Unconscious Artistry in the Streets of New York

LACMA’s provocative Double Exposure: Photography, Film and the Cinema series continues tonight at 7:30 in the Bing Theater with a program of short films by famous still photographers.

It commences with the rarely seen 15-minute “In the Street” (1948) by Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb and James Agee. It envisions the tenement streets of New York as a theater and a battleground wherein everyday people, especially children, exhibit an unconscious artistry. This exuberant film captures that artistry and celebrates it; it’s as if Levitt’s photographs had come alive.

“Pull My Daisy” (1959), a tedious 30-minute vignette, is written and narrated by Jack Kerouac and adapted and directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie. It’s set in a Bowery loft and features notables such as poets Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso and painters Alice Neal and Larry Rivers. Also known as “The Beat Generation,” the film plays like an inside joke but has undoubted historical value because of the participants. William Klein’s 15-minute “Broadway by Light” (1958) follows; it is a poetic homage to Times Square’s dazzling array of electric signs.

Paul Robeson narrated but did not appear in arguably the most important film of his career, Leo Hurwitz and Paul Strand’s “Native Land” (1942). It begins like a series of Norman Rockwell illustrations in celebrating America as the land of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness only to segue deftly into a series of stunning vignettes reenacting--in those same nostalgic settings--the violence spawned by enemies of the labor movement. Not surprisingly, many of the people who participated in this independent venture, including composer Marc Blitzstein, later faced blacklisting during the McCarthy era. The message of “Native Land” was muffled because it had the misfortune of opening just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Also screening but unavailable for preview: Bruce Weber’s “Gentle Giants” (1994).

Two classics are scheduled for Saturday: Bert Stern’s “Jazz on a Summer Day” (1958), a splendid record of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, screens at 7:30 p.m.; following will be Jean Bach’s “Great Day in Harlem” (1994), a glorious reunion and account of the lives of the jazz artists who posed in front of a Harlem brownstone for a famous 1958 Esquire magazine photograph. (323) 857-6010.

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MOCA’s Warhol on Screen series continues Friday at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Design Center’s SilverScreen Theater with a pair of sound two-reelers from 1965, “Camp” and “Paul Swan.” The first is a talent night at the Factory with drag queen Mario Montez performing a wobbly “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate” and an exuberant rumba. That’s followed by interpretative dancer Swan performing a Grecian soldier number, complete with toga and sword, in which Baby Jane Holzer, in tight hip-huggers, joins in; after these diverting interludes, boredom sets in. However, because of Swan’s presence, “Camp” becomes a curtain-raiser for “Paul Swan.”

“Paul Swan” is one of the strongest of the early Warhols. It offers a poignant portrait of a game and gallant 82-year-old modern-dance pioneer defying the march of time to present a sample of his repertoire that ranked him among such contemporaries as Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis. It is not surprising to discover he appeared in DeMille’s first “Ten Commandments” because his exotic costumes and stylized performance are typical of dance sequences in both DeMille and D.W. Griffith silent spectacles. Screening Wednesday at 7 p.m. is “Vinyl” (1965), in which pointless Factory shenanigans prove unwatchably boring. (213) 621-1745.

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In its closing weekend, the IFP/West--Los Angeles Film Festival offers a second chance to see some of its strongest entries. Among them is “Ball in the House” (Directors Guild, Friday, 7 p.m.), in which director Tanya Wexler and writer Matthew Swan tell the story of a highly intelligent 17-year-old alcoholic (Jonathan Tucker) in a blue-collar family. The teen possesses acerbic wit and an awareness of the challenge of staying sober. The ensemble cast includes David Strathairn as the youth’s kind but tough-minded therapist; Jennifer Tilly as his sexy, treacherous aunt; Dan Moran as his gruff stepfather; and Deirdre O’Connell as his loving but ineffectual mother.

Less complex but equally powerful, Jacques Thelemaque’s “The Dogwalker” (DGA, Saturday, 11 a.m.) closely observes the rocky relationship that develops between a destitute young woman (Diane Gaidry), who has fled her abusive lover, and a reclusive, misanthropic professional dog walker (Pamela Gordon).

Raja Amari’s “Satin Rouge” (DGA, Saturday, 4:30 p.m.) concerns the secret sexual transgressions of a mother and daughter in defiance of traditional conservative mores that proscribe Tunisian women’s lives. While her beloved teenage daughter (Hend El Fahem) has taken a lover, a beautiful but dutiful young widow (Marher Kamoun) allows herself to be drawn to a neighborhood cabaret featuring belly dancers, not knowing it will transform her life in unexpected ways. Since Amari’s plot involves a stunning coincidence, he could have settled for melodrama but happily sets his sights higher to achieve a witty and mature sense of irony.

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The American Cinematheque’s fourth annual Mods & Rockers Film Festival opens tonight at 7:30 with the Los Angeles premiere of Murray Lerner’s “Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight.” Promoters of the landmark 1970 festival allowed Lerner to film the event, but financial and other difficulties prevented him from completing it until 1996 as “Message to Love.” Hendrix’s set was substantial and Lerner had so much backstage and other footage at his disposal, including contemporary interviews with Hendrix’s band members and others that the result is a powerful record of the charismatic Hendrix in full throttle, a blistering performance pouring out raw emotion with beauty and pain in a large number of songs. With his bravura guitar playing and dressed in bell bottoms and colorful, flowing shirt, Hendrix cuts a timeless figure, as indelible and enduring as his music. More concert films will be screened along with a plethora of ‘60s features through July 10. (323) 466-FILM.

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The Asian Film Foundation’s second Midnight @ Sunset offering, screening Saturday and Sunday at the Sunset 5, is Katsuhito Ishii’s dizzying high-style action comedy “Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl,” in which a drably dressed young woman (Sie Kohinata) at last escapes the clutches of her evil uncle, manager of a posh mountain resort hotel, and crosses paths with a nearly naked young man (Tadanobu Asano) running through the forest with some yakuza in hot pursuit. Audacious, imaginative and consistently fast and funny. (323) 848-3500.

Note: “The Perfect You” (DGA, 7:30 tonight) is a perfectly skippable New York romantic comedy; neurotic, talky and tedious. (866) FilmFest.