"Hey, look!" Stephen Wilkes' new documentary -- JAY MYSELF -- highlights the life, work and philosophy of photographer Jay Maisel

There have been a number of documentaries about famous American photographers over the past few years, and many of these have had their American theatrical debut at Film Forum. Here is yet another in the batch -- JAY MYSELF, about photography great Jay Maisel -- and it turns out to be one of the best yet: entertaining, thoughtful, wise, often pretty funny and occasionally even moving.

Ostensibly all about the major move Masiel and his family must make from the landmark bank building (on poster, left) the photographer bought for $102,000 back in 1966 (and sold for $55 million in 2014), the movie -- in just 78 minutes -- manages to capture a lot more.

As directed by Stephen Wilkes (shown at right) and written by Josh Alexander, the documentary bounces along mostly merrily, giving us somewhat of a history of Maisel, showing us quite a range of his very good photography, both commercial and artistic (Maisel himself would insist that one mode does not necessarily contradict the other), and offering up a portion of the man's philosophy of work and art.

This last can be summed up by the first two words of the headline copy, above, and Maisel makes a very good case for these words as a philosophy for any would-be photographer to live by.

Why so late in life is this major move necessary for Maisel? (The photographer, shown at left, tells us that he had planned to live in the bank building until he died.) But unless I misunderstood what I heard on the soundtrack, this very large structure costs around $300,000 per year to maintain. Enough said.

Still, a move like this, at Maisel's age, is no easy one -- not to mention all the "stuff" the photographer has collected down the decades (he has lived there for over 50 years!). And if the man is not defined as a "hoarder," this is only because there is so much room in his huge building that he can spread out his hoarding to the point at which his living quarters seem more like an oddball museum (see below and further below).

We hear from a number of photographers, mostly his friends and contemporaries, but what makes the documentary particularly special, TrustMovies thinks, is that the filmmaker has known Maisel intimately over such a long period of time. Wilkes was an intern for Maisel at the beginning of Wilkes' career, thanks to a portfolio that pleased his mentor, and the two have remained close ever since.

It's a delight to see so much of Maisel's work, while simultaneously hearing his ideas about "seeing." Art is trying to make others see what you see, he tells us, which is certainly one way to define an artist's objective. Regarding commercial art: You approach the job as an artist. And then you make as much money as you can. Interestingly, Maisel accords one of his teachers, Josef Albers, credit for helping him understand the uses and importance of color in art.

The documentary's musical score (by Jay Goodman) adds a lot of fun and bounce to the proceedings, all technical aspects of the film are first-rate, and its relatively short running time means that nothing and no one outstays their welcome.

From Oscilloscope Laboratories, Jay Myself opens this coming Wednesday, July 31, at New York City's Film Forum for a two-week run, before hitting another dozen or so cities across the country -- including Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal) on August 16 and here in Boca Raton at our Living Room Theaters on August 30. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Cantet/Campillo's THE WORKSHOP is rich, encompassing cinema -- both broad and deep

TrustMovies often speaks of French cinema (and the French themselves) as perverse. I mean this as a kind of complement because they and their films so often go in a different direction than expected. Whether this is done for humorous, ironic or sometimes, yes, simply transgressive reasons, the result can be bracing, abrasive and thought-provoking. So it is with THE WORKSHOP, a new film directed by Laurent Cantet (Human Resources, Time Out, Heading South and The Class) and his co-writer Robin Campillo (Eastern Boys, They Came Back, and the recent BPM).

Messieurs Cantet (shown at left) and Campillo (below) have worked together often enough now that I suspect their wavelengths must be close enough to nearly run as one. Either that or their strengths and weaknesses so balance each other out that the result is, at this point, just about seamless. 

With The Workshop, the pair addresses a host of themes and ideas, both super-timely and, well, ageless. These would include everything from immigration and terrorism (the home-

grown variety) to the impact and importance of art on the general public. Oh, yes -- and, as my spouse pointed out after viewing the film, it is also, maybe most of all, an unusual coming-of-age tale.

In the film, a young man named Antoine (played by the excellent newcomer Matthieu Lucci, shown below, left) from a local port city in France joins a summer school workshop led by a smart and attractive teacher from the "big city" (the always interesting Marina Fois, below, center).

As the class progresses, it becomes clear that Antoine is both very talented and very problemed. How this is revealed to us demonstrates anew Cantet/Campillo's excellent grasp of storytelling techniques, dialog, and the mysteries of human character and motive.

The filmmakers excel at something I'd call not mis-direction (intentionally bringing you to think or expect the wrong thing) but rather a refusal to satisfy your expectations too easily or simple-mindedly. Cantet and Campillo actually demonstrate Chekov's famous "gun" concept and then stand it on its head by making that second-act usage less (and at the same time more) than a mainstream audience may want or care to wrestle with.

The entire class (above) is peopled by a fine assortment of young characters, each of whom is drawn and acted quite well, and who together represent a smart but not-too-tidy look at today's France. Their reactions to each other, and especially to Antoine, are spot-on and help push the plot, such as it is, onwards. I say "such as it is" because Cantet and Campillo have always been more interested in character and theme than in heavily dramatic plotting.

Things happen and build to a kind of crescendo of dramatic possibilities, and then they simply ebb as naturally as the tide that rises and falls around the port town. This may disappoint those who demand melodrama and major confrontation, but it will surely satisfy others who prefer a more realistic slice-of-life that refuses to solve all problems within the framework of a less-than-two-hour movie. Some change does occur here -- and to all the characters -- though we cannot be sure, I think, in which direction that change is headed or how it will turn out.

It has been enough to confront politics, economics, unemployment, immigration, the making of art and the confusion of youth so very well as do Cantet and Campillo. I can't wait to see what this duo comes up with next. From Strand Releasing, in French with English subtitles and running 108 minutes, The Workshop opens this Friday, March 23, in New York City at the IFC Center and then on April 6 in Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt, and here in South Florida at the Tower Theater, in Miami, and the Savor Cinema in Fort Lauderdale, as well as elsewhere across the country. Click here (then scroll down to click on Screenings on the task bar) to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

In Valérie Müller and Angelin Preljocaj's POLINA, a young dancer must find her identity

Art, creativity, dance, choreography, and finally finding oneself: all of these themes shimmer and glow, wax and wane in the course of the new and unusual movie, POLINA. A French film with Russian roots, it is co-directed by Valérie Müller and her husband, French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj. This pairing of filmmaker and choreographer results in one of the better examples of a movie that tackles art and creativity and actually allows its audience to discover in a believable and dramatic fashion exactly how these things come into being.

There is still a mystery at the movie's core. There must be where creativity is concerned. But the filmmakers (shown above, with Mr. Preljocaj on the right) manage to get so much right -- from a youth spent in the service of one's parents' desires for their children's future to the awakening of a classical ballet dancer to the surprise and joy to be found in modern dance -- that Polina, both the character and her film, seems by virtue of how she blooms and evolves, to be quite an original creation.

As played by two actresses (Veronika Zhovnytska, above, center, is the young schoolgirl, while Anastasia Shevtsova, below, with Niels Schneider, portrays the more mature version), Polina is fascinating figure who never reveals herself fully. This makes the movie even richer, I suspect. She's very talented, smart and caring, and her love for dance -- ballet, modern and finally choreography itself -- is clearly and beautifully demonstrated by both the actresses and the filmmakers.

Director Müller has made two documentaries previously (this is her second feature-length film) but Preljocaj is both a filmmaker and a rather famous choreographer. This film collaboration seems an inspired one, especially in its use of choreography, which is first-class throughout. In fact, TrustMovies does not recall another narrative film (except maybe The Red Shoes and some of Gene Kelly's work) in which choreography proved this vital and important to the tale being told.

From Polina's ballet training to her sudden but full-out revelation of the beauty of modern dance to her first experience with improvisation and finally to her incipient choreography, each step, and its accompanying dancing, seems wonderfully on-the-mark, giving us access not only to the dance itself, but to Polina's experience of it. The film's finale offers one of the most beautiful, moving, and glorious dance duets I can recall -- giving us Polina, her partner (Paris Opera star Jérémie Bélingard, above, a knock-out) and Preljocaj at the top of their game.

Along the path of Polina's education, she is introduced to modern dance via the choreography and person of the head of dance company, played with enormous heat, heart and understanding by the great Juliette Binoche, above. (Is there nothing Ms Binoche cannot do, I wonder? Except play comedy, when the director is as graceless as Bruno Dumont.) This section is as fascinating and full as the rest of the film, and marks yet another change of direction for our troubled heroine.

Ms Müller allows Polina to work out her pathway and life without resorting to melodramatic flourishes. Thus the movie is relatively quiet, despite the fact of her father's involvement with what looks like the Russian mafia. Without even a mention of it, the film is absolutely feminist, and it also offers life lessons without unduly pushing them upon us. Polina is a positive, engaging surprise in just about every way. (That's Alexsey Guskov, below, who plays Polina's smart, stern and caring ballet instructor with just the right degree of rectitude and sentiment.)

From Oscilloscope Films and running 109 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, August 25 in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. On September 1, it opens in Los Angeles (at the Landmark NuArt) and Washignton DC (at the Landmark E Street), with a limited nationwide rollout to follow. Here in South Florida it opens on Friday, September 15, in Miami at the Bill Cosford Cinema, in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theater, at The Movies of Delray and Lake Worth, and maybe elsewhere, too. Click here then scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

The life and art of an unusual woman come together in Marcie Begleiter's EVA HESSE

This is clearly the week for artists, as, over the past several days, TrustMovies has viewed and covered very good documentaries about David Hockney, Edith Lake Wilkinson and now EVA HESSE. The last of these is a woman whose career took off in the late 1960s but by the end of May 1970 was dead. Before watching the fine new documentary written and directed by Marcie Begleiter, I knew little to nothing about Ms Hesse. Now I feel as though she was one of the most important, perhaps the most important of artists of that time period -- not simply able to understand and presage art trends of the day but to take them and make them her own, leaving us with a phenomenal amount of fine art (a retrospective of her work filled up the walls of the entire Guggenheim Museum) in which quality very likely equalled quantity.

This is Ms Begleiter's (the documentarian is shown at right) first film as writer and director, though she has held a number of art-related job on films over the past three decades. I think she has done a remarkable job of bringing together some marvelous archival footage, interviews with friends. family and other artists of the period so that we get quite a rich sense of Ms Hesse's life and her art -- from perspectives social, historical, artistic and especially psychological.

As Lucy Lippard, one of the many people interviewed here, explains, "With Eva, it's almost impossible not to think psychologically when you know her art and you know her as a person." After viewing this fine documentary, I suspect most audiences will feel they know both the woman and her art -- certainly better than they did going into the film.

Born in Germany, post the takeover of Hitler but just prior to WWII, Eva (shown above and below) and her sister were among the last Jewish children to leave Germany for Holland on the kindertransports. Eventually the sisters and their parents were reunited, ending up in the USA (the rest of Eva's extended family perished in the Holocaust).

We learn of her tentative steps toward art, as well as her relationships with friends and eventually with Tom Doyle the artist who would become her significant other for much of her short life, We see her expand and grow as an artist, with help from those friends -- Sol LeWitt was probably the biggest help (this artist loved her, and the two were extremely close, like 'family,' but as Eva noted, "You don't go to bed with your brother") -- until she was ready, as we're told, "to take all the influences she saw and then use them in her own way."

A trip to Germany, where she and her boyfriend worked on new art, was empowering -- even if, eventually, the two finally split. "Eva was very high maintenance," her ex explains, while admitting that, yes, maybe he did drink a little too much. All the while her work continued to grow in wit, charm, shock and meaning ("Hang Up," a splendid combo of painting as sculpture, is a particular amazement.)

She eventually treks from post-abstract impressionism to surrealism then to minimalism -- which was the art of the day -- but Eva kept it all personal and specific and consequently, perhaps, more womanly? She gets her own show at last, and then discovers new materials -- and even begins making these materials herself.

When the downturn comes, suddenly, it's a shock and a horror. Mostly, though, it seems beyond untimely. What might Eva have done had she lived to the length that most artists manage? But as finally explained:
"Life doesn't last. Art doesn't last. It doesn't matter." (That's Eva, below, with Josef Albers.)

Eva Hesse, from Zeitgeist Films and running a long but fascinating 105 minutes, opens this Wednesday, April 27, at Film Forum in New York City. It will open in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Monica Film Center on May 13. To view the many other playdates throughout the country, with cities and theaters listed, simply click here.