than “Nightmare Alley,” a lavish noir thriller with an all-star cast that arrived in 2,145 North American theaters on Friday. It collected a disastrous $3 million, a result that Mr. Gross called “a reminder of the parts of the business that are still broken.” Directed and co-written by Guillermo del Toro, “Nightmare Alley” cost Searchlight Pictures, which is owned by Disney, an estimated $60 million to make.Movies aimed at older moviegoers — “Nightmare Alley,” “West Side Story,” “King Richard,” “The Last Duel” — have been struggling at the box office, held back in part because older women, in particular, remain concerned about the coronavirus, analysts say. In addition, audiences do not seem to be in the mood for dark and dour, and “Nightmare Alley” is pitch black.The long-brewing concern that superhero sequels and other fantasy spectacles are pushing more modest films out of theaters gained another proof point over the weekend. Steve Buck, the chief strategy officer for EntTelligence, a research firm, said that “No Way Home” represented 90 percent of film attendance overall; 62 percent of the seats at North American cinemas were dedicated to the movie, which played in 4,336 domestic locations.Ticket buyers gave “No Way Home” a rare A-plus grade in CinemaScore exit polls, an indication that word of mouth will be strong and the film will continue to generate large sums in the weeks to come. The stretch between Christmas and New Year’s Day is traditionally the busiest moviegoing period of the year.Like the “Avengers” movies, “No Way Home” features characters and story lines pulled together from multiple prior movies, turning the film into a can’t-miss event for fans. “No Way Home” finds Peter Parker enlisting Doctor Strange’s help. But a spell goes terribly wrong, tearing a hole in the universe that releases — spoiler alert — villains and Spideys from earlier films. The cast includes Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Jamie Foxx, Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe, who returns as the Green Goblin.“This is a radical approach to a superhero movie, one never tried before, and fans are responding to that creative risk,” Rothman said. “To succeed in this marketplace, movies must be great. Not good — great.” More

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      Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal on 'Spider-Man: No Way Home'

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      The producers of “No Way Home” address questions about another trilogy, possibly putting MJ in a Spidey suit and convincing reluctant actors to reprise their roles.Godzilla gave it his best, along with Shang-Chi, James Bond, Venom and the “Fast and Furious” crew. But jump-starting the box office after pandemic shutdowns — re-commandeering the culture — has taken much longer than Hollywood envisioned.It finally happened Thursday, when “Spider-Man: No Way Home” swung exclusively into theaters.“No Way Home” collected $50 million from Thursday “preview” screenings that started at 3 p.m., according to Sony Pictures Entertainment, which financed and produced the movie in partnership with Disney-owned Marvel Studios. It was the third-highest preview result on the Hollywood history books, behind “Avengers: Endgame” ($60 million) and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($57 million).For the weekend in North America, “No Way Home,” which received sensational reviews, could surpass $150 million in ticket sales. No movie has managed more than $90 million in opening-weekend sales since “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019, according to Comscore.“No Way Home,” directed by Jon Watts, marks the end of a trilogy starring Tom Holland as Peter Parker and Zendaya as MJ, his plucky romantic counterpart. But the $200 million sequel also represents the culmination of nearly 20 years of Spider-Man movies — eight in total — because it draws in characters unseen since “Spider-Man 3” in 2007 and “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” in 2014.Two people have been involved with the franchise in one capacity or another since its start: Amy Pascal and Kevin Feige. As the top movie executive at Sony from 1999 to 2015, Pascal was responsible for the first five live-action Spider-Man movies; she has produced the last three. Feige worked on the early Spider-Man movies in various capacities, initially in relative obscurity, and has been a producer of the last three in his role as president of Marvel Studios.The two spoke to me via video from their homes in Los Angeles. These are edited excerpts from the conversation, including — beware — some “No Way Home” spoilers.Let’s start with an easy one. Kevin, please lay out your future Marvel Cinematic Universe road map for Spider-Man. I want details.FEIGE What?What’s the next M.C.U. crossover movie? “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” coming in May? Maybe that “Fantastic Four” reboot? Don’t say “I don’t know” because I know you know.FEIGE He’s going to show up sometime. The when and the where, of course, is the fun part — and the part that we don’t talk about.What about the next stand-alone Spider-Man movie? Amy, you said last month that you and Kevin — Sony and Disney — are going to collaborate on three more, which seemed to catch the studios by surprise.Explore the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe popular franchise of superhero films and television series continues to expand. ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’: The web slinger is back with the latest installment of the “Spider-Man” series.‘Hawkeye’: Jeremy Renner returns to the role of Clint Barton, the wisecracking marksman of the Avengers, in the Disney+ mini-series.‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’: The superhero originated in comics filled with racist stereotypes. The movie knocked them down.‘Eternals’: The two-and-a-half-hour epic introduces nearly a dozen new characters, hopping back and forth through time.PASCAL We’re producers, so we always believe everything will work out. I love working with Kevin. We have a great partnership, along with Tom Rothman, who runs Sony and has been instrumental, a great leader with great ideas. I hope it lasts forever.That sounds like a classic Hollywood walk back.FEIGE Amy and I and Disney and Sony are talking about — yes, we’re actively beginning to develop where the story heads next, which I only say outright because I don’t want fans to go through any separation trauma like what happened after “Far From Home” [the previous Spider-Man movie, in 2019]. That will not be occurring this time.PASCAL At the end of the movie we just made, you see Spider-Man make a momentous decision, one that you’ve never seen him make before. It’s a sacrifice. And that gives us a lot to work with for the next film.This movie, “No Way Home,” pulls in major characters — and stars — from the franchise going back 20 years. How are you ever going to top it?PASCAL Not every Spider-Man movie is going to be a multitude of characters. That approach was right for this one.You can’t think about topping yourself in terms of spectacle. Otherwise movies just get larger and larger for no reason, and it’s not a good result. But we do want to always try and top ourselves in terms of quality and emotion. Kevin and I never want to lose sight of one thing: Peter Parker. That he’s a normal kid. That he is orphaned over and over again. That he’s a teenager, so everything in his life is at a heightened pitch and everything matters more than anything. That he’s fueled by goodness and guilt. That he’s striving for a greater cause, and he’s vilified by the press.What was the biggest “No Way Home” producing challenge?FEIGE Getting everybody to agree with you about the cool, big idea. “Hey, we have an idea. Will you come sign up and be in this movie.” “Cool! Can I read the script?” “No.” That was the hardest part. And that’s where Amy, who calls anyone anywhere at any time, is a master producer at making things happen.Zendaya and Tom Holland in a scene from the newest installment.Sony PicturesI read somewhere, Amy, that you FaceTimed with Tom Holland while he was in the bathtub. Do you have any screen grabs so I can verify that information?PASCAL That is true. And, no, I’m not sharing.Who was the last “No Way Home” star to sign on?FEIGE Not who you think. It’s not worth talking about, but not who you think.What was your pitch to the actors who were skeptical?PASCAL That these weren’t going to be cash-grab cameos. The parts were real. That I was there with them the first time and would be again, that I have too much respect for them and all the work we did together over the years.Why weren’t Kirsten Dunst and Emma Stone, the female leads from previous Spider-Man movies, brought back for this one?FEIGE When people see the movie, they will understand. It’s about the story. It was a big goal for all of us — Amy and Jon and our writers, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers — that Peter Parker’s senior year in high school didn’t get lost amid the insanity that ensues thanks to his encounter with Doctor Strange. That easily could have happened. And that’s the reason there’s not another 20 people in the movie.Speaking of women, are we ever going to see a woman with superpowers alongside Spider-Man? Isn’t there a story line in the comics where MJ gets to take the Iron Spider armor for a spin?PASCAL Never say never. [She offers a coy smile.]FEIGE We have a lot of story lines, Brooks! A lot of story lines. It comes down to these great, great actors. My guess is your question is less about what MJ did in the comics and more about “Zendaya is really great. Can we see more of her?”Tobey and Kirsten. Emma and Andrew. Tom and Zendaya. Why do all your lead actors end up falling for each other in real life? It can’t just be the spandex.PASCAL I took Tom and Zendaya aside, separately, when we first cast them and gave them a lecture. Don’t go there — just don’t. Try not to. I gave the same advice to Andrew and Emma. It can just complicate things, you know? And they all ignored me.Can you give Tom some advice from me? Don’t lie to reporters! In interviews over the past year, he said Tobey and Andrew were not coming back.PASCAL Well, he can’t reveal things that are in the movie. You wouldn’t expect him to do that. Forgive him.One last question for you: What is the truth about how the Pascal-Feige producing collaboration started? My understanding is that you, Amy, then running Sony, made the 2014 “Amazing Spider-Man” sequel, which was rather wobbly. And that you called Kevin and said, “Help.”PASCAL That is the truth. I called Kevin and said, “Help.” And then he came over to my office for lunch and said, “I know how to help you.” And then I threw a sandwich at him.FEIGE She said, “I really want you to help on this next movie. We have these great ideas for the next one. It’s amazing stuff.” And I said, “I’m not good at that — giving advice and leaving. The only way I know how to help is if we just make the movie for you.”Cut to the flying B.L.T. or whatever it was.FEIGE It was a pretty low-key sandwich. I don’t remember what kind. But, yes, she did not like that suggestion.PASCAL And then Kevin called me and came over to the house and said, “I have an idea. What if Tony Stark makes Peter’s suit?” And as soon as he said that, I understood the possibilities of what we could do together. To have Iron Man and Spidey in the same world, one rooted more in technological innovation — the new suit — and less in medical experimentation, which is where we were confined before, felt so much more modern.It has taken a lot of work. But just look at the results. Pretty fantastic, right? More

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      Streaming the Year’s Best Documentaries

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      Streaming the Year’s Best DocumentariesDavid RenardDeciding what to watch ��️Searchlight PicturesThe best movies of 2021 were even better on a big screen, The Times’s co-chief film critics, Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, wrote at year’s end.But many of their top picks are available to stream. Try these documentaries → More

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      David Arquette on Filming the New 'Scream' and Bozo the Clown

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      The “Scream” actor is on a mission to make people reconsider clowns — including himself.“Bozo is my hero,” David Arquette said on a chilly Sunday morning, as he spray painted a Frisbee-sized red circle on a warehouse brick wall in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. “We want to let that clown out.”Dressed a bit clownish himself in a Bozo trucker cap, Mickey Mouse-pattern Vans and white jeans with a pair of pink tiger-stripe wrestling tights, Mr. Arquette, 50, who used to run with a graffiti-art crew in Los Angeles, was putting the finishing touches on a six-foot-tall rendition of Bozo the Clown.Bozo is not only Mr. Arquette’s muse these days, but also his business. Earlier this year, Mr. Arquette, who is the youngest member of the Arquette acting clan, secured the rights to the character once billed as “the world’s most famous clown” from the estate of Larry Harmon, who popularized the character.“We first have to help rehabilitate the image of a clown,” said Mr. Arquette, as he took a step back from his painting and pursed his lips with approval. “I want to help bring back kind clowns, and change the discourse. You know, help people understand that being silly is cool.”As he sees it, clowns have been unfairly maligned. “There’s a lot of negative history,” Mr. Arquette said. “There was ‘Poltergeist.’ There was Stephen King and ‘It.’ That was a real problem. And then the Joker and Krusty the Clown.”“Clowns,” he added, “are a reflection of society. And right now the scary clown is sort of where we are.”He would love to bring Bozo back to TV. Various children’s television shows featuring the red-wigged clown ran for decades. For a moment, he almost succeeded in bringing Bozo to life at the Empire Circus, a new interactive carnival adventure that was supposed to open at the Empire Stores in Brooklyn this month, before supply-chain disruptions put it on hold.“All my humor comes from me being the butt of the joke,” said Mr. Arquette, who will reprise his role in “Scream” next year. Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesIn a sense, Mr. Arquette sees himself as Kind Clown Test Case No. 1. “All my humor comes from me being the butt of the joke,” he said. “All of my flaws and my stuff.”In the 1990s, he found himself in the celebrity circus, thanks to scene-stealing roles as Dewey Riley, the charming if quirky deputy in the “Scream” slasher movie franchise, and his off-camera role as the charming if quirky husband of his “Scream” co-star Courteney Cox.Scruffy, awkward and every-dude relatable, he was the perfect anti-Hollywood mascot for Generation X.Or maybe he was a little too Gen X. Partying with the abandon of a Seattle rocker, Mr. Arquette battled with alcohol abuse, made headlines with drunken binges and saw his divorce play out in the tabloids before a second career as a professional wrestler, a move that may have tanked his reputation in both professions.But now he’s back — maybe. In January, Mr. Arquette is reheating his Dewey character in the 25th anniversary reboot of “Scream,” which also features Ms. Cox (they are divorced now) and Neve Campbell, another original cast member, facing off against a new ghost-faced killer for Generation Z.Remarried, sober and living a quiet life in Nashville, he said he hopes to jump start a movie career that had descended largely into bit parts and voice-over work. And this time, Mr. Arquette said, he is emotionally equipped to handle it.As the youngest brother of five siblings in a fourth-generation acting family that included his sisters Rosanna (“Desperately Seeking Susan”) and Patricia (“True Romance”), he felt ambivalent about joining the family business: “I always felt like, ‘Uh, my sisters are doing it, my dad does it. I don’t know if I have talent.’”One path that seemed open was to play the goof, eventually finding fame as the oddball among oddballs in the “Scream” movies, themselves highly meta sendups of ’80s slasher films.Looking back, he said he was not emotionally prepared for the Hollywood glare. “I’m socially awkward,” Mr. Arquette said, “so I used to walk into a situation and dress really flashy and say, ‘OK, look at me, talk about me, look at me.’ Or, I’d drink to be outrageous or different. They were coping mechanisms.”His detour into wrestling was his most outrageous move of all.It was not insincere. Mr. Arquette was a lifelong fan who got to live out a dream following his starring role in “Ready to Rumble,” a wrestling comedy from 2000. “Just getting to see behind the curtain and learn some of the secrets of the trade, it was really a joy for me,” he said.Mr. Arquette secured the rights to Bozo the Clown earlier this year.  Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesWrestling fans bristled, however, when the World Champion Wrestling anointed him with the heavyweight title in 2000. His Hollywood agents bristled too.As the acting roles began drying up, he struggled with anxieties and addiction, as he recounted in the warts-and-all 2020 documentary of his wrestling career, “You Cannot Kill David Arquette.”The nadir came when a wrestler named Nick Gage accidentally gouged Mr. Arquette in the neck with a broken fluorescent light tube in a 2018 match, leaving him gushing blood and calling out to his friend Luke Perry, who was sitting ringside, to ask if he was dying.Since then, his life has settled down a bit. Mr. Arquette lives with his new wife, Christina McLarty Arquette, a film producer and former Entertainment Tonight correspondent, and their two children, Charlie, 7, and Gus, 4.After he finished spray painting Bozo (with the building owner’s permission), Mr. Arquette strolled the grafitti-covered neighborhood, pausing to admire the street art.“I haven’t seen anybody, I don’t go out anymore,” said Mr. Arquette, stopping at a lamppost to apply a sticker for the upcoming “Scream.” “I mean, if you don’t drink and you’re not looking to meet girls, there’s nothing out there.”Making the reboot meant working with his ex-wife again. “I mean, we’re co-parents, so we see each other a lot,” Mr. Arquette said, referring to their 17-year-old daughter, Coco. “But when you work with someone you have a certain history with, there’s a built in, natural — it’s not acting at that point. You’re really truly experiencing emotions and life.” More

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      ‘Nightmare Alley’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

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      How Bradley Cooper Deceives Cate Blanchett in ‘Nightmare Alley’

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      The director Guillermo del Toro narrates a sequence from his film noir.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.Bradley Cooper graduates from the sideshow to the big show in this scene from “Nightmare Alley.” But will the tricks up his sleeve be uncovered?The sequence features Cooper as Stan, a carny who has moved to the city to perform his mentalism and clairvoyance act with his professional and romantic partner, Molly (Rooney Mara). Stan is blindfolded but able to guess the objects that belong to audience members.One attendee has doubts about the act. Lilith (Cate Blanchett) believes that Stan and Molly are using verbal signals. Narrating the scene, the director Guillermo del Toro discusses how he sets up the cat-and-mouse game between Lilith and Stan, partly by the way he shines searchlights on them, and partly by how he positions them within the performance space.Read the “Nightmare Alley” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More