After a performance in blackface at an inaugural gala for President Ronald Reagan Ben Vereen's career suffered. Acclaimed L.A.-based visual artist Edgar Arceneaux has written an experimental play that seeks to reclaim the Broadway legend's reputation. And Vulture's Kyle Buchanan gives a recap on the most striking moments of this year's Cannes Film Festival
Netflix starts an uproar and Jessica Chastain calls out portrayals of women at Cannes 2017
Another year, another eventful Cannes Film Festival.
The notable moments from this year's event included Netflix getting booed by the French press, filmmaker Sofia Coppola's historic Best Director win, and Jessica Chastain's criticism of the "disturbing" portrayals of women in the festival’s films:
Say that, .
— Ava DuVernay (@ava)Say that, @jes_chastain. https://t.co/H7QHnEE5JA
— Ava DuVernay (@ava) May 29, 2017
, a senior editor at New York Magazine’s Vulture.com, was at Cannes taking in all the on- and off-screen drama. He joined The Frame's John Horn to talk about what all went down at Cannes 2017.
Interview highlights:
On "The Square" taking home the Palme D'Or, the festival's top prize
The film is a Swedish comedy by director Ruben Ostlund, who cinema-goers might remember from his movie a few years ago called "Force Majeure," a very funny satire. This one is as well. It's hilarious, large parts of it are English-language and Elisabeth Moss is in it, so there's a little bit more accessibility as far as American audiences go. It's this art world satire with these extended— I would almost go so far as to say — sketches, that play like really masterful "Saturday Night Live" ideas. And there are scenes in it that I'll remember for ages ... and that's how it sort of leapt over those odds that the pundits had given it to become one of the very rare comedies to win the Palme D'Or.
On Sofia Coppola's win for Best Director for "The Beguiled"
"The Beguiled" is a remake of a film that was made in 1971 with Clint Eastwood, given a Sofia Coppola spin. I loved it ... It is only the second time that a woman has won the Best Director award at Cannes. And I should note that the Palme D'Or, which goes to the best film and the director of that film, that's only gone to a female director once — Jane Campion. So there is a lot of ground that Cannes ought to be making up.
On Jessica Chastain's criticism of the portrayals of women in the festival's films
I think what she's getting at is two-fold — one is that the depictions of women from these world filmmakers reflect how women are viewed in those societies and sometimes are a critique of that. And then, honestly, there's the flip side of that, and something I think she's more getting at, which is that for a lot of these male filmmakers, women are mere accessories and depicted as such, or even worse, in some of their movies. And yeah, absolutely, I saw several films where the women were just basically bracelets, practically, and not really given any interior life. And there were some films that I thought were flat out misogynist, including one that won one of their awards, "Loveless"— this Russian drama that was heavily acclaimed, but that I felt was so reductive in the way that it portrayed its women that it kind of got on my bad side.
On the cold reception that Netflix received at the festival
If there was any sort of controversial narrative at Cannes this year it was Netflix's presence at the festival. As people probably know, when something is on Netflix, it streams immediately. You don't have to wait for it, and sometimes the streamer will book theaters at the same time as a sort of a, Look, we're in movie theaters too kind of move, but everybody knows it's a streaming service. And so a lot of European theaters were up in arms about that because they said, How can films compete [at Cannes] that won't actually be released in French theaters? And you really heard that anger when you went to these screenings because the French press would boo whenever they saw a Netflix logo ... In fact, there's a Todd Haynes film called "Wonderstruck" that was there. It's distributed by Amazon Studios, similar to Netflix, although they actually do give films a theatrical window before they debut on Amazon Prime. But even that movie, the Amazon Studios logo on that one got booed, so there was a lot of anti-streamer sentiment at Cannes.
To hear the full interview with Kyle Buchanan, click the blue player above.
An experimental play reinterprets Ben Vereen’s controversial 1981 homage to Bert Williams
At Ronald Reagan's televised 1981 inaugural gala, Johnny Carson took the mic to introduce an unusual performance by the African American Broadway legend, Ben Vereen.
The audience at the gala witnessed a two-act performance by Vereen. In the first act, he sings in blackface. In the second, he wipes off the makeup in protest.
But the TV audience only saw the first act. Vereen’s message, which was supposed to demonstrate the exploitive nature of blackface minstrelsy, consequently backfired — badly.
African American activists denounced Vereen’s performance, and his career and reputation took a huge hit.
Now, artist Edgar Arceneaux is hoping to clear the record with the first piece he’s written for the stage: It’s called “Until, Until, Until…”
The play is based on the unseen footage from Vereen’s second act, and it investigates the way that media can alter our perception of art and history. Arceneaux recently visited The Frame's studio to chat with host John Horn.
Interview highlights:
On first learning about Ben Vereen's performance:
It was part of a documentary that I was passively watching at home. I looked away from the TV and I came back and there was somebody in blackface doing a minstrel show. I was like, Man, what is this? Then the camera opened up wide and it said: "Ronald Reagan's Inaugural Gala — Ben Vereen." I was like, What is this? But I didn't realize how fortunate I was because I actually saw the beginning and the ending of the piece. The ending of the performance is so moving and so touching, but combining that with the surreal quality of seeing a blackface performance in front of Ronald Reagan and George Bush and 25,000 Republicans — I just was never able to forget about it.
On the performance as seen by the gala's attendees:
He had practically gotten a standing ovation. The performance truly is powerful. It is, in my opinion, one of the most important performances of the 20th Century that almost no one knows about. Being able to bring it back into the present serves a double function.
On when he realized he would turn Vereen's story into a work for the stage:
I was at a kid's birthday party ... standing in line to get a hotdog, and I look over and I see Ben Vereen there. I'd been commissioned by this organization in New York, Performa, to direct a performance. But I didn't know what I was going to do. So it was really a moment of serendipity that brought me and Ben Vereen into the same room. So I went and I shook his hand and he was very gracious and very welcoming up until I mentioned the performance of "Nobody" at Ronald Reagan's [gala]. Then his whole demeanor changed. I didn't at the time know why, because I didn't know the backstory. I didn't know that the second part of the performance was edited out. I didn't know about the impact that it had on his life and that it was a trauma that he still carried with him.
On how he made the audience a part of the performance:
I decided I was going to try to tell the story in a way which wasn't a reproduction of history. But, How do I tell it in the way in which this historical moment is coming into the present? What makes it about right now? The way in which I decided to tell the story was from the perspective of how Ben remembers it, which is a series of traumas. So the audience in many ways is symbolic of how Ben sees himself perceived by others. So throughout the run of the play, the audience is slowly being drawn into the show where they realize they're not actually watching it, but they are what the show is about.
Edgar Arceneaux's "Until, Until, Until..." will be performed at the Susanne Vielmetter gallery from June 2-4. An accompanying exhibition of Arceneaux's work is at the gallery through July 1.