The Powerful Films of the L.A. Rebellion

In the nineteen-seventies, U.C.L.A.’s Ethno-Communications program, founded to summation number enrollment, attracted a captious wide of young Black filmmakers. They rapidly began to marque a wide varied scope of autarkic films that were unified by their bold and intimate attraction to Black lives and history, and by distinctive cinematic forms to match; the radical yet gained the nickname the L.A. Rebellion. Though fewer of its members person had careers commensurate to their large aboriginal achievements, the question has had a delayed but almighty interaction connected aboriginal generations of filmmakers, arsenic seen successful the bid “L.A. Rebellion: Then and Now” (at Film astatine Lincoln Center, April 25-May 4), which presents immoderate of the movement’s large works on with notable caller successors.

“Bush Mama,” the thesis movie that Haile Gerima (who entered U.C.L.A. successful 1970) completed successful 1975, is acceptable successful the Watts vicinity of Los Angeles and stars Barbara O. Jones arsenic Dorothy, who struggles to rise her young girl (Susan Williams) erstwhile her partner, T.C. (Johnny Weathers), is incarcerated for a transgression helium didn’t commit. (It screens April 25 and April 28.) Gerima’s unflinching yet sometimes heartily humorous presumption of Dorothy’s satellite ranges from documentary shots of thoroughfare beingness and politically charged interactions with bureaucrats to confessional conversations with a neighbour (Cora Lee Day) and voice-overs evoking Dorothy’s interior life.

Julie Dash entered U.C.L.A. successful 1976 but didn’t marque her archetypal feature, “Daughters of the Dust” (May 2 and May 4), until 1991; though it’s her lone diagnostic to date, it marked the past of cinema by mode of its attack to history. It’s acceptable successful 1902, successful a Gullah assemblage connected an land disconnected the seashore of Georgia, wherever a ample extended household is preparing to determination to the North. The intricate tensions of their relationships are deepened by evocations of the past—including their forebears’ tragic absorption to enslavement—and of enduring African traditions. Dash (whose formed besides includes Jones and Day) brings the region’s civilization to beingness by mode of a resplendent, spiritually exalted benignant that’s among the modern cinema’s astir distinctive visions.

One of the astir acclaimed L.A. Rebellion movies, “Killer of Sheep,” by Charles Burnett—the archetypal of the radical to participate U.C.L.A., successful 1967 (and a cinematographer connected “Bush Mama”)—is screening April 18-24 astatine Film Forum, successful a caller restoration. This, too, was a thesis film, completed successful 1977, but its merchandise was agelong delayed due to the fact that of euphony rights. It’s a sharply observed, lyrically romanticist play of a young paterfamilias successful Watts named Stan (Henry G. Sanders), whose harsh occupation successful a slaughterhouse leaves him embittered and depressed. Burnett tenderly sketches the resulting stresses successful Stan’s marriage—a living-room creation country with his woman (Kaycee Moore), acceptable to Dinah Washington’s grounds of “This Bitter Earth,” is simply a classical successful itself—and evokes the family’s beingness successful generous detail, with peculiar attraction to the couple’s children.—Richard Brody

About Town

Broadway

In his historical career, Stephen Sondheim stripped the American philharmonic of its schmaltz, tapping into the curdled emotions underneath. In “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” a posthumous revue imported from the West End, the shaper Cameron Mackintosh and the manager Matthew Bourne smear it backmost on, giving Sondheim’s analyzable œuvre the sheen of supper-club entertainment. Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga pb the cast, decked retired successful spangles and tuxes, arsenic they rhythm done the hits—“Send successful the Clowns,” “Broadway Baby,” “The Ladies Who Lunch”—and deploy the occasional kickline. The evening lacks Sondheim’s ironic bite, but, if you emotion his musicals, you could bash worse than proceeding Peters, his preëminent muse, sing “Losing My Mind.” Featuring Beth Leavel, for shameless scene-stealing.—Michael Schulman (Samuel J. Friedman; done June 15.)

For more: work Sondheim’s speech with D. T. Max, from 2022, astir the ideas he’d abandoned, the minutiae of his technique, and the acquisition that immoderate creator indispensable learn.

Soul

For much than a decennary the D.C.-born instrumentalist Nick Hakim has been wading deeper and deeper into a mind-bending sonic vortex. While studying astatine Berklee College of Music, the vocalist and multi-instrumentalist débuted afloat formed, successful 2014, connected “Where Will We Go,” a two-part EP that outlined a affluent neo-soul sound, robust yet seemingly retired of focus. Hakim past released his opus “Green Twins,” successful 2017, establishing himself arsenic a purveyor of foggy psychedelic music. The albums that followed, including 1 with the jazz saxophonist Roy Nathanson, lone furthered a hallucinatory appeal; the astir recent, “Cometa” (2022), is sublime successful its subtlety. Alongside peculiar guests, Hakim celebrates the tenth day of “Where Will We Go,” returning to the fount of a bewitching constellation.—Sheldon Pearce (First Unitarian Congregational Society; April 25.)

Off Broadway

Benedict Andrews’s gorgeously performed modernization of Chekhov’s losing-the-estate play “The Cherry Orchard” is simply a communicative told successful textures: brushed kilim carpets specify the playing space; the capitalist Lopakhin (Adeel Akhtar) flashes his golden watch, counting the minutes till the ruination of the aristocrat Ranevskaya (a stunning Nina Hoss), a pistillate arsenic richly delicate arsenic her ain silk blouse. Andrews adds philharmonic interludes, which don’t ever work, and brutal jokes, which do. Here the estate’s weirdo, Epikhodov (Éanna Hardwicke), is an incel successful a Virginia Tech windbreaker—“Have you work Žižek?,” helium asks a pistillate who rebuffs him—and goofball Simeonov-Pishchik (David Ganly) bounds irrepressibly offstage, already respective symptoms into a bosom attack.—Helen Shaw (St. Ann’s Warehouse; done April 27.)

For more: work Hilton Als’s reappraisal of a 2016 mounting, and the communicative of however the precocious histrion Kim Stanley introduced him to Chekhov’s greatness.

Dance Theatre