From: Scott Stark (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Feb 03 2007 - 14:08:38 PST
This week [February 3 - 11, 2007] in avant garde cinema (part 2 of 2 -
corrected)
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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2007
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2/10
Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Filmmakers
http://www.chicagofilmmakers.org/
7:00pm social hour; 8:00pm screening, Chicago Filmmakers (5243 N. Clark St.)
DYKE DELICIOUS SERIES - SOMETHING ROMANTIC IS IN THE AIR
An early Valentine's Day treat. We're cooking up something romantic to
get you in the mood for the V-day. Make certain to join us for the
Social Hour before the film. With Cupid on the prowl, you never know
what might happen.
2/10
Houston, Texas: Aurora Picture Show
http://www.aurorapictureshow.org
8pm, 800 Aurora St.
TALES FROM THE DATASTREAM JUKEBOX
Storytelling meets the sampling culture. Live video, sharp narration,
and a stream of vintage movie stills interweave to create a universe of
runaway nanobots, psychic anarchists, and frustrated cyborgs. An
immersive evening of strange tales and startling imagery from The
Psychasthenia Society, bringing you the finest in satire, beats, and
visuals.
2/10
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
5:00 & 7:00, 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street)
NOTES ON MARIE MENKEN
See Feb. 9.
2/10
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
6:00, 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street)
SEMINAL CINEMA PROGRAM 3: FILMS BY LAWRENCE JORDAN
Dir: Lawrence Jordan. Long considered an experimental animator, Lawrence
Jordan has made over 60 films in all genres and styles. A high-school
friend of Stan Brakhage and a one-time assistant to Joseph Cornell, he
quickly became entrenched in the vibrant San Francisco art/poetry scene
after settling there in the mid-50s. This program includes works made in
collaboration with and featuring faces from this vital scene. Many of
these brand-new prints are the product of a recent preservation project
undertaken by Anthology with the cooperation of Pacific Film Archives.
Preservation of Jordan's films at Monaco Film Lab supported by the
National Endowment for the Arts, the National Film Preservation
Foundation and Sony Pictures Entertainment. VISIONS OF A CITY
(1957-1978, 8 minutes, 16mm, sound). "The protagonist, poet Michael
McClure, emerges from the all-reflection imagery of glass shop and car
windows, bottles, mirrors, etc., in scenes which are also accurate
portraits of both McClure and the city of San Francisco in 1957. I don't
think of this as an 'early film' anymore, since it never came together
until 1978. Now it's tight." -L.J. TRIPTYCH IN FOUR PARTS (1958, 12
minutes, 16mm, sound). Featuring appearances by Berman, his wife
Shirley, and their baby son, Tosh, TRIPTYCH is a report from the North
Beach San Francisco scene of the late-50s. Poets Philip Lamantia and
Michael McClure are seen, as is painter John Reed. "A spiritual drug
odyssey seeking religious epiphany, a thing which many people believed
in at that time." -L.J. HYMN IN PRAISE OF THE SUN (1960, 8 minutes,
16mm, sound). New preservation print. A celebration of the filmmaker's
daughter's birth. The blazing garden as a metaphor for the cycle of
life. THE 40 AND 1 NIGHTS (OR JESS' DIDACTIC NICKELODEON) (1961, 6
minutes, 16mm, sound). New preservation print. A 24-frame-per-second
tour of the collages of the masterful Jess Collins. JEWEL FACE (1964, 6
minutes, 16mm). New preservation print. Sculptor George Herms remains
one of the premiere assemblage artists of our times. Jordan's portrait
of his friend Herms has rarely been screened. THE DREAM MERCHANT (1965,
3 minutes, 16mm, sound). New preservation print. "A dance of eclectic
objects. A play of demented dolls, wheels and geriatric clocks." -L.J.
ORB (1973, 5 minutes, 16mm, sound). New preservation print. "A compact,
full-color cut-out animation as ephemeral as the colors swimming on the
surface of a soap bubble." -L.J. FINDS OF THE FORTENIGHT (1980, 9
minutes, 16mm, silent). New preservation print. "This is a very
different animation. A series of surreal titles are rapidly alternated
with the cut-out animation movements. The titles are often simple and
the words and images combine easily into an eerie flickering
superimposition. But I also was interested in pressing this technique to
the limit of informational overload. Sometimes the eye is lost in the
flashing barrage of words and pictures. Sound would have been too much,
so I left it silent. The titles are by collage artist and painter, Jess
Collins." -L.J.
2/10
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
9:00, 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street)
NOTES ON MARIE MENKEN
See Feb. 9.
2/10
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
8:00, 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street)
SEMINA CIRCLE PROGRAM 4: SEMINAL SHORTS
Dir: . This show highlights the extended circle of filmmaker friends
floating around the Berman scene. Listed below is a taste of what will
be screened. Expect many more movies in all formats and some very
special, rarely-if-ever screened surprises. Program will include: Bruce
Conner BREAKAWAY (1966, 5 minutes, 16mm, sound). Choreographer, singer,
and Berman-circle regular, Toni Basil is the luminous star of Bruce
Conner's groundbreaking BREAKAWAY. She sings and dances in this strobing
forwards-and-backwards tribute to beauty and grace in motion. Bruce
Conner THE WHITE ROSE (1967, 7 minutes, 16mm, sound). Jay De Feo's
massive painting, THE ROSE, took more than eight years to complete. In
THE WHITE ROSE, Conner records the removal of this 2,300-plus pound
painting out the window of De Feo's studio. We are screening a brand new
print for this occasion. Stan Brakhage TWO: CREELEY/MCCLURE (1965, 5
minutes, 16mm, silent). Portraits of poets Robert Creeley and Michael
McClure. Russel Tamblyn RIO REEL (1968, 8 minutes, 16mm, silent).
Preservation print courtesy of Academy Film Archives. Actor/artist
Russel Tamblyn is better known as Riff in WEST SIDE STORY and Dr. Jacoby
on TWIN PEAKS than as an avant-garde filmmaker. In the 60s, however,
Tamblyn did shoot and create experimental shorts with his 8mm film
camera. This film is an unpretentious example of his lyrical style and
sensibility. Jonas Mekas HARE KRISHNA (1966, 4 minutes, 16mm, sound).
Mekas was a long-distance friend of Berman. This short documents a
Sunday afternoon with another longtime Berman comrade, Allen Ginsberg.
Plus much more!.
2/10
New York, New York: Millennium Film Workshop
http://www.millenniumfilm.org/
8pm- Saturday evening, 66 East 4th Street (Between Bowery and Second Ave.)
JULIAN SAMUEL PROGRAM
SAVE AND BURN (80 min.-2004) "Julian Samuel, a Montreal-based filmmaker
born in Pakistan, continues his exploration of the contemporary world of
libraries in this 80 minute documentary. By cuting back and forth from
Irish and English library events to the history of the Library of
Alexandria, Egyptian public libraries, and current programs in the
Bibliotheca Alexandrina, like one on unemployment and youth, the viewer
is counter-conditioned to reject Western racism. Samuel wants to show
the West that we are the inheritors of the great Arab-Asian tradition of
libraries going back thousands of years- not its enemy. The facts are
piled on, not using the standard Ken Burns-style of slow discourse, but
rather throwing the facts at us, using optical printing, aiming to
create a much more com[lex gestalt in our minds. This is extremely
refreshing to someone who has watched a thousand such films, and found
them boring. His style is more like the Hong Kong master Wong Kar-Wai or
Godard, demanding that the viewer has a universe of imaqes already in
his mind, waiting for someone to link them together in new ways."- Steve
Fesenmaier.
2/10
Seattle, Washington: Northwest Folklife
http://www.nwfolklife.org
1pm, 3:30pm, 7:30pm , Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at Marion Oliver McCaw
Hall at Seattle Center
CROSSING BORDERS - NORTHWEST FOLKLIFE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL
CROSSING BORDERS Northwest Folklife Documentary Film Festival
Friday-Sunday, February 9-11 and 16-18, 2007 Nesholm Family Lecture Hall
at Seattle Center Northwest Folklife puts a human face on some of
today's hot issues with the Crossing Borders theme of the first
Northwest Folklife Documentary Film Festival. Films and speakers examine
the experiences of ordinary people who straddle, challenge and transcend
the boundaries separating us from one another. Topics range from
immigration tales to gender stereotypes, from unlikely peace movements
to cross-border musical traditions. The program even includes a
family-friendly session of animation and music. Visit www.nwfolklife.org
for schedule, film descriptions and tickets. Saturday, February 10 1:00
PM: Spirit Wrestlers PLUS Discussion with Doukhobor scholar Andrei
Bondoreff 3:30 PM: Linda & Ali CO-SPONSORED by Arab Center of Washington
7:30 PM Busting Out PLUS Filmmaker Q&A with Laurel Spellman Smith
2/10
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Pleasure Dome
http://www.pdome.org/
8 pm, 129 Spadina Ave.
DADDY KNOWS BEST; GUY BEN-NER IN PERSON
Israeli artist Guy Ben-Ner visits Toronto for the first time to
introduce a survey of videos from 1999 to present. Ben-Ner is a
go-for-broke storyteller whose art recuperates the underappreciated
comedy quotient from early performance and video art, with nods to Chris
Burden, Vito Acconci, Dennis Oppenheim, Martha Rosler, William Wegman,
Roman Signer, Richard Serra and Joan Jonas, among others. He
intersperses deft tributes to avant-garde artists into longer pantomimes
that are fantastically inventive, imaginative and economical, conjuring
the cinema spirit of both pioneering Hollywood, embodied in Buster
Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, and the American underground,
exemplified by Ron Rice, the Kuchar Brothers and Jack Smith. Ben-Ner's
Moby Dick collapses Herman Melville's epic novel into a robust 12-minute
silent abridgement entirely played out in the kitchen of the artist's
apartment. In Elia – A Story of an Ostrich Chick the family takes a walk
in the park dressed in backward fitting bird costumes; the little
adventures of their day are narrated in the manner of a 1950s-period
Disney nature short. Other works on the programme include Berkeley's
Island, House Hold and Wild Boy.
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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2007
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2/11
Houston, Texas: Aurora Picture Show
http://www.aurorapictureshow.org
3pm, 800 Aurora St.
TALES FROM THE DATASTREAM JUKEBOX
Storytelling meets the sampling culture. Live video, sharp narration,
and a stream of vintage movie stills interweave to create a universe of
runaway nanobots, psychic anarchists, and frustrated cyborgs. An
immersive evening of strange tales and startling imagery from The
Psychasthenia Society, bringing you the finest in satire, beats, and
visuals.
2/11
London, England: Tate Modern
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/programmes/film
3pm, Bankside, SE1
ROBERT BEAVERS: TO THE WINGED DISTANCE: 4
PALINODE (1970/2001, 21 min) In Palinode, a disk-shaped matte
continually shifting in and out of focus alternately blocks part of the
image or contains it. Its respiratory rhythm matches operatic fragments
of Wladimir Vogel's 'Wagadu', as the camera studies a middle-aged male
singer in Zurich, singing, eating, window shopping, meeting a young
girl. The filmmaker told himself, "Don't let yourself know what that
film is about while you are making it." (P. Adams Sitney, Film Comment)
DIMINISHED FRAME (1970/2001, 24 min) There is in Diminished Frame a
balance between a sense of the past seen in the views of West Berlin,
filmed in black & white and a sense of the present in which I film
myself showing how the colour is being created by placing filters in the
camera's aperture. It is the space of the city and of the filmmaker. I
searched for signs of war's aftermath and a few moments of ordinary
existence. (Robert Beavers) THE PAINTING (1972/1999, 13 min) The
Painting intercuts shots of traffic navigating the old-world remnants of
downtown Bern, Switzerland, with details from a 15th-century altarpiece,
"The Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus". The painting shows the calm,
near-naked saint in a peaceful landscape, a frozen moment before four
horses tear his body to pieces while an audience of soigné nobles looks
on; in the movie's revised version, Beavers gives it a comparably
rarefied psychodramatic jolt, juxtaposing shots of Gregory Markopoulos,
bisected by shafts of light, with a torn photo of himself and the
recurring image of a shattered windowpane. (J. Hoberman, The Village
Voice)
2/11
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
6:00, 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street)
PROGRAM 5: BEAT MYSTERIES
While not necessarily known outside of their immediate circles, Dion
Vigne and Edward Silverstone Taylor each left behind a small body of
remarkable moving images. This program features recently preserved
examples of their works courtesy of Pacific Film Archives. While Vigne
documented his neighborhood and environment using experimental film
techniques, Taylor created his own optical projector machine, the
Lucitron, which allowed him to create varied colors and patterns. In
addition, we are screening an impressionistic documentary about Vigne's
life, times and movies as well as a short by the incomparable
Christopher MacLaine. Special thanks to Kathy Geritz and Mona Nagai at
PFA for their assistance with this program. Christopher MacLaine SCOTCH
HOP (1959, 5.5 minutes, 16mm, sound). Preserved by Anthology Film
Archives. A tribute to Scottish culture; the joys of bagpipes. Edward
Silverstone Taylor. LUCITRON (3 minutes, 16mm, silent). COSMOSIS (4
minutes, 16mm, silent). SOL (5 minutes, 16mm, silent). Preservation
prints courtesy Pacific Film Archives. David Sherman TO RE-EDIT THE
WORLD (2002, 32 minutes, VHS). Assembled from the contents of four boxes
of films shot in the 50s and 60s by San Francisco filmmaker Dion Vigne,
spinning through a lost history, a disappearance of names and faces and
works and words of the characters who comprised one of the great
chapters in American Underground filmmaking. At the center of this San
Francisco re-history is the unknown Beat filmmaker - Dion Vigne - a
character who we never see but rather feel through the influences of his
more renowned contemporaries - Christopher MacLaine, Jordan Belson, the
Whitney Brothers, Alfred Hitchcock, Kenneth Anger and Anton LaVey. Dion
Vigne. NORTH BEACH (SHORT VERSION) (1958, 5 minutes, 16mm, sound)
Preservation print courtesy Pacific Film Archives. . STROBOSCOPIC IMAGES
1 (1964, 6 minutes, 16mm, sound) Preservation print courtesy Pacific
Film Archives.
2/11
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
5:00 & 7:00 & 9:00, 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street)
NOTES ON MARIE MENKEN
See Feb. 9.
2/11
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Cinematheque
http://www.sfcinematheque.org
7:30 pm, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 701 Mission st. at 3rd st.
BAY AREA ROOTS FLESH OF THIS WORLD: FILMS BY SANDRA DAVIS
"Looking back, it seems that all my films have been explorations of
corporeal and sensual being—in the world, in the self, even if each was
engendered by different event, and periods of life." The work of San
Francisco-based Sandra Davis contrasts exacting editing structures with
lush, even abstract, photographic imagery. Intended to appeal to the
body as much as the mind, Davis' work bravely manifests a fusion of
interior subjectivity and the external world. Featured tonight is the
Bay Area premiere of Ignorance Before Malice, "a true story—and the
aesthetic sequel of the filmmaker's recovery process following an auto
accident. Parallel voices of narrativized testimony describing a woman's
struggle to heal within the American medical system, and a personal
rumination on the journey through a sudden rupture of health into
disability." Also screening are Davis' An Architecture of Desire, Une
Fois Habitee, and Crepescule: Pond and Chair.
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