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      Sterlin Harjo Can Do a Lot More Than ‘Reservation Dogs’

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      The filmmaker directed “Love and Fury,” a Netflix documentary about Native American artists, before his hit Hulu series.Sterlin Harjo has had a year.In August, FX on Hulu released the series “Reservation Dogs,” the acclaimed dark comedy about four Native American teenagers in rural Oklahoma that Harjo created with Taika Waititi. The next month, Harjo presented a prize at the Emmy Awards alongside the show’s four young breakout stars. Two days before I talked to him, “Reservation Dogs” won the Gotham Award for short format breakout series. (Was he expecting it? “I was not. I would have had less wine.”)And to top it off, Netflix this month released “Love and Fury,” Harjo’s second documentary, about Native artists navigating their careers, both in the United States and abroad. What happens, the film asks, when they push Native art into a postcolonial world?The dancer Emily Johnson, as seen in Harjo’s “Love and Fury.”Netflix For roughly a year, Harjo and his crew followed more than 20 artists, few of whom were complete strangers: Members of the band Black Belt Eagle Scout, the recording project of Katherine Paul, sometimes stay with him in Tulsa, Okla., when they are on tour. Tommy Orange, the author of the acclaimed “There There,” asked Harjo to moderate an event he was speaking at. (Harjo then filmed the event for this documentary.)Harjo, of course, is a Native artist, too: The Seminole and Muscogee Creek filmmaker directed three features (“Four Sheets to the Wind,” “Barking Water” and “Mekko”) and a documentary (“This May Be the Last Time”) before brainstorming “Reservation Dogs” over tequilas with Waititi.These artists pass through one another’s orbits constantly, drawing closer and closer together. As he explained on a recent call, Harjo wanted to express that notion himself — but through the lens of community.Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.Why love and fury? How are those two concepts related?As artists, I think collectively we have all of these different experiences and these different types of survival that we come from. And you can take that survival, you can take any sort of oppression, and feel bitter and feel like things are hopeless. Because some of us are displaced, some of us have lost our language, a lot of us have, there’s a lot of abuse in boarding schools, a lot of things that happened throughout history. Not just Western expansion. It was also a lot of things, a lot of U.S. policies, that really did oppress our people.And so you can take that and convert that into feeling bitter and angry. Or you can take that anger and turn it into love and creation. And I think that’s what each of these artists do. All of them are connected to community, all of them have community-driven work. And they take this history and try to make sense of it and express themselves in this way that people can connect to. And I think that that is love.Devery Jacobs, left, and Paulina Alexis in “Reservation Dogs,” which Harjo created with Taika Waititi.Shane Brown/FXThe last film you made was in 2015. Does it feel different this time around, after “Reservation Dogs”?I made this before “Reservation Dogs.” So I was making this very low-budget, and I just really wanted to tell a story that needed to be told. Contemporary Native art has not been looked at and presented in a way that I felt like it should be. There’s such a dated view of what Native art is in the world. I’m friends with all of these artists, and I’ve just known artists forever. It felt like an opportunity to show this world that hasn’t been seen and also help reframe Native art.I wanted it to organically expand. So if I’m filming with one artist and then I meet a couple more artists, I would follow them and go do stuff with them.I’ve done many documentaries where I do the sit-down interview with slow motion B-roll over it, and that’s great. But I wanted to do something different. I purposely didn’t do a lot of sit-down interviews. I was looking at a lot of Les Blank films, specifically, “A Poem Is a Naked Person,” about [the musician-songwriter] Leon Russell. But you watch the film, and it’s really about this time period [the early 1970s].We watched this documentary called “Heartworn Highways” that’s about Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, back in the ’70s. It was what it sounds like: It’s a visual document of what was happening. That’s what I wanted to do with this: film people doing their thing.Did you go into this with specific people you knew you were going to follow?Yeah, originally it was [the singer] Micah P. Hinson, [the interdisciplinary artist] Cannupa Hanska Luger, [the painter] Haley Greenfeather English and my friend Penny Pitchlynn, who has the band Labrys. Penny’s tour didn’t happen, so I didn’t end up going with her on tour. She’s still on the film, but [the dancer] Emily Johnson becomes a bigger part of the documentary. And it was really following them, and then organically letting it expand with other people.I wanted to show this community: how everyone’s connected in this Native art world. If you look at “Reservation Dogs,” it’s similar; it’s about a community. I’m really interested in community-driven filmmaking and storytelling.You’ve now made three features and two documentaries. Is there as much room for artistic freedom with documentaries as there is with a feature film?There’s not, but I think it’s just a different way of telling a story; I really like the boundaries that you have with documentary. With “Love and Fury,” I set up these rules [for] each person on the camera, including myself. I said, “Act like you’re the only person in the room getting footage, like it’s 1970 and we only have one camera.” If you don’t get it, no one will.We all shot with zoom lenses. So instead of cutting and reframing, we could zoom in to do close-ups or zoom out for wides. The idea was, act like we’re not editing. So don’t do a fast zoom; let it be fluid so I can keep it in the film. I love working that way because it’s a challenge. And it’s very different from the control you have on a narrative. There’s something in that challenge that I really like as a storyteller.What do you think the documentary itself, and these artists, have to say about endurance?All of these artists have been working for so many years. And we’re in a time period right now, myself included, where people want to pay attention to Native art and Native stories, and there’s talk of inclusion and diversity. I think that they all just kept working, even though there was no money and no way of guaranteeing they would have careers. And the fact that they kept pushing and keep pushing to this day is just a testament to their endurance, but also their people’s endurance. I think that that’s what drives us: our people survived a lot of things, and our endurance in this art world is connected to that. More

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      Suzette Winter, Who Documented Hollywood’s Golden Age, Dies at 90

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      She and her husband produced more than 30 rosy biographical films for television about the era’s biggest stars.Suzette Winter Feldman, who wrote and produced a series of more than 30 documentaries chronicling the life of Hollywood’s biggest stars, often rendering them in the golden light of Hollywood’s heyday, died on Dec. 1 at her home in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. She was 90.Her daughter Zara Janson said the cause was aspiration pneumonia.Ms. Winter, who used her birth name professionally, worked with her husband, Gene Feldman, to create rosy film portraits of Grace Kelly, Gregory Peck, Shirley Temple and many others under the rubric the “Hollywood Collection.”As a team — she as a co-writer and co-producer while he also directed — they earned an Emmy nomination in 1994 for “Audrey Hepburn Remembered” (1993). “She’s projected as a three-dimensional personality — a person, in fact — under the cover girl face,” The Boston Globe wrote of the film’s portrayal of Ms. Hepburn.The documentaries used archival footage, interviews with co-stars and, if possible, conversations with the subjects themselves. Hollywood actors and actresses often narrated them — Jessica Lange, for instance, in “Vivien Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond” (1990).Films from the Hollywood Collection aired on PBS and major cable networks, including Lifetime, TNT and HBO’s Cinemax.The couple made no bones about the laudatory nature of their work. “Our main interest is not to do a biography but rather to look at the achievement of that person and give insight into the magic of that person,” Mr. Feldman told The Journal-News of White Plains, N.Y., in 1987. The couple befriended some of their subjects, Liza Minnelli and Gregory Peck among them.Their documentary treatment extended even to canine stars. “The Story of Lassie” (1994) explored the legacy of television and film’s favorite — and most consistently profitable — collie.The New York Times critic John J. O’Connor called the Lassie film “a fond tribute to the movie and television character that, arguably, projected most consistently the mistily hallowed virtues of purity and innocence, the triumph of good and courage rewarded.”Ms. Winter and her husband with Audrey Hepburn, the subject of one of their documentaries. “She’s projected as a three-dimensional personality — a person, in fact — under the cover girl face,” The Boston Globe wrote of the film’s portrayal of Ms. Hepburn.via Steve JansonSuzette St. John Winter was born on Jan. 19, 1931, in London to Ralph and Marguerite (St. John) Winter. Her father was an electrician, her mother a postal worker.As a child during the Blitz of London in World War II, she and her three siblings were evacuated under Operation Pied Piper, which removed millions of children from the city to the English countryside. She went to live with a great-aunt on a farm in Surrey and was separated from her parents for the better part of six years.After returning to London, she attended art school for a year, worked in Paris as an au pair and worked odd jobs after returning to London.She married Leo Grimpel, an architecture student whom she had met in London, in 1952. They had two daughters, Zara and Stephanie. With Mr. Grimpel, she moved to Australia, then Hong Kong. They divorced in 1966.Returning to Australia with her daughters after the divorce, Ms. Winter met Mr. Feldman there; he had been making educational documentaries and was filming one about the Maori people of New Zealand at the time. They married in 1967 and moved to the United States.In 1977, they released “Danny,” a feature film about a girl and her horse. Ms. Winter wrote the script and later a novelization of the film. They began the Hollywood series in 1982 with “Hollywood’s Children,” a history of child actors, and ended it in 1999.The couple lived in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., and later moved to Manhattan. After Mr. Feldman’s death in 2006, Ms. Winter moved to a retirement community in Sleepy Hollow.She attended Mercy College, in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 1973. In 1976, she earned a master’s degree from Manhattanville College, in Westchester County, studying humanities.The Hollywood Collection documentaries are still in circulation, with commercial distribution rights owned by Janson Media, an entertainment company run by Ms. Winter’s daughter Zara and her husband, Stephen Janson. In addition to Ms. Janson, she is survived by her other daughter, Stephanie Edelstein; a stepdaughter, Lynne Feldman; six grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. More

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      ‘The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe’ Review: Success? That’s a Stretch.

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      This formulaic documentary focuses on the individuals swindled by the multilevel marketing company known for leggings, LuLaRoe.In 2013, Mark and DeAnne Stidham founded LuLaRoe, a multilevel marketing company specializing in the sale of women’s clothing — namely “buttery soft” leggings in bold prints. According to The Wall Street Journal, LuLaRoe grew to a business generating $2.3 billion in retail sales in the span of four years thanks to its ever-increasing team of “retailers” who were mostly mothers seduced by the promise of financial success that could be reaped by buying and selling LuLaRoe merchandise from the comfort of their homes. In short, the company was a pyramid scheme.“The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe” is essentially a documentary version of a 2020 investigative report by the BuzzFeed News writer Stephanie McNeal. Produced in association with BuzzFeed Studios, it’s a redundant effort given Amazon’s recent mini-series, “LulaRich,” though at least it’s less of a time commitment.“LuLaRoe” follows the template of most scandal-laden investigative documentaries, like the competing 2019 Fyre Festival exposes, “Fyre” (Netflix) and “Fyre Fraud” (Hulu), or Alex Gibney’s “The Inventor,” about Theranos and its former CEO Elizabeth Holmes.It begins with a montage that jumps from enthusiastic retailers touting the benefits of the LuLaRoe lifestyle to footage from the 2020 trial of the Stidhams. The rest fills in what comes between these two points, with a particular focus on the individuals victimized and brainwashed by the company, many of whom are interviewed, along with experts on entrepreneurship, linguistics and cults.One could go on about the fraudulent American dream that LuLaRoe represents — a sort of up-by-the-bootstraps mentality with a social media assist and the ideals of women’s empowerment, all of which are taken advantage of by manipulative crooks.But unless you’re really hankering for a visual component and video testimonies, you’d be better off simply reading the article than watching this thoroughly formulaic explainer.The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Discovery+. More

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      Glyn Johns is a Fashion Favorite in 'The Beatles: Get Back'

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      The long-lost outfits of the Beatles sound man have made him an unwitting fashion favorite, five decades later.“It’s just cringe-making,” said Glyn Johns, the recording engineer and producer who plays a prominent role in “The Beatles: Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s marathon documentary series about the fateful Beatles sessions in 1969 that culminated in the “Let It Be” album.Mr. Johns was not talking about the nearly eight-hour series, which critics and fans have embraced as a watershed television event, but of the Austin Powers-esque outfits his 26-year-old self wears throughout it. “I look like a bloody clown,” he added.His yeti-like goatskin coat. His dandyish Oscar Wilde jackets. His Capri-ready neck scarves and Janis Joplin sunglasses.It is not easy to stand out in a documentary featuring four of the 20th century’s most famous people. But with his flair for accessories and slinky-pants-cool, Mr. Johns has found a new round of appreciators a half century after the fact.“Glyn Johns is the late ’60s fashion icon I didn’t know I needed,” tweeted Katie Irish, a costume designer who worked on “The Americans.”“Glyn Johns in the fluffy jacket is my look for the rest of winter,” said Emma Swift, an Australian singer and songwriter, on Twitter. Others have noted his uncanny resemblance to Liam Gallagher of Oasis; Cillian Murphy, the star of “Peaky Blinders;” and Ronnie (Z-Man) Barzell, the debauched rock impresario in the 1970 camp classic, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.”“The coolest thing I think I wore in the film was the crocodile Levi jacket, which in fact had been given to me by Keith Richards,” Mr. Johns said. Disney+For Mr. Johns, 79, the experience has been amusing — to a point.“I’m fed up with it now, I’ll tell you,” he said with a laugh in a telephone call from his home in Chichester, England. “I have 9,000 emails and texts from people from my past, all taking the Mickey unmercifully.”“Some people are saying, ‘Oh, the jacket you wore on X day was fantastic,’ or ‘Where did you get the goatskin coat?’ But in general, they’re laughing at how ridiculous I looked, which of course is true.”Mr. Johns was hardly the only peacock during those fateful weeks, as the Beatles labored to get over their differences and get back to their roots with a no-nonsense rock n’ roll album, accompanied, in theory, by a concert television special.What to Know About ‘The Beatles: Get Back’Peter Jackson’s seven-plus hour documentary series, which explores the most contested period in the band’s history, is available on Disney Plus.Re-examining How the Beatles Ended: Think you know what happened? Jackson may change your mind.Yoko Ono’s Omnipresence: The performance artist is everywhere in the film. At first it’s unnerving, then dazzling.6 Big Moments: Don’t have time to watch the full documentary? Here’s a guide to its eye-opening scenes.While John Lennon and Paul McCartney generally seemed to be dressed for comfort, befitting long hours toiling in the studio, Ringo Starr showed up to one session in a lime-green pinstriped suit with a forest green musketeer shirt. George Harrison, wore a similar ensemble in pink and purple. (Fashion sites including W and Marie Claire have offered guides on how to shop the looks in “Get Back.”)In such company, it is a little surprising that Mr. Johns has garnered so much attention. He was already an industry heavyweight, who would later become the go-to sound man for The Who, Eric Clapton, the Eagles and many others. But at that point, Mr. Johns was anything but a Beatles insider. He was associated with the Rolling Stones, whom he had worked with since the early days. In fact, when the Beatles first reached out to him, he was dubious.“I was at home on a very rare night off and the phone rang, and the person on the other end announced themselves in a Liverpudlian accent as being Paul McCartney,” he said. Mr. Johns thought it was Mick Jagger pulling a practical joke, so he told him to get lost, albeit in saltier language..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-1g3vlj0{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-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.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;}“And of course there was silence on the other end of the phone,” Mr. Johns added. “He started all over again, and I thought, ‘Oh, it is Paul McCartney, Jesus Christ!”The Stones’ fashion influence on Mr. Johns is undeniable. “I remember Brian Jones taking me to a store in Carnaby Street once, and we bought stuff,” he said. “I remember Mick gave me a fabulous shirt.”“The coolest thing I think I wore in the film was the crocodile Levi jacket, which in fact had been given to me by Keith Richards,” he added. “We were in Paris, and Keith had this jacket made for him in France, and it had been delivered to the hotel. He took it out of the packaging, put it on and said, ‘Here you have it, I don’t want it.’ I have no idea what happened to it. Maybe I gave it away.”Nor can he remember where he got the goatskin coat that viewers are obsessed with, although he does remember how it smelled after a rainstorm.“I distinctly remember queuing for an airplane wearing that coat, and the people in front and behind me moved away from me because it actually stank,” Mr. Johns said. “And of course in those days, if you had long hair you were suspect anyway.”Fans rightly laud Mr. Johns’s looks in the film as the epitome of ’60s British rocker cool, and the costume-like whimsy he (and various Beatles at various times) display in “Get Back” has all the color and exuberance of the peak-psychedelia moment.Mr. Johns, left, would become the go-to sound man for The Who, Eric Clapton, the Eagles and many others.Disney+By 1969, however, rock was taking a harder, darker turn, as evidenced by the Rolling Stones’ “Let it Bleed” and Led Zeppelin’s eponymous first album (both of which Mr. Johns worked on), not to mention Beatles songs like, yes, “Get Back.”The Beatles’ public image was starting to reflect that. For the cover shot of “Abbey Road,” taken on Aug. 8 of that year (coincidentally, the same day four members of the Manson family set out for Sharon Tate’s house in Los Angeles.) Mr. McCartney and Mr. Starr opted for somber navy and black, Mr. Lennon blank-slate white and Mr. Harrison, “gravedigger” denim — at least according to the viral Paul-is-dead conspiracy theory of the day.Nor did the Beatles seem to gussy themselves up much for their last public appearance on a London rooftop — the climax of “Get Back.”Gone were the Technicolor satins. Mr. McCartney was basically dressed for the office in a somber black three-piece suit and open-collar shirt. Mr. Lennon, in sneakers, and Mr. Starr went minimalist black-on-black, although the former wore a fur coat borrowed from Yoko Ono and the latter, his wife Maureen’s bright red raincoat, presumably to gird themselves against the winter chill. George Harrison looked somewhat festive, if a little thrift-store chic, in bright green pants and a grizzly-like Mongolian lamb-fur coat. And then of course there was the ever-present Ms. Ono herself, in her ever-present black.A traditional analysis was that the Beatles had stopped putting on showbiz airs by then because they were bickering over money and management, and were headed toward a breakup. That view became canonical after the release of “Let It Be,” the downbeat 1970 documentary by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who plays a prominent role in “Get Back,” and captured the hours of unseen footage that appears in the series.To Mr. Johns and many others, “Let It Be” has all the joy of a divorce proceeding.“It’s awful, terrible,” Mr. Johns said of the earlier film. “My memory was that we actually had a really good time and everybody got on great. The fact that George left the band for 24 hours is no different from any other band I ever worked with, or anyone who works in an office. People who work together for years on end, they fall out, and they patch it up at the end. It’s normal.”He would never have guessed the Beatles were heading toward a split.“The four of them had gone through this mammoth experience, from when they were unknown, to being four of the most famous people in the world,” he said. “There was this massive bond between them. They were like family, really.”He recalls a lot less about what he was wearing, and why.“Listen, mate, it was 50 years ago, how can I remember?” Mr. Johns said with a laugh. “Everyone has a style of their own, I suppose. But I was busy working.” More

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      Sundance Film Festival Unveils 2022 Lineup

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      Films addressing racism and abortion are among the 82 titles that will screen when the event returns in person in January.When members of the independent film community descend on Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival in January — after experiencing the previous edition virtually — they will bring with them movies that reflect the times from directors as varied as Lena Dunham and Michel Hazanavicius of “The Artist.”Culling from 3,762 feature submissions, the Sundance programmers chose a diverse slate of 82 titles — including 39 by first-time feature directors — in a variety of genres that explore myriad themes, like tackling grief and battling the status quo.“We’ve been through a lot these past two years and I think that has had a huge influence on what artists are concentrating on,” Sundance’s director of programming, Kim Yutani, said. “Some of that is fighting the system, really calling into question institutions, corporations. We saw a lot of films that are looking at the fight for democracy.”Examples include Rory Kennedy’s documentary “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” from Netflix, which investigates the two Boeing 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people; “The Exiles,” a nonfiction film centering on three dissidents after the Tiananmen Square massacre; and two films that examine the Jane Collective — an underground group of women from Chicago who between 1969 and 1973 helped women secure safe, illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade was handed down. One, the documentary “The Janes,” was directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, with HBO producing. The other, “Call Jane,” is a fictional feature from Phyllis Nagy (the screenwriter of “Carol”) with a cast that includes Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver.“It’s kind of the hallmark of independent work, isn’t it? A resistance to the status quo,” said the festival director, Tabitha Jackson. “This year, it’s reflecting on the fact that we are in this age of reckoning, this age of accountability.”Three films take on that reckoning, examining the insidious nature of racism and privilege through the lens of Black women: “Alice,” a complex take on slavery, stars Keke Palmer and Common, and was written and directed by Krystin Ver Linden. “Master,” a film from Mariama Diallo starring Regina Hall, focuses on three women trying to find their place at an elite New England university. (Amazon will distribute.) And “Nanny,” by the writer-director Nikyatu Jusu, follows an undocumented woman from Senegal who works for a well-off couple in New York City; Anna Diop (“Titans”) and Michelle Monaghan star. All three films, part of the U.S. dramatic competition, hail from first-timers.Of the submissions to Sundance this year, only 28 percent were from women. Yet among all the features selected, 52 percent were directed by women. When asked whether the programmers decided to boost women auteurs over men, they steered around the question, saying they are always looking to promote female filmmakers. Jackson added: “The slightly depressing fact is that the figure of 28 percent submissions from women has remained pretty static across the years. It is a figure that we would wish to see higher because of what it indicates about the state of the industry. It’s surprising that so few are submitting.”Kristine Froseth and Jon Bernthal in the Lena Dunham film “Sharp Stick.”Sundance InstituteThe majority of the films at the festival, which runs Jan. 20-30, will arrive without distribution, a fact that Jackson calls “kind of cool.” But they’re also debuting at a time when theatrical distribution is still depressed amid consumers’ fears about returning to the movies. Though the market was held virtually in 2020, Apple paid a festival record $25 million to acquire “CODA,” the drama about a hearing daughter and her deaf family that was just named one of the American Film Institute’s 10 best films of the year. The industry will be watching the Sundance sales titles closely in January for clues to the health of both the streaming and theatrical markets.While sales are always dependent on how a film plays in the snowy confines of Park City, buyers may be leaning toward the better-known directors and actors, like Dunham, who is returning to the independent film scene 12 years after “Tiny Furniture” with “Sharp Stick,” about a naïve young Hollywood outsider who has an affair with her older boss. Dunham plays a supporting role in the film alongside Jon Bernthal and Jennifer Jason Leigh.Hazanavicius is making his Sundance debut a decade after he won the best director Oscar for his black-and-white silent dramedy. His new “Final Cut” is a horror film featuring his wife and “Artist” star, Bérénice Bejo, in the story of a small crew attacked by real zombies while shooting a low-budget zombie movie.Both the Dunham and Hazanavicius titles will debut in the Premieres section, which is usually reserved for more high-profile work. That includes Jesse Eisenberg’s feature directing debut, “When You Finish Saving the World,” which stars Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard of “Stranger Things” and was produced by the indie label A24.Other buzzy titles include “Am I OK?,” starring Dakota Johnson in the feature directing debut of Tig Notaro and her partner, Stephanie Allynne; “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” with Emma Thompson as a retired educator who hires a young sex worker to teach her his ways; and “Fresh,” an Adam McKay-produced film directed by Mimi Cave about a young woman (Daisy Edgar-Jones of “Normal People”) trying to survive the unusual appetites of her boyfriend (Sebastian Stan).Kanye West in the documentary “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy.”NetflixDocumentaries are always a popular draw at Sundance, and this year looks strong with Netflix debuting “jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy” (directed by Clarence Simmons, known as Coodie, and Chike Ozah), with new footage of Kanye West covering 21 years, and Showtime premiering “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” W. Kamau Bell’s examination of the age-old question of whether you can or should separate the art from the artist.Two actresses-turned-directors are taking on the nonfiction genre for the first time. Amy Poehler is bringing the Amazon documentary “Lucy and Desi” and Eva Longoria Bastón has “La Guerra Civil,” about the rivalry between the boxers Oscar De La Hoya and Julio César Chávez.“These are two pleasant surprises in our programming,” Yutani said of the those two titles. “Eva’s is such an interesting project for her to be involved in, and Amy Poehler is the perfect person to tell that story.” More

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      ‘The Real Charlie Chaplin’ Review: Not Enough Funny Business

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      The documentary attempts to restore a sense of mystery to Chaplin’s life and work, but the filmmakers mostly run through a well-trodden timeline.The biographical documentary “The Real Charlie Chaplin” looks to restore a sense of mystery to its beyond-famous subject. The filmmakers, Peter Middleton and James Spinney, mostly run through the well-trodden timeline of Charlie Chaplin’s life and fame — from poverty to ubiquity to exile in Switzerland — but they keep up a wondering, questing approach.Narrated by the actress Pearl Mackie (“Doctor Who”), the film maintains a sprightly tempo, trying out angles on Chaplin: his technique of working out comedy bits and scenes on camera; the story of an impersonator named Charlie Aplin; his satire of Adolf Hitler in “The Great Dictator”; and his virtuosic creation, the Little Tramp, which is linked to the star’s impoverished upbringing in South London. There is also commentary by the actor and director Mack Sennett, the actress Virginia Cherrill (star of “City Lights”), and Lita Grey Chaplin, who worked for Chaplin at 12 years old and married him at 16.The film features two dramatizations of audio interviews by lip-syncing actors (a method the directors also used in “Notes on Blindness”). In one chat, Chaplin imparts behind-the-scenes tidbits to Life magazine at his Swiss mansion; in the other, an older neighbor in South London reminisces about Charlie to Kevin Brownlow (who himself co-directed the important three-part 1983 series “Unknown Chaplin”). There’s also a recreation of a contentious press conference from 1947.Middleton and Spinney address Chaplin’s romantic scandals but sympathetically dwell on his persecution by anti-Communists in the United States. The tell-all promise of the film’s title dwindles away into predictable perspectives from members of his family. But this introduction to Chaplin shines whenever he performs, displaying his comic genius for doing everything wrong to absolute perfection.The Real Charlie ChaplinNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In theaters, and on Showtime platforms Dec. 11. More

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      ‘Beijing Spring’ Review: The Politics of Aesthetics

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      This new documentary chronicles the movement for democratic artistic expression that exploded in the wake of the Cultural Revolution in China.Can art effect real change in the world? To this ever-urgent question, “Beijing Spring” — a new documentary about the titular movement for democratic expression that exploded in the wake of the Cultural Revolution in China — responds with a resounding yes.Directed by Andy Cohen with Gaylen Ross, the film focuses on the Stars Art Group, a collective of self-taught practitioners who seized on the tumult after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 and deployed their art like Molotov cocktails. They circulated their paintings and literature via underground magazines; papered revolutionary poems and calligraphy on the famed Democracy Wall; and, most notably, mounted a show on the exterior of the National Art Museum of China after being denied permission to exhibit within.Rousing if somewhat schematic, “Beijing Spring” unfolds as a kind of art-history lesson: In interviews, the Stars look back wistfully on their work, which married ravenous experimentation — including abstract styles and nude figures violently forbidden under Mao — with strident political critique. Wang Keping’s sculpture “Idol” uses some canny detailing to turn a likeness of Mao into that of the Buddha, quietly excoriating the leader’s deification.But the most stirring parts of “Beijing Spring” showcase the power of the cinematic arts. The film weaves in long-unseen footage of the artists’ demonstrations that thrums with both history and stunning aesthetic beauty. Perched on a fence while dodging the police, the young cameraman, Chi Xiaoning, captured the thronging crowds with startling, intuitive immediacy.Cohen and Ross’s own filmmaking suffers in comparison to the crafts on display within the film: “Beijing Spring” assembles its materials into a by-the-book progression of archival excerpts and talking-head commentary, serving best as a primer on — rather than an embodiment of — the radical possibilities of artistic form.Beijing SpringNot rated. In Mandarin and French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Joy Womack: The White Swan’ Review: When Success Is a Stretch

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      This documentary chronicles an American ballet dancer’s efforts to become a star in Russia.Sometime in “Joy Womack: The White Swan,” determination starts to look like monomania, even if the directors, Dina Burlis and Sergey Gavrilov, never tip their hands on where they stand. Their documentary follows Joy Womack, an American ballet dancer who moved alone to Moscow at 15 with aspirations of joining the Bolshoi Ballet. After achieving that goal, she quit the company and made international headlines in 2013 saying that she was told she would have to pay a bribe for a solo role. (She subsequently joined the Kremlin Ballet.)Drawn from seven years of shooting, the documentary charts Womack’s life in Russia, where she says success is more elusive than in the United States. In the U.S., she says, “If you’re a hard worker, you can make it happen,” but in Russia, “it’s like if you do not have the aesthetic, forget about it, just don’t even try it.” The film observes her efforts to reconcile what a ballet critic in the film calls a Broadway style with the Russian style. Womack also has to dance and medicate through injuries. Less than two minutes in, the movie shows her going for an M.R.I.To a degree, Womack’s audacious career path has been shoehorned into a conventional profile format. The directors might have done more to illuminate Womack’s offstage life (you’re left wondering if she learned to speak Russian overnight), although they do chronicle the struggles of a marriage she entered into in apparent sincerity, while also knowing it would help her obtain permission to stay in Russia. Womack comes across as incredibly adaptable, which may be the film’s ultimate point.Joy Womack: The White SwanNot rated. In English and Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas. Also available to rent or buy on Google Play, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More