Series Site
His Three Daughters, the new film by director Azazel Jacobs, stars Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, and Carrie Coon in a tense, touching, and funny portrait of family dynamics about three estranged sisters as they converge in a New York apartment to care for their ailing father — and try to mend their own broken relationships with one another in the process. In this special series, Azazel Jacobs presents two films that deeply influenced the emotional depths of his work.
Peter Hedges’ 2003 Pieces of April similarly dealt with volatile family relationships as strong-willed characters converged around their family’s dying matriarch, played in an Academy Award-nominated performance by Patricia Clarkson. Hedges and Clarkson will join Azazel Jacobs onstage at the Paris for a special Q&A following the film on Monday, August 26th. On Wednesday, September 4th, Jacobs will give a special introduction to John Cassavetes’ 1977 masterpiece Opening Night, a film whose legendary star turn by Gena Rowlands echoes through the three fiercely committed performances in His Three Daughters.
Pieces of April and Opening Night will both play in 35mm at the Paris.
His Three Daughters opens Friday, September 6 at the Paris, with Azazel Jacobs in attendance for a Q&A, moderated by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) at the 7:30 PM show on Fri, Sep 6.
Monday, August 26 - 7:00 PM
PIECES OF APRIL
(2003, Peter Hedges)
35mm print! Q&A with Peter Hedges & stars Katie Holmes and Patricia Clarkson, moderated by Azazel Jacobs
Azazel Jacobs writes: “A recent discovery for me, capturing not only a New York, but a filmmaking spirit and approach, that feels equally far away now. Heartbreaking and funny, PIECES OF APRIL defines family past the floorboards of an apartment, revealing connections and wiping away first impressions through brilliant means. It is the type of film that makes me say 'I want to do that', knowing that it takes great skill in every aspect, and a collection of small miracles.”
April Burns is the black sheep of her family who has left suburbia for a Lower East Side tenement. To reconnect with her mother, Joy, and father, Jim, she invites them and her wisecracking brother and perfect sister for Thanksgiving dinner at her apartment, and against their better judgment, the Burnses pile up in the family station wagon, pick up Grandma, and head to the big city from the safe confines of their stereotypical suburban home. But Joy is seriously ill, complicating the road trip; meanwhile, April's oven is broken, sending her off to her bizarre and wacky neighbors to try to borrow their kitchen.
Wednesday, September 4 - 7:15 PM
OPENING NIGHT
(1977, John Cassavetes)
Archival 35mm print! Introduction by Azazel Jacobs
Azazel Jacobs writes: “I was 19 working as a projectionist/ticket seller and popcorn maker at Le Cinematographe, a lower Manhattan movie theater, when I first saw the films of John Cassavetes. Each screening was introduced by a lead, and as I waited in the hallway with Seymour Cassel, Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands, I was completely unaware to the gift of the moment. I was only able to watch the films after closing time, and each one left me knocked out. I just did not know film could do this. With so many favorites, it's more according to mood, and OPENING NIGHT captures theater in a way only film could, with its use of time, point of view, and in Joan Blondell, who carries film’s history in every frame.”
"In a role equally as fragile and mercurial as A Woman Under the Influence’s “Mabel”, Gena Rowlands is OPENING NIGHT’s “Myrtle”: a successful actress going kind of crazy in a play about aging crazily.
John Cassavetes’ hymn to that berserk business of performing, OPENING NIGHT is enhanced by its intense “old Hollywood” pedigree as Ben Gazzara, John Blondell, Paul Stewart and Cassavetes himself are the backing band for Rowlands’ knife-edged soloing.
From the first scene, the narrative is peppered with turn-on-a-dime ambiguity. Whole swathes of action take place “onstage” in front of a real-life audience watching the in-character cast — with a permeable membrane between stage and “reality” so tangible it hurts."
Friday, September 6 - 7:30 PM
HIS THREE DAUGHTERS
Q&A with writer & director Azazel Jacobs, moderated by Derek Cianfrance
From writer-director Azazel Jacobs (French Exit, The Lovers) comes this bittersweet and often funny story of an elderly patriarch and the three grown daughters who come to be with him in his final days. Katie (Carrie Coon) is a controlling Brooklyn mother dealing with a wayward teenage daughter; free-spirited Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) is a different kind of mom, separated from her offspring for the first time; and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) is a sports-betting stoner who has never left her father’s apartment — much to the chagrin of her half-sisters, who share a different mother and worldview. Continuing his astute exploration of family dynamics in close-knit spaces, Jacobs follows the siblings over the course of three volatile days, as death looms, grievances erupt, and love seeps through the cracks of a fractured home.