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The new Netflix series tapped years of scholarship and the life experience of its creators to chart how African Americans have shaped the country’s cuisine.There is a breathtaking moment near the end of the first episode of “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America,” a new four-part Netflix documentary based on the 2011 book by the scholar Jessica B. Harris. More
A documentary explores the Welsh farm-turned-studio, Rockfield, where Black Sabbath, the Stone Roses and others made music.Rockers endeavoring to “get their heads together in the country” has been one of the great clichés of popular music since the late-1960s. As “Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm,” an agreeable new documentary directed by Hannah Berryman, amply testifies, “the country” was just as likely a place for rockers to lose their heads.As recounted by the brothers Kingsley Ward and Charles Ward, their parents’ large pig and dairy farm in Wales was a dodgy inheritance. “No money in farming,” one of them shrugs. Avid rock fans since the mid-50s, they made music together on reel-to-reel tape and drove north to try to sell it; their first stop was a record pressing plant. (They got a “label” address off the back of an LP.)Various farm buildings had attractive acoustic qualities, so the Wards started cleaning them up and sealing them off, building a residential studio. Black Sabbath rehearsed there; the space-rockers Hawkwind recorded there. After leaving Led Zeppelin, the singer Robert Plant found at Rockfield a place to experiment, an environment where he was “free to fail.”The tales become more picaresque as New Wave and Britpop bands begin checking in and behaving like New Wave and Britpop bands. Simple Minds sing backup vocals for an intermittently sober Iggy Pop, and so on. The studio’s biggest upturn comes when the Stone Roses stay for over a year. And then there’s Oasis. Its former lead singer, Liam Gallagher, recalls the fights with his bandleader brother, Noel (of course he does), and rushing to the village pub.This stuff is best appreciated by rock mavens. Many of the other bands telling their stories (including the Boo Radleys and the Charlatans) didn’t have much of an impact in the States, so Anglophilia helps, too.Rockfield: The Studio on the FarmNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas. More
The Dutch documentarian Joris Postema’s Congo-set film aims to reckon with neocolonialism.The title of Joris Postema’s documentary comes from the cries the Dutch filmmaker encounters in Goma, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as he follows a local photographer (Mugabo Baritegera) through the streets. “What’s this white man doing?” one hawker asks skeptically. “Taking our photos without giving us anything?” exclaim others, covering their faces.“Can I, a Western filmmaker, portray this world?” Postema wonders at the outset of “Stop Filming Us.” The reality that emerges in the film’s interviews and observational segments is that Postema is freer to do so than native artists in Goma, who struggle to work profitably outside the influence of foreign institutions. Betty, a filmmaker, must apply for funding at the Institut Français to finish shooting her project, while Ley, a photographer, is commissioned by private aid organizations and U.N. agencies to take pictures of destitute refugees that many find exploitative.Postema frequently turns the lens on himself, posing provocative questions to his Congolese crew. Has he done anything “neocolonial” during the shoot? Should he make this film or hand his resources over to a local director?Postema’s interlocutors respond with candid critiques, but the director’s self-flagellation feels increasingly empty — less a reckoning with neocolonialism than a toothless display of white guilt. His critical insights are thin, too: There’s little consideration of the economic barriers that separate the artists Postema engages in debate from the people on the street whose consent he openly defies. And despite all his hand-wringing about who should tell which stories, “Stop Filming Us” ultimately credits only one director.Stop Filming UsNot rated. In Dutch, English, French and Swahili, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In New York at Film Forum. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More
In this documentary, two musician siblings — one who lives in Cuba, the other in the United States — get a chance to tour together.A moving documentary with generous amounts of music, “Los Hermanos/The Brothers” follows two musician siblings from Havana whose personal closeness is at odds with the geopolitics that keep them apart. Ilmar Gavilán, a violinist, left at 14 to study in Moscow and later immigrated to the United States. Aldo López-Gavilán, his younger brother, a pianist and composer, mostly stayed in Cuba, apart from conservatory training in London. Until December 2014, when President Obama announced a restoration of American relations with Cuba, the brothers — the sons of professional musicians — had few opportunities to perform together, or even to see each other.Directed by Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider, the documentary follows the brothers separately and as a pair from 2016 to 2018, as they visit their respective homes and travel the United States on a musical tour. The film shows how their differing backgrounds have shaped their musical styles and their attitudes. Aldo talks about the lack of good pianos in Cuba. Ilmar explains how the embargo prevented Aldo from having their mother’s piano there repaired by Steinway in the United States. When Ilmar visits Cuba, Aldo praises the government stores while Ilmar teases him about how infrequently the rations allow him to obtain a chicken. In Detroit, Ilmar laments the visible inequality.The film might have done more to explain the logistics of the brothers’ border hassles, and there are a few occasions when the year of filming could be clarified. But the electrifying musical collaborations — in addition to the poignant sibling performances, Joshua Bell performs Aldo’s music with Aldo at Lincoln Center — more than make up for those quibbles.Los Hermanos/The BrothersNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More
Listen and follow Still ProcessingApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherShe’s simply the best. A new documentary on HBO (called, simply, “Tina”) explores Tina Turner’s tremendous triumphs, but we wanted to go deeper. We talk about how her entire career was an act of repossession: Taking back her name, her voice, her image, her vitality and her spirituality made her one of the biggest rock stars in the world, even in her 50s.Tina Turner at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, July 2019.Charlie Gates for The New York TimesOn Today’s EpisodeWesley’s ‘We, Tina’ playlistWesley compiled his all-time favorite Tina Turner tracks onto a playlist. Have a listen.◆ ◆ ◆The music icon’s life onscreenTina Turner in 1973, in a scene from the documentary “Tina.”Rhonda Graam/HBO, via Associated PressFor many, Jenna included, the movie “What’s Love Got to Do With It” (1993) has been their biggest reference point for Tina Turner up until this point. The biopic, which stars Angela Bassett as Turner, follows the artist’s life with her abusive first husband, Ike Turner.After watching “Tina” (2021), a documentary that recently dropped on HBO Max, Jenna realized how much of the singer’s narrative is missing from the 1993 film.“As incredible as that movie is, it’s not sufficient for her life story,” Jenna said. “It’s so painful to watch. It doesn’t lean enough into how much she shaped and changed music.”◆ ◆ ◆Her liberating live performances“Tina Turner is someone I regret never seeing live,” Jenna said. Her live performances were electric — like her 1988 concert in Rio de Janeiro. She was 48 at the time, on a tour that spanned over 200 dates. She was as fit and vibrant as ever, performing to a record-breaking crowd of over 180,000 people. Wesley remarked, “I mean, just to be one of those people screaming Tina Turner’s name. …”Hosted by: Jenna Wortham and Wesley MorrisProduced by: Elyssa Dudley and Mahima ChablaniEdited by: Sara Sarasohn and Sasha WeissEngineered by: Marion LozanoExecutive Producer, Shows: Wendy DorrExecutive Editor, Newsroom Audio: Lisa TobinAssistant Managing Editor: Sam DolnickSpecial thanks: Nora Keller, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani and Desiree IbekweWesley Morris is a critic at large. He was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his criticism while at The Boston Globe. He has also worked at Grantland, The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner. @wesley_morrisJenna Wortham is a staff writer for The Times Magazine and co-editor of the book “Black Futures” with Kimberly Drew. @jennydeluxe More
Sergei Loznitsa’s new found-footage documentary illuminates Soviet life in the immediate aftermath of the dictator’s death.Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953. “State Funeral,” the Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa’s fascinating and elusive new documentary, shows what happened in the next few days, as Stalin’s body lay in state at the Hall of Unions in Moscow before being transferred to the Lenin mausoleum. (It was removed eight years later, but that’s another story).Composed entirely of footage shot at the time in various parts of the Soviet Union, the film is a haunting amalgam of official pomp and everyday experience, the double image of a totalitarian government and the people in whose name it ruled.At the beginning, crowds gather to hear news of the dictator’s death, read out in stately, somber tones over loudspeakers. Those broadcasts, which continue as the masses shuffle past Stalin’s wreath-laden coffin, supply an abstract, rose-colored interpretation of his life amid frequent invocations of his immortality. His subjects — his comrades, in the idiom of the time — are reminded of his undying love for them, as well as of his “selflessness,” his courage and his monumental intelligence. He was, among other accomplishments, “the greatest genius in human history.”This kind of rhetoric is evidence of the cult of personality that would be disavowed a few years later when Nikita Khrushchev came to power and undertook a program of de-Stalinization. “State Funeral” captures the official manifestations of that cult, including the gigantic portraits of Stalin hanging from public buildings and the arrival of delegations from other communist countries. Fulsome elegies are delivered by the distinctly uncharismatic men who — briefly, as it turned out — took Stalin’s place: Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrenti Beria. (Khrushchev, who would shortly kick them out, serves as master of ceremonies).But Stalin’s famous visage, with its bushy mustache and sweptback hair, is upstaged by the throngs of ordinary citizens who gather to bear witness and pay tribute. The anonymous camera operators, shooting in color and in black and white in far-flung shipyards, factories, oil fields and collective farms, are Loznitsa’s vital collaborators. Intentionally or not, they gathered images that complicate and to some extent subvert the somber, emptied-out language of the regime, disclosing a complicated human reality beneath the ideological boilerplate.It’s the parade of ordinary Soviets that makes “State Funeral” both moving and unnerving. It is hard not to be touched by the tears shed by grandmothers, soldiers, old men in fur hats and bareheaded young women, even though they are mourning a monster. Other responses are harder to read. Does that steady, unsmiling gaze signify stoicism or defiance? Is that faint smile an expression of relief? Of gratitude? Of terror? When someone looks directly into the camera, do the eyes register suspicion or solidarity?A brief note at the end of the film reminds the viewer of Stalin’s crimes against his own people — the tens of millions purged, imprisoned, starved and slaughtered. That knowledge sits uncomfortably with what has come before, not because the leaden language of the scripted obsequies is persuasive, but because the grieving citizens are so real. In their variety and particularity, these people don’t seem to belong to a distant place and time. They seem entirely modern and familiar.Which can be taken as a warning: Any population can be swayed and subjugated by tyranny. They could be us. But the tone of “State Funeral” is more meditative than admonitory. It contemplates the Soviet state at almost the exact midpoint of its existence, illuminating the faces of those who lived there and at the same time reckoning with the dead weight of history.State FuneralNot rated. In Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. At Film Forum. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More
The Netflix documentary sets out to show how maternal lineages have shaped generations of Black women.In the meditative documentary “In Our Mothers’ Gardens” (streaming on Netflix), the stories could warm a room in any season. Opening with a quote from Alice Walker, whose book “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” inspired the film’s title, the documentary sets out to show how Black maternal lineages have shaped the idea of Black womanhood.The director Shantrelle P. Lewis, who also appears in the film as a subject, weaves together interviews with Black women from a variety of backgrounds, including the activist Tarana Burke, the entrepreneur Latham Thomas and Professor Brittney Cooper, the author of “Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower.” The interviewees offer anecdotes about their mothers and grandmothers, and reflect on how the relationships nourished them. In one scene, Burke recalls a childhood experience of being slapped by a stranger for playing in the supermarket. When Burke’s grandmother heard what happened, she smashed the store’s window with a pipe.Lewis pairs the stories with a lovely collage aesthetic, layering the interviews with home videos, photographs and music. Sometimes, she even frames her subjects within collages of flowers, antique curios and archival images.As a director, Lewis is admirably present. She seems to have gained the trust of her interview subjects, and has taken care to create a space for openness. But as the women explore spirituality, trauma and resilience, an echo effect emerges. Sometimes that echo can sound like repetition. The film’s division into rough thematic chapters reinforces redundancies; some ideas within the “healing” segment could have fit within “radical self-care,” and vice versa. Yet such hiccups ultimately do not detract from the movie’s grace — nor from its showcase of Lewis’s natural gifts as a communicator and as an artist.In Our Mothers’ GardensNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More
The documentary follows the actor’s work helping Haiti, starting in 2011.Sean Penn’s work in Haiti after its devastating 2011 earthquake continues to this day. And this new documentary “Citizen Penn” is a revealing, engaging chronicle of the actor’s activism.One of the opening scenes of the movie, directed by Dan Hardy, is a mini-montage of its subject behaving like the tabloid fodder he was during the 1980s and 1990s. It culminates with a clip from Penn’s acceptance speech at the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony, where he took the best actor prize for his work in “Milk.” He tells the audience, “I know how hard I make it to appreciate me.”Hardy’s subsequent exercise in Penn-appreciation, focusing on Penn’s extraordinary and still-continuing philanthropic activism in Haiti, accepts that challenge, and overcomes it.Speaking with Hardy for this film, Penn reveals, among other things, his acute awareness of the interview as a mode of performance. Dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, an American Spirit cigarette almost ever-present in his hand, the often combative actor adopts a friendly mien and seems frank, engaging and unguarded. He speaks of wasting some time on nightlife in the aftermath of a divorce, and being galvanized by television coverage of the 2011 earthquake.After asking a physician friend down there what was needed, and being told “350,000 vials of morphine,” Penn got them. From the divisive president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, as it happens. After assembling a volunteer force, Penn went to Haiti and was increasingly astonished at how devastated it was.The actor and filmmaker is the “star” here, yes, but Hardy also profiles Haitians and some expatriates in the medical field who were moved to go back to the country. Their commitment and insight fills out the chronicle. These days, the island country is increasingly hurricane battered. And Penn remains a fierce, and appreciated, advocate for its cause.Citizen PennNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Watch on Discovery+. More
