Beyond the Global Glitz

Finding New York’s Heart at the NY Film Festival

By Michael Jacobsohn

Film at Lincoln Center recently held the 63rd edition of the New York Film Festival (NYFF63). The festival’s identity revolves around its Main Slate, which this year featured a curated selection of 34 feature films. Strikingly, the festival continuously manages to fill the 1,000-seat Alice Tully Hall with enthusiastic audiences willing to purchase tickets that start at $35.

The Main Slate selection was overwhelmingly comprised of international titles, cherry-picked by the festival organizers from a grand circuit of global film festivals: the Festival de Cannes, the Venice International Film Festival, Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival, and the Sundance Film Festival. NYFF programmers take pride that their selections serve as a showcase of the season’s most significant international films, continuing a tradition since 1963 of introducing audiences to what they deem are bold works from both celebrated masters and newly emerging talents. Tucked within this international bounty were three films strongly rooted in New York City. This is my take on those films.

Late Fame, directed by Kent Jones, offers a genuinely compelling New York narrative. It stars Willem Dafoe as a character who, we discover, has spent most of his adult life working as a postman. Set in present-day Greenwich Village, the story is quirky, easily identifiable, and sweet in its premise.

Elderly artists, like me, will profoundly identify with Dafoe’s life-altering journey. Imagine withdrawing from the competitive, non-paying Village art scene of the ‘70s and accepting a ‘bread and butter’ job at the post office for 38 years, only to be suddenly informed by a boyish cadre of well-heeled NYU student poets that a poetry collection you published nearly half a century ago is an unrecognized masterpiece that needs to be brought back to life. Would you trade your anonymity and longtime neighborhood friends for some late fame?

How compelling is that proposition? An artistic passion you had long abandoned is unexpectedly unearthed by outsiders, and you are given the recognition you had thought lost forever. Not only that, but these young poets, captivated by your early verses, urge you to publish new works. The conclusion of this late-in-life ‘dream come true’ carries unwelcome truth. I am confident this fine film will secure distribution, ensuring that many of you will have the chance to see it.

Mr. Scorsese is a five-part documentary series which was directed by Rebecca Miller. The project is an immense cinematic achievement. Martin Scorsese granted the filmmaker unfettered access to his personal history, yielding an in-depth understanding of the forces that have sustained his directorial fame for more than half a century.

Scorsese will be forever linked with New York’s Little Italy neighborhood, having been raised on Elizabeth Street and focusing his early works on the sights and sounds he witnessed as a child and a young man. The first episode directly addresses Scorsese’s lifelong battle for acceptance. His struggles began early, from witnessing his family being publicly shamed to enduring the isolation of chronic asthma as a youngster. That early infirmity, ironically, led to a seminal experience: his father taking him to neighborhood air-conditioned movie theaters to abate his physical suffering. This necessity evolved into a deep passion for movies that defined the rest of his life.

The comprehensive series walks us chronologically through Scorsese’s colossal filmography. We are given the unique opportunity to hear directly from Scorsese, his childhood friends, and a multitude of major actors and collaborators who have driven these projects forward. Scorsese has directed approximately 60 films to date, from his low-budget NYU thesis film Who’s That Knocking at My Door to his most recent historical epic, Killers of the Flower Moon. While the sheer number of films is remarkable, we also learn that this immense success came with a significant personal price. Now in his fifth marriage, Scorsese provides Miller access to interviews with past and present family members who illuminate the turbulent, “roller coaster” existence of life with a singular, dedicated artist. These impressive documentary episodes are currently available on Apple TV+.

Father Mother Sister Brother. Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch contributed greatly to the cinematic style that emerged from New York’s Lower East Side’s vibrant and eclectic counterculture of the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, his latest film, Father Mother Sister Brother, did not work for me. The story is divided into three unrelated chapters, each set in a different country and centered on adult children reconnecting with their emotionally distant parents—or struggling with their absence. The film features many headline actors who deliver their lines skillfully, yet their performances feel overly restrained, offering little emotional range or depth to connect with. The film played more like a documentary chronicling the quiet disconnection of our time, but unfortunately, it didn’t translate into a compelling cinematic experience for me. You can judge for yourself when MUBI releases the film theatrically in late December.

With no shame, New York Film Festival’s staff jet around the world, so they can attend the most elite film festivals. And to my dismay, they then choose the 34 films that they deem worthy to screen at the Main Slate of the festival. On top of that, having to pay a minimum of $35 to attend a film screening deprives many New Yorkers the opportunity to become familiar with the festival’s lineup. Instead of accumulating frequent miles, the programmers of the New York Film Festival would be well served to look in their own backyard and consider scheduling some deserving New York filmmakers who can use a bit of fame.

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Michael Jacobsohn is an independent New York filmmaker. On Saturday, November 22 at 3 p.m. he will be screening two of his early 16mm films at the Metrograph cinema. He also curates and hosts a bi-monthly screening of short films by New York Metropolitan filmmakers at New Plaza Cinema.