From: Adam Hyman (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Sep 13 2009 - 09:43:09 PDT
Here¹s the full info on tonight and on the show at Occidental College on
October 3.
Please note everyone that Filmforum in Los Angeles should be one word, not
two. We¹ve always spelled it that way, since Terry Cannon founded it. It
also helps differentiate us from the ones in NY & Seattle. Thanks! (We
also don¹t use a ³The² in front. (Yes, I think this is a Sisyphean task of
branding, but so it goes...)
Best,
Adam
----------------------------
Sunday September 13, 2009, 7:30 pm
Los Angeles Filmforum presents
A Chick Strand Tribute Screening
At the Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. at Las Palmas, Los Angeles, CA
90028
Filmmaker, artist, teacher, joyful marvel, force of life… Chick Strand
passed away on July 11, and our city and our lives won't be the same.
Filmforum starts our season with a tribute screening to Chick. For those of
you who knew her, and those of you who didn't, Chick was a marvelous and
inspirational filmmaker and person, the artful person whom one was always
delighted to see, an essential person who made the world a better place. Her
films are consistently lovely and humanistic, whether portraits of
individuals in Mexico or resonant collages of cinema history and
contemporary media.
Also, neither the LA Times nor the LA Weekly bothered to cover this show
(indeed, neither really covers any Filmforum screenings). Neither has even
run any sort of tribute or obituary of Chick since her passing either.
Given the failure of the Los Angeles press, please help spread the word.
Pass this on to anyone you know whom might be interested.
Also see below for details about another tribute & screening, with different
films, at Occidental College on Saturday October 3!
"With her camera, Strand does not "document" her subjects--she creates
lyrical representations. She is not afraid to look through her lens as a
person; questioning, admiring, and honoring what she sees. Just as she
brings poeticism and the personal into ethnography, she infuses an
integrity, honesty, and selflessness into her works that few people can
manage." – Pablo de Ocampo
"…For most of her filmmaking career, the integrity of Strand's vision lay
aslant of prevailing fashions, so that only belatedly did the full
significance of her radically pioneering work in ethnographic, documentary,
feminist, and compilation filmmaking – and above all, in the innovation of a
unique film language created across these modes – become clear. Though
feminism and other currents of her times are woven through her films and
though her powerful teaching presence sustained the ideals of underground
film in several film schools in the city, hers was essentially a
school-of-one. " – David James, in The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and
Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles (University of California Press,
2005).
Tonight we'll be running a wide range of the glorious gamut of her work, and
one treat from her husband. Curated by filmmaker Amy Halpern. Prints
courtesy of the Academy Film Archive, by arrangement with Canyon Cinema. Not
so much a memorial (to come later), but a tribute by way of her marvelous
films. Special Thanks to David James, Gerry Fialka, Mark Toscano, and David
Lebrun.
ANGEL BLUE SWEET WINGS (1966, 3 min., 16mm)
An experimental film poem in celebration of life and visions. Techniques
include live action, animation, montage and found images.
GUACAMOLE (1976, 18 min., 16mm)
Poetic surrealism. Approach is experimental in relationship of image and
sound. A film about the loss of innocence and the search for the essence of
the human spirit.
CARTOON LE MOUSSE (1979, 15 min., 16mm)
"Chick Strand is a prolific and prodigiously gifted film artist who seems to
break new ground with each new work. Her recent "found footage" works such
as CARTOON LE MOUSSE, are extraordinarily beautiful, moving, visionary
pieces that push this genre into previously unexplored territory. If poetry
is the art of making evocative connections between otherwise dissimilar
phenomena, then Chick Strand is a great poet, for these films transcend
their material to create a surreal and sublime universe beyond reason." -
Gene Youngblood
WAR ZONE by Marty Muller, aka Neon Park (1971, 3 min.)
Made with Chickie nearby.
BY THE LAKE (1986, 9.5 min., 16mm)
A collage film made from Third World images and found sound from a 1940s
radio show ("I Love a Mystery"), live recordings of an operation on a horse,
and a 1970s church service, all taken out of context and reconstructed into
new relationships and meanings. An Anglo woman's interpretation of magic
realism.
WATERFALL (1967, 3 min., 16mm)
A film poem using found film and stock footage altered by printing, home
development and solarization. It is a film using visual relationships to
invoke a feeling of flow and movement. Japanese Koto music.
KRISTALLNACHT (1979, 7 min., 16mm)
Dedicated to the memory of Anne Frank, and the tenacity of the human spirit.
ELASTICITY (1976, 25 min., 16mm)
Impressionistic surrealism in three acts. The approach is literary
experimental with optical effects. There are three mental states that are
interesting: amnesia, euphoria and ecstasy. Amnesia is not knowing who you
are and wanting desperately to know. I call this the White Night. Euphoria
is not knowing who you are and not caring. This is the Dream of Meditation.
Ecstasy is knowing exactly who you are and still not caring. I call this the
Memory of the Future.
This is an autobiographical film funded by the American Film Institute.
About Chick Strand:
After graduating from Berkeley with a degree in anthropology, Strand threw
herself into the cultural ferment of the Bay Area in the 1960s, especially
Canyon Cinema, where she was one of its founders and instigators, with Bruce
Baillie. After four years she moved to Los Angeles to study at UCLA and
joined the newly formed Ethnographic Film Program. Meeting Pat O'Neill, who
was at that time beginning his experiments with the optical printer, she
made Waterfall (1967), a film that solarized and otherwise re-worked both
live-action and found footage in the vein of contemporary West Coast
psychedelia. This overall aesthetic continued to inform Strand's work, but
it was sharpened and made more serious by her encounter with what seemed an
entirely contrary idiom, that of documentary ethnography. She did not get
involved with the Hollywood film industry, but taught film for twenty years
at Occidental College. She also painted extensively. Her second husband was
Marty Muller, known more widely as the artist Neon Park, and she had one son
and one daughter. – Largely drawn from The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History
and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles (University of California
Press, 2005), pp. 358
Appreciation by Holly Willis:
http://kcet.org/local/blogs/blur_sharpen/2009/07/goodbye-chick-strand.html
Article by Pablo de Ocampo in the Portland Mercury from 2001:
http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=24537&category=
<http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=24537&category=>
22133
Paintings by Chick Strand:
http://www.laluzdejesus.com/shows/previousshows/2000shows/chickstrand.htm
There is an extensive discussion of Strand and her films in David James's
The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los
Angeles (University of California Press, 2005), pp. 357-367.
Occidental College "Chick Strand Screening & Reception"
Saturday, October 3, 5-7:30 p.m.
Free & Open to the Public
In conjunction with LA Filmforum's 9/13 screening of Strand's work at the
Egyptian Theater; curated by Adam Hyman
Screening:
ANSELMO (1967, 4 min., color/so)
LOOSE ENDS (1979, 25 min., b&w/so)
SOFT FICTION (1979, 54 min., b&w/so)
Appreciations by:
Eric Frank, Dean of the Faculty and Strand's colleague at Oxy
Marsha Kinder, USC Cinematic Arts Professor and former Oxy professor/Strand
colleague
(if possible) Steve Anderson, USC Professor Media Arts and Practice and
Strand's former student at Oxy
Location at Occidental on October 3:
Johnson 200 Auditorium (off the main quad)
For more info, please contact Rhea Borja 323-259-1406
Detailed Directions: http://www.oxy.edu/x5498xml
Campus Map: http://www.oxy.edu/x5492.xml
From the Glendale Freeway (I-2) north, take the Verdugo Road exit.
Turn left at the end of the off-ramp onto Eagle Rock Boulevard.
Continue on Eagle Rock Boulevard and pass five stoplights to Westdale
Avenue.
Turn right at Westdale Avenue and follow it until it ends at Campus Road.
At Campus Road, turn left and follow the signs to Visitor Parking
"Her passing comes to me and others at Canyon Cinema with great
sadness....Chick was one of the founders of Canyon Cinema and the
Cinematheque. She always supported Canyon in all of the endeavors that have
been done in the past. Personally she and I became close over the years and
I could always count on her for advice in matters of Canyon and also on a
very personal level.
I will miss her greatly and her passing is a loss to the entire community.
The experimental film community has lost a great human being. Her absence
will be felt for some time." - Dominic Angerame, Executive Director, Canyon
Cinema
Chick Strand changed my life. A great teacher, a great filmmaker, a great
human being. I am so grateful to have met her and learned from her. I would
not be who I am today had I not met her. I was just one of so many students,
but she was and will forever be a gigantic presence in my soul. - Brook
Hinton, filmmaker
------------ --------- --
****TICKET PRICE & RESERVATIONS: Admission is $10 general, $6
students/seniors, free for Filmforum members, cash or check only.
We will take reservations until Saturday night, and hold reservations
until 15 minutes before the show time.
Parking on the streets. Validated parking is available in
the big city lot at Hollywood & Highland, $2 for 4 hours with a
validation from the Egyptian Theatre. Or take the Metro red Line to
Hollywood & Highland. Parking meters in Hollywood are now active until 8 pm
on Sundays, so if you park at a meter, be sure to put some money in it!
Filmforum is selling memberships! They get you into shows for a big
discount! $60 single/$95 double. Cash or check only. Inquire at
the door, or send us an email at lafilmforum@ yahoo.com.
**For full and up-to-date information, please visit our website at
http://lafilmforum.wordpress.com/ or email us at email suppressed
<mailto:lafilmforum%40yahoo.com> **
***For a complete listing of alternative films in Los Angeles, check
www.filmradar.com
This screening series is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board
of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the
Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Filmforum is the city's longest-running organization
dedicated to weekly screenings of experimental film, documentaries,
and video art. This is our 33rd year!
Filmforum is also raising funds. Sponsor a whole season for only
$5000, or become a member for $60, or anything in between. We're also
looking for a Sony J-30 video deck, which plays Beta SP and DigiBeta,
PAL and NTSC tapes. Filmforum is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization
which means your fiscal donations are fully tax deductible
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.