From: Christopher May (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Apr 27 2009 - 01:00:06 PDT
Woops. The other was an earlier draft. Please use these film notes.
Sorry for the confusion.
Christopher
April 22-24, 2009
Austrian Filmmuseum
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Program 1:
Powerman
Lenny Lipton
(1966, 5 min, USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
A homage to the superhero. Lipton's only animated film. The song
"Powerman" is performed by Rogue Streib's East Bay Symphony, with the
filmmaker singing lead.
Shudder (top and bottom)
Michael Gitlin
(2001, 3 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
The source for Shudder (top and bottom) is a found piece of 35mm film
which was cut down and re-perfed for 16mm projection. Each frame of
the original 35mm image covers two 16mm frames, with the top half of
the original image on one frame and the bottom half on the next frame.
The film is a kind of shuddering optical toy, with a dense, collagist
soundtrack that rubs against the complicated visual weave of the
images. Shudder (top and bottom) scratches at the fiction of the
original footage, leaving behind, in its phosphene-laden after-image,
a throbbing world of lonely danger.
Transaension
Dan Baker
(2006, 7 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
Out of a sick morass of reds and yellows, blacks, burns, and
direct-to-film scratches arises the (post) post-industrial terror of
our collective oil-stained subconscious.
Metaphysical Education
Thad Povey
(2003, 4 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
"A nostalgic evocation of boyhood and summer camp, induces
creepy psychosexual feelings." -Fred Camper.
dippingSause
Luther Price
(2005, 10 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
"Epileptic static strain into grays of machancal fetish tube socks
and kenetic clown S and M cascading objects caress and fondle."
Film Dzama
Deco Dawson
(2001, 23 min., Canada, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
An attempt to rekindle the lost form of surrealist cinema made popular
in the 1920s by Dali / Bunuel and Man Ray. Marcel Dzama is a Winnipeg
based Visual Artist who works on small page size drawings and
watercolor storyboards. Dawson's film is a fictional biography of
Marcel Dzama’s creative process. Over 100 of Dzama's original
watercolor drawings are used in the film. Marcel's real life father
Maurice, plays the role of the artist.
And We All Shine On
Michael Robinson
(2006, 7 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
And We All Shine On is a machine-eyed vision of a post-apocalyptic
paradise. Frequently working with abjected imagery—forgotten
television, mid-century magazines—and overly familiar pop songs,
Robinson’s work flirts with a resigned pessimism, yet dares to find
hope in the very heart of despair.
Observando el Cielo
Jeanne Liotta
(2007, 19 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
Seven years of celestial field recordings gathered from the chaos of
the cosmos and inscribed onto 16mm film from various locations upon
this turning tripod Earth. This work is neither a metaphor nor a
symbol, but is feeling towards a fact in the midst of perception,
which time flows through. Natural VLF radio recordings of the
magnetosphere in action allow the universe to speak for itself. The
Sublime is Now. Amor Fati. (Soundtrack by Peggy Ahwesh.)
The Crossing
Timoleon Wilkins
(2007, 6 min., USA, 16mm, 20 fps, silent sound)
"The film begins with a brief flash of molten-red grain followed by a
long scene of darkest night-blue sea ripples. Hexagonal refractions
and spectral rays puncture alluded-to landscapes—rivers, skies,
prairies, trees, mountains. Graphic (yet spatially free-floating)
imagery slices intently wrought rhythms of light and dark color
fields, producing afterimages. The uncertain sense of scale that
permeates life-changing geographic and spiritual crossings. The title
is derived from Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Crossing, the second
installment in his Border Trilogy (1992-98). The film was created
while under the joyful influence of these sensuous nature/ cowboy/
youth/ coming-of-age adventures, and is my cinematic analogue to
McCarthy's major area of exploration: the uncertain sense of scale
that permeates life-changing geographic and spiritual crossings."
Black and White Trypps Number Three
Ben Russell
(2007, 12 min., USA, 35mm, 24 fps, Dolby SR sound)
Shot during a performance by Rhode Island noise band Lightning Bolt,
this film documents the transformation of a rock audience's collective
freak-out into a trance ritual of the highest spiritual order.
Program 2:
NYC Flower Film
Sandra Gibson
(2003, 3 min., USA, super-8, 18 fps, silent sound)
Originally trained as a painter, internationally renowned
avant-gardist, Sandra Gibson has taken the exploration of shape and
color to the mechanical medium of film. NYC Flower Film is a single
frame film of The Heather Gardens in New York City.
Parallax
Christopher Becks
(2008, 6 min., Canada, 16mm, 24 fps, silent sound)
1. the apparent displacement of an observed object due to a change in
the position of the observer. 2. the apparent angular displacement of
a celestial body due to its being observed from the surface instead of
from the center of the earth or due to its being observed from the
earth instead of from the sun. 3. the difference between the view of
an object as seen through the picture-taking lens of a camera and the
view as seen through a separate viewfinder.
Ecstatic Vessels
Diane Kitchen
(2007, 21 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, silent sound)
"Diane Kitchen's eye for filming the natural world is distinctive and
elegant...finding a richness and delicacy often ignored." -Patrick
Friel
You Don't Bring Me Flowers
Michael Robinson
(2005, 8 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
"Viewed at its seams, a collection of National Geographic landscapes
from the 1960s and 70’s conjures an obsolete romanticism currently
peddled to propagate entitlement and individualism from sea to shining
sea; the slide show deforms into a bright white distress signal."
To Be Regained
Zach Iannazzi
(2008, 10 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, cassette tape sound)
An exploration in wilderness authenticity, the images seen are of an
unintended intersection between natural and artificial landscapes
where restoration efforts now attempt to return what was once lost.
The film approaches the subject of humanity’s attempts to correct its
imprint on nature, more specifically, interventions with anadromous
fish reproductive and migratory cycles on dammed-up and polluted
rivers. Mixing found footage, reprinted and hand processed film over a
soundtrack of interviews and observations by folks up and down the
Connecticut River, the short is a beautiful and unsettling look at the
ways we interact with the natural environment.
Angel Beach
Scott Stark
(2001, 25 min., USA, 16 mm, 18 fps, silent sound)
"Incarnations: free spirits take physical form in young mortal bodies
on northern California beaches. Their initial movements are mere
flittering gestures and awkward extensions of elbows, knees and
shoulders : these are innocents unused to the strictures of the human
form, joyful in the wonderment of first physical sensation. Freshly
sprung from the ethereal chrysalis, they set to work, busily burrowing
and crafting three dimensional baffles, channels and passageways
through a screenspace that is too shallow to contain their neophytic
exuberance."
A Fall Trip Home
Nathaniel Dorsky
(1964, 11 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
"Forgetting its 'psychological plot' this film is a fine exponent of
the intrinsic magical power of cinema. Its images, which evolve in a
rather unmagical sober suburb, are continually transcended and
manipulated into a kind of epic haiku of superimpositions and textural
weavings." - Jerry Hiler
July Fix
Jason Livingston
(2006, 3 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
"...the overall effect being that of a pet dog's POV on acid in a
field of beautiful flowers." - JT Rogstad, TIE
The Parable of the Tulip Painter and the Fly
Charlotte Pryce
(2008, 4 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, silent sound)
An intoxicating flower; a metaphorical insect; a longing reach across
the centuries. The film is a philosophical search drenched in luminous
colors and sparkling light. The film was shot on color reversal,
entirely hand-processed and re printed on the optical printer.
Ingreen
Nathaniel Dorsky
(1964, 12min., USA, 16mm, 18fps, silent sound)
The first of three films depicting the emergence from adolescence.
Ingreen is a reflecting pool of the underwater involvement of a
mother-father-son relationship.
"... made of beautiful greens ... glimpses of figures of images that
are recognizable ... the esthetic experience is created by the flow
and play of superimpositions." - Jonas Mekas
"... the film haunts, has tugged at my mind now and again all these
years ..." - Stan Brakhage
Bellagio Roll
Sandra Gibson
(2003, 3 min., USA, super-8, 18 fps, silent sound)
Filmed in the gardens of Bellagio, Italy, it shows blooming flowers,
sun-drenched, colorful blossoms that emerge and fade to black in
short, flickering takes.
Program 3:
Blocking
Pablo Marin
(2005, 2 min., Argentina, 35mm, 24 fps, silent sound)
Blocking is a presentation of TIE's Imágenes del fin del mundo
program. The film was kept under water until its emulsion started to
melt, then removed, tightened up and finally dried directly by the
sun.
Progetti
Paul Bartel
(1962, 17 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
"This film was made in Rome in the Spring of 1962 during my Antonioni
period. I was on a Fulbright at the time, studying directing at the
famous Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, and I wanted to sum up
in a film some of my observations as a cinema student in Rome. So I
made a film about two aspiring actors studying at the Centro who
wanted to come to the Actor's Studio in New York and become movie
stars overnight, and who actually believe that this is going to happen
to them. The point of the film is that these actors are really
incapable of acting in either sense of the word, but they certainly
know how to go through the motions and are beautiful to look at and to
listen to, if you don't mind Italian(s). When Oscar Werner saw
PROGETTI in Paris in the fall of '62 he became very excited and showed
it to Truffaut and Clouzot, who were also reportedly enthusiastic
about the film."
Mylar Balloon Rip-off
Jason Halprin
(2007, 3 min., USA, super-8, 18 fps, silent sound)
Dancing mylar pillows float and bump as they circulate in a white
room. I like to think that this is airflow moving light and shadow in
a soft and random pattern. Stolen kinetics from the Warhol Museum in
Pittsburgh. Thanks Andy!
Whirl
Scott Banning
(2007, 8 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, CD sound)
A whirl of carnival lights beckon, stirring memories of the first time
you let your feet leave the ground. Ephemera, fear and wonder linger.
While Revolved
Vincent Grenier
(1976, 10 min., Canada, 16mm, 18 fps, silent sound)
This film is concerned with the projected, not just light or the
emulsion or the illusion or the projector or the camera, but all of
them. The surface of the film, the grain, is remembered when a similar
but illusionistic surface appears (just as magnified), crossing the
frame. Other times the grain is left to itself. There are the
idiosyncratic focusing qualities of shadows acting as diaphragms
inside the image. The elusive background confounds itself with the
foreground. The notions of appearances and disappearances transform
themselves in notions of time. Made with a grant from the Canada
Council.
Kids and Pets
Frank Biesendorfer
(2000-2009, 17 min., USA, 8mm, 18 fps, silent sound)
This film presents a taste of Biesendorfer's
diaristic/personal 8mm work.
Space
Luis Recoder
(2001, 14 min., USA, 16mm (cinemascope),24 fps, sound)
Recoder's work echoes the history of the cinematic apparatus and
before, as well as an embodiment of the most breathtaking
characteristics of alchemical cinema.
My Mess
Jesse Kennedy
(2007, 4 min., USA, super-8, 18 fps, silent sound)
"The three-minute long super-8 movie is savage and jittery, depicting
anonymous hands jotting sentences that seem suspiciously intended for
a former partner of otherwise estranger loved one. ... The perspective
of the camera brings the viewer uncomfortably close to the hands, but
withholds the satisfaction of being. If a writer could teach us how to
read in a film, and a camera could be used to shoot in the most
visceral sense, then Kennedy with his Super 8 camera and diverse
medley of intellectual interests is ferociously, sensually, and
innovatively redefining how we portray and experience the emotive
blows of a story." -Rachel Cole, Dikeou Collection
1/48
Jorge Lorenzo
(2008, 1 sec., Mexico, 35mm, 24 fps, sound)
Film is not movement, it is illusion of movement. This said, a film
is reduced to screening time. A single frame shot at 24 fps is
exposed to light at 1/48th of a second inside the film camera but
screened twice at 1/48th of a second (in a 35mm projector) each time,
summing up a 1/24th of a second exposure to the viewer’s eye. This
film captures an image that not only lasts a single frame ran at
1/24th of a second, but which purpose is defined by the single frame:
the clapping of a film slate for sound-image synchronization. The use
of this image in such a way puts several things into question. On the
one hand, it indicates that a specific period of time (such as 1/24th
of a second) can be infinitely divisible and yet the smallest of
segments contains an infinite number of elements and events conforming
it. On the other hand, there is an “optical” and a “physical”
concern. The “optical” one refers to the way the exact time of
duration of a single frame is rendered doubtful since the afterimage
produced in the retina holds an image around 1/17th to 1/20th (?) of a
second after the image is seen and processed by the brain. The
“physical” concern has to do with the fact that synch-sound in film is
never physically synchronized in one single frame to the image since
the optical sound head is found 26 frames apart from the lamp that
projects the images onto the screen.
Clip from Colorado Springs Home of Champions
Jim Prange
(1968, 4 min., USA, 16mm, 18 fps, outside sound source)
Peggy Fleming. 1968. Broadmoor Ice Arena. Shot on 7241 Ektachrome
Commercial low-contrast stock, hi-speed processed at Hollywood Lab.
Years later, Jim polished the film with Pledge. Removed scratches. Now
Peggy skates on the slippery, shiny ice, better than ever before. This
beautiful 5-minute piece revels in an extraordinary filmic delicacy.
Double Your Pleasure
M.M. Serra
(2002, 4 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
Sound by Jennifer Reeves. Shot at the Doughnut Plant in NYC. Inspired
by Kiss by Andy Warhol.
90 Years
Jonathan Schwartz
(2008, 3 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
An elderly man is assisted into the cockpit of a small plane, takes
off, ascends, and is surveyed from the runway, only to land once again
in silence. A birthday gift of air. "Here I end this reel. box -
(pause)- three, spool- (pause)-five. (Pause.) Perhaps my best years
are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want
them back. Not with the fire in me now. No I wouldn't want them back."
Krapp motionless staring before him. The tape runs on in silence.
curtain
Across the Rappahannock
Brian Frye
(2003, 11 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, silent sound)
"In November, 2001, I attended a small and relatively informal
reenactment of the battle of Fredericksburg. About a hundred men and
women did their best to illustrate the actions of the thousands of
young men who offered their lives a century earlier. An air of absurd
theater suffused the entire event, which provided the ground for its
peculiar truth. Everyone played their part exceedingly honestly and
well, and left something on the film that I, myself was surprised to
find there."
Program 4:
What the Water Said, nos. 4-6
David Gatten
(2007, 17 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
"Strips of previously unexposed film went into the ocean and these
fragments are what returned. In this latest installment of a nine
year project attempting to document the underwater world off the coast
of South Carolina, both the sounds and images are the result of the
oceanic inscriptions written directly into the emulsion of the film as
it was buffeted by the salt water, sand and rocks; as it was chewed
and eaten by the crabs, fish and underwater creatures."
In a Year with 13 Deaths
Jonathan Schwartz
(2008, 3 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
Light shimmering in water, rippling darkness descending, passing
vistas and fluttering intervals. for appearing here and there and
everywhere in the 13 years since passed, anniversaries on the tip of a
tongue, in the synapses, in feelings and the too many reflections
Oblivion
Tom Chomont
(1969, 4 min., Canada, 16mm, 24 fps, silent sound)
"Successfully blends elements from both the poetic and diary modes. In
the process Tom Chomont has created one of the few truly erotic works
in cinema." -- J. J. Murphy, Millennium Film Journal
Black and White Trypps Number Two
Ben Russell
(2006, 8 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, silent sound)
"A fine fine example of spaces between existing as objects themselves.
A patternistic and memorializing offering to natural totems. Two kinds
of reversal at play involving black and white as well as reflection
and overlap. These simple elements create a hurried maze of twisting
antler branches, twigs, and dissected slices of pure “space.” I can
hear the crackling fires, echoing elk calls and frosty despair…" - JT
Rogstad, TIE
The Fourth Watch
Janie Geiser
(2000, 9 min., USA, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
"Bluish, spectral figures float by as sunlight mingles with flickering
shadows on brightly colored tin. A beautiful somnambulist vanishing
into TV bar rolls suggests a poetic metaphor for the current state of
avant-garde cinema, when the medium's past, future, and even its own
death are being transformed into material for provocative new films."
- Kristin M. Jones
Spirit House
Robert Todd
(2008, 11 min., 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
A tale of 2 passages within the Spirit house. This is the first in a
series that looks at the places we find our spiritual presence
augmented, inflamed, or simply acknowledged. Seeking a center, artist
and camera look outside and in, reflecting on that which makes life
tick for both.
Artifices #1
Alexandre Larose
(2008, 4 min., Canada, super-8, 18 fps, cassette sound)
"Artifices is a visual research that studies the kinetic potential of
light. In this super-8 experiment, I attemped to disintegrate static
and dynamic light sources into flux."
Sin título (Focus)
Pablo Marin
(2008, 4 min., Argentina, super-8, 18 fps, silent sound)
Blocking is a presentation of TIE's Imágenes del fin del mundo
program. Shot on a rooftop in Buenos Aires, this film truncates space
in ever inviting ways using a dizzying array of formal tropes.
Film (Parkour)
Cine Parkour
(2008, 20 min., USA/Argentina, super-8 (triple panel projection),
variable speeds, outside sound sources)
"We know that this is the first time in history that this type of
Parkour material makes it into film; and this project does an
incredible job at highlighting the deepest values that move our lives,
leaving behind all superficiality."-Walter Bongard, founder PKA,
Asociación Argentina de Le Parkour
"...capturing traceurs' in their element, playing and human, ....a
slight undercurrent of sensuous intimacy.. the lens found and lingered
on the traceurs' genuine smiles, the tip of the ear or the playfulness
in both movement and pause."
- Michelle Duer, TIE
Nothing Is Over Nothing
Jonathan Schwartz
(2008, 16 min., USA/Israel, 16mm, 24 fps, optical sound)
There were other places where the lord fell, and others where he
rested; but one of the most curious landmarks…we found…was a certain
stone built into a house…so seemed and scarred that it bore a sort of
grotesque resemblance to the human face. One of the pilgrims said,
"But there is no evidence that the stones did cry out." The guide was
perfectly serene. He said calmly, "This is one of the stones that
would have cried out." – from Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad.
Sacred Space
David Chaim Cohen
(2007, 14 min, USA, 24 fps, sound)
A hand-painted Lamentation concerning the destruction of the Holy
Temple of Jerusalem. These are the materials of a decayed place, with
blood stains still smeared across the walls. A prophecy in dirge form.
A hand-painted lamentation to the Holy Temple of Jerusalem, with
synaptic references to numerous events between then and now, as well
as things to occur in the future. The materials used to construct the
film constitute the sinews of degradation and dilapidation that
symbolize an infected memory.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.