“Lost Bohemia,” a documentary by Josef Astor, is a spirited elegy for the Carnegie Hall Studios, which for more than a
century provided working, living and teaching space for all kinds of artists on the floors above the famous concert hall.
The film chronicles the eviction of the last tenants, displaced by a renovation plan intended to replace their homes and workplaces with
new studios and offices.
Among them are Bill Cunningham, the New
York Times photographer, and Donald Shirley, a pianist who recalls playing with Duke Ellington “downstairs” - that is, in Carnegie Hall itself.
They were endangered creatures, elks caught in the headlights of a ceaseless New York encroaching on their habitat.
The film also acknowledges the ghosts of famous past tenants who haunt the place, ranging from Isadora Duncan and Enrico Caruso to
Marilyn Monroe and Martha Graham.
LOST BOHEMIA is Astor’s intimate, affectionate portrait of these
extraordinary people, and tragically the last record of a little known chapter in New York's cultural history.
22 сен 2022
