Lost Bohemia

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Movie Info

For over 100 years, the most significant 20th century artists and performers have lived and worked in the 165 landmark Studios atop Carnegie Hall, including Marilyn Monroe, Isadora Duncan, Barnett Newman, Norman Mailer, Marlon Brando and George Balanchine. In 2001, the Carnegie Hall Corporation began to systematically evict the artists (some in residence for over forty years), destroy the Studios and convert the spaces into offices. Alarmed by the situation, photographer Josef Astor, a resident of the Carnegie Hall Studios for over twenty years, began to film his neighboring artists, the ballet school, drama classes, dancers, singing teachers, 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 and chronicles the pleasures and struggles of working artists in New York City. LOST BOHEMIA is the only film documentation of the Carnegie Studios, the artists and the Studio's significant history. Vintage film, photographs, television footage, materials from the artist's private collections and music complete the documentary's story. --(c) Impact Partners

Rating:

NR
Genre:

Documentary, Special Interest
Directed By:

Josef Birdman Astor
In Theaters:

May 20, 2011 limited
Box Office:

$23,584
Runtime:

67 minutes
Studio:

Independent Pictures

Cast

Jeanne Beauvais

Shirley May Donald

Editta Sherman

Bill Cunningham

Critic Reviews for Lost Bohemia

All Critics (7) | Top Critics (6)

It's wrenching to see these people, many of them elderly, confronted with the prospect of having to move.

Jun 20, 2012 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…

Mark Feeney
Boston Globe
Top Critic
Call it the rape of Carnegie Hall.

May 20, 2011 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

V.A. Musetto
New York Post
Top Critic
A sad and 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.

May 19, 2011 | Rating: 4/5

A.O. Scott
New York Times
Top Critic
It can be easy to dismiss the hardships of rent-controlled bohemians, but as seen from the inside, it's clear that something much bigger was at stake: the very heart of a city that prides itself on art, but habitually privileges the bottom line.

May 18, 2011 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Eric Hynes
Time Out
Top Critic
Lost Bohemia's real power, though, is in the impromptu interviews Astor conducted with his neighbors.

May 17, 2011 | Full Review…

Mark Holcomb
Village Voice
Top Critic
An affecting chronicle of artists fighting eviction from their historic Carnegie Hall studios against the full power of a corporatized New York institution. Guess who wins?

May 17, 2011 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Bill Weber
Slant Magazine