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    ‘Uncropped’ Documentary Celebrates James Hamilton’s Photos

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    A documentary celebrates the work of the revered photographer James Hamilton.A photograph is a record of the past from the moment the shutter snaps, which lends the medium a bit of wistfulness. That emotion also permeates “Uncropped” (in theaters), D.W. Young’s documentary about the eminent photographer James Hamilton. It’s not a biographical movie, at least not in the usual sense, though Young keeps the filmmaking stripped-down and simple. For the most part, “Uncropped” involves conversations between Hamilton and various friends, mostly around tables in his apartment and others’. Journalists, photographers and the odd celebrity or two (Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, the director Wes Anderson) discuss Hamilton’s work and recount the old days. Interspersed with the conversations are shots of Hamilton’s photos, often breathtaking images that make you want to pause the movie and just look.That is, of course, the point. Hamilton’s photos appeared everywhere, though he’s best known for his work as a photographer at The Village Voice from 1974 to 1993. His style is distinctive: sharp contrasts, bright highlights, often a telling or humorous detail lurking in the shot that you don’t see for a few seconds. He photographed celebrities and prisoners, rockers and critics and, eventually, wars and film productions. He has always processed his own negatives, providing options to magazines, and editors know better than to crop the photos; Hamilton’s eye for composition is unparalleled. It’s an immense body of work that never stops being interesting to look at.Admiring his photographs could, of course, be accomplished in an exhibition or book (and there is one monograph, “You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen,” edited by Moore and accompanied by a show in 2010). But what makes “Uncropped” so great — and so memorable — is the way a chronicle of New York City’s art and media scenes from the 1960s forward emerges from the conversations. Discussions about collaborations between writers and photographers and editors reveal a different media world, one in which you sometimes got the chance to do something wild and daring and great, and do it even though everyone thought you were ridiculous for trying.It was a time of experimentation and feisty editorial staffs, a time before algorithms took over the way we consumed news and culture. It wasn’t perfect; the budgets weren’t always great; nobody got everything right. But it’s an era that’s gone, and one worth mourning. Golden ages are generally mythical, but it’s hard to say we’re better off now — and “Uncropped” makes an excellent case for what we lost. More

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      in Theater

      Terry Carter, Barrier-Breaking Actor and Documentarian, Dies at 95

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      He was the only Black actor on “Combat!” and “The Phil Silvers Show,” then made well regarded documentaries on luminaries like Duke Ellington and Katherine Dunham.Terry Carter, who broke color barriers onstage and on television in the 1950s and ’60s and later produced multicultural documentaries on the jazz luminary Duke Ellington and the dancer-choreographer Katherine Dunham, died on Tuesday at his home in Midtown Manhattan. He was 95. His death was confirmed by his son, Miguel Carter DeCoste.Mr. Carter was raised in a bilingual home next door to a synagogue in a predominantly Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn. His best friend was the future jazz great Cecil Taylor. In his first stage role, at 9, Mr. Carter played the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama on a voyage of discovery.And in a wayfaring six-decade career, he was a merchant seaman, a jazz pianist, a law student, a television news anchor, a familiar character on network sitcoms, an Emmy-winning documentarian, a good will ambassador to China, a longtime expatriate in Europe — and a reported dead man; in 2015, rumors that he had been killed were mistaken. It was not him but a much younger Terry Carter who had died in a hit-and-run accident in Los Angeles by a pickup truck driven by the rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight.Slightly misquoting Mark Twain, Mr. Carter posted on social media: “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”While he acted in some 30 television series and movies, Mr. Carter was best known to viewers as Sgt. Joe Broadhurst, the sidekick to Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud (Dennis Weaver) on NBC’s “McCloud” series from 1970 to 1977, and in 21 episodes of “Battlestar Galactica,” as Colonel Tigh, second-in-command of the starship fleet in ABC’s original science-fiction series in 1978-79. (The series was revived for a second run from 2004 to 2009.)Mr. Carter, right, on “McCloud” as the sidekick to Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud, played by Dennis Weaver, left. Mr. Carter appeared on the series from 1970 to 1977.via Everett CollectionWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      ‘The Jinx Part Two’ Review: Filmmaking a Murderer

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      A new installment of HBO’s landmark true-crime documentary continues the strange, sad story of Robert Durst, in which the show is a major player.Nine years after we first heard Robert Durst mutter “Killed them all, of course,” “The Jinx” is back, with a new, six-episode Part Two that premiered Sunday on HBO. And why not?Maybe it feels unseemly, or like old news, with Durst having died in prison in 2022 after the original series helped convict him of murder. But a lot happened in the meantime. You can imagine that the filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, who directed both parts, felt a responsibility to a story he has now lived with for 20 years. And since “The Jinx” has effectively erased the line between itself and the case it chronicles, you could hope that he felt a responsibility to examine his own role in the prosecution and conviction of Durst, the wealthy and eccentric New York real estate heir.That examination does not come in the four episodes HBO provided for review, but Jarecki acknowledges the show’s continuing influence in a wry, “Can you believe that happened?” fashion.It is noted, once again, that in 2013 “Jinx” producers shared with prosecutors evidence regarding the disappearance and two deaths in which Durst was implicated, kick-starting the investigation that led to his conviction and life sentence in 2021 for the murder of his friend Susan Berman. The impact of the original broadcast on the popular imagination is conveyed when a young law clerk recalls exclaiming “Killed them all of course!” at the mention of Durst’s name, quoting his accidentally recorded words from the original series’s chilling final moments.This theme reaches an early peak in a scene filmed at a screening of that final episode in March 2015 in Jarecki’s apartment, on the same day the fleeing Durst — who had been watching the show along with the rest of us — was found and arrested in New Orleans. Relatives of Durst’s first wife, Kathleen McCormack, who had disappeared 33 years earlier, listen to his apparent confession with remarkable composure, probably acutely aware of the cameras a few feet away waiting to catch their reactions.From left, Jim, Sharon and Liz McCormack, relatives of Durst’s first wife, Kathleen McCormack, who disappeared in 1982.HBOWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Lourdes Portillo, Oscar-Nominated Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 80

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      Her films centered on Latin American experiences and received wide acclaim.Lourdes Portillo, an Oscar-nominated Mexican-born documentary filmmaker whose work explored Latin American social issues, died on Saturday at her home in San Francisco. She was 80.Her death was confirmed by her friend Soco Aguilar. No cause was given.One of Ms. Portillo’s best-known works is her 1994 documentary “The Devil Never Sleeps,” a murder-mystery in which she investigates the strange death of her multimillionaire uncle, whose widow claimed he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In 2020, the Library of Congress selected the film for the National Film Registry.“Using vintage snapshots, old home movies and interviews, the film builds a biographical portrait of Oscar Ruiz Almeida, a Mexican rancher who amassed a fortune exporting vegetables to the United States and went on to become a powerful politician and businessman,” Stephen Holden, a Times movie critic, wrote in a 1995 review of the film.The documentary had the tenor of a telenovela and presented open questions about Mr. Ruiz Almeida’s mysterious life and death and the people who could have had a motive for the murder.“The more Oscar is discussed, the more enigmatic he seems,” Mr. Holden wrote.Ms. Portillo crafted the film’s story line from the information her mother relayed over the phone while Ms. Portillo was living in New York, she said in a talk at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles last year.The museum screened the movie last year as part of a series honoring Ms. Portillo and other filmmakers who have made significant contributions to cinema.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Catfish,’ the TV Show That Predicted America’s Disorienting Digital Future

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      MTVThis is Danny. He fell in love with a woman he’d met online. When he saw her photo, he called it love at first sight.He and Rosa talked on the phone daily for months and exchanged reams of texts in Spanglish. They bonded over being Puerto Rican.“You’re so funny, Daddy,” she once texted him. “You’re so sexy, my love,” Danny replied. Though they’d never met, he was making big plans: marriage and family.When the red flags started to pile up, Danny contacted “Catfish,” on MTV, for help. The truth was far from what he’d hoped. Rosa was secretly Jose.The TV Show That Predicted America’s Lonely, Disorienting Digital FutureSince its first episode aired in 2012, “Catfish: The TV Show” has held up a mirror to our online lives, reflecting how we present ourselves and make sense of love, lust, trust, companionship and loneliness in an increasingly digital world. Each episode unfolds like a detective show, with the host Nev Schulman summoned to untangle truth from lies, to take relationships that exist only on computers and phones and drag them into our three-dimensional reality.Listen to this article with reporter commentaryThe saga of Danny and Jose, which aired in 2017, is emblematic of the deception, dashed hopes and complicated situations regularly featured on the show.Danny contacted “Catfish” for help, believing Rosa had moved from Connecticut to Orlando, where he lived, but still would not meet him. Rosa had warned Danny that she had anger issues, in part because she had been molested as a child. When meeting with Schulman and his co-host Max Joseph, Danny said he wanted to help her by bringing more faith into her life. “I think I could make her a better person,” he said. “We plan to have a family.”In their research, Schulman and Joseph quickly discovered the so-called mask, meaning the unwitting person whose photos had been sent to Danny: a woman named Natalie. But Rosa’s real identity was harder to pin down. “This is the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Danny said when shown the evidence. “I never had anybody send me fake pictures.”Schulman called Rosa to inform her that Danny was now aware she’d lied about the photos. Though combative, she agreed to meet in Connecticut. It became clear that she had never moved.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      4 Documentaries That Explore How Families Cope With Dementia

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      In “Little Empty Boxes” and other films, the heartbreak of memory loss is intertwined with deeper cultural implications.When his creative, funny, independent mother, Kathy, began to exhibit signs of dementia, the writer Max Lugavere moved cross-country and picked up a camera to start documenting his journey to figure out how to help her. The result is “Little Empty Boxes,” a new documentary that’s strongest when it chronicles their relationship. Kathy’s memories of Max’s upbringing and his desire to be close to her bring them both a strange comfort. (She passed away in 2019.) The rest of the film — notably interviews with researchers studying links between nutrition, exercise and brain health — is uneven. Its visual language ranges from traditional, brightly lit talking heads to an observational approach, which can provoke whiplash for the viewer.But “Little Empty Boxes,” directed by Lugavere and Chris Newhard, made me think about other powerful documentaries that chronicle walking through memory loss with a loved one. The experience can be tremendously painful, with family and friends feeling helpless; watching a film about it can in turn be both gut-wrenching and cathartic.One of the best recent movies about memory loss — nominated for an Oscar last year — is “The Eternal Memory” about the Chilean journalist Augusto Góngora and his wife, the actress Paulina Urrutia. Directed by Maite Alberdi, the film (streaming on Paramount+) weaves Góngora’s slow decline into a broader meditation on cultural memory, and on what we lose as communities when we’re denied the ability to retain those memories — through book bans and state propaganda that whitewashes historical truth. But the broader metaphor doesn’t obscure Góngora and Urrutia’s love story, which is heartwrenchingly beautiful.Even more harrowing is “Tell Me Who I Am” (Netflix) directed by Ed Perkins. Like “Little Empty Boxes,” this 2019 film is more effective when exploring its subjects’ relationship than when it turns journalistic. Alex Lewis was in a motorcycle accident at 18, and when he woke up, he’d lost his memory. His twin brother, Marcus, helped him reconstruct his life, but as the film goes on, Alex — and the audience — realize that Marcus was holding back information about their past, and that revealing it is fraught. The brothers’ trust and love holds the film together.The most unmissable and life-affirming film of this sort, though, is “Dick Johnson Is Dead” (Netflix) from 2020. Dick Johnson is the father of the director Kirsten Johnson; years after losing his wife (Kirsten’s mother) to Alzheimer’s, he begins to exhibit signs of dementia. Facing an uncertain future, Dick and Kirsten work together to humorously and movingly stage different ways he might die, while exploring their relationship and the meaning of love, history and remembrance. It’s a vital, hilarious, gorgeous and truly innovative film, and I can’t think of a better exploration of the bond between a filmmaker and a parent in the face of impending loss. More

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      in Television

      What to Watch This Weekend: ‘The Jinx’ Is Back

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      HBO’s “The Jinx — Part Two” offers six more episodes detailing the stranger-than-fiction saga of Robert Durst.Robert Durst, as seen in prison footage in “The Jinx — Part Two.”HBOWhen “The Jinx” premiered in 2015, it was one of the pillars of the new true-crime wave — high-end but sufficiently lurid, with soap-opera twists but also documentary legitimacy. In the absence of criminal justice, maybe entertainment justice could suffice.Now the director Andrew Jarecki is back with “The Jinx — Part Two,” six more episodes detailing the stranger-than-fiction saga of the real estate scion and convicted murderer Robert Durst. (Only the first four episodes were made available for review. Hmm!) This “Jinx” isn’t just about Durst, though; it’s a “Jinx” about “The Jinx,” folding the story back in on itself yet again, additional layers of narratives and truths and maybe-truths, all getting rolled out together as delicious, buttery true-crime dough.The first episode, which airs Sunday at 10 p.m. on HBO, includes footage of dozens of people connected to the case all gathering to watch the original finale together. That was indeed a shocking episode of television, with Durst’s hot-mic bathroom confession as its astounding yet fitting conclusion. (The filmmakers later faced criticism for significantly editing Durst’s remarks, but maintained that the edits were representative of what he said.) The reaction scene plays out not with churning pathos but instead like TikToks of people watching Ned Stark meet his surprising fate or videos of fans in a sports bar groaning in unison. Even subjects of “The Jinx” experience it as a show, as fandom of one’s own life.Over and over, this “Jinx” includes people discussing original “Jinx.” Some describe it directly to Jarecki in interviews, or they mention it in recorded phone calls Durst made from prison, or they say on the witness stand that they watched the show, that they learned details of the case from TV. Actual courthouse footage blends together with hazy re-creation images, and we hear real audio but over fake visuals. And as the show turns its attention to Durst’s long-delayed trial, “The Jinx” takes on a behind-the-scenes quality as much as a true-crime one.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Tribeca Festival’s 2024 Lineup Features Films With the Brat Pack, Lily Gladstone

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      Organizers released the event lineup for the annual New York event, set for June. It includes films that trace the lives of Linda Perry and Avicii.The 2024 Tribeca Festival will offer the world premieres of a Brat Pack documentary, a movie starring Lily Gladstone and films that trace the lives of the music world figures Linda Perry and Avicii, organizers said Wednesday as they announced the event lineup.Also on the schedule will be a feature starring Jenna Ortega, a buddy comedy with Michael Cera, Maya Erskine and Kristen Stewart and a documentary that looks at the world of queer stand-up comedy.This year’s festival, which will run in Lower Manhattan from June 5-16, will open with the documentary “Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge” and will include 103 features from 114 filmmakers in 48 countries. The festival will offer 86 world premieres and 30 movies directed by first-time filmmakers.Officials said their final selections were chosen from more than 13,000 submissions — a record high.“We feel really lucky that there was such enthusiasm, particularly with all of the challenges that the industry had this year,” Cara Cusumano, the Tribeca Festival’s director, said in a phone interview. “It made me feel really optimistic about the future of independent film and about the resiliency of the creative community.”The documentary “Brats” will follow Andrew McCarthy as he crisscrosses the country reconnecting with fellow actors Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez and others who in the 1980s and ’90s became collectively known as the Brat Pack. A panel featuring McCarthy, who directed the documentary, and other members of the cast will follow the premiere.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Participant, Maker of Films With Social Conscience, Calls It Quits

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      The company had critical and commercial hits over two decades but never made money consistently and faced a challenging entertainment landscape.For 20 years, Participant Media has been Hollywood’s pre-eminent maker of activist entertainment, backing socially conscious films like “An Inconvenient Truth,” a climate change cri de coeur, and “Wonder,” about a boy with birth defects. Its movies have won 21 Academy Awards.But the company never quite managed to do good while also making money, at least not consistently. Matt Damon in a fracking drama (“Promised Land,” a 2012 Participant effort) has a hard time competing with “Avengers: Infinity War” in 3-D.On Tuesday, the company’s founder and financial lifeline, the eBay billionaire Jeff Skoll, pulled the plug — a decision based, at least in part, on the atrophying entertainment business. Participant relies on studios and streaming services to distribute its content, and those partners are cutting back — especially on the “niche” films and shows in which Participant specializes — as they contend with continuing weakness at the box office, higher labor costs and increased profit pressure from Wall Street.Streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix have started to sell ads, and advertisers prefer all-audience, apolitical content. Eat-your-broccoli documentaries and dramas that explore underrepresented communities (both Participant sweet spots) are harder to sell than ever.“The entertainment industry has seen revolutionary changes in how content is created, distributed and consumed,” Mr. Skoll said in an email to Participant employees that was viewed by The New York Times. A spokesman said Mr. Skoll was unavailable for an interview.Participant will immediately lay off most of its 100 employees. A skeleton staff will remain for a time to work on coming films like “Out of My Mind,” about a nonverbal sixth grader with cerebral palsy, and “BLKNWS,” about what the media leave out, or misrepresent, in reporting on Black culture.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More