Robert Bresson’s penultimate feature (1977)–his only original script apart from his early short Les affaires publiques and his masterpiece Au hasard Balthazar–is a ringing indictment of the modern world, centered on the suicide of a disaffected 20-year-old Parisian. There’s something mannered and at times even freakish about Bresson’s handling of well-clothed adolescents and his multifaceted editorializing–which improbably recalls Samuel Fuller in its anger and dynamic energy–but the power and conviction of this bitter, reflective parable are remarkable....

“Chicago produces more black plays than any other place in the world,” says director Chuck Smith, who’s partly responsible for the thriving African-American theater community here. “You’ve got the three main black companies–ETA, Black Ensemble, and the Chicago Theatre Company. You’ve got new companies like Onyx and MPAACT coming up. Then you have nonblack companies producing African-American work. I think it’s the healthiest environment in the world.” Best of Chicago voting is live now....

The parties involved in the extraordinary consolidation of summer shed services in Chicago are keeping the details close to the chest. A bombshell agreement has just eliminated the debilitating competition between Jam Productions and the Nederlander Organization and put them in bed together for the summer concert season. But Nederlander’s position is a firm no comment; Jam’s not talking; and none of the World Music Theatre’s other owners are responding to press inquiries....

Rumors of the New York-based Joffrey Ballet’s impending move to Chicago and its likely merger with Ballet Chicago continue to swirl without a resolution in sight. Ballet Chicago’s funding situation hasn’t been helped by talk of the possible Joffrey move, and sources say Ballet Chicago artistic director Dan Duell isn’t nearly so gung ho about the merger as he was several months ago. For the record Joffrey board president David Kipper would say only that talks are continuing on a number of fronts....

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 *The Day of Despair In some respects this is largely a footnote to the two towering works of Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira, Doomed Love (1978) and Francisca (1981). The first of these is a four-hour adaptation of Camilo Castelo Branco’s classic 19th-century novel that deserves a place alongside Greed and Berlin Alexanderplatz as one of the key translations of a novel into film; the second, nearly three hours long, adapts a novel about Castelo Branco himself....

SEPTEMBER Chicago Historical Bookworks, the venerable Evanston rare books outfit, holds an auction of rare Chicago books and political pamphlets tonight. Selections on the block include a copy of the October 18, 1871, Chicago Times (the first issue put out after the fire), an 1842 Illinois Farmer’s Almanac, and an early bound edition of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates. The auction starts at 8 tonight at the store, 831 Main in Evanston; it’s free to watch....

Mitch Levin, dapper in a purple shirt and dark tie, stands in front of a sparse audience at the Sulzer Public Library, talking about boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson. From the back of the room, Mitch’s younger brother Joel yells corrections and additions. Then the lights go down and Robinson does a job on Jake LaMotta in the 1951 “Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre” at the Chicago Stadium–the fight immortalized in the film Raging Bull....

With each new dance, Nana Shineflug reinvents herself–or at least reveals a new facet of her personality. She has bounced back from a lot: divorce, alcoholism, childhood rape, her studio burning down twice in ten years. Still dancing at 58, Shineflug knows the everyday victory of just getting through the next dance class, let alone the next performance. When she blends her gracefully aging dancer’s body with her fertile mind, stories from her life, and her wise sense of humor, as she does in her recently reworked On Surviving, the dance is masterful....

It’s often suggested that free-improvising musicians be judged on how composed their spontaneous musings sound. The Boston quartet Debris aggressively blur the distinctions between improvised and composed music, crafting their work with equally generous portions of each. While reminiscent of both Anthony Braxton’s zigzagging saxophone and the complex precision of the 70s British rock band Henry Cow, Debris’ snaking music most recalls the labyrinthine compositions of New York composer-saxophonist Tim Berne, at least to judge from their demanding but rewarding album last year, Terre Haute (Ratascan)....

Around the World in Eighty Great art comes in an almost infinite variety, but artists’ failures tend to fall into predictable patterns. The work may be hopelessly incoherent, not even attaining clear expression; or it may succeed very well at expressing something trivial, lapsing into the cliched, the easy, the cute. Cuteness is a particular danger for the street photographer, who often seems to feel the need to justify unposed images, to try to grab the attention of viewers already bombarded with pictures....

Dear Reader, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » A. Bill Wyman’s piece on Hole was such a classic example of his God-given talent for overstating the obvious (i.e., “The Stones are over the hill,” “The Zep reunion is kinda lame,” “I really want to fuck Liz Phair,” etc.) that it just had to be printed. Then again, maybe the editors were just snoozing on the job....

Seven With Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Richard Roundtree, R. Lee Ermey, John McGinley, Julie Araskog, Mark Boone Junior, and Kevin Spacey. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I’d ascribe at least part of this taste to the current inability to believe in or try to effect political change–a form of paralysis that in America is related to an incapacity to accept that we’re no longer number one....

After almost two decades of self-imposed semiretirement, pianist Van Cliburn is making a comeback. And the Grant Park Music Festival nabbed him for its 60th season opener to the tune of a reported $50,000. Never mind that Cliburn has never lived up to the early promise he showed following Moscow’s 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition. As the first American winner of that prestigious contest (at age 23), he was lionized as a conquering hero, and back home his recording of Tchaikovsky’s First became the first classical disc to go platinum....

For three decades local filmmaker Tom Palazzolo has shown a remarkable knack for placing the rituals and personages of working-class America into startlingly revelatory and quirky perspective. The subject of his latest documentary portrait is Mary Ellen St. Alban, a midget actress with a glamorous past. She started out in vaudeville as a toddler and ended up in Hollywood, appearing in movies that called for fairies or small-size ingenues; her last role was as “Princess of the Elves” in the 1946 Three Wise Fools, starring child actress Margaret O’Brien....

Since 1986 Chicagoan Monte Beauchamp has been corralling eclectic groups of artists in Blab!, an anthology of deft illustration and discourse that recently received the comics industry’s most prestigious honor, the Harvey Award, named after the late Harvey Kurtzman, creator of Mad. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The first Blab! was primarily a collection of essays on comix, with such influential artists as S....

JOANNE BRACKEEN Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Joanne Brackeen attacks the piano with a bounding energy that communicates her passion for the music, her willingness to take risks, and her delight in whimsy; with her six-foot frame swathed in louder-than-life clothes, she might even be jazz’s answer to Isadora Duncan (and often enough, her distinctive and accomplished music seems to dance). A member of the great generation of pianists that includes McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock, Brackeen at her best sits just a notch below them, her music addressing some of the same concerns but also reflecting her early friendship with Ornette Coleman and his circle in late-50s Los Angeles....

Dig It is the first Saturday of summer–sunny, warm, conspicuously free of humidity. Along the six-block stretch of Halsted south of Roosevelt, near the former site of the Maxwell Street flea market, the sidewalks are full of men strolling back and forth. They offer me gold chains, sweat socks, porno videos. When they fail to make a sale, a few tag along for a half block, keeping a respectful distance, asking for a buck, some spare change, anything will help....

Continuing to subvert and expand the organ combo–stand-up bassist Chris Wood fills the typical guitar position, joining keyboardist John Medeski and drummer Billy Martin–Medeski, Martin & Wood have set their sights on the stratosphere with their third album, Friday Afternoon in the Universe (Gramavision). Their previous work masterfully assimilated all manner of divergent sounds, seamlessly weaving Bob Marley with Thelonious Monk and retooling King Sunny Ade while loading up on groovy originals....

The Crossing Good dance is like mono-nucleosis, or the spirit of God in an old-time church: contagious. When the gray-haired ladies start shakin’ it in the lobby after the show, you know it’s been a good concert. And that’s the way it was Saturday night after the Joel Hall Dancers’ “The Crossing.” The kids were dancing in the rest room, and the grandmas were dancing in the lobby. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Lead Story In August Marie-Noelle Guillernee, 42, drowned in a deep water hole at a tourist attraction near Mont Saint-Michel, France, when she tried to save her six-year-old daughter. Dozens of tourists were watching the ten-minute rescue attempt, but none of them tried to assist the woman or called for help. Spectators reported hearing one tourist say, “I got the whole thing on tape.” Best of Chicago voting is live now....