Joe's View

One of the first big media tests of this New Austerity era we’re in will come Monday night at the Metropolitan Museum gala for the Costume Institute tied in with the opening of the new exhibit “Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion.”
Always one of the major celebrity/society happenings, the evening is put together by Vogue magazine and produces a blizzard of publicity shots showing movie, TV and fashion world stars looking their best in the most expensive clothes on earth.
In recent years, the shows have been preserved in book form by Yale University Press in gorgeous over-sized volumes that are as much fun to read as they are to look at.
“Model as Muse” is one of the best books in the series because it is so personality-driven and features a wide array of pictures by some of the most important photographers of the modern era — from Irving Penn to Richard Avedon to Steven Meisel.
There is a deeply nostalgic appeal to the book, too, in the shots of such great models of yesteryear as Suzy Parker, who went on to appear in several notable films of the 1950s (she’s a riot as a bad stage actress in the 1959 camp classic “The Best of Everything”).
A good portion of the book is devoted to the pop cultural revolution of the 1960s in which the formal dress of earlier eras was discarded as even the mature folks in fashion tried to keep up with the “Youthquake.”
Art historian and fashion writer Kohle Yohannon shows how key models such as Parker and Kate Moss have influenced fashion as well as worn it.
Moss has been able to parlay her status as a trendsetter into big bucks by signing on with the British Topshop chain for an affordable line of clothes in limited editions that fly off the shelves whenever they are made available (the first American outpost of Topshop in lower Manhattan has been doing sensational business since it opened earlier this month with an appearance by Moss that had crowds lining up around the block).
Yohannon traces the history of models from the anonymity of the pre-World War II era through the current “supermodel” era with figures like Moss and Gisele Bundchen generating almost as much press attention as movie stars.
Moss is co-chairing Monday night’s gala with Vogue editor Anna Wintour and pop star and fashion entrepreneur Justin Timberlake.
In the book, Moss provides an amusingly down-to-earth job description for the women in her line of work:
“If you can make a really bad dress look good, then you’re a good model.”

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released a two-disc “Director’s Choice” DVD last week that contains two Peter Bogdanovich films — the classic “Last Picture Show” that put the 32-year-old neophyte director at the top of the Hollywood heap in 1971 and “Nickelodeon,” the 1976 flop that capped a period of shocking decline from which Bogdanovich’s career has never fully recovered.
Few filmmakers have fallen so far so fast as Bogdanovich did in the mid-1970s, after three smash hits in a row had established him as one of the brightest talents of that era of exciting young American directors.
The critic-turned-director received an Oscar nomination for “Picture Show” and followed the film with two hugely successful comedies in just two years’ time — “What’s Up Doc?” (1972) and “Paper Moon” (1973).
In 1973, Bogdanovich’s name was right beside those of Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola and William Friedkin on the list of young outsiders who were redefining Hollywood moviemaking.
But, the director quickly lost his way after “Paper Moon.” He divorced his wife (and brilliant production designer) Polly Platt after a flagrant affair with “Picture Show” ingenue Cybill Shepherd. Bogdanovich went on to make two of the most misbegotten films in the history of Hollywood — the 1974 “Daisy Miller” in which Shepherd was hopelessly inadequate as the Henry James heroine and then the 1975 Cole Porter musical “At Long Last Love” that co-starred Shepherd and Burt Reynolds (neither of whom could sing or dance).
During this period Bogdanovich turned down the chance to direct “Chinatown” (1974) — that decision combined with his earlier rejection of “The Godfather” (1972) made Hollywood question his sanity.
Desperate for a comeback, Bogdanovich instead had another major box-office failure with “Nickelodeon” despite the presence of two major male stars of that decade, Reynolds and Ryan O’Neal.
Bogdanovich has long believed that the studio decision not to allow him to film “Nickelodeon” in black-and-white — as he did with “Last Picture Show” — was a fatal error on the part of the Columbia Pictures management.
All these years later, Bogdanovich has used computer technology to strip the color from “Nickelodeon” and come up with a crisp new black-and-white version of the 33-year-old movie (this was much more complicated than simply turning a knob and removing the color — the film was reworked shot by shot and you would never guess that it was not filmed in B&W).
The movie does look better and feel truer to the silent movie era in B&W than it does in the rather garish original color print (the DVD contains both versions).
Sadly, the movie itself is still a labored dud, with painfully broad acting by Reynolds and O’Neal (and a rare bum performance by the wonderful character actor Brian Keith).
Bogdanovich intended to use Shepherd in the female lead, but reportedly the studio nixed that notion due to the couple’s bad publicity and two high profile flops. In an act of perverse self-sabotage Bogdanovich used a model named Jane Hitchcock in the part. She received special “and introducing…” billing in the credits but delivered a performance of shocking flatness that killed much of the intended romance and comedy in the a of struggling filmmakers and performers at the dawn of Hollywood moviemaking. (Hitchcock made one more film before returning to modeling).
The new DVD is a fascinating but failed attempt to salvage a famous flop — by re-packaging it with “The Last Picture Show,” Bogdanovich has heightened the sad deficiencies of “Nickelodeon.”

It’s tough to think of a more entertaining or more recession-proof way to spend a Saturday afternoon in New York City than strolling through the gallery district of Chelsea.
The Manhattan art world might be in tumult due to the Wall Street collapse — and the fact that even rich people are finding themselves with much less disposable income — but there are still dozens of interesting galleries to cruise through on the far west side between 14th St. and the high 20s.
Last week, on one of the wonderful summer-like spring days we’ve been having recently, I went with a group of friends on a tour of about 10 galleries, including the fantastic Picasso show (above) at the huge Gagosian gallery — with almost 100 pieces of art it’s more like a small museum show than a gallery exhibit — and the fascinating collection of Polaroids by Patti Smith at the Robert Miller gallery.
It’s so much fun to people watch in Chelsea — where the folks looking at the art can be almost as interesting as what’s hanging on the walls — and the diversity of work that you can see free of charge in a few hours is quite dizzying.
The only money I spent that afternoon was for a few drinks and a snack at the very reasonable and very cozy Half King bar (co-owned by journalist Sebastian Junger) smack in the middle of the action at 23rd St. and Tenth Ave.
While we were walking through a gallery one of my journalist friends started asking me about the mechanics of the gallery business — how do they make money, how do you get your work shown there, who are all those pretty young things manning the front desk — and I was very happy to be able to refer him to a terrific book that had landed on my desk a few days earlier, “Art/Work” (Free Press) by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber.
The savvy duo — she’s director and curator at Mixed Greens Gallery in New York, he’s a lawyer who does volunteer work for artists — take us through the business of art from how galleries operate to the nuts-and-bolts of setting up art Web sites and landing residencies and grants.
The book is designed to help artists make sense of the business end of their work, but it’s also a fascinating read for anyone who would like to be taken behind the scenes to read the comments and advice from the dozens of professionals the authors interviewed.
The book is artfully laid out with each page mixing practical information along with boldface advice quotes from artists, curators, gallery owners and tax preparers.
The book’s bottom line is that a real career in art involves the constant juggling of creativity and practicality.
It’s a self-help book that never loses sight of the real objective of any artist. Right near the beginning, the authors devote a full page to just five sentences from New York artist Stephanie Diamond: “Make your work. Make your work constantly. Love it. And hate it. But make it.”
(The Gagosian gallery is at 522 West 21st St. The Picasso show will be there through June 6.)

Beatrice Arthur had a long and incredibly productive life, but it was still sad to hear the news of her death Saturday at the age of 87.
Most of the obituary writers focused on her television work — Arthur had the good fortune to star in not one but two long-running situation comedies (“Maude” — right — and “The Golden Girls”).
I enjoyed the TV work, but always thought of Arthur as a stage actress, maybe because I was lucky enough to see her play Vera Charles in the original Broadway production of “Mame” (opposite another stage veteran who would find TV fame, Angela Lansbury).
“Mame” was the first Broadway musical I saw as a child — during its out of town try-out in Philadelphia in 1966 — and I can still remember how dazzled I was by the show and its two stars.
Lansbury and Arthur played larger-than-life “frenemies” who laid their cards on the table in one of the show’s best Jerry Herman tunes, “Bosom Buddies.”
Arthur also scored in Vera’s big show-within-the-show number, “The Man in the Moon (is a lady).”
The two stars went on to win Tonys for best actress and best featured actress.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that Arthur had already been honing her stage chops for almost 20 years when “Mame” opened in Philly.
12 years before, she performed in the legendary Lotte Lenya production of “The 3 Penny Opera” that played a key role in off-Broadway becoming a viable commercial entity (the cast also included a very young and very unknown Jerry Orbach).
Between “3 Penny” and “Mame,” Arthur played the matchmaker in the original production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” but was bitterly disappointed when her juicy part was cut down during the try-out period.
In 2000, I had the privilege of interviewing Arthur when she worked in Westport on the one-woman show that would return the star to Broadway two years later.
The actress said one of the unique things about “Mame” was how little work needed to be done to get it in shape for Broadway.
“When we were in Philadelphia,” she told me, “Angela and I used to go to the movies in the afternoons. That was unheard of (during a try-out run). The audiences loved it right from the first performance.”
Arthur was a blast to interview. We talked about “Mame,” Lenya (a personal idol of Arthur’s) and the terrible 1974 movie version of “Mame” in which Arthur played Vera, but the title role went to Lucille Ball (a “disaster” in Arthur’s view — “the role belonged to Angela”).

This is the first chance I’ve had to report on the mystery festival that was held in Easton and Westport last weekend.
“Murder 203” was co-sponsored by the Easton and Westport libraries and appears to be off to a great start. The dates for the second “Murder 203” have already been announced — April 17 and 18, 2010.
The writers I talked to in Easton on Saturday were very happy with the response and the readers clearly got a big kick out of having a chance to meet and listen to a very potent group of mystery writers, headed up by the charming guest of honor Linda Fairstein (left).
There are already a number of popular mystery events held every year around the country — Bouchercon and Left Coast Crime which move every year, ThrillerFest in Manhattan each July and our own region’s New England Crime Bake held in the fall in Dedham, Mass.
These things tend to take more than year to plan because of the complicated publishing and writing schedules of the novelists. The conferences also seek notable guests of honor as a selling point — Sue Grafton will be doing those honors at the Crime Bake this year and Michael Connelly will be the star attraction at Bouchercon in Indianapolis in October.
So, it was somewhat amazing for the “Murder 203” folks to get the best-selling Fairstein as their linchpin and more than two dozen other top writers to participate in panels and signings in much less than a year’s planning time.
The two panels I moderated on Saturday included Fairstein, S.J. Rozan, Parnell Hall, Reed Farrel Coleman, Jason Pinter, Justin Scott and Rosemary Harris — all personal favorites of this mystery fan.
I’ve attended several Bouchercons and Crime Bakes and I have always been impressed by the graciousness and the warmth of folks who spend their professional lives writing about violent crime and the darkest impulses of humanity.
As writers, Ruth Rendell, Carl Hiaasen, Carolyn Hart, Marcia Muller, Lee Child and Harlan Coben don’t have a lot in common but as people they couldn’t be nicer to visit with at a mystery conference.
Over morning coffee last Saturday I asked one writer — Toni L.P. Kelner from Boston — why crime writers seem so much nicer than the “literary” fiction crowd.
“Maybe we get all of our anger and frustration out in the stories we tell!,” she said with a grin.
(For regular updates on the next “Murder 203” visit the event Web site at www.murder203.com)

The crowd was wildly enthusiastic but, sadly, very small at last night’s terrific show by singer-songwriters Elliott Murphy and Jann Klose at the Fairfield Theatre Company.
I was pulled out of my comfort zone when I was asked to host a Q&A with the two artists in between their sets, but couldn’t resist the offer from Jann and Elliott’s delightful manager-publicist Anne Leighton (who is a reader of this blog).
It was a fun experience for me to question Elliott about his long and fascinating career in music that has included stops along the way as an extra in Federico Fellini’s 1972 extravaganza, “Roma,” and forays into novel writing (he also contributed the liner notes to an early album by the legendary Velvet Underground).
Klose is in the early stages of his career, so it was interesting to hear where the two friends stand on various musical matters (I don’t think Elliott is as big a fan of ABBA as Jann is!)
Murphy has carved out a great life and career as a semi-expatriate musician in Paris with his wife — their son is a student at SUNY Purchase — where Elliott and his French band, The Normandy All-Stars), average 100 shows a year.
Elliott’s band is phenomenal — guitarist Olivier Durand (above, with Elliott), drummer Alan Fatras, and bass player Laurent Pardo.
I was depressed by the small turn-out for such a potent bill but Elliott amiably brushed off my comments before the show, saying he has performed for almost every size and shape of audience in his 40 years in the business. He hasn’t played in the U.S. much in recent years but hopes to re-build his audience here with semi-regular return visits.
Murphy and Klose gave no signs of distress at the size of the house in their high-energy sets that made me very happy to have been asked to attend. Their professionalism — and that of the stellar musicians who played with them — was inspiring.

Elliott Murphy is touring the East Coast and will be stopping at the Fairfield Theatre Company tonight where up-and-coming singer-songwriter Jann Klose will open for him.
Murphy has been in the music business for more than 40 years.
He’s had manys downs and ups — in terms of the business end of music — but has kept writing, performing and recording beautiful songs.
Murphy lives in Paris and is one of those great distinctively American performers — like Dexter Gordon and Josephine Baker — who has, ironically, found a more loyal following in Europe than in his home country.
The latest album, “Notes from the Underground,” gathers 11 gorgeous, cinematic tunes, ranging in subject matter from the Civil War to western movies and the supernatural.
Murphy writes books and magazine articles as well as songs. You can see that diversity of interests and styles in his deeply textured songs. Part of the pleasure in listening to “Underground” is in not knowing where the next song is going to take you.
The performer’s delightful media representative Anne Leighton asked me if I would do a brief Q&A session with Murphy and Klose before tonight’s show. The request was a totally unexpected honor. No songwriter should be pressed to nail down the mysterious creative process of putting words and music together, but it should be very interesting to listen to Murphy and Klose talk about their work and the challenges of maintaining a music career in this wild period of media revolution.
I’ll get off quickly so that the audience can enjoy an evening of what I am sure will be wonderful music.
(Tonight’s show begins at 7:30 p.m. Doors will open at 7. Tickets are $17-$22. For more information call 259-1036 or go online to www.fairfieldtheatre.org.)

There are lots of reasons not to take the Oscars seriously, but here’s a really good one:
Mia Farrow has not only never won an Academy Award, she’s never been nominated!
People often assume she was nominated early on for her amazing performance in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) but the Oscar attention that year went to the zany supporting player Ruth Gordon for her comeback as one of Rosemary’s devil cultist neighbors at the Dakota.
During her rather astounding decade-long collaboration with Woody Allen, Farrow gave one distinguished performance after another — in comedies and dramas written and directed by her companion — but again the Oscar voters looked to co-stars such as Dianne Wiest and Michael Caine who both won Academy Awards in 1986 for “Hannah and Her Sisters” while Farrow’s anchoring role went unrecognized.
Tonight at 7 at the Fairfield Theatre Company I’m hosting a free “Martini and a Movie” showing of one of my favorite Allen-Farrow pictures, the hilarious 1984 show biz comedy, “Broadway Danny Rose.”
Farrow was cast wildly against type in the role of the tough-talking Mafia widow Tina Vitale and scored what might be the biggest coup of her career to date.
There are perils in personal relationships between directors and actors — a filmmaker can be blinded by his passion and indulge in disastrous casting decisions — but there can also be unexpected triumphs when a director sees something in his muse that no one else has (yet).
Allen knew that although Farrow was often type-cast as rather delicate creatures, she had lots of personal experience with ladies like Tina from her Las Vegas days with first husband Frank Sinatra. The writer-director took a chance on Farrow playing a rather crass moll and the result was nothing short of spectacular. The part released new down-and-dirty comic elements in the actress and also gave her a tougher edge in the comedy byplay with co-star Allen.
The Allen-Farrow partnership eventually exploded in one of the biggest public scandals of the early 1990s, but they left behind a large and unique body of collaborative work.
(Doors will open at 7 tonight at the Fairfield Theatre Company, 70 Sanford St. The movie will start at 8. Admission is free.)