Brooklyn Close-Up: Our Song & On the Come Up

The Jackie Robinson Steppers performing in Our Song

Crown Heights has never had a more loving and intimate cinematic portrait than Jim McKay's Our Song. Released 13 years ago, and screening next week in our ongoing Brooklyn Close-Up series, the film was hailed as "revolutionary" by The New York Times' A.O. Scott, who also praised McKay as an "indispensable filmmaker." Not only did the film introduce the American independent film world to a compelling new voice, but it also featured a trio of formidable young actresses (including Kerry Washington, who has gone on to work with everyone from Spike Lee to Quentin Tarantino) in their first screen performances.

With the upcoming release of the novel On the Come Up—a moving and beautifully wrought narrative, written by McKay's partner Hannah Weyer and based on the stories of actress Anna Simpson—both McKay and Weyer reflect on their friendship with their young star, the lessons they learned from observing the challenges she faced as a teenager, and the process of making the film with her.

Our Song screens Tuesday, July 23 at 7pm and will be followed by a Q&A and book signing with Jim McKay, Hannah Weyer, and Anna Simpson.

Brooklyn Close-Up: The Wiz

Just a cursory glance at the roster of legendary talent behind The Wiz is enough to clue you into its prestigious position in black film history. Despite the enduring popularity of Cabin in the Sky, the original Sparkle, and recent big-budget successes like Dreamgirls, the African-American musical remains a small field of largely untapped potential. This ambitious, distinctly urban take on L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—which had its first incarnation as a Tony Award-winning, Motown-bankrolled “Super Soul” Broadway production—remains one of the few black musicals to win a permanent spot in pop culture consciousness.

Brooklyn Reel Estate: Paul Auster's Park Slope

Picture this: a green-as-a-gremlin Brooklyn newbie, fresh off the Fung Wah Bus, dines at one of the many French bistros that punctuate Park Slope. Sitting with an old friend and picking at a  lackluster plate of coq au vin, this Boston immigrant (yes, me) has a flash of recognition when he notices the occupant of a nearby table. After a few minutes of discreet whispering and rifling through my mind's file cabinet, I realize that this handsome man with the wild mane and intense eyes is author Paul Auster. I had just read The New York Trilogy and quite enjoyed it, so I was delighted by this unexpected brush with literary celebrity right here in my new home.

At a recent interview with Mr. Auster at his Park Slope home, I recounted this story. He warmly expressed his happiness at being able to unwittingly welcome me to the neighborhood he loves. Here are some excerpts from that interview where he expounds on his love of cinema, Dutch cigars, Park Slope, and La Bagel Delight.



Paul Auster appears at BAM for a Q&A following a screening of Smoke on Monday, December 19 at 6:50pm.

Free Ticket+ Thursdays: The Brooklyn Close-Up Edition

As we mentioned before, BAMcinématek is dedicating the last Monday of every month to Brooklyn films as part of our 150th-anniversary celebrations. Think The Warriors, Do the Right Thing, Goodfellas, Sophie's Choice, etc. Enter Free Ticket+ Thursdays this week for a chance to win tickets to all of the films, plus a case of the recently released Brooklyn BAMboozle Ale from Brooklyn Brewery, a framed copy of the Brooklyn Close-Up print to the left (by our own Nate Gielgud), and a BAM Cinema Club Membership.

Sophie's choice was difficult. This one is not. Enter to win today!

Brooklyn Reel Estate: C.I., The Big Coney

This monthly blog column (blogumn?) will include musings on the neighborhoods covered in the Brooklyn Close-Up film series, featuring films shot in the Borough of Kings. First up: The Warriors and their home turf, the big Coney.

A simpler time!

Although I grew up in a suburb of Worcester, MA—a former beacon of the American industrial revolution best known as the birthplace of poet Elizabeth Bishop, rocketman Robert Goddard, and 60s radical Abbie Hoffman, far from the cultural fondue pot of New York City—I always had a bit of Brooklyn rumbling through my veins. Before moving to Massachusetts to marry my grandfather, my grandmother grew up in Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge. I would sit beside her on the arm of her chair and she’d tell stories of her Brooklyn life—church dances, subway trips with her girlfriend to sneak underage cocktails in Manhattan bars, and, most enticingly, summers spent on the teeming beaches of Coney Island, riding roller coasters and ferris wheels with magical names like Cyclone and Wonder Wheel. 

Brooklyn film, close up and illustrated

While BAM celebrates 150 years of performances, BAMcinématek is comparatively a wee babe—a spry 12 years old. Yet we’re continuously celebrating history—the current and past glories of The Seventh Art flicker on our screens daily—so we’re contributing to the sesquicentennial party by celebrating the county of Kings, and its place in the history of motion pictures (an art which did not even exist when BAM first opened its doors!).

To that end, we’ve commissioned Brooklyn artist Nathan Gelgud, a mustachioed Mets fan with a charming Southern drawl, to create a limited edition poster celebrating 90 years of Brooklyn film history.

A movie lover who created silkscreen prints of Godard and Truffaut films, including a delightful poster for a re-release of Truffaut’s Small Change, Nathan contributes to The Believer and the all-comics newspaper Smoke Signal, and moonlights as a film critic. We encourage you to visit his terrific blog here: http://nathangelgud.blogspot.com/.

So, without further ado, we present you with Nathan’s musings on a few figures connected to the illustration, followed by the poster itself.