Amalia Lived for Applause

The Laemmle Theaters’ “Documentary Days” series continues Saturday and Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Sunset 5 with Bruno de Almeida’s “The Art of Amalia,” a comprehensive and enthralling survey of the long career of the legendary Portuguese singer Amalia Rodrigues, an internationally renowned exponent of the fado, her country’s traditional laments, soulful and mysterious.

Born in poverty in 1920, Amalia was discovered at the age of 15, singing as she worked as a fruit vendor on Lisbon docks. At 19 she made her professional debut in a top Lisbon fado club, and from that point on her career seems to have been one triumph after another, with many film and stage musicals, as well as TV appearances, recordings and constant concert performances.

She conquered Brazil first, then much of Europe, enjoyed successful appearances in the U.S., toured the Iron Curtain countries and Moscow and spent much of the ‘70s playing, as she says, every town in Italy except those without a stage. She was a special favorite in France, which became the basis for her enduring, far-flung international stardom. (In Hollywood, she played the Mocambo as well as the Hollywood Bowl.)

Amalia started out as a beautiful woman with boldly sculptured features, as striking and regal as those of Dolores Del Rio, and she aged not merely well but magnificently, her voice deepening with the years, her stage presence ever more commanding. One after another gifted composer wrote songs for her; she turned classic Portuguese poetry into song and even recorded an album of Broadway standards.

In an interview for the documentary the singer says she has a “dark soul” and that while “God has given me everything” she has never really been happy and is not sure why. In any event, she had the gift of connecting so strongly with the emotions of her enthralled audiences that she came to embody the spirit of Portugal and was showered with its highest honors. She also received France’s Legion of Honor.

This documentary, with its abundance of clips, so concentrates on Amalia as a performer that it reveals nothing of her private life--not even that she was twice divorced--apart from her being stricken in 1984 with a tumor on the right side of her face that drove her to contemplate suicide. Buoyed by a diet of Fred Astaire videos, she submitted to surgery--”and that was that.” Apparently, Amalia wanted her public to see her only as truly alive when she was performing. Her parting words are: “Applause is what keeps me going, gives me life.” Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd. (323) 848-3500. “The Art of Amalia” screens at 11 a.m. March 31 and April 1 at the Monica 4-Plex, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica. (310) 394-9741.

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Mark Neale’s “William Gibson: No Maps for These Territories,” which screens tonight at 7:30 at the Egyptian Theater in the American Cinematheque’s Alternative Screen series, finds the science-fiction writer and visionary who coined the term “cyberspace” seated in the back seat of an expensive car. The view from his car windows are vibrant collages of images of American life.

Gibson speaks freely of his own life and the craft of writing--just about anything that pops into his head--but above all the challenge of how increasingly difficult it is for people simply to have any idea of what really is going on in the world. He speaks of the mystery of the present and the future as a time when there will be scarcely anyone left on the planet whose notion of reality has not in some fashion been affected by contact with the media. He envisions a time when human beings are shaped by a fusion of computation with genetics.

Gibson is dry, witty and brilliant, and his observations are so free-flowing it’s hard to keep up with him; indeed, he has a confounding effect upon the uninitiated, those unfamiliar with his books or commentary on work. Consequently, this imaginatively conceived documentary is not the best introduction to Gibson, for it can swiftly be overwhelming and wearying. For those familiar with Gibson and his notion of the universe, the film must surely seem a treat. Neale will discuss his film following its screening. 6712 Hollywood Blvd. (323) 466-FILM.

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The Silent Movie, 611 N. Fairfax Ave., continues its Thursday evening “Flappers of the Silent Age” tonight at 8 with the screening of “Our Dancing Daughters,” the 1928 film that made Joan Crawford a star as a Charleston-dancing dynamo who just wants to have fun. The Harry Beaumont-directed film reveals a dark undertow beneath its frenzied gaiety that makes it a revealing commentary on its era.

The Silent Movie will screen, Friday through Sunday, Charles Chaplin’s enchanting “The Circus” (1928) to coincide with the Academy Awards, for it brought Chaplin a special Oscar the first year of the awards. (323) 655-2520.

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The 17th annual Israel Film Festival opens March 27 at the Egyptian Theater at 7:30 p.m. with a gala premiere of Joseph Cedar’s deftly acted, acutely suspenseful and sharply critical “Time of Favor.” The festival runs through April 5 with films screening at the Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, and the Town Center, 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (“Time of Favor” repeats March 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Music Hall.

In a settlement in the Judean hills, the greatly esteemed Rabbi Meltzer (Asi Dayan) has persuaded young army commander Menachem (Aki Avni) to set up a company composed of his yeshiva students. Menachem is a bit uneasy and his superiors more so, but the respect in which Menachem holds the rabbi, and the respect with which his superiors in turn regard Menachem, allows the plan to go ahead. Later the rabbi will try to say that when he fired up his students to go out and reclaim the Temple Mount, he meant it figuratively and not literally, but nobody who ever heard him in his classroom would believe that assertion.

As if this weren’t incendiary enough he decides to reward his prize pupil, the naive but fervently religious Pini (Edan Alterman) by giving him his beautiful daughter Michal (Tinkerbell) in marriage. Pini is thrilled at the prospect only to be devastated by Michal’s repeated rebuffs.

That Michal is attracted to the handsome Menachem--and he to her--constitutes a recipe for disaster. Whether it will actually strike speaks much for Cedar’s skill, imagination and courage in sounding so blunt a warning of the dangers of religious fanaticism. Festival information: (323) 966-4166.