Movie Magic: Activities With a Cinematic Theme

By Troy Segal

In about a month, the New York Film Festival (Sept. 26-Oct. 12) unspools for the 52nd year on screens in and around Lincoln Center. Before sampling these jewels of contemporary cinema, get yourself in a movie-going mood with some goodies from Hollywood’s Golden Age — all playing at the 92nd Street Y.

Herzog on the set of the upcoming Queen of the Desert.

But first, before the main event(s), we have two tempting “trailers”—both concerning famed directors, Germans of different generations. Werner Herzog (Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Nosferatu the Vampyre; and the upcoming Queen of the Desert) engages in conversation with the New York Public Library’s director of public programs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, on Sept. 4 …

… and Billy Wilder, the writer/director behind such rapier-wit comedies as The Apartment and Some Like It Hot, goes in front of the screen for once, in this rarely-seen documentary of videotaped conversations with the master, Billy, How Did You Do It?, Sept. 8, at Film Forum.

Now, onto our feature attractions. Jerome Kern’s lovely, lilting melodies lifted many a movie musical into greatness; learn more about this composing giant in a song-filled lecture, Sept. 9 … and learn more about Kern’s contemporaries and colleagues, in this overview of movie musicals of the 1930s and ’40s, when the genre arguably hit its peak, Sept. 19 … She was the movies’ first moppet superstar. Dolls and drinks (non-alcoholic, naturally) were named after her. But, unlike other kid actors, Shirley Temple had a famed life after she grew up, too, and this talk traces her path From Child Star to Diplomat, Sept. 12 

Hepburn with Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story.

… Unlike Temple’s, Katharine Hepburn’s career spanned decades, though this highly original actress endured many ups and downs. Hear more about them, Oct. 1 … After enjoying James Stewart and John Wayne in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the 1962 Western, listen as Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer discusses the pros and cons of 19th-centgury frontier justice, Oct. 21 … In 1922, Hollywood was rocked by the murder of dapper director and ladies’ man William Desmond Taylor. Whodunit? Suspects at the time ranged from starlets to valets, but now the mystery is finally solved, at this noontime lecture, also on Oct. 21.