neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Chelsea Walls
	Ethan Hawke Uma Thurman, Rosario Dawson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Zahn, Robert Sean Leonard, Natasha Richardson, Tuesday Weld, Mark Webber, Jimmy Scott 2001		For his feature-film directing debut, actor Ethan Hawke ("Training Day") adapted a play about various lives intersecting within the confines of Manhattan's legendary artists' dwelling, the Chelsea Hotel. (Former tenants have run the gamut from Mark Twain to Arthur Miller, from Bob Dylan to Sid Vicious.) Hawke uses a fractured, episodic style with short scenelets followed by soliloquies to create a mood piece about the bohemians who bunk at the hotel — and about the edifice itself. The Chelsea's denizens are played by an eclectic cast: Rosario Dawson and Uma Thurman (the real Mrs. Hawke) as struggling poets; Vincent D'Onofrio as an artist whose paintings are traded with the management to pay for lodging; Kris Kristofferson as an alcoholic novelist with deadline problems; Steve Zahn and Robert Sean Leonard as musicians hoping for a break; and elderly, haunting jazz vocalist Jimmy Scott as an infirm singer. But dreary circumstances and murky camerawork make for lethargic viewing.