presents
LOST BOHEMIA
Directed by Josef ‘Birdman’ Astor
Documentary Feature | USA | 78 MIN | Unrated
SPECIAL JURY PRIZE – DOC NYC 2011
MOST MEMORABLE - EUGENE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2011
VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2011 | SARASOTA FILM FESTIVAL 2011
FLINT FILM FESTIVAL 2011 | RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2011
Distribution Contact:
Erin Owens
Long Shot Factory
349 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Phone: 646.499.6204 / Mobile: 917.940.1687
Publicity Contact:
Hilary Crowe
Long Shot Factory
349 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Phone: 646.300.9835 / Mobile: 813.957.3332
erin@longshotfactory.com
hilary@longshotfactory.com
FILMMAKERS
Director JOSEF ‘BIRDMAN’ ASTOR
Producers JODY SHIELDS
JONATHAN FERRANTELLI
Co-Producers TREVOR KING
LAURA M. MACDONALD
Executive Producers ANNE CAREY
DAN COGAN
Co-Executive Producers ABIGAIL DISNEY
PIERRE HAUSER
DIANA BARRETT
LEE F. MINDEL
Editors ADAM ZUCKER
SHELBY SIEGEL
MICHAEL TAYLOR
Director of Photography JOSEF ASTOR
Original Music LEV “LJOVA” ZHURBIN
Story Consultant JENNY RASKIN
by
FEATURING
Jeanne Beauvais
Robert X. Modica
Editta Sherman
Dr. Donald Shirley
John Turturro
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SYNOPSIS
For over 100 years, the most significant 20th century artists and performers have lived
and worked in the 165 studios atop Carnegie Hall, including Marilyn Monroe, Isadora
Duncan, Barnett Newman, Norman Mailer, Marlon Brando, and George Balanchine. In
2007, the Carnegie Hall Corporation began to systematically evict the artists (some in
residence for over 60 years), destroy the studios, and convert the space into offices.
Ironically, many of the elderly artists who were faced with eviction had been
instrumental in saving Carnegie Hall when it was slated for demolition in 1960.
Alarmed by the situation, photographer Josef Astor, a resident of the Carnegie Hall
Studios for over 20 years, began to film his neighboring artists: ballet and drama
instructors, dancers, singers, sculptors, painters, and writers. Over a period of eight
years, first-time director Astor filmed several hundred hours of the remaining artist
tenants as they fought to preserve the studios for future generations. LOST BOHEMIA is
Astor’s intimate, affectionate portrait of these extraordinary people, who share the
pleasures and struggles of working in a new New York City that has become increasingly
inhospitable to artists.
LOST BOHEMIA is the only film documentation of the Carnegie Studios, the artists, and
the Studio’s significant history. Through interviews, vintage film and photographs,
television footage, materials from the artists’ private collections, and music, the
documentary spotlights the Carnegie Studios, the important artists who worked there,
and the loss of entire creative legacies fostered by those professionals who taught
generations of singers, dancers, writers, and artists.
SHORT SYNOPSIS
For over 100 years, the most significant 20th century artists and performers have lived
and worked in the 165 studios atop Carnegie Hall, including Marilyn Monroe, Isadora
Duncan, Barnett Newman, Norman Mailer, Marlon Brando, and George Balanchine. In
2007, the Carnegie Hall Corporation began to systematically evict the artists (some in
residence for over 60 years), destroy the Studios and convert the spaces into offices.
LOST BOHEMIA is the only film documentation of the Carnegie Studios, the artists who
worked there, and the creative legacies entwined with the studios’ history.
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CARNEGIE STUDIOS: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In no other single location in the world have such an extraordinary and influential group
of artists ever been gathered. Established by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1894,
the Carnegie Hall Studios have played a primary role in the American cultural landscape.
Every artist-resident contributed to the mythology of Carnegie Hall; there is a legend
behind every single door of the studios. Author and radio host Jonathan Schwartz
described “the grand building with its hidden oboes and easels and mezzos and
magicians, with its secret bassoons and private ballets and Mozart sonatas.”
The Studios were specifically designed to accommodate a range of artistic pursuits,
including spaces tailored to dancing, acting, voice lessons, painting, photography and
sculpture. The rehearsal rooms have perfect acoustics, and the dance studios were built
to the exact dimensions of a Broadway stage, equipped with sprung floors. The artists’
studios have enormous windows and skylights.
Celebrated actors, choreographers, dancers, and artists lived in a flourishing Bohemian
“village,” where artists took lessons, rehearsed, joined impromptu after-hours
performances, and shared paint, coffee, and auditions. Longtime studio resident Jeanne
Beauvais arrived at Carnegie Hall in the 1940s with her parents, who were both painters.
She frequently entertained Eileen Farrell, the famed Bach Aria group, and even Judy
Garland. “It used to be just like Paris on the Rive Gauche,” Beauvais recalled of the
camaraderie. “We were all struggling artists and we would all share everything.
Someone would have an audition and we would get together to talk. One person would
bring some apples another a bottle of wine. We would talk about our dreams and
hopes.”
The artists that created that Bohemian camaraderie were many and varied. Isadora
Duncan helped make the Carnegie studios the cradle of American dance and
choreography, as the very first dancer to live and work in the studios. She established a
dance studio and held recitals, and was soon followed by America’s early dance
pioneers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Founded in 1912 and operating continuously
ever since, Studio 61 became the most famous address in dance. There, Ballet Arts was
established in 1937 and is now the oldest continuously operating dance school in New
York City after the School of American Ballet. An extraordinary roster of famed
choreographers and dancers have rehearsed and taught at Studio 61 and the many
other Carnegie dance studios, including George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse,
Martha Graham, Nijinska, and Agnes de Mille. In 1940, the dancer Lucia Chase founded
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Ballet Theatre in a Carnegie Hall Studio; today it is well known as American Ballet
Theatre and operates out of Lincoln Center.
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts was established in 1884; it was the first
professional acting school in the U.S. It became the first Carnegie Hall Studio tenant in
1898 and remained in place for decades. The Academy took an enormous amount of
space: two huge rehearsal rooms, and classrooms on the second, sixth, and eighth
floors. Students included Spencer Tracy, Anne Bancroft, Agnes Moorhead, and Cecil B.
DeMille. The illustrious Actor’s Studio on the tenth floor, established by the legendary
Lee Strasberg, has had an international impact with its acting technique and famed list
of actors, including Marilyn Monroe, Elia Kazan, Jane Fonda, James Dean, Paul Newman,
and Burgess Meredith. Marlon Brando studied at Strasberg’s acting studio and shared a
Carnegie studio with actor Wally Cox on the eighth floor. Actors John, Ethel and Lionel
Barrymore also occupied studios. Renowned contemporary actors associated with the
studios include John Turturro, Paddy Chaefsky, Jason Robards, and Robert Redford.
Painter Barnet Newman occupied a studio from 1960 until his death in 1970. Charles
Dana Gibson created the famous “Gibson Girl” and launched Life Magazine in a ninth
floor studio. On the eighth floor, Edwin Blashfield worked on murals for the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, W.K. Vanderbilt’s home, and the capitol
buildings of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Alice in Wonderland illustrator Frederick S.
Church worked with a menagerie in his studio in 1901. Other Studio painters include
Childe Hassam, Hovsep Pushman, and descendants of the Hudson River School. More
contemporary photographers who worked in the studios include At Kane, Pete Turner,
Patrick Demarchelier, Bill Cunningham, and, of course, Editta Sherman.
Leonard Bernstein was a studio tenant and played rehearsal piano for Ballet Arts. He
was eventually fired for playing too fast, but while there he met dancer/choreographer
Jerome Robbins, with whom he collaborated to create “On the Town”; the studios are
mentioned in one of the musical numbers. “I felt like a rich man there,” Bernstein
recalled of his time at the studios. “I was making $125 a week as assistant conductor,
more than I’d ever made in my life, and that one-room apartment on the sixth floor was
like a mansion. Working downstairs, living upstairs—it was part of some wondrous
miracle.” Traditionally, after a performance onstage at Carnegie Hall, musicians would
troop upstairs to a studio for impromptu jam sessions and continue performing for each
other. Donald Shirley, who performed many times on the main stage of Carnegie Hall,
hosted such luminaries as Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Cole Porter took lessons from
Pietro Yon, the organist of St. Patrick’s cathedral, in Yon’s studio on the eighth floor near
singer and pianist Bobby Short’s studio. Down the hall in Studio 826, Enrico Caruso
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made his first record in 1904.
The roster of notable studio artists also includes writers Mark Twain, Norman Mailer,
and Garson Kanin; architects Todd Williams, Billie Tsien, and the late Charles Gwathmey
(one of the “New York Five”); film director and author Andrew Bergman (BLAZING
SADDLES); and countless others.
In the late 1950s, the Philharmonic Orchestra defected for the new Lincoln Center, and
Carnegie Hall was slated for demolition. The studio artists organized a group of
dedicated insurgents to save the Hall, and petitioned, demonstrated and refused to
move out. Their activism was essential to preserving Carnegie Hall. Later, Isaac Stern
joined the studio artists and recruited other celebrities and notable individuals. A special
legislative act allowed the city to purchase Carnegie Hall, culminating with its listing as a
state and national landmark.
In 2007, the artist-led fight to save Carnegie Hall was extended to its studios, when the
Carnegie Hall Corporation began to evict resident artists and demolish their unique
spaces. The plan was promoted and sold to the public as “The Sanford Weill Music
Institute,” but in fact it amounted to the corporatizing of the great tradition of artists
working in the Carnegie Studios. This corporatization was most shockingly illustrated by
the razing of the studio skylights in order to build a rooftop terrace for the exclusive use
of patrons and donors. The architect awarded the renovation project is the son in law of
Carnegie's Board chairman Sanford Weill. In response to these plans, a group of
prominent architects wrote letters to the New York City Landmarks Commission
protesting this demolition plan, including Cesar Pelli (who designed Carnegie Tower),
Richard Meier, Robert A.M. Stern, Lee Mindel, Tod Williams, Billie Tsien, and Charles
Gwathmey (who wrote the letter on his deathbed).
Actor John Turturro, who studied in the Carnegie Studios, has also been an advocate for
their preservation. At a press conference at City Hall in 2008, Turturro sent a petition
signed by actors including Robert de Niro, Susan Sarandon, James Gandolfini, Philip
Seymour Hoffman, Willem Dafoe, and Steve Buscemi to Mayor Bloomberg requesting
landmark status for the Carnegie studios.
The destruction of the renowned Carnegie Studios and the eviction of the artists is
symptomatic of a larger problem: New York City government has damaged its future
cultural importance by refusing to support its artists and to preserve its artistic legacies.
To quote the late Isaac Stern, former Artistic Director of Carnegie hall:
“Isadora Duncan lived and rehearsed new dance works here. Enrico Caruso made his
first recording in studio 826. Jerome Robbins and Agnes de Mille studied and dreamed
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here… Today, these traditions are carried forward by more than 300,000 young people
and adults who received instruction in the arts in Carnegie Hall studios each year. Their
presence in the same building where the finest musical performances are heard adds
immeasurably to the unique creative ferment one feels about this national cultural
landmark. Carnegie Hall is a crucible of democratic creativity … bringing together all that
is best in America’s myriad ethnic and cultural strains … proving that we have built not
just a nation but a civilization.”
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CARNEGIE HALL STUDIOS HALL OF FAME
Marlon Brando
Donald Shirley
John, Ethel and
John Turturro
Joanne Woodward
Lionel Barrymore
Isadora Duncan
Todd Williams and
David Belascoe
Leonard Bernstein
Billie Tsien
Andrew Bergman
Mark Twain
Jane Fonda
Theodore Dreiser
Barnett Newman
James Dead
Pete Seeger
Norman Mailer
William Powell
Susan Strasberg
Martha Graham
Rosalind Russell
Colleen Dewhurst
Isamu Noguchi
Cecil B. DeMille
Agnes de Mille
Enrico Caruso
Al Jolson
Fokine
Betty Comden and
Garson Kanin and
Jerome Robbins
Adolph Green
Ruth Gordon
George Balanchine
Marilyn Monroe
Lauren Bacall
Spencer Tracy
Norman Mailer
Paddy Chayefsky
Ted Shawn
Charles Gwathmey
Charles Dana
Lucia Chase
Bob Fosse
Gibson
Lucille Ball
Agnes Moorhead
Childe Hassan
Jeanne Beauvais
Edward G Robinson
Frederick Church
Alexandra Danilova
John Phillip Sousa
Bronislava Nijinska
…Tear down the past, rip out cultural roots, erase tradition,
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rub out the architectural evidence that the arts flowered earlier in
our cities and enriched them and that this enrichment is culture.
Substitute a safe and sanitary status symbol for the loss. Put up
shiny
mediocrities
o
the
present
and
demolish
the
shabby
masterpieces of the past. This is the ironic side of the ‘cultural
explosion’ coin. In drama, and in life, irony and tragedy go hand
in hand.
—Ada Louise Huxtable
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ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
JOSEF ASTOR (Director)
LOST BOHEMIA is Josef Astor’s first feature-length
film. In 1985, he opened his photography studio in
Carnegie Hall, where he lived and worked for over 20
years. Astor is acclaimed for his theatrically staged,
historically informed portraits of individuals from the
world of music, architecture, dance, theatre, and art.
His photography regularly appears in Vanity Fair, The
New York Times, The New Yorker, Newsweek, GQ,
Esquire, Rolling Stone, House and Garden, and Dance
Ink. Astor’s advertising clients range from AT & T and
Bergdorf Goodman to Absolut Vodka and Phillip
Morris. In 1995, he received the Infinity Award from
the International Center of Photography. Astor’s film credits include directing sequences
for the documentary PARASOMNIA, and production design for the PBS documentary
AARON COPLAND AT 100. His photographic work has been widely collected and
exhibited, including shows at The International Center of Photography, Julie Saul
Gallery, the Vanity Fair Portrait exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London,
and, currently, in the exhibition “The Digital Darkroom” at the Annenberg Space for
Photography. Astor is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York.
ANNE CAREY (Executive Producer, This Is That and 10th and Second)
Anne Carey is a New York-based independent producer. In 2002, together with Ted
Hope, Anthony Bregman, and Diana Victor, Carey founded the production company This
is that, Inc., based on the collaborative work they had begun at their previous company,
Good Machine, Inc. Specializing in unique content and innovative storytelling, This is
that produced 18 films in its eight-year existence. In 2004, Carey was honored as one of
Variety’s “Top Ten Producers to Watch.” Carey’s past projects include THE AMERICAN,
starring George Clooney; ADVENTURELAND, written and directed by Greg Mottola and
starring Ryan Reynolds, Jesse Eisenberg, and Kristen Stewart; TOWELHEAD, Oscarwinner Alan Ball’s feature film directorial debut; and THE SAVAGES, written and directed
by Tamara Jenkins and starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. THE SAVAGES
won Best Screenplay and Best Actor honors at the 2008 Indie Spirit Awards, and
garnered two Oscar nominations. Carey's other notable film credits include FRIENDS
WITH MONEY, THUMBSUCKER, THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR, and THE LARAMIE PROJECT.
DAN COGAN (Executive Producer, Impact Partners)
Dan Cogan is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Impact Partners (IP), a fund and
advisory service for investors and philanthropists who seek to promote social change
through film. Since its inception less than three years ago, IP has been involved in the
financing of over 25 films, including THE COVE, which won the 2010 Academy Award for
Best Documentary Feature; FREEHELD, which won the 2008 Academy Award for Best
Documentary Short Film; THE GARDEN, which was nominated for an Academy Award for
Best Documentary Feature in 2009; and THE GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB, which won the
2007 Emmy for Best Documentary Special. Cogan received his B.A. from Harvard
University, Magna Cum Laude, and attended the Film Division at Columbia University's
Graduate School of the Arts.
LEV “LJOVA” ZHURBIN (Composer)
Ljova (Lev Zhurbin) is the author of more than 70 compositions for classical, jazz, and
folk ensembles, as well as scores to four feature and over a dozen short films. In 2005,
Ljova was one of six composers invited to participate in the Sundance Institute's Film
Composers Lab. His music has been licensed by HBO, PBS, BBC, CNBC, and NHK
networks, among other independent projects. In 2007, Ljova worked as assistant to
composer Osvaldo Golijov on his score to Francis Ford Coppola's YOUTH WITHOUT
YOUTH, and contributed the original track, “Middle Village.” In 2008, Ljova was guest
faculty at The Banff Centre in Canada, and presently . In addition to solo work, Ljova
performs with his main ensemble, Ljova and the Kontraband, and has appeared at the
Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Brooklyn Academy of Music (as part of the
Sundance Film Festival), the Museum of Modern Art, and Joe's Pub, among other
venues. He has recorded with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble on the album Silk
Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon, and with The Andalucian Dogs on the album Ayre,
both of which were nominated for several Grammy Awards. Ljova has also recorded
with composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, producer Guy Sigsworth, Nina Nastasia, Amy Correia,
and the Electric Light Orchestra, and has completed dozens of musical arrangements for
various artists, including Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, the Kronos Quartet, JayZ, Bond, and Matmos. Ljova is a graduate of The Juilliard School. Currently, he serves as
Musical Director for Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and can be heard most often
with his ensembles Ljova and the Kontraband, the Gypsy party band Romashka, the
viola/cello duo Joint Custody, and Percussia, among other freelance groups and
projects.
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