{"id":116767,"date":"2017-10-17T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T16:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=116767"},"modified":"2017-10-17T12:21:45","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T16:21:45","slug":"a-trailer-for-jem-cohens-chuck-wills-widow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/17\/a-trailer-for-jem-cohens-chuck-wills-widow\/","title":{"rendered":"A Trailer for Jem Cohen\u2019s Chuck-will\u2019s-widow<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A still from Chuck-will\u2019s-widow<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Jem Cohen is a filmmaker\u2019s filmmaker, in the way that, say, James Salter and Grace Paley are writers\u2019 writers.\u00a0He\u00a0has made more than fifty\u00a0films in little more than thirty years. Mention his\u00a0name to anyone with knowledge of the movie industry and the responses are almost always sighs of admiration for his visual poetry and documentary essays and for\u00a0his trademark independence and artistic integrity, demonstrated in films like Instrument<\/em> (1999), a film ten years in the making about the band Fugazi;\u00a0Benjamin Smoke<\/em> (2000), also a decade in filming, on the titular singer-songwriter; and Museum Hours\u00a0<\/em>(2012), a drama about a museum visitor and a security guard, set in the Vienna\u2019s\u00a0Kunsthistorisches Museum.<\/p>\n

At National Sawdust next week<\/a>, as part of our celebration of Sam Stephenson\u2019s new biography, Gene Smith\u2019s Sink<\/em>, we\u00a0will premiere Cohen\u2019s new short film,\u00a0Chuck-will\u2019s-widow<\/em>, based on a chapter in Stephenson\u2019s book. It\u2019s September 1961, and W. Eugene Smith has recorded, with the\u00a0myriad reel-to-reel tape machines set up in the \u201cjazz loft,\u201d a mysterious mimic of a Southern swamp bird, whistled five stories down on the sidewalk of Sixth Avenue\u2019s desolate flower district in the middle of the night. \u201cThere\u2019s a chuck-will\u2019s-widow out there,\u201d murmurs Smith.<\/p>\n

Many readers have felt that this spectral chapter is the heart of Stephenson\u2019s unusual book. His collaboration with Cohen is a lyrical marriage of artists and subject matter, including the obsessive Smith and isolated world in the middle of the city.<\/p>\n

Below, a teaser of the film. Come to National Sawdust on October 26 (tickets here<\/a>) to see the full film as well as\u00a0performances by Angelica Sanchez<\/strong>, the Wordless Music Orchestra<\/strong>, Victor Pablo<\/strong>, and Wadada Leo Smith<\/strong>.<\/p>\n