#435 - Martin Scorsese, David Johansen & More on Personality Crisis: One Night Only

This week on the Film at Lincoln Center podcast, we’re featuring a special introduction from Martin Scorsese ahead of the premiere of Personality Crisis: One Night Only at the 60th New York Film Festival, followed by a Q&A with directors Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi, subject David Johansen, Executive Producer Mara Hennessey, producer Margaret Bodde, and Leah Hennessey, moderated by FLC Programmer Dan Sullivan. Continuing his vibrant and invaluable documentaries about iconic American artists and musicians such as George Harrison: Living in the Material World, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, and the Fran Lebowitz portrait Public Speaking, Martin Scorsese turns his camera on another beloved New York institution: the singular David Johansen. Equally celebrated as the lead singer-songwriter of the androgynous ’70s glam punk groundbreakers The New York Dolls and for his complete reinvention as hepcat lounge lizard Buster Poindexter in the ’80s, the chameleonic Johansen has created an entire genre unto himself, combining swing, blues, and rock for something at once mischievous and deeply personal. In Personality Crisis: One Night Only, Scorsese and co-director David Tedeschi (The 50 Year Argument), with the help of cinematographer Ellen Kuras (American Utopia), luminously capture the entertainer’s January 2020 Cafe Carlyle set, where he performs as Poindexter singing the Johansen songbook, bringing downtown irreverence to this storied uptown joint. Presented alongside new and archival interviews, the concert is marvelously intimate and a testament to both a lost New York and a performer who remains as fresh and exciting as ever. All NYFF60 documentaries were sponsored by HBO.