BAM Presents 'Beyond the Canon'

This May, BAM continues two ongoing monthly programs: Beyond the Canon on May 18 with a double bill of searing self-portraits, Bob Fosse's All that Jazz (1979) and Richard Pryor's Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling(1986); and on May 28, Screen Epiphanies returns with John Landis' An American Werewolf in London (1981), chosen by author Victor LaValle.

Beyond the Canon challenges a conception of film history that skews toward lionizing the white male auteur by pairing one canonized classic with a thematically or stylistically-related work by a filmmaker traditionally excluded from that narrative. May's program will showcase two raw, self-flagellating yet dazzling autobiographical portraits of the artist: All That Jazz, Bob Fosse's extravaganza of behind-the-scenes Broadway, OPEN HEART surgery, and the most darkly upbeat death committed to film, alongside Richard Pryor's only feature film as a director, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling, a comedian's journey into the past after a traumatic injury, based on Pryor's own experience of catching fire while freebasing, starring Pyor himself in a performance of exposed-nerve vulnerability.

Later that month, Screen Epiphanies-a series inspired by a program at the British Film Institute, in which prominent figures from the artistic community present a film that inspired their love of cinema-returns with writer Victor LaValle, who presents An American Werewolf in London, John Landis' cult classic horror comedy, starring David Naughton and Griffin Dunne. Victor LaValle is the author of seven works of fiction and one comic book. His most recent novel, The Changeling, won the World Fantasy Award, and the British World Fantasy Award, among others. His comic book, Destroyer, is a continuation of the Frankenstein story set in the age of police brutality and Black Lives Matter.