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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 
1990  Program  Notes 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 
1990  Program  Notes 


Editor: 

Kurt  Easterwood 

Productimi  and  Layout: 

Laura  Poitras 

Production  Assistants: 

Mai-Lin  Cheng 
Emily  Cronbach 
Jennifer  Durrani 

Written  and  Researctied  by: 

Bruce  Cooper 
Emily  Cronbach 
Kurt  Easterwood 
Susanne  Fairfax 
Matt  Fein 
Crosby  McCIoy 
Eric  S.  Theise 
Don  Walker 


©  Copyright  1991  by  the  San  Francisco  Cinematheque,  a  project  of  the  Foundation  for  Art  in  Cinema.  No  material 
may  be  reproduced  without  written  permission  from  the  publisher.  All  individual  essays  ©  to  the  individual 
authors. 

San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

Foundation  for  Art  in  Cinema 

480  Potrero  Avenue 

San  Francisco,  CA  94110 

(415)558-8129 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque,  1990-91: 

Staff: 

Steve  Anker,  Artistic  Director 
David  Gerstein,  Executive  Director 
Laura  Poitras.  Program  Coordinator 

Board  of  Directors: 

Eric  S.  Theise,  President 

Sally  Allen 

Lynn  Kirby  (through  January  1991) 

Janis  Crystal  Lipzin  (through  May  1990) 

Lynne  Sachs 

Scott  Stark  (through  May  1991) 

Scott  Taylor 

Susan  Vigil 


Contents 

Introduction  v 

1990  Program  Notes  1 

Film  and  Video  Maker  Index  1 13 

Title  Index  117 


Introduction 


The  San  Francisco  Cinematheque  provides  program  notes  at  our  screenings  as  a  regular  feature  of  our  exhibition 
activities.  We  prepare  these  notes  in  order  to  give  a  context  for  the  films  and  videotapes  that  make  up  our 
schedule,  and  to  provide  an  introduction  to  works  that  often  are  new  and  unfamiliar.  All  too  frequently,  there 
is  scant  information  --  let  alone  critical  writing  --  available  for  these  works,  and  the  little  that  does  exist  is 
contained  in  hard-to-find  or  out-of-print  journals,  or  in  film  distributors'  catalogues  that  are  not  readily 
accessible  to  our  viewers.  Our  program  notes  help  to  remedy  this  lack  of  information  and  offer  our  audience 
a  chance  to  gain  some  background  on  the  films  and  tapes  that  they're  about  to  experience. 

The  Program  Note  Booklet  contains  the  collected  program  notes  that  accompanied  the  Cinematheque's  film 
and  video  exhibitions  during  1990.  Of  course,  these  notes  didn't  simply  pop  out  of  a  hat  but  were  the  product 
of  many  hours  of  viewing  and  research  by  individual  writers.  Bruce  Cooper,  Emily  Cronbach,  Kurt  Easterwood, 
Susanne  Fairfax,  Matt  Fein,  Thyrza  Goodeve,  Crosby  McCloy,  Eric  S.  Theise  and  Don  Walker  all  volunteered 
their  time  for  the  project,  and  we  heartily  thank  them  for  the  energy  and  insight  they  brought  to  the  enterprise. 
The  number  of  program  notes  that  included  original  essays  increased  dramatically  during  1990,  part  of  our 
continuing  effort  to  advance  the  critical  dialogue  surrounding  independent  film  and  video.  We  hope  to  broaden 
that  dialogue  through  this  Program  Note  Booklet  as  well  as  our  other  publication  activities,  such  as  artist 
monographs  and  Cinematograph,  the  Cinematheque's  journal  of  film,  video  and  related  media  art. 

The  production  of  monographs  by  the  Cinematheque  is  a  new  program  that  we  initiated  in  1990.  The  first  two 
monographs  we  produced  were  in  conjunction  with  major  retrospectives  of  the  films  of  Andy  Warhol  and 
Yvonne  Rainer.  They  featured  original  essays  as  well  as  detailed  filmographies  and  bibliographies.  The  1990 
Program  Note  Booklet  includes  a  listing  of  the  films  shown  in  each  retrospective  along  with  extracts  from  the 
essays  and  notes  that  the  monographs  contained.  The  monographs  themselves,  as  well  as  Vol.  4  of 
Cinematograph  (the  current  issue)  and  previous  years'  Program  Note  Booklets,  are  available  through  the 
Cinematheque's  office. 

We  would  like  to  take  this  opportunity  to  thank  the  many  individuals  and  organizations  who  helped  to  make 
the  Cinematheque's  1990  season  such  a  success:  Dominic  Angerame,  Paul  Baker,  Gail  Camhi,  Portia  Cobb, 
Bill  Daniel,  Jennifer  Durrani,  Phil  Elie,  Lissa  Gibbs,  Walter  Hernandez,  Charlotte  Hill,  Liz  Keim,  Thomas 
Korschil,  Rupert  Jenkins,  Albert  Kilchesty,  Adrienne  Lanier  Seward,  Toney  Merritt,  Marina  McDougall,  Chris 
Miller,  Alan  Mukamal,  Michelle  Sabol,  Lynne  Sachs,  Kristin  Sherman,  Bruce  Smithhammer,  Greta  Snider, 
Valerie  Soe,  Konrad  Steiner,  Daria  Stermac,  Jerry  Tartaglia,  Laura  Thielen,  Michael  \^^llin,  Tfed  White,  and 
Jeanie  Weiffenbach;  the  Canadian  Consulate-General,  Canyon  Cinema,  The  Exploratorium,  Film  Arts 
Foundation,  Film-Makers'  Cooperative,  Galeria  de  la  Raza,  Goethe-Institut  of  San  Francisco,  Headlands 
Center  for  the  Arts,  New  American  Makers,  New  Langton  Arts,  Pacific  Film  Archive,  Roxie  Cinema,  San 
Francisco  Camerawork,  San  Francisco  International  Film  Festival,  and  the  Walter/McBean  Gallery.  We  would 
also  like  to  thank  the  San  Francisco  Art  institute  and  the  Eye  Gallery,  without  whose  support  our  exhibition 
programs  would  not  have  been  possible. 

The  production  of  the  Cinematheque's  Program  Note  Booklet  was  made  possible  in  part  through  a  grant 
provided  by  the  John  D.  and  Catherine  T  MacArthur  Foundation  as  well  as  support  from  the  National 
Endowment  for  the  Arts,  the  California  Arts  Council,  San  Francisco's  Grants  for  the  Arts  Program,  The  San 
Francisco  Foundation,  the  William  and  Flora  Hewlett  Foundation,  the  Fleishhacker  Family  Fund  and  the 
Friends  of  the  Cinematheque. 


1990  Program  Notes 


1990  Program  Notes 


THE  FILMS  OF  ANDY  WARHOL:  A  SEVEN-WEEK  INTRODUCTION 
January  28  -  March  11, 1990 


'Jf's, 


"It's  the  movies  that  have  really  been  running  things  in  America  ever  since  they  were  invented.  They  show  you 
what  to  do,  how  to  do  it ,  when  to  do  it,  how  to  feel  about  it,  and  how  to  look  how  you  feel  about  it.  When  they 
show  you  how  to  kiss  like  James  Dean  or  look  like  Jane  Fonda  or  win  like  Rocky,  that's  great." 

— Andy  Warhol,  America,  1985 


Warhol.  Drop  the  name  and  release  the  flood  of  Pop  images:  myriad  silk  screened  canvasses  of  Campbell's  soup 
cans  and  Coca-Cola  bottles,  Marilyn  Monroe  and  Jacqueline  Kennedy  Onassis,  auto  collisions  and  electric  chairs. 
By  applying  the  mechanical  and  repetitive  process  of  silk  screening  to  the  canvas,  Warhol  outraged  the 
brushstroke-heavey  Abstract  Expressionists  and  sent  fine  art  thudding  back  to  the  concrete  and,  as  a  consequence, 
back  to  the  public  interest. 

More  so  than  his  contemporaries  —  Jim  Dine,  Robert  Indiana,  Jasper  Johns,  Roy  Lichtenstein,  Marisol,  Claes 
Oldenburg,  Robert  Rauschenberg,  James  Rosenquist,  Tom  Wesselman  —  Warhol's  art  in  the  1960s  was  a 
Duchampian  celebration  of  the  art  in  every  thing  and  artist  in  every  one.  His  subjects  were  blatantly  anti-Art, 
portraying  bland  consumer  icons  or  "found"  photographs:  publicity  stills,  UPI  wire  photos,  or  glossy  magazine 
spreads.  According  to  the  prevailing  legend,  Warhol  left  not  only  the  production  of  his  paintings  to  others,  but 
the  artistic  decision  making.  His  assistants,  friends,  and  strangers  often  chose  subject,  colors,  size,  and 
composition,  with  the  only  directive  being  to  make  it  look  nice. 

Andy.  By  the  end  ofhis  life,  VV^rhol's  fame  had  eclipsed  that  of  the  subjectsof  his  1960s  portraits.  Marilyn.  Liz. 
Marlon.  Jackie.  Elvis.  Names  as  much  a  part  of  the  American  Pop  vernacular  that,  except  for  the  occasional  Troy, 
last  names  were  superfluous.  Warhol's  own  public  persona  was  stoked  by  his  incessant  socializing  with  glamorous 
trendsetters  and  by  his  droll  witticisms,  the  best  of  which  are  as  much  cultural  artifacts  as  his  soup  cans  or  silver 
pillows.  America's  fascination  with  Warhol  peaked  after  his  death  in  1987,  the  now  legendary  Sotheby's  auction 
taking  in  over  25  million  dollars  from  the  sale  of  his  personal  effects.  Over  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  were  spent 
to  acquire  N^^rhol's  kitschy  collection  of  cookie  jars  alone. 

Despite  his  more-than-fair  share  of  the  public  eye,  few  people  recall  that,  in  the  mid-60s,  Andy  Warhol  earned  a 
significant  reputation  as  an  avant-garde  filmmaker  by  adapting  his  working  methods  to  the  film  medium.  Some 
film  historians  have  gone  so  far  as  to  liken  Warhol's  development  to  the  history  of  cinema  itself.  From  his  initial 
silent  period,  through  his  experiments  with  sound,  drama,  color,  and  expanded  cinema,  Warhol  remained  a  prolific 
filmmaker  for  five  years,  churning  out  hundreds  of  reels  of  film. 

It  was  some  measure  of  his  films'  impact  that  Warhol  received  the  Film  Culture  Sixth  Independent  Film  Award 
in  1964  tor  Sleep,  Haircut,  Eat,  Kiss,  and  Empire.  These  films,  silent,  in  black  and  white,  combined  long  gazes 
from  a  fixed-camera  position  with  exaggeratedly  slow  action.  Warhol  filmed  these  works  at  the  usual  24  frames 
per  second,  but  insisted  that  they  be  projected  at  16  f.p.s.  This  transforms  the  two-minute,  45  seconds  or  recorded 
time  into  four-minutes.  10  seconds  of  screen  time,  prolonging  the  already  minimal  movement.  Jonas  Mekas, 
director  of  the  New  York  Film-Makers'  Co-operative,  became  an  active  proselytizer  of  Warhol's  films,  providing 
the  key  to  viewing  these  works: 

"The  film  starts  rolling,  the  audience  sits  quietly,  for  a  minute  or  two.  The  catcalls  and  crack  remarks  begin.  In 
the  forth  or  fifth  minute,  however,  they  begin  to  realize  that  1  have  no  intention  of  stopping  the  film,  and  the  reports 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


from  the  back  lines  reach  the  front  lines,  that  the  reel  is  big....  After  ten  minutes  or  so  the  impatient  ones  leave 
or  give  up,  others  resign,  and  the  rest  of  the  show  proceeds  quietly.  Later,  from  the  discussions,  it  becomes  clear 
that  there  is  always...  a  period  oi  jumping  the  reality  gap...  of  adjusting  to  the  aesthetic  weightlessness,  to  the 
different  gravitational  pull...  from  there  on  everything  becomes  very  rich.  You  are  watching  now  from  a  new  angle, 
every  detail  reveals  a  new  meaning,  the  proportions  and  perspectives  change...  a  whole  new  world  opens  because 
of  this  shifted  angle  oi  vision,  of  seeing,  a  world  in  which  there  is  as  much  action,  suspense,  tension,  adventure, 
and  entertainment  as  on  the  former  plane  —  and  more!" 

— Jonas  Mekas,  "Notes  After  Reseeing  the  Movies  of  Andy  Warhol",  1970 


Whether  he  felt  that  he  had  reached  the  zenith  of  silent  picture  making  with  the  8-hour  Empire,  or  rather  that  he 
discovered  making  sound  films  was  within  his  grasp  (financially  and  technically),  Warhol  made  the  transition  to 
sound  film  with  Harlot,  which  was  filmed  in  December,  1964.  Sound  brought  with  it  collaborators  and  new 
directions: 

"Academic  art  historians  have  little  trouble  dealing  with  the  silent  Warhol.  The  graphic  qualities  and  neo-Dadaist 
aesthetics  oi Sleep,  Eat,  Haircut,  and  Kiss,  fit  right  into  the  context  of  his  paintings  —  post-Duchamp  conceptual 
art.  But  in  1965,  when  Warhol's  films  began  to  talk,  most  of  these  commentators  became  silent,  and  those  that 
did  not  showed  precious  little  understanding  of  the  centrality  of  homosexuality  of  Warhol.  A  spectral  presence 
in  such  silent  works  as  Kiss,  Blow  Job  and  Sleep,  and  especially  Couch,  homoeroticism  dominates  the  sound 
period,  bringing  with  it  a  theatro-literary  tradition  that  can  best  be  described  as  that  of  the  homosexual  hipster." 

J  — David  Ehrenstein,  Arts  Magazine,  Summer,  1989 

If  there  was  a  direct  influence  on  Warhol's  filmmaking  during  this  period,  it  would  have  to  be  Jack  Smith,  an 
infamous  filmmaker,  performance  artist,  actor  and  playwright  whose  film  Flaming  Creatures  became  the  cause 
celebre  of  the  New  American  Cinema  in  1962  when  police  confiscated  it  along  with  Genet's  Un  Chant  d'Amour . 
Although  Smith's  and  Warhol's  filmmaking  was  antithetical,  they  both  drew  on  the  same  source  for  much  of  their 
work,  specifically  a  camp  sensibility  that  included  (in  Ehrenstein 's  words)  a  "baroque  nostalgia  for  Hollywood 
in  general." 

Prior  to  Chelsea  Girls  (1966),  Warhol  was  becoming  increasingly  stuck  on  the  idea  that  he  was  developing  into 
a  property  that  Hollywood  studios  might  want  to  get  a  hold  of.  The  minor  success  oi  My  Hustler  (minor  in  terms 
of  commercial  cinema,  but  major  for  Warhol)  had  put  in  his  mind  the  idea  that  soon  Hollywood  might  be  around 
the  comer,  an  extremely  naive  thing  for  Warhol  to  presuppose,  given  the  nature  of  his  films  up  to  that  point 
(including  My  Hustler).  Although  he  liked  to  fancy  himself  as  someone  ready  at  any  minute  to  answer 
Hollywood 's  call,  the  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  even  after  the  success  of  Chelsea  Girls,  the  closest  Hollywood  would 
meet  Warhol  was  by  way  of  Midnight  Cowboy  (1967).  Whatever  else  one  can  say  about  Warhol's  films  (and 
specifically,  the  worW  of  those  films),  the  plain  fact  remains  that  they  were  just  too  damn  seedy  for  Hollywood; 
too  damn  real.  Dustin  Hoffman  as  "Ratso"  was  infinitely  more  preferable  than  Ondine  as  Ondine.  Method  was 
palatable.  The  Underground  wasn't. 

The  Factory  residents  represented  to  the  "straight"  world  the  underbelly  of  the  "free  love"  Sixties.  When  that 
Underground  peeked  its  ugly  head  above  the  moral  equator  with  the  success  oi  Chelsea  Girls,  it  was  all  the  critics 
(film,  social,  and  otherwise)  could  do  to  push  it  back  and  tell  it  to  stay  under,  to  stay  within  the  reflective  tin-foil 
and  silver  painted  walls  of  the  Factory. 

Although  Warhol  didn't  know  it  yet,  the  Factory  days  were  becoming  increasingly  numbered  as  1968  rolled 
around,  and  soon  Warhol  himself  would  begin  to  get  weary  (and  more  importantly,  wary)  of  those  hangers-on 


1990  Program  Notes 


around  him.  One  of  those  people  was  Valerie  Solanis,  the  sole  member  of  a  group  she  called  the  Society  for  Cutting 
Up  Men,  or  S.C.U.M.  for  short.  Solanis  had  been  a  bit  player  in  Warhol's  film  /,  a  Man  ,  and  also  a  frustrated 
screenwriter.  Claiming  that  Warhol  "had  too  much  control  over  me,"  Solanis  one  day  went  to  the  Factory  and 
attempted  to  kill  Wirhol.  Although  she  failed  at  her  goal,  she  did  put  Warhol  into  the  hospital  for  two  months. 

Concurrent  with  Warhol's  recuperation  in  the  hospital  from  the  assassination  attempt  was  Paul  Morrissey's 
usurping  of  film  production  at  the  Factory.  Morissey  had  been  a  part  of  Warhol's  coterie  of  assistants  for  some 
time  and  his  influence  on  Warhol  had  been  steadily  rising  as  other  assistants  like  Gerard  Malanga  and  Billy  Linich 
(Billy  Name)  became  less  and  less  involved  with  the  running  of  the  Factory.  According  to  Ondine,  Morrissey  was 
"a  garbage  collector  and  a  cultivator  of  lice."  Something  of  an  anomaly  among  those  who  worked  for  Warhol, 
he  was  puritanical  in  his  views  on  drugs,  not  to  mention  a  philistine  when  it  came  to  appreciating  Warhol's'  work. 
His  continuing  obsession  was  to  get  Warhol  to  stop  making  "art  films,"  and  while  Warhol  was  in  the  hospital,  he 
made  Flesh,  which  superficially  bore  some  resemblance  to  Warhol  (at  least  the  later  Warhol  of  Lonesome 
Cowboys).  When  Warhol  regained  his  health,  he  was  content  to  let  Morrissey  continue  directing,  and  Warhol's 
role  in  the  making  of  films  was  eventually  reduced  to  that  of  producer.  The  period  of  Andy  Wirhol,  filmmaker, 
was  effectively  over. 

The  story  of  Stan  Brakhage  undergoing  a  St.  Augustine  conversion  in  the  face  of  Warhol's  early  silent  filmmaking 
once  he  discovered  that  the  films  were  meant  to  be  seen  projected  at  16  frames  per  second  was  one  propagated 
by  Mekas  with  typical  hyperbole.  It  was  as  if  he  was  trying  to  magically  cover  holes  just  then  starting  to  open  up 
in  film;  rifts  which  proceeded  along  the  same  lines  as  those  between  the  Abstract  Expressionist  and  the  Pop  Artist. 
Brakhage  was  not  the  only  filmmaker  to  find  himself  on  the  opposite  side  of  Warhol  —  others  were  Gregory 
Markopolous  and  Peter  Emanuel  Goldman.  Film  history  would  prove  Mekas  right  to  worry  about  the  gap,  for  as 
the  Sixties  progressed,  the  gap  widened,  with  the  Structural  film  movement  picking  up  the  filmic  pieces  that 
Warhol  had  left  them. 


This  has  been  excerpted  from  the  "Introduction"  to  The  Films  of  Andy  Warhol:  A  Seven  Week  Introduction, 
by  Kurt  Easterwood  and  Eric  S.  Theise,  published  by  San  Francisco  Cinematheque  (1990) 


Schedule  of  Film  Screenings: 

January  28 

Kiss  (1963);  16mm,  B&W,  silent  at  16  f.p.s..  58  minutes. 

Beauty  M2  (1965);  16mm,  B&W  sound,  66  minutes.  Written  and  co-directed  by  Chuck  Wein. 

February  4 

Sleep  (1963);  16mm,  B&W,  silent  at  16  f.p.s.,  42  minute  excerpt  from  the  6  hour  original. 
My  Hustler  (1965);  16mm,  B&W.  sound,  67  minutes.  Directed  by  Chuck  Wein. 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


February  11 


February  18 


February  25 


March  4 


March  11 


Empire  (1964);  16mm,  B&W,  silent  at  16  f.p.s.,  48  minute  excerpt  from  the  8  hour  original. 
TheLifeofJuanita  Castro  (1965);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  66  minutes.  Written  by  Ronald  Tavel. 


Eat  (1964);  16mm,  B&W,  silent  at  16  f.p.s.,  37  minutes. 

Blow  Job  (1964);  16mm,  B&W,  silent  at  16  f.p.s.,  37  minutes. 

Vinyl  (1965);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  66  minutes.  Written  by  Ronald  Tavel. 


Henry  Geldzahler  (1964);  16mm,  B&W,  silent  at  16  f.p.s.,  100  minutes. 


The  Chelsea  Girls  (1966);  16mm  dual  projection,  color/B&W,  sound,  196  minutes. 


Lonesome  Cowboys  (1967);  16mm,  color,  sound,  109  minutes. 
Nude  Restaurant  (1967);  16mm,  color,  sound,  95  minutes. 


The  1990  exhibition  season  continued  the  Cinematheque's  free  five  o'clock  screenings  which  were  designed 
to  increase  exposure  and  access  to  new  and  historical  fdm  and  video  works.  Another  View:  Selected  Works 
j<.e-Screened  offered  repeat  screenings  of  works  recently  included  in  The  Cinematheque's  regular  program. 
Framing  Cinema:  ARc-prcsentdtionfeaturedoftencanonized  but  seldomseenfdms  from  the  history  of  cinema. 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 


Sunday,  January  28, 1990,  5  p.m. 


Munich-Berlin  Wandering  (1927),  by  Oskar  Fischinger;  16mm.  B&W  silent,  3  minutes. 
Ariel  (1983),  by  Nathaniel  Dorsky;  16mm.  color,  silent.  16  minutes. 


1990  Program  Notes 


Kongostraat  (1989),  by  Dana  Plays;  16mm,  color,  sound,  12  minutes. 

Max's  Shirt  (1975),  by  Bob  Fleischner;  16mm,  color,  silent,  5  minutes. 

Banners  (1965),  by  Bob  Fleischner;  16mm,  color,  silent,  3  minutes. 

Visions  in  Meditation  :  #1  (1989),  by  Stan  Brakhage;  16mm,  color,  silent,  20  minutes. 


REDISCOVERING  THE  1 920 'S  AVANT-GARDE: 
Filmmaker  and  historian  William  Moritz  in  person 

Thursday,  February  1, 1990 


Lichtspiel  Opus  Nr.  1  (Lightplay,  Opus  #7, 1921),  by  Walter  Ruttmann;  16mm,  color  (hand-tinted),  10  minutes. 

Le  Retour  a  la  raison  (Return  to  Reason,  1923),  by  Man  Ray;  16mm,  B&W,  2  minutes. 

Ballet  mecanique  (Mechanical  Ballet,  1924)  by  Dudley  Murphy  with  Femand  L^ger  and  Man  Ray;  16mm, 
B&W/color  (hand-tinted),  18  minutes.  Music  by  George  Antheil. 

Entr'acte  (Intermission,  1924),  by  Rene  Clair  with  Francis  Picabia;  16mm,  B&W,  20  minutes.  Music  by  Erik 
Satie. 

R-I  ein  Formspiel  (R-1  is  a  Form-play,  1925-27,  triple-projection),  by  Oskar  Fischinger;  16  mm,  color,  6 
minutes. 

Theme  and  Variations  (1928),  by  Germaine  Dulac;  16mm,  B&W,  5  minutes. 

Disque  957  (Phonograph  recording  U957 ,  1929),  by  Germaine  Dulac;  16  mm,  B&W  6  minutes. 

In  derNacht  (In  the  Night,  1931),  by  Walter  Ruttmann;  16mm,  color  (hand-tinted),  6  minutes 


The  following  is  excerpted  from  an  essay  by  William  Moritz  that  appeared  in  the  catalog  for  the  International 
Experimental  Film  Congress,  held  May  28  -  June  4.  1989,  in  Toronto,  Ontario,  Canada: 


"The  'avant-garde'  films  of  the  1920s  have  been  often  mis-appraised,  either  from  purely  practical  obstacles 
(unavailability  of  authentic  prints  with  original  tinting,  music,  speed)  or  from  spurious  academic  practices  (the 
failure  to  conduct  first-hand  scholarly  research,  or  the  false  assumption  that  the  1920s  films  were  primitive 
forerunners  of  post-World  W^r  II  experimental  films).  This  retrospective  seeks  to  redress  that  situation  by 
presenting  a  broad  selection  of  reasonably  authentic  prints  that  demonstrate  the  astonishing  accomplishments  of 
the  film  artists  of  the  1920s.... 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


"No  one  shouid  find  the  question  of  the  nature,  scope,  and  canon  of  the  1920s  avant-garde  an  easy  one.  At  that 
time,  ail  independent  and  experimental  work  was  categorized  together  and  circulated  through  the  chain  of  small 
theaters  which  eventually  became  the  Associated  Cine-Clubs  and  the  League  of  Independent  Film.  This  meant 
that  adventurous  features  (like  Cabinet  of  Dr.  Caligari,  Battleship  Potemkin,  Prince  Achmed,  ox  Smiling  Mme. 
Beudet),  creative  documentaries  (such  as  Cavalcanti's  A'or/i/ng^u/  Time,  Ivens's  Rain,  or  Caballero's  Essenceof 
Verbena),  and  innovative  art  films  (like  Ruttmann's  Opus  films,  ox  Ballet  micanique)  rubbed  shoulders  without 
reservations  or  prejudice.  Critics  and  artists  used  terms  such  as  Absolute  Film,  Pure  Cinema,  and  Integral  Cinema 
(Germaine  Dulac's  term  which  might  better  be  translated  'Self-Sufficient'  or  'Complete'  cinema)  to  stress  that 
these  works — all  of  them  —  functioned  only  as  cinema  art:  that  they  could  not  exist  in  any  other  medium  because 
their  essential  effect  arose  from  the  unique  potential  of  the  cinematic  mechanism,  such  as  flexible  montage  of  time 
and  space,  measured  pacing  and  control  of  gaze,  exact  repetition,  single-frame  diversity  and  continuity, 
superimposition  and  its  related  split-screen  imagery. 

"The  small  canon  of  some  dozen  films  that  are  usually  screened  and  written  about  today  as  the  1920s  avant-garde 
—  mostly  associated  with  famous  artists  —  hardly  represents  the  whole  output  of  that  era.  There  are  nearly  two 
hundred  shorter  films  mentioned  in  contemporary  documents  of  screenings.  Nor  was  the  field  strictly  limited  to 
'film,'  since  the  historic  Berlin  Absolute  Film  show  (May  3,  1925),  which  brought  together  Entr'acte,  Ballet 
m^canique,  Ruttmann's  Opus  2,  Opus  3,  and  Opus  4;  Eggeling's  Diagonal  Symphony,  and  Hans  Richter's  half- 
minute  F///n  is  Rhythm,  also  included  Hirschfeld-Mack's  Color  Sonata  in  Three  Movements,  performed  as  a  live 
'light-show'  using  the  Reflecting  Color  Instrument  that  he  had  constructed  at  the  Bauhaus. 

"Perhaps  the  filmmakers  of  the  1920s  were  more  open  to  experiments  with  colour-organs  and  dance  performances 
because  they  themselves  aspired  to  create  films  that  rivaled  the  condition  of  music  —  not  illustrations  of  music 
(Eggeling,  for  example,  insisted  that  his  films  be  screened  in  silence).  Rather,  they  brought  a  visual  imagery  that 
could  perform  a  spectacle  as  free,  subtle,  and  complex  as  music:  free  from  the  constraints  of  gravity  and  single 
viewpoint,  richly  layered  and  textured,  and  capable  of  evoking  dynamic  responses  through  nuances  of  rhythm, 
tensions  of  harmony,  and  dissonance.  This  'musicality'  was  not  at  odds  with  other  artistic  goals.  For  example, 
Eggeling's  fellow  Dadaists  seem  to  have  seen  his  non-objective  experiments  as  compatible  with  their  own: 
something  to  replace  the  bourgeois  art  that  Dada  was  busy  ridiculing  and  destroying. 

"The  International  Congress  of  Independent  Cinema  at  La  Sarraz  in  1929  is  usually  cited  as  the  'end  of  the  Avant- 
Garde,'  but  that  conference  was  followed  by  a  second  International  Congress  at  Brussels  in  1930  (with  Germaine 
Dulacas  keynote  speaker),  and  a  number  of  other  subsequent  gatherings.  The  Great  Depression  certainly  curtailed 
production,  but  despite  economic  strictures  (which  are  again  upon  us),  an  unbroken  line  of  experimental 
filmmaking  (and  gathering)  culminates  in  Toronto  in  1989.  If  connective  films  (for  example,  Jiri  Jehovec's  Magic 
Eye  or  Rhythm,  or  the  Robbins/Barlow/Hay/Hirsh  Even  as  You  and  I)  have  generally  fallen  out  of  our  critical 
discourse  and  our  daily  repertoire,  the  fault  is  ours,  not  theirs.... 

"^Iter  Ruttmann's  Light-Play  Opus  1  was  the  first  experimental  film  to  be  shown  publicly  in  theaters  as  a  work 
of  cinematic  art  (during  the  month  of  April  1921).  The  film  was  hand-tinted,  with  a  live  musical  score  specially 
composed  for  it. 

"About  the  same  time.  Viking  Eggeling  and  Hans  Richter  received  their  first  animation  tests  back  from  the  UFA 
studios:  an  unsatisfactory  beginning  of  Eggeling's  Horizontal-Vertical  Orchestra,  and  a  half-minute  test  that 
Richter  would  later  show  as  Film  is  Rhythm. 

"Ruttmann  continued  with  an  Opus  2  in  1922  and,  in  connection  with  Lotte  Reiniger's  Prince  Achmed,  completed 
Opus  3  and  Opus  4  in  Berlin  during  1923  and  1924,  the  same  time  as  Oskar  Fischinger  was  preparing  his  Wax 
Experiments  in  Munich,  using  a  special  machine  of  his  own  invention.  Meanwhile,  Man  Ray,  in  Paris,  composed 
Return  to  Reason  for  the  Dada  Soiredu  coeur  a  barbe  (Evening  of  the  Bearded  Heart),  J  uly  1 923 .  Dudley  Murphy 's 


1990  Program  Notes 


Ballet  m^canique  and  Rene  Clair's  Entr'acte  were  both  premiered  in  the  late  fall  of  1924,  at  the  same  time  that 
Eggeling  was  finishing  his  Diagonal  Symphony .  Duchamp'Sy4/je/w/c  Cinema  (filmed  by  Marc  Allegret  and  Man 
Ray)  only  appeared  publicly  in  1927,  after  Man  Ray's  own  superb  EmakBakia.  After  thirteen  years  as  a  distin- 
guished experimental  feature  director  (including  several  music-oriented  masterpieces  such  as  the  1923  Smiling 
Mme.  Beudet)  Germaine  Dulac,  in  the  face  of  the  relative  failure  of  her  wonderful  Seashell  and  the  Clergyman 
(1928),  decided  to  concentrate  on  the  purer,  non-narrative  abstractions  in  her  Arabesque  and  Disque  957.  And 
Ruttmann,  despite  his  enormous  success  in  poetic  documentaries,  returned  to  musical  abstraction  for  In  the  Night, 
ten  years  after  his  first  Opus." 

William  Moritz  teaches  in  the  film  and  video  faculty  at  the  California  Institute  of  the  Arts.  The  author  of  numerous 
articles  on  abstract  film,  Moritz  is  also  a  filmmaker  himself,  having  made  twenty-nine  short  films  and  videos. 


RECENT  FILMS  BY  PETER  HERWITZ 
Saturday,  February  3, 1990 


The  Poet's  Veil  (1988);  Super-8mm,  color,  silent,  12  minutes. 

"I  am  fascinated  by  veils,  surfaces,  anything  that  obstructs  a  clear  view.  These  veils  of  color,  distance,  de- 
tached symbols  are  both  painterly  in  form  and  related  to  the  acts  of  reading  and  writing  seen  throughout  the 
film.  The  obscuring  of  the  word  represents  my  struggle  to  create  an  unnameable  world  of  poetic  mystery  and 
nuance." — P.H. 


The  Painted  Veil  (1988);  16mm,  color,  silent,  5  minutes. 

"The  closest  I  have  come  to  a  diary  film,  yet  seen  through  veils.  The  luminosity  and  clarity  of  16mm  placed 

in  the  hands  of  a  Super-8  miniaturist  provides  for  some  interesting  if  unresolved  tensions." — P.H. 

Musiquede  Tenebres  (Music  of  the  Dark,  1989);  Super-8mm.  color,  silent,  17  minutes. 
"The  word  'tenebres'  in  French  has  several  shades  of  meaning — as  darkness,  murkiness,  but  also  depth  and 
mystery.  Inspired  by  the  early  musical-liturgical  form,  'Lecons  de  Tenebres'  (literally,  lessons  in  darkness), 
and  baroque  music  in  general,  the  film  reflects  my  intense  desire  to  create  cinematic  structures  that  approxi- 
mate musical  forms  and  to  evoke  the  spiritual  passion  of  the  musical  counterparts.  Structured  in  five  sections, 
each  is  introduced  by  a  painting." — P.H. 


From  In  the  Shape  of  Waking:  Meditations  (a  series  of  four  films  —  two  of  which  are  complete  —  which 
"represent  a  kind  of  luminous  waking  from  a  dark  dream  world  of  the  past  (in  my  other  films)"  [PH.]): 

Body  of  Light  (1989);  16mm,  color,  silent,  6  minutes. 

In  the  Rhythm  of  Falling  (1989);  16mm,  color,  silent.  8  minutes. 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

FREE  LOVE:  WHAT  PRICE  AMOUR? 
Saturday,  February  10,  1990 

Love  Novellas  by  Jerri  Allyn;  audio  will  by  played  before  the  screening  of  films/tapes 

True  Romance  by  Jan  Millsapps;  16nim,  22  minutes 

DerKuss  by  Kim  McLeod;  16mm,  2  minutes 

Drawn  and  Quartered  by  Lynne  Sachs;  16mm,  4  minutes 

Ana/Vermont  by  Miguel  Alvear;  16mm,  4  minutes 

Will  You  Be  My  Friend,  Cleo?  by  Paul  McLeod;  3/4"  videotape,  6  minutes 

Dear  Dennis  by  Susan  Mogul;  1/2"  videotape,  4  minutes 

Blizzard  of  Hearts  by  Dana  Atchely;  1/2"  videotape,  1  minute 

Refrigerator  Husband  by  Rebecca  Radner;  poem 

The  Tower  by  THsh  Henry;  installation 

Love  Regimen  by  Bonnie  Kaplan;  performance 

No  No  Nookie  TV  by  Barbara  Hammer;  1/2"  videotape,  10  minutes 

Point  'n  Shoot  by  George  Kuchar;  1/2"  videotape,  6  minutes 

As  the  Worm  TUms  by  Christine  Tlimblyn;  3/4"  videotape,  16  minutes 

Catscan  by  Michelle  Handelman  &  Monte  Cazazza;  S8,  7  minutes 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 
Sunday,  February  11, 1990,  5  p.m. 


Refried  Broccoli  (1985),  by  Leslie  Singer;  3/4"  videotape,  5  minutes. 
Weather  Diary  #5  (1989),  by  George  Kuchar;  3/4"  videotape,  35  minutes. 
Green  (1988),  by  Tom  Rhoads;  Super-8mm,  color/B&W,  sound,  36  minutes. 
Ecce  Homo  (1989),  by  Jerry  Tartagiia;  16mm.  color,  sound.  7  minutes. 


1990  Program  Notes 


THE  MACHINE  THAT  KILLED  BAD  PEOPLE  BY  STEVE  FAGIN 

Artist  in  person 

Roxie  Cinema,  3117  16th  St.,  San  Francisco 

Co-sponsored  by  Film  Arts  Foundation 

Wednesday,  February  14,  1990 


The  Machine  that  Killed  Bad  People  (1989);  3 '4"  videotape,  120  minutes. 

"...The  Machine  that  Killed  Bad  People  focuses  on  what  is  particular  to  television:  assassination,  touchdowns, 
earthquakes  and  revolution,  that  is  the  reworking  of  the  present  tense.  The  nineteenth  century  seems  domed  to 
live  under  the  death  sentence  of  remorse  and  regret.  The  twentieth  century  seems  doomed  to  live  in  this  terminal 
state  of  the  present  tense.  U.S.  media  has  decided  what  is  special  about  our  everyday  lives  and  this  'special'  is 
global  trauma.  What  is  done  with  these  global  traumas  is  quite  interesting:  they  are  used  to  rework  our  unconscious 
and  to  supplant  a  privatized  primal  with  a  social  one.  Television,  like  in  a  sequence  of  Videodrome,  takes  away 
our  little  Oedipal  scenarios  and  replaces  them,  not  only  with  events  but  with  all  the  accessories:  neurosis, 
symptoms,  needs  and  death  drive,  and  then  these  are  read  back.  To  reinvent  our  own  sense  of  personal  histories, 
my  intention  was  to  accept  this  radical  surgery  as  a  rather  extraordinary  invention  and  see  what  could  be  done  with 
it.  This  is  the  goal  of  the  piece,  to  shift  the  interpretation  of  the  event,  to,  so  to  speak,  reprogram. 

"...The  tape  ends,  more  accurately  reaches  its  point  of  exhaustion,  with  the  grand  guignol  finale.  The  stage  of 
spectacle  is  now  almost  ritualistically  purified  of  the  real,  the  piece  no  longer  is  documentary  but  now  an  allegory, 
reaches  its  apocalyptic  child's  play  ending.  But  meaning  and  politics  have  held  on  for  the  whole  ride.  This  is  one 
of  the  goals  of  the  piece,  to  keep  up  with  the  displacement  and  energy  of  spectacle,  not  asking  it  to  grind  to  a  halt, 
yet  still  being  able  to  maintain  an  analysis;  not  to  concede  spectacle  to  the  right  wing;  to  work  within  and  against 
the  grain  of  the  irrational,  not  in  a  judgmental/oppositional  manner,  thinking  that  change  will  occur  if  we  simply 
enlighten,  inform,  make  guilty.  This  is  no  way  to  change  a  television  junkie.  To  concede  the  irrational  is  too  close 
to  conceding  the  terrain  of  desire;  like  it  or  not,  this  is  where  the  struggle  must  begin." 

— Steve  Fagin, 
"An  Interview  with  Steve  Fagin",  by  Jeffrey  SkoUer,  Cinematograph.  Vol.  4  ,  1991 


AN  EVENING  OF  FILMS  BY  MIKE  HENDERSON 

Artist  in  person 
Co-sponsored  by  the  Walter IMcBean  Gallery  (SFAI) 

Thursday,  February  15 

A  native  of  Northern  California,  Mike  Henderson  is  the  recipient  of  the  1990  Adaline  Kent  Award  from  the  San 
Francisco  Art  Institute,  and  his  achievements  as  painter,  filmmaker,and  musician  have  made  him  one  of  San 
Francisco's  most  celebrated  local  artists.  Tonight's  program  includes  several  short  eariy,  personal  films,  as  well 
as  an  excerpt  from  one  of  Henderson's  "Blues  profiles." 


The  Last  Supper  (1968),  16mm 
/4/t  (1970),  16mm 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

Down  Here  (1975),  i6mm 

The  Shape  of  Things  (1984),  16mm 

Too  Late  To  Stop  Down  Now  (1982),  16mm 

Ducksarenodinner  (1983),  16mm 

Mother's  Day  (1970),  16mm 

When  and  Where  (1981),  16mm 

How  To  Beat  A  Dead  Horse  (1980),  16mm 


IS  THIS  WHAT  YOU  WERE  BORN  FOR?  BY  ABIGAIL  CHILD 
Filmmaker  Abigail  Child  in  person. 

Thursday,  February  22, 1990 

In  using  found  footage  (TV  commercials.  Fifties  educational  films,  old  blue  movies)  and  traditional  rubrics  of 
cinematic  form  (home  movies,  film  noir,  silent  slapstick  comedy),  the  films  of  Abigail  Child  position  the  viewer 
from  the  start  within  a  familiar  landscape.  And  yet,  ultimately  there  is  nothing  comforting  about  this  familiarity: 
it  breeds  not  just  contempt  but  more  importantly,  consciousness.  If  anything.  Child  takes  this  loaded  baggage  of 
cultural  detritus  and  in  the  process  of  dumping  out  the  contents,  opens  a  larger  Pandora's  box  of  received  notions: 
how  we  should  lead  our  lives,  and  who  should  lead  our  lives. 

The  found  images  and  found  forms  of  Child's  work  collide  with  a  complex  use  of  sound  (itself  often  of  a  found 
nature)  to  comprise  a  relentless  examination  of  societal  convention.  Her  assemblages  are  assaulting,  but  in  the 
most  positive  sense  of  the  word.  They  serve  as  a  wake-up  call  to  the  life  we  are  living,  and  to  a  life  we  could  be 
living,  searing  complacency,  breaking  illusions.  While  the  charge  can  be  made  that  the  films  verge  on  the  didactic, 
one  must  remember  that  Child  has  posed  her  films  not  in  the  form  of  a  singular  statement  but  of  a  collective  and 
urgent  question,  "Is  this  what  you  were  bom  for?"  It  is  up  to  us  to  supply  our  own  answers,  and  as  paradoxical 
as  it  may  seem,  there  is  some  comfort  to  be  had  in  that. 

*  *  * 

Ornamentals  (1979);  16mm,  color,  silent,  10  minutes. 

"Composing  from  an  accumulation  of  footage  gathered  over  a  number  of  years. ...The  intuitive  is  shaped  into  and 
by  a  structure  of  color  and  expansion,  increasing  connotation  through  what  repeats  in  time  and  what  is  seen. ...This 
film  was/is  crucial  to  my  understanding  of  composition,  to  my  desire  for  an  encyclopedic  construction  (the  worid 
'out'  there),  and  reaffirmed  my  allegiance  to  rhythm,  specifically  the  rhythm  of  body/nerve/mind." 

Is  This  What  You  Were  Born  For?  (In  seven  parts): 

"Is  This  What  You  Were  Born  For?  is  conceived  as  a  way  to  bracket  my  ongoing  film  investigations  in  the  context 
of  the  aggressions  of  the  late  Twentieth  Century:  the  title  is  from  an  etching  by  Goya,  part  of  the  'Disasters  of  War' 
series.  The  work  is  in  seven  detachable  parts,  each  of  which  can  be  viewed  by  itself  for  its  own  qualities.  The 
films  don't  form  a  single  line,  or  even  an  expanding  line,  but  rather  map  a  series  of  concerns  in  relation  to  the  mind, 
to  how  one  processes  material,  how  it  gets  investigated,  how  it  gets  cut  apart,  how  something  else  (inevitably) 
comes  up." 
10 


1990  Program  Notes 


Prefaces  (Part  One,  1981);  16nim,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 

"'Prefaces  is  composed  of  wild  sound  constructed  along  entropic  lines  held  to  a  tension  by  bebop  rhythms  and  a 
surfacing  narrative  cut  from  the  words  of  the  great  vocal  innovators  and  a  dialogue  with  Hanna  Weiner,  poet.  The 
tracks  are  placed  in  precise  and  asynchronous  relations  to  images  of  workers,  the  gestures  of  the  market  place, 
colonial  Africa  and  abstraction  to  posit  questions  of  social  force  and  gender  relations/subordination.  The 
investigation  is  into  sound/image  relationships;  the  context  that  of  developing  identity  from  a  'underdeveloped' 
or  colonized  consciousness  into  one  of  active  participation." 

Mutiny  (Part  Three,  1982-83);  16mm,  color,  sound,  11  minutes. 

""Mutiny  employs  a  panoply  of  expression,  gesture,  and  repeated  movement.  Its  central  images  focus  on  women: 
at  home,  on  the  street,  in  the  work  place,  at  school,  talking,  singing,  jumping  on  trampolines,  playing  the  violin. 
The  dyspeptic  syntax  of  the  film  reflects  both  the  possibilities  and  the  limitations  of  a  speech  which  'politically, 
physically  and  realistically'  flirts  with  the  language  of  opposition." 

—Madeline  Leskin,  SKOP  (W.  Berlin),  February,  1989. 

Both  (Part  Two,  1988);  16mm,  B«feW,  silent,  3  minutes. 

"Child's  camera  creates  a  small  masterpiece  in  Both.  It  is  a  richly  textured  film  that  is  simultaneously  revealing 

and  mysterious  as  a  study  of  the  nude  in  light  and  movement." 

— Cecilia  Dougherty,  1989  San  Francisco  International  Lesbian  and  Gay  Film  Festival. 

Perils  (Part  Five,  1985-86);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  5  minutes. 

"A  homage  to  silent  films:  the  clash  of  ambiguous  innocence  and  unsophisticated  villainy.  Seduction,  revenge, 
jealousy,  combat.  The  isolation  and  dramatization  of  emotions  through  the  isolation  (camera)  and  dramatization 
(editing)  of  gesture.  I  had  long  conceived  of  a  film  composed  only  of  reaction  shots  in  which  all  causality  was 
erased.  What  would  be  left  would  be  the  resonant  voluptuous  suggestions  of  history  and  the  human  face.  Perils 
is  a  first  translation  of  these  ideas." 

Covert  Action  (Part  Four,  1984);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  11  minutes. 

"I  wanted  to  examine  the  erotic  behind  the  social  and  remake  those  gestures  into  a  dance  that  would  front  their 
conditioning,  and  as  well,  relay  the  multiple  fictions  the  footage  suggests  (the  'facts'  forever  obscured  in  the 
fragments  left  us).  The  result  is  a  narrative  developed  by  its  periphery,  a  story  like  rumor:  impossible  to  trace, 
disturbing,  explosive." 

MAYHEM  {VdiXX  Six,  1987);  16mm,  B«feW,  sound,  20  minutes. 

"Perversely  and  equally  inspired  by  de  Sade's  Justine  and  Vertov's  sentences  about  the  satiric  detective 

advertisement.  Mayhem  is  my  attempt  to  create  a  film  in  which  Sound  is  the  Character  and  to  do  so  focusing  on 

sexuality  and  the  erotic.  Not  so  much  to  undo  the  entrapment  (we  fear  what  we  desire;  we  desire  what  we  fear), 

but  to  frame  fate,  show  up  the  rotation,  upset  the  common,  and  incline  our  contradictions  toward  satisfaction,  albeit 

conscious." 

Mercy  (Part  Seven,  1989);  16  mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 

""Mercy,  the  last  in  the  series,  is  encyclopedic  ephemera,  exploring  the  public  and  private  visions  of  technological 

and  romantic  invention." 

All  quotations  are  by  Abigail  Child  unless  otherwise  noted. 

(K.E.) 


11 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


STARTING  FROM  SCRATCH: 

A  LIVE-ANIMATION/MUSICAL  PERFORMANCE 

Filmmaker  Pierre  Hebert  and  Composer  I  Performer  Bob  Ostertag  in  person 

Co-Sponsored  by  the  Canadian  Consulate-General 

Saturday,  February  24,  1990 

It  is  easy  to  get  a  sharp,  lean,  thin  line  by  scraping  off  the  black  emulsion.  The  resulting  while  line  (when 
projected)  can  be  easily  colored  with  felt-tipped  pens  arui  many  people  find  thai  the  results  are  ihe  most  pleasing 
form  ofcameralessfilm.  In  "scratch  "films,  the  screen  is  black  except  for  the  images  that  have  been  etched  onto 
the  surface  of  the  leader... 

Cameraless  animation  requires  a  lot  of  working  time  and  yields  relatively  little  viewing  time.  Here  are  some 
hints  on  how  to  stretch  out  the  screening  of  your  films  and,  in  the  process,  extend  their  impact  upon  an  audience. 

Loops.  If  your  piece  of  finished  film  is  not  too  long  (between  5  and  15  feet),  you  can  thread  it  through  the 
projector  in  a  way  that  allows  it  to  repeat  itself  continuously  without  re  threading . . .  you  will  have  to  manually 
"feed  "  Ihe  film  out  the  rear  of  the  16mm  projector  and  into  the  front  so  that  the  film  doesn  't  snarl  up  or  touch 
the  floor... 

Musical  Accompaniment.  Whenever  you  can,  play  music  as  you  screen  your  cameraless  animation.  It's  weird 
to  discover  that  no  matter  what  kind  or  what  tempo  of  music  you  select,  it  always  seems  to  work  with  the  visual 
segment.  And  if  you  experiment  with  enough  different  music  tracks,  you  'II  come  upon  one  thai  will  appear  to 
have  been  made  just  for  your  film.  Both  records  and  audio  tape  recorders  arc  easy  ways  of  providing  musical 
accompaniment  to  your  movies.  But  it  is  also  valuable  to  try  creating  your  own  original  tracks  to  go  with  these 
movies... 

— Kit  Lay  bourne,  The  Animation  Book  (1979) 

A  decade  ago,  when  Layboume  was  compiling  his  how-to  book  on  animation,  the  scratch  film  must  have 
seemed  like  an  open-and-shut  case.  The  technique  had  a  tradition,  but  one  that  was  overrun  with  cute  films, 
rather  than  serious-  or  fine-art  films.  Given  animation's  overall  propensity  to  produce  lightweight,  whimsical 
work,  the  scratch  film  was  often  written  off  as  a  second  generation  bastard.  The  genre  has  its  masterpieces  — 
most  notably,  Len  Lye's  Free  Radicals  (1958),  a  mesmerizing  4-minute  scratch-abstraction  set  to  an  equally 
intense  soundtrack  of  African  drumming  by  the  Bagirmi  tribe  —  but  for  the  most  part,  it  has  served  as  a  way 
to  introduce  film  students  to  cameraless  animation  or  to  alter  the  surface  of  regularly-exposed  film.  The  usual 
assumptions  behind  the  scratch  film  fit  squarely  with  the  Layboume  excerpt  quoted  above. 

Of  course,  the  field  that  has  been  most  codified  is  the  one  most  ripe  for  innovation.  Since  1987,  Montreal-based 
filmmaker  Pierre  Hebert  has  been  responsible  for  transforming  the  scratch  film  from  an  isolated,  exacting,  time- 
consuming  activity  at  the  animator's  light-table  to  a  collaborative,  spontaneous,  improvisational  performance 
form.  By  scratching  loops  of  black  leader  as  they  thread  through  the  projector,  Hebert  has  taken  the  form  from 
one  that  "requires  a  lot  of  working  time  and  yields  relatively  little  viewing  time"  to  one  where  the  filmmaker 
and  the  audience  are  party  to  exactly  the  same  evolutionary  temporal  experience.  Hebert 's  method  has  been 
compared  to  the  Jackson  Pollock  school  of  action  painting;  there  are  similarities,  but  Pollock's  drips  and 
splatters  were  primarily  an  internal  performance,  a  studio-confined  catharsis.  Only  upon  exhibition  was  the 
product  subject  to  public  discussion,  and  although  the  creative  process  could  be  imagined — one  of  the  pleasures 
of  viewing  Pollock's  work — it  was  not  witnessed.  Heben's  expressionism  is  subject  to  instantaneous  feedback, 
his  most  recent  gouge  projected  within  split-seconds  of  the  gesture;  in  this,  his  method  is  more  akin  to  jazz, 
blues,  or  the  Chicago  Uptown  Poetry  Slam  style  of  reading. 

Pierre  Hebert  dropped  his  sociological  studies  in  1965  to  pursue  filmmaking  at  the  National  Film  Board  of 
Canada.  His  films  include  Op  Hop  (1965),  Around  Perception  ( 1968),  Santa  Glaus  is  coming  tonight  (1975), 


12 


1990  Program  Notes 


Entre  chien  et  hup  (1978),  Memories  of  War  (1982),  Etienne  et  Sara  (1984),  Songs  and  dances  of  the  inanimate 
world  -  The  subway  (1985),  O  Picasso,  tableaux  d'une  surexposition  (1985),  Adieu  Bipde  (1987),  and  La  lettre 
d' amour  (1988).  His  collaborations  with  musicians  and  choreographers  include  The  Never  Ending  Symphony 
{\9S5\  Adieu  bipde,  and  Adieu  Leonardo  (1987)  with  Jean  Derome,  Robert  M.  Lepage,  and  RenLussier;  and  In 
memory  (1989)  with  Fred  Frith  which  recently  appeared  at  the  Brooklyn  Academy  of  Music's  1989  Next  Wave 
Festival. 

Returning  to  the  opening  quote,  there  is  some  truth  to  the  suggestion  that  "no  matter  what  kind  or  what  tempo  of 
music  you  select,  it  always  somehow  seems  to  work  with  the  visual  segment."  Harry  Smith's  Early  Abstractions 
(1939-62?)  contains  masterpieces  of  another  variety  of  cameraless  animation:  painting,  batiking,  and  stenciling 
on  clear  leader.  Although  Smith  is  rumored  to  have  meticulously  synchronized  several  of  the  Abstractions  to  Dizzy 
Gillespie  scores,  the  prints  in  distribution  feature  "Meet  the  Beatles"  played  straight  through  on  the  soundtrack. 
Last  summer  I  attended  a  screening  of  Smith's  films  in  Boulder,  CO  —  he  was  present  —  and  The  Beatles  were 
buried  under  ultra-lo-fidelity  recordings  of  the  Butthole  Surfers  and  local  garage  bands.  The  films  put  forward  their 
rhythms,  the  soundtracks  imposed  theirs;  clash  and  dissonance  prevailed  over  synergy.  While  it  is,  perhaps, 
instructive  to  throw  a  static  piece  of  celluloid  up  against  "Guacha  Guero,"  "All  My  Loving"  and  "The  Shah  Sleeps 
in  Lee  Harvey's  Grave,"  my  recollections  of  that  screening  are  those  of  contention  and  chaos. 

Potrero  Hill's  Bob  Ostertag,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  skilled  and  sensitive  improviser  and  composer  whose  gift  for 
adapting  electronic  studio  techniques  to  a  live  setting  is  analagous  to  Hebert's.  Ostertag  studied  electronic  music 
at  Oberlin,  where  he  met  and  eventually  toured  with  Anthony  Braxton.  Relocating  to  New  York  in  the  late  1970s, 
he  became  part  of  the  emerging  "downtown"  scene  (The  Knitting  Factory,  The  Kitchen,  etc.),  playing  and 
recording  with  Fred  Frith,  John  Zom,  Ned  Rothenberg,  and  Eugene  Chadboume.  After  Frith 's  Rift  Records  sent 
Ostertag  to  Nicaragua  to  record  indigenous  music,  he  and  his  wife  {Mother  Jones  editor,  Sara  Miles)  decided  to 
settle  there.  Ostertag  spent  most  of  the  1980s  away  from  music  as  a  political  activist  and  journalist.  He  and  his  wife 
returned  to  the  United  States  in  1988  to  begin  a  family,  and  Ostertag,  after  catching  up  with  the  digital  and  computer 
revolutions  in  music,  renewed  his  working  relationship  with  Frith.  He,  too,  performed  in  In  memory;  Keyboard 
Magazine  wrote,  "a  gleeful  savagery,  with  the  droll  wit  of  Satie's  piano  pieces,  the  breathless  silence  of  Japanese 
music,  the  collaged  clutter  of  Stockhausen's  shortwave  radio  suites,  and  the  political  bite  of  Weill/Brecht  songs." 

(E.S.T) 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 
Sunday,  February  25, 1990,  5  p.m. 

Kindering  (1987),  by  Stan  Brakhage;  i6mm,  color,  sound,  3  minutes. 

An  Architecture  of  Desire  (1988),  by  Sandra  Davis;  16mm,  color,  silent,  15  minutes. 

It  Scares  Me  To  Feel  This  Way  (1987),  by  Sallie  Fuchs;  16mm,  B«feW,  sound.  11  minutes. 

Misconception  (1977),  by  Marjorie  Keller;  16mm,  color,  sound,  43  minutes. 


13 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

YVONNE  RAINER'S  JOURNEYS  FROM  BERLIN/1971 
Thursday,  March  1, 1990 

Journeys  from  Berlin/1971  (1980),  by  Yvonne  Rainer;  16mm,  color/B&W,  sound.  125  minutes. 
"...My  own  involvement  with  narrative  forms  has  not  always  been  either  happy  or  whole  hearted,  rather  more  often 
a  dalliance  than  a  commitment.  The  reason  lies  panly  in  the  nature  of  the  predominating  form  of  the  narrative  film. 
The  tyranny  of  a  form  that  creates  the  expectation  of  a  continuous  answer  to  'what  will  happen  next?'  fanatically 
pursuing  an  inexorable  resolution  in  which  all  things  find  their  just  or  correct  placement  in  space  and  time — such 
a  tyranny  having  already  attained  its  epiphany  in  the  movies  (I  think  of  Gertrud,  Sense ,  Balthazar,  Contempt,  Lulu), 
such  a  form  has  inevitably  seemed  more  ripe  for  resistance,  or  at  least,  evasion,  than  for  emulation. 

"My  own  forays  into  this  territory  border  on  a  kind  of  banditry,  the  need  for  which  has  slowly  evolved  out  of  a 
dilemma  imposed  by  subject  matter.  The  dilemma  has  become  more  clarified  for  me  on  the  completion  of  each 
of  my  films,  presenting  itself  in  the  form  of  basic,  though  variously  oriented,  questions,  asked  —  and  not  always 
answered  —  by  each  of  these  films,  and  having,  I  would  hope,  wider  application  than  my  own  work. 

"Can  the  presentation  of  sexual  conflict  in  film,  or  the  presentation  of  the  experience  of  love  and  jealousy,  be 
revitalized  through  a  studied  placement  or  dislocation  of  cliche's  borrowed  from  soap  opera  and  melodrama?  Can 
specific  states  of  mind  and  emotion,  or  subtleties  of  social  interaction,  be  conveyed  in  film  without  being  attached, 
or  by  being  only  provisionally  attached,  to  particularities  of  place,  time,  person,  and  relationship?  And  can  such 
subject  matter  be  presented  without  being  'acted  out'  —  in  both  the  theatrical  and  psychoanalytic  senses  —  via 
simulated  dialogue  and  action?  Are  faces  such  as  belong  to  Katherine  Hepburn  and  Liv  UUman  the  only  vehicles 
for  grief  and  passion?  Can  a  film  achieve  comparable  impact  through  means  other  than  these  (faces)?  And  why 
in  the  world  would  one  ever  want  to  achieve  an  effect  comparable  to  that  wonder  of  art  and  nature,  the  smile  fading 
from  Hepburn's  face?...." 

-Yvonne  Rainer,  "A  Likely  Story,"  Idiolects  No.  6,  June  1978. 

''Is  Journeys  From  Berlin/1971  ...autobiography  or  fiction?  Is  it  dadaist  vaudeville  or  legitimate  filmic  research? 
Is  its  politics  a  set-up,  a  rigged  game,  mere  window  dressing  thinly  masking  a  formalist  adventurism?  Are  its 
armchair  terrorists  and  self-absorbed  narcissists  worthy  of  being  made  to  voice  serious  moral-political  concerns? 
Can  I  claim  redeeming  social  value  for  this  film?  Is  its  emphasis  on  the  individual  act  —  the  'attentat'  or  the  act 
of  suicide  —  in  relation  to  totalitarian  absolutism,  is  this  emphasis  an  admission  of  the  hopelessness  of  working 
for  social  change?  Are  its  humanist  yearnings  and  confessions  a  substitute  for  political  practice? 

"Without  delay  a  short  grammatical  intervention:  Wasn't  it  Gertrude  Stein  who  said  the  sentence  is  more 
important  than  the  paragraph?  Flitting  and  dipping  are  more  to  my  liking  than  soaring  and  arcing.  Stumbling  over 
the  hit-and-run  of  the  quote  and  the  snort  is  more  habitual  to  my  mode  of  thought  than  the  intricacies  of  binary 
logic.  The  latter  is  my  nemesis,  I  mean  amanuensis.  Inadvertent  puns  tripped  over  my  mother's  mouth  where 
you  would  have  expected  malapropisms.  A  condition  in  itself  not  totally  surprising,  for,  as  one  well-known  critic 
once  said  of  her  (mother),  'She  must  suffer  because  she  has  no  education.'  (Mercy,  pity,  compassion:  gimme, 
gimme.[...]) 

"Postscript  to  a  false  ending,  or  another  little  trailer:  The  phone  rings.  The  therapist  answers  it.  A  voice  like  Jimmy 
Durante  raps:  'My  daddy  called  me  Cookie.  I'm  really  a  good  girl. ..I'm  not  one  for  fussing.  Not  like  those  movie 
women:  Kate  Hepburn  facing  the  dawn  in  her  posh  pad  with  stiff  upper  chin.  Merle  Oberon  facing  the  Nazi  night 
with  hair  billowing  in  the  electric  breeze.  Roz  Russell  sockin'  the  words  'n'  the  whiskey  to  the  best  of  them.  Rita 
Hayworth  getting  shot  in  the  mirror  and  getting  her  man.  Jane  Wyman  smiling  through  tears.  I  never  faced  the 
music,  much  less  the  dawn;  I  stayed  in  bed.  I  never  socked  anything  to  anybody;  why  rock  the  boat?  I  never  set 
out  to  get  my  man,  even  in  the  mirror;  they  all  got  me.  I  never  smiled  through  my  tears;  I  choked  down  my  terror. 
I  never  had  to  face  the  Nazis,  much  less  their  night.  Not  for  me  that  succumbing  in  the  great  task  because  it  must 
be  done;  not  for  me  the  heart  beating  in  incomprehensible  joy;  not  for  me  the  vicissitudes  of  class  struggle;  not 
forme  the  uncertainties  of  political  thought....'" 

-Yvonne  Rainer.  "Beginning  with  Some  Advertisements  for  Criticisms  of  Myself.  Or  Drawing  the  Dog  You  May 
Want  to  Use  to  Bite  me  With,  and  Then  Going  On  to  Other  Matters,"  Millennium  Film  Journal  No.  6,  Spring  1980. 


14 


1990  Program  Notes 

STUART  SHERMAN'S  FOURTEENTH  SPECTACLE  PLUS  RECENT  FILMS 

Performance  Artist/Filmmaker/Sculptor  Stuart  Sherman  in  person  ' 

Co-sponsored  by  the  WaUerlMcBean  Gallery  (SFAI) 

Thursday,  March  8, 1990 

"I  used  to  think  that,  as  a  performer,  I  was  invisible,  or  that  most  of  me  could,  in  performance,  escape  unnoticed. 
Manipulating  small  objects  on  a  table  top  with  some  or  all  of  the  fingers  of  both  hands,  I  imagined  (no,  believed) 
that,  from  the  wrists  up,  I  was  irrelevant  to  the  performance  and  that  the  audience  would  register  their  implicit 
agreement  with  this  assumption  by  regarding  me  from  the  wrists  down. 

"But,  based  on  comment  after  comment  from  one  audience  member  after  another,  I  came  to  realize  and,  sadly,  to 
admit  (to  myself,  all  of  myself)  that  my  entire  corpus  had  indeed  been  espied  during  performance  —  had,  as  it  were, 
been  caught  in  the  act,  the  act  of  performing. 

"Nevertheless,  I  don't  know  of  a  better  place  for  me  to  hide  than  in  performance.  For  by  exhibiting  only  pre- 
determined acts  in  public,  I  absolutely  exclude  from  view  all  acts  of  an  unpredetermined  nature  —  all  unartistic, 
'natural'  acts.  On  stage,  I  am  not  natural,  therefore  not  real,  therefore  not  myself.  And  what  better  place  for  the 
self  to  hide  than  in  the  midst  of  its  own  illusion  of  non-existence?  This  is  what  I  tell  myself  in  order  to  give  myself 
the  courage  to  perform  in  public.  It  is  a  technical  strategy  to  get  myself  to  do  what  I  most  wish  not  to  do  —  expose 
myself  in  the  act  of  pretending  not  to  exist,  playing  the  part  of  a  man  with  no  part  to  play." 

—Stuart  Sherman,  "Stuart  Sherman's  Invisible  Theater,"  The  ACT  (1990) 

"...Sherman's  theater  is  a  homemade  world  which  he  presides  over  like  a  giant,  laying  down  his  rules  for  the  tiny 
objects  in  his  tabletop  domain.  Indeed,  he  looks  like  a  child  playing  with  his  toys,  but  the  ultimate  significance 
of  this  resemblance  is  not  childlike  innocence  but  rather  the  childlike  wish  to  be  God... 

"In  Sherman's  films,  his  concerns  with  the  magical  become  quite  pronounced.  Many  of  the  shorts  are  of  the  genre 
of  the  trick  film.  Objects  will  mysteriously  disappear  when  the  camera  tilts  away  from  them  for  a  moment.  Or  they 
will  unaccountably  migrate  from  one  shot  to  the  next.  For  instance,  in  one  image  we  see  a  portly  woman  dropping 
bathroom  towels  off  a  pier;  then  we  see  Sherman  standing  in  a  kitchen  with  the  wet  towels  draped  over  the  oven 
and  the  table. 

"Film  seems  to  be  a  natural  extension  of  Sherman's  performances,  because  editing  provides  an  almost 
inexhaustible  means  for  working  out  intricate  associative  patterns.  Also,  one  feels  that  Sherman  must  be  attracted 
to  the  medium  because  editing  amplifies  his  demiurgic  powers,  allowing  him  to  manipulate  not  only  mere  toys 
but  to  shuffle  and  reshuffle  pieces  of  live  action.  The  world  is  at  his  fingertips,  so  to  speak,  as  he  makes  his  magic, 
transforming  the  universal  unconscious  wish  to  be  God  into  art." 

—Noel  Carroll,  So/!o  7^61^5  (1978) 

Videotapes: 

Berlin  (West)/Andere  Richtungen. (1986);  3/4/"  videotape,  6  minutes. 
Camera:  Martin  Koerber. 

Gray  Matter  (1987);  3/4"  videotape,  1  minute. 
Camera:  Victor  Velt.  Production:  Real  Art  Ways. 

Video  Walk  (1987);  3/4"  videotape,  1  minute. 
Camera:  Victor  Velt.  Production:  Real  Art  Ways. 


15 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


Five  Flowers  (1979);  3/4"  videotape,  1  minute 
Camera:  Elizabeth  Chitty. 


Films: 

Skating  (1978);  16mm.  B&W,  silent ,  2  minutes. 

Camera/Editing  Ken  Ross  Cast  Power  Boothe,  Judy  Henry,  Stuart  Sherman 

Edwin  Denby  (1978);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  1  minute. 
Camera/Lighting/Editing:  Jacob  Burckhardt.  Cast:  Edwin  Denby 

Flying  (1979);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  1  minute. 

Camera:  Octavio  Molina,  Mark  Daniels.  Editing:  Mark  Daniels. 

Roller  Coaster /Reading  (1979);  16mm,  B&W  silent,  3  minutes. 
Camera/Lighting/Editing:  Mark  Daniels.  Cast:  Stuart  Sherman. 

Golf  Film  (1982);  16mm,  color,  sound,  1  minute. 

Camera:  Adam  Zucker,  Mark  Daniels.  Animation:  Joey  Ahlbum.  Editing:  Mark  Daniels. 

Voices:  Scotty  Snyder,  Bob  Fleischner,  George  Deem,  Julia  Heyward,  Stuart  Sherman. 

Scotty  and  Stuart  (1977);  16mm,  B&W/color,  silent,  2  minutes. 
Camera/Lighting/Editing:  Ken  Ross.  Cast:  Scotty  Snyder,  Stuart  Sherman. 

Hand/Water  (1979);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  2  minutes. 

Camera/Lighting:  Art  Feinberg.  Editing:  Mark  Daniels.  Cast:  Stuart  Sherman. 

Rock/String  (1980);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  1  minute. 

Camera:  John  Ligon,  Jacob  Burckhardt.  Editing:  Suzanne  Pillsbury.  Cast:  Stuart  Sherman. 

Fish  Story  (1983);  16mm,  color,  silent,  1  minute. 

Camera/Lighting:  Rob  Danielson,  Octavio  Molina.  Editing:  Mark  Daniels.  Diver:  Dick  Blau. 

Black-Eyed  Susan  (Portrait  of  an  Actress)  (1989);  16mm,  color,  sound,  9  minutes. 
Camera/Lighting:  Michael  Falasco.  Editing:  Suzanne  Pillsbury.  Cast:  Black-Eyed  Susan. 

Mr.  Ashley  Proposes  (Portrait  of  George)  (1985);  16mm.  B&W,  silent,  2  minutes. 
Camera/Lighting/Editing  Jeff  Preiss.  Cast:  George  Ashley. 

Eating  (1986);  16mm,  color,  sound,  6  minutes. 

Camera/Lighting:  Michael  Falasco.  Editing:  Dan  Walworth.  Cast:  Stuart  Sherman. 

Portrait  ofBenedicte  Pesle  (1984);  16mm,  B&W  sound.  1  minutes. 
Camera/Lighting/Editing:  Jennifer  Kotter.  Cast:  Stuart  Sherman. 

The  Discovery  of  the  Phonograph  (1986);  16mm,  color,  sound.  6  minutes. 
Camera/Lighting:  Michael  Falasco.  Editing:  Martin  Koerber.  Cast:  Stuart  Sherman. 


16 


1990  Program  Notes 


Performance: 

The  Fourteenth  Spectacle  — 

Song;  Smoking  May  be  Dangerous  to  Your  Health;  Nightmare;  Kiss  and  Make  Up 


All  works  written,  conceived  and  directed  by  Stuart  Sherman. 


RETHINKING  ETHNOGRAPHY 
Films  by  Trinh  T.  Minh-ha  and  Lateen  Jayamanne 


Thursday,  March  22, 1990 


Tbnight's  films  deal  with  problems  of  ethnography  and  representation  of  the  "Other."  Both  explicitly  challenge 
the  idea  of  documentary  omniscience. 


Reassemblage  (1982),  by  Tlinh  T.  Minh-ha;  16mm,  color,  sound,  40  minutes. 

"From  silences  to  silences,  the  fragile  essence  of  each  fragment  sparks  across  the  screen,  subsides  and  takes  flight. 

Almost  there  half-named." 

— Trinh  T  Minh-ha 

In  a  remote  village,  people  have  decided  to  get  together  to  discuss  certain  matters  of  capital  importance  to  the  well- 
being  of  their  community.  A  meeting  is  thus  fixed  for  a  definite  date  at  the  marketplace  at  nightfall.  On  the  day 
and  at  the  time  agreed,  each  member  eats,  washes  him/herself,  and  arrives  only  when  s/he  is  ready.  Things  proceed 
smoothly  as  usual,  and  the  discussion  does  not  have  to  begin  at  a  precise  time,  since  it  does  not  break  in  on  daily 
life  but  slips  naturally  into  it.  a  mother  continues  to  bathe  her  child  amidst  the  group;  two  men  go  on  playing  a  game 
they  have  started;  a  woman  finishes  braiding  another  woman 's  hair.  These  activities  do  not  prevent  their  listening 
or  intervening  when  necessary.  Never  does  one  open  discussion  by  coming  right  to  the  heart  of  the  matter.  For  the 
heart  of  the  matter  is  always  somewhere  else  than  where  it  is  supposed  to  be.  To  allow  it  to  emerge,  people  approach 
it  indirectly  by  letting  it  come  when  it  is  ready  to  come.  There  is  no  need  for  a  linear  progression  which  gives  the 
comforting  illusion  that  one  knows  where  one  goes." 

— Trinh,  Women,  Native,  Other 


A  Song  of  Ceylon  (1985);  by  Laleen  Jayamanne,  16mm,  color,  sound,  51  minutes. 

Laleen  Jayamanne's  film  makes  reference  to  Basil  Wright's  1935  Song  of  Ceylon,  with  the  significant  addition 

of  the  indefinite  article. 


17 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


"Male  artists  and  philosophers  have  gained  much  mileage  through  the  Tabulation  of  Women  as  Other.  Women 
working  in  processes  of  symbolization  can  learn  a  thing  or  two  from  this,  but  not,  however,  by  simply  reversing 
that  very  same  logic  of  opposition.  Rather,  what  is  sought  after  is  something  partial,  fragmented,  in  order  to  arouse 
interest... Those  women  who  may  have  various  complicated  investments  in  male  sexuality  may  profitably  redirect 
their  energies  from  only  parodying  sexist  behavior  in  men  to  something  that  produces  male  bodies  and  voices  in 
surprising  configuration..." 


— Nami  Schor  in  The  Female  Body  in  Western  Culture,  Susan  Suleiman,  ed. 

Quoted  by  Laleen  Jayamanne,Scree« 


(E.C.) 


AFROCENTRICITY:  DEFINING  OURSELVES 
Curated  and  Presented  by  Valerie  Soe 

Saturday,  March  24, 1990 


"Afrocentricity"  refers  to  a  distinct  African-American  perspective,  an  alternative  to  the  Eurocentric  tradition  of 
mainstream  American  culture  in  which  artists  such  as  William  Shakespeare,  Wolfgang  Mozart  and  James  Joyce 
are  masters  while  Alice  \\^lker.  Chuck  Berry  and  Spike  Lee  are  considered  "pop".  Afrocentricity  does  not  seek 
to  displace  the  aesthetic  canon,  however,  but  to  supplement  and  expand  it  to  include  work  by  makers  from  all 
backgrounds  and  heritages. 

Afrocentricity  is  an  outgrowth  of  concepts  first  formulated  in  the  civil  rights  and  black  power  movements  of  the 
1960s  in  which  the  African-American  community  began  advocating  political  and  social  empowerment  through 
control  of  economic  and  cultural  development.  These  videotapes  deal  with  concerns  and  issues  of  the  African- 
American  community  ranging  from  spiritual  rediscovery  to  racial  violence,  from  an  Afrocentric  perspective. 

*** 

Define  (1988),  by  O.  Funmilayo  Makarah;  3/4"  videotape,  4  minutes. 

A  brief  yet  forceful  statement  on  self-image  that  asserts  the  right  of  people  of  color  to  decide  their  own  identity 

and  destiny. 

Species:  In.danger.ed  (1989),  by  Portia  Cobb;  3/4"  videotape,  3  minutes. 

Found  footage,  music  and  interviews  interweave  in  this  videotape  exploring  the  plight  of  the  African-American 

male. 


BiackSteelinthe  Hourof  Chaos  (i9S9),hyPuh\icEnemy;\i(ieotapeAminules,dndNightoftheLivingBaseheads 
(1989),  by  Public  Enemy;  videotape,  5  minutes. 


18 


1990  Program  Notes 


Two  music  videos  with  rap  group  Public  Enemy,  the  "Black  Panthers"  of  hip-hop  music,  who  are  known  tor  their 
controversial  nationalist  stance.  These  videos,  respectively  dealing  with  blacks  in  the  prison  system  and  the  crack 
problem,  display  PE's  typical  intensity  and  showmanship  in  dealing  with  socially  relevant  subject  matter. 


Why  Can't  We  Be  Friends?  (1989),  Robert  Wheaton  with  Lo-Ki,  directed  by  Forest  Whitaker;  videotape,  5 

minutes. 

Taking  a  more  conciliatory,  unifying  stance  than  does  Public  Enemy,  this  video,  with  music  by  Los  Angeles  rap 

group  Lo-Ki,  questions  the  roots  of  gang  violence  and  black-on-black  crime.  Director  Forest  Whitaker  is  best 

known  for  his  portrayal  of  Charlie  Parker  in  Clint  Eastwood's  screen  bio  Bird. 


Torn  Between  Colors  (1988),  prod,  by  Paper  Tiger  Television;  videotape,  25  minutes. 
Paper  Tiger  Television  teamed  up  students  from  a  video  production  program  at  a  South  Bronx  high  school  to 
produce  this  video  examining  the  epidemic  of  racial  violence.  Particular  attention  is  paid  to  the  media's  role  in 
perpetuating  racist  stereotypes  which  exacerbate  racial  hostilities,  as  seen  in  coverage  of  two  events  last  summer 
—  the  Central  Park  "wilding"  rape  of  a  female  jogger  and  the  murder  of  a  black  youth  in  Bensonhurst. 


Water  Ritual  Ml:  An  Urban  Rite  of  Purification  (1988),  by  Barbara  McCullough;  3/4"  videotape,  10  minutes. 
A  humorous  and  fascinating  look  at  one  woman  finding  inspiration  in  her  African  roots  in  her  quest  for  spiritual 
growth  and  awareness. 


Self-Divination  (1988),  by  Ulysses  Jenkins;  3/4"  videotape,  12  minutes. 

Eloquent  and  arresting,  this  tape  looks  to  the  maker's  dual  heritage  in  the  African  and  Native  American  cultures, 

recognizing  the  power  of  those  legacies  to  revitalize  the  spirit. 


-Valerie  Soe 


THE  FILMS  OF  ROBERT  FRANK  PROGRAM  I: 
Autobiographical  Films 

Sunday,  March  25, 1990 

Anybody  doesnt  like  these  pitchers  dont  likepotry,  see  ?  Anybody  dont  Ukepotry  go  home  see  Television  shots  of 
big  hatted  cowboys  being  tolerated  by  kind  horses.  Robert  Frank,  Swiss,  unobtrusive,  nice,  with  that  little  camera 
that  he  raises  and  snaps  with  one  hand  he  sucked  a  sad  poem  right  out  of  America  onto  film,  taking  rank  among 
the  tragic  poets  of  the  world.  To  Robert  Frank  I  now  give  this  message:  You  got  eyes. 

— Jack  Kerouac  in  the  "Introduction"  to  The  Americans  (1958) 

1 960.  A  decision:  I  put  my  Leica  in  a  cupboard.  Enough  of  lying  in  wait,  pursuing,  sometimes  catching  the  essence 
of  the  black  and  the  white,  the  knowledge  of  where  God  is.  I  makefdms.  Now  I  speak  to  the  people  who  move  in 
my  viewfinder.  Not  simple  and  not  especially  successful. 

—Robert  Frank  in  Robert  Frank  ( 1985) 


19 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


The  films  I  have  made  are  the  map  of  my  journey  through  all  this...  living.  It  starts  out  as  "scrap  book  footage.  " 
There  is  no  script,  there  is  plenty  of  intuition.  It  gets  confusing  to  piece  together  these  moments  of  rehearsed 
banalities,  embarrassed  documentation,  fear  of  telling  the  truth  and  somewhere  the  fearful  truth  seems  to 
endure.  I  want  you  to  see  the  shadow  of  life  and  death  flickering  on  that  screen.  June  asks  me:  Why  do  you  take 
these  pictures?  Because  I  am  alive ... 

—Robert  Frank  (1980)  in  Robert  Frank:  New  York  to  Nova  Scotia  (1986) 

Robert  Frank  was  bom  on  November  9,  1924,  in  Zurich,  Switzerland.  In  1941  and  1942.  he  apprenticed  to 
photographer  H.  Segesser,  remaining  in  Switzerland  until  1947  working  for  various  photographic  studios.  He 
came  to  the  United  States  in  March,  1947,  and  until  1958  earned  a  living  as  a  commercial  photographer  for 
Harper's  Bazaar,  Life,  The  New  York  Times,  Fortune,  Look,  Esquire,  Glamour,  and  Advertising  Age .  In  the 
1950s,  Frank's  work  began  to  appear  in  galleries  and  books,  and  by  1955  his  reputation  had  developed  to  the 
point  where  he  became  the  first  European  to  be  awarded  a  Guggenheim  Fellowship.  In  1955  and  1956,  Frank 
traveled  across  the  United  States  in  a  old  Ford,  taking  the  photographs  that  were  to  be  compiled  into  his  1958 
book.  The  Americans . 

I  think  that  trip  was  almost  pure  intuition  —  I  just  kept  on  photographing.  I  kept  on  looking.  I  think  that  at  that 
time  I  was  compassionate.  I  had  a  feeling  of  compassion  for  the  people  on  the  street.  That  was  the  main  meat 
of  the  book  —  that  gave  me  the  push  —  that  made  me  work  so  hard  until  I  knew  I  had  something,  but  I  didn  't 
even  know  I  had  America. 

— Robert  Frank  in  an  interview  with  Dennis  Wheeler,  Criteria  (1977) 

Although  Frank's  notoriety  as  a  still  photographer  was  sealed  with  the  release  of  The  Americans,  it  came  at  the 
end  of  that  career.  In  1958,  he  declared  a  series  of  photographs  taken  from  the  window  of  the  42nd  Street  bus 
to  be  his  final  photographic  project. 

In  1959,  his  career  as  a  filmmaker  commenced  with  Pull  My  Daisy,  a  collaboration  with  Alfred  Leslie.  The  film 
was  loosely  based  on  the  third  act  of  Jack  Kerouac's  play,  The  Beat  Generation,  which  in  turn  was  loosely  based 
on  an  incident  that  took  place  at  On  The  Road  hero  Neal  Cassady's  home  in  Los  Gatos.  A  tea-sipping  bishop, 
accompanied  by  his  mother  and  sister,  innocently  pays  a  visit  to  the  central  characters'  loft/home.  There  he  is 
greeted  by  poets  and  musicians  who  drink,  get  high,  and  question  him  on  the  holiness  of  baseball  and  girls  in 
tight  skirts,  the  American  flag  and  children's  toys.  The  film  features  Kerouac's  spontaneous  narration  and  jazz 
and  baroque  compositions  by  David  Amram  on  the  soundtrack.  It  stars  Amram,  poets  Allen  Ginsberg,  Gregory 
Corso,  and  Peter  Orlovsky,  painters  Larry  Rivers  and  Alice  Neel.  and  Richard  Bellamy,  Delphine  Seyrig,  and 
Frank's  son  Pablo.  The  film,  which  screened  at  the  Exploratorium  yesterday  in  conjunction  with  their  Capturing 
Light  exhibit,  is,  along  with  Christopher  Maclaine's  The  End  (1953),  one  of  the  mastenvorks  of  Beat  period  film. 

Through  the  intervening  decades,  film  for  Robert  Frank  has  become  more  of  a  vehicle  for  personal  exploration 
than  for  storytelling.  Interestingly,  his  experiences  with  filmmaking  have  led  him  back  to  still  photography,  with 
recent  nontraditional  uses  of  serial  imagery  and  words  scratched  into  Polaroids. 


Conversations  in  Vermont  (1969);  16mm,  B&W,  sound  26  minutes.  Director,  Producer,  Writer,  Sound,  Editor: 
Robert  Frank.  Cinematographer:  Ralph  Gibson.  With  Andrea,  Mary,  Pablo,  and  Robert  Frank,  and  others. 

Pablo  and  Andrea  go  to  school  in  Vermont.  I  went  there  to  confront  them  and  myself  with  camera  and 
microphone  and  photos  of  the  past.  A  tense  and  painful  experience  for  all  three  of  us. 

— Robert  Frank  in  The  Lines  of  My  Hand  (1989) 


20 


1990  Program  Notes 


Throughout  Conversations  in  Vermont,  we  are  reminded  of  Robert  Frank's  career  as  a  still  photographer  and 
filmmaker,  and  the  effects  of  his  profession  on  his  family.  Contemporary  footage  of  his  son  Pablo,  then  18, 
and  daughter  Andrea,  aged  15,  at  their  communal  school  in  Vermont  is  juxtaposed  with  contact  sheets  and 
slides  of  Frank's  work  from  the  1950s.  Many  of  the  photographs  are  of  his  children  and  ex-wife  Mary; 
sometimes  they  are  displayed  in  his  Bowery  loft,  other  times  he  and  the  children  stretch  out  on  the  grass  and 
sort  through  them.  Towards  the  end  of  the  film,  Frank  mixes  in  footage  from  his  first  experiments  in  16mm 
filmmaking:  Provincetown  beach  scenes  of  Mary  being  courted  by  a  variety  of  friends  and  Neptune  emerging 
from  the  sea.  The  effect  is  only  occasionally  nostalgic. 

Frank  is  obsessed  with  his  perception  of  his  mistakes  as  a  parent:  that  he  did  not  spend  enough  time  with  his 
children,  that  they  were  not  brought  up  in  a  "normal"  environment,  that  they  learned  to  depend  on  each  other 
out  of  necessity,  that  they  do  not  remember  his  taking  many  of  the  photographs  in  which  they  appear.  As 
interviewer,  Frank  alternates  between  gentle  father  and  provocateur.  The  effects  on  his  son,  Pablo,  are  chilling; 
the  distance  between  father  and  son  being  greater  than  that  between  father  and  daughter.  Yet  the  pastoral  scenes 
of  schoolmates  sitting  in  the  sun  and  singing  choral  music  indoors  seem  relatively  unaffected  by  the  intrusion 
of  the  camera  and  sound  crew  roaming  the  buildings  and  fields.  One  leaves  the  film  with  the  hope  that  the 
community  provided  by  the  school  will  help  Andrea  and  Pablo  to  form  lives  free  of  their  emotional  baggage. 

Life  Dances  On...(i980);  16mm,  B«feW/color,  30  minutes.  Director,  Producer:  Robert  Frank.  Cinematography 
and  sound:  Robert  Frank,  Gary  Hill,  Danny  Seymour.  Editor:  Gary  Hill.  With  Pablo  Frank,  Billy,  Marty 
Greenbaum,  Sandy  Strawbridge,  June  Leaf,  Finley  Fryer,  and  others. 

Yeah,  it  was  sort  of  dedicated  to  them  [Andrea  Frank  and  Danny  Seymour  J.  But  also  the  film  took  three 
characters  then  —  my  son  Pablo,  who  lived  in  Vermont  at  that  time,  and  Marty  Greenbaum,  who  was  an  old 
friend  struggling  to  be  an  artist  and  Billy,  a  bum  I  got  to  know  on  the  street.  And  I  felt  that  each  one  of  these 
people  was  walking  on  the  edge.  And  that's  what  made  the  film.  And  it  had  these  references  to  my  daughter, 
and  I  was  always  in  it.  It  was  always  me  who  forced  these  people  to  talk,  who  made  them  talk  about  themselves 
or  expose  themselves  in  a  way,  I  didn  't  hide  that ...  brutality  that  pushes  a  filmmaker  to  get  something  out  of 
people... 

— Robert  Frank  in  an  interview  with  Marlaine  Glicksman,  Film  Comment  (1988) 

Life  Dances  On ...  opens  with  the  dedication  "in  memory  of  my  daughter  Andrea  1954-1974"  —  followed  by 
unused  footage  from  Conversations  in  Vermont  —  "and  for  my  friend  Danny  Seymour  1945-?"  supplemented 
with  footage  I  suspect  is  from  the  rarely  screened  Rolling  Stones  film,  Cocksucker  Blues  (1972).  Although  the 
film  is  ostensibly  for  these  two  intimates  of  Frank,  it  is  not  primarily  a  film  about  them.  Rather,  it  cycles 
through  footage  of  Frank's  son  Pablo,  then  29,  a  Bowery  chum  named  Billy,  and  Marty  Greenbaum.  Only 
towards  the  end  does  the  film  turn  towards  Danny  Seymour  and  Andrea  Frank. 

In  the  footage  with  Pablo  we  witness  his  resentment  at  the  continual  presence  of  Frank's  camera,  and  his 
fascination  with  the  unexplained:  he  wants  to  investigate  Mars  and  UFOs,  he  talks  of  volcanos  and  rainbows, 
and  he  refers  us  to  biblical  scripture  for  explanation.  Although  he  is  lucid  and  charming  with  Sandy  Strawbridge 
we  sense  that  he  is  indeed  very  close  to  the  edge. 

Billy,  a  grinning  toothless  hulk,  is  tormented  by  delusions  of  his  fame — "Marcus  Welby,  M.D."  plots  are  based 
on  his  life  —  and  paranoia  —  Ralph  Kramden  and  others  read  his  mind  from  thousands  of  miles  away.  In  the 
most  remarkable  single  long  take  in  the  film,  Billy  saunters  down  a  lower  East  Side  street,  touching  objects 
to  make  contact;  in  the  background,  a  man  tying  his  shoe  falls  off  a  lamppost,  a  one-legged  man  heads  in  the 
opposite  direction  on  crutches,  another  man  angered  the  intrusion  furiously  but  ineffectually  hurls  street 
garbage  at  the  camera.  These  moments  —  random  and  unrehearsed  —  are  among  the  grittiest  and  truest  in 
Frank's  filmmaking.  Billy  eventually  leaves  the  film,  betrayed  by  Frank,  his  camera  another  mindreader. 

Marty  Greenbaum,  the  third  central  character,  is  the  angriest.  He  gets  into  meaningless  street  arguments  with 
strangers,  and  hurls  a  telephone  receiver  at  the  filmmaker;  yet  he,  too,  is  capable  of  a  fleeting  happiness,  as  we 


21 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


learn  in  a  final  scene  where  he  plays  drums.  Around  these  three  central  characters,  Frank  weaves  footage  of  his 
wife  June,  his  meeting  with  an  excursion  of  photographers,  only  one  of  whom  has  heard  of  him,  a  color  sequence 
where  a  blind  man  is  taught  to  film  the  wind,  and  the  exquisitely  beautiful  and  haunting  sequences  that  pay  tribute 
to  his  daughter  Andrea  and  friend  Danny.  Life  Dances  On  shows  Frank  at  the  height  of  his  intuitive  powers  as  a 
filmmaker. 


Home  Improvements  (1985);  1/2"  video,  29  minutes  Director,  Producer,  Cinematographer.  Sound:  Robert  Frank. 
Editors:  Michael  Bianchi  and  Sam  Edwards.  With  Robert  and  Pablo  Frank,  June  Leaf,  and  others. 

So  Robert  Frank's  dear  son  Pablo  grown  up,  workingwith  strange  synthetic  Chemical  iridescent  photoprints  later 
had  cancer,  operation,  struck  a  blow  by  life,  years  in  help  hospitals,  later  Bronx  State  across  a  huge  muddy  field 
from  an  elevated  Subway  Stop,  later  recovery.  Some  kind  of  reverse  Kaddish  come  true ... 

— Allen  Ginsberg  in  Robert  Frank:  New  York  to  Nova  Scotia  ( 1986) 

Home  Improvements  is  Robert  Frank's  only  videotape  to  date.  Recorded  with  a  portapak,  it  is  his  most  recent  — 
and  most  disturbing  —  examination  of  family.  His  birthday  celebration  is  contrasted  with  June's  description  of 
a  new  mother:  "now  she's  got  something  she's  finally  going  to  do  right,"  June's  failing  health  is  revealed  over  an 
empty  notepad,  later  soiled  while  Frank  recites:  "fight ...  wait ...  win  ...  lose  ...  survive  ...  okay  ...  listen  again." 
Though  his  wife's  eventual  hospitalization  ends  successfully,  Pablo  has  been  committed  to  the  Bronx  Psychiatric 
Treatment  Center  for  eating  glass  and  rocks.  Frank  again:  "Here  are  people  flying  away,  here  are  people  traveling; 
here  people  are  being  locked  up."  Later,  Frank  asks  a  friend  to  drill  holes  through  stacks  of  his  photographs  for 
want  of  a  spike  to  drive  through  them;  yet  he  continues  to  record  life,  focusing  on  the  this-ness  of  taking  out  the 
garbage  on  a  cold  winter  morning  in  Mabou,  Nova  Scotia.  The  video  ends  flipping  through  local  television  news: 
a  demonstration  to  protect  children  from  an  unspecified  threat  and  a  revival  of  gospel  fiddling. 


Partial  Filmography 

Pull  My  Daisy  (1959);  35mm,  28  minutes 

The  Sin  of  Jesus  (1961);  35mm,  40  minutes 

OK  End  Here  (1963);  35mm,  30  minutes 

Me  and  My  Brother  (1965-68);  35mm,  91  minutes 

Conversations  in  Vermont  (1969);  16mm,  26  minutes 

Life-raft  Earth  (1969);  16mm,  37  minutes 

About  me  -  a  Musical  (1971);  16mm,  35  minutes 

Cocksucker  Blues  (1972);  16mm,  90  minutes 

Keep  Busy  (1975);  16mm,  38  minutes 

Life  Dances  On ...  (1980);  16mm,  30  minutes 

Energy  and  How  to  Get  It  (1981);  16mm,  28  minutes 

This  Song  for  Jack  (1983);  16mm,  30  minutes 

Home  Improvements  (1985);  1/2  inch  video,  29  minutes 

(There  Ain't  No)  Candy  Mountain  (1987);  35mm,  91  minutes 

I'm  always  doing  the  same  images.  I'm  always  looking  outside,  trying  to  look  inside,  trying  to  tell  something  that 's 
true.  But  maybe  nothing  is  really  true  except  what's  out  there.  And  what's  out  there  is  always  different. 

— Robert  Frank  in  Home  Improvements 

(E.S.T.) 


22 


1990  Program  Notes 


RECENT  PORTRAITS  AND  LANDSCAPES  BY  PETER  HUTTON 
Filmmaker  Peter  Hutton  in  person 

Thursday,  March  29, 1990 


New  York  Portrait:  Chapter  One  (1978-79);  16mm,  B«&W  silent,  16  minutes. 
New  York  Parti-ait:  Chapter  7ko  (1980-81);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  16  minutes. 
New  York  Portrait:  Chapter  Three  (1990);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  15  minute. 
Landscape  Portrait  Two  (In  Titian's  Goblet)  (1990);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  15  minutes. 

"Hutton  is  a  person  whose  perception  of  the  world  is  inescapably  aesthetic.  Any  view,  simple  or  complex,  springs 
to  life  through  its  qualities  of  light,  motion  and  coherence.  For  him  there  is  neither  ordinary  nor  extraordinary,  and 
this  puts  him  in  the  tradition  of  the  earliest  cinema  ..." 

— Mitch  Tuchman,  Los  Angeles  Times 


"Peter  Hutton  took  up  a  camera  after  the  American  avant-garde  explosion  of  the  sixties  had  neariy  spent  its  force. 
His  works  develop  apart  from  the  methods  associated  with  the  structuralist  filmmakers,  turning  back  to  the 
personal  interiority  more  typical  of  the  fifties  and  eariy  sixties....Photographed  in  black  and  white  and  projected 
without  sound,  [Hutton 's]  films  are  a  diary  evolving  from  spontaneous  glimpses  of  experience  to  more  carefully 
crafted  impressions  of  landscape  and  mood.  Hutton 's  non-narrative  cinema  dismisses  linear  temporality  for  an 
eternal  present  exhibiting  a  formal  growth  and  thematic  unity  that  allows  one  to  chart  the  artist's  progress  through 
the  seventies.  In  shifting  the  locale  of  his  films  from  west  to  east,  Hutton  testifies  to  the  California-New  York 
connection,  but  his  spirit  sounds  allegiance  to  the  rustic  splendor  of  the  Pacific  coast.  His  films  resist  the  cool, 
formal  ironies  of  the  Manhattan  school  to  cultivate  an  introspective  sensibility  working  toward  a  rapport  with  the 
forces  of  nature.... 

"IniVew  York  Portrait:  Chapter  One  ...  the  landscape  has  a  majesty  that  serves  to  reflect  the  meditative  interiority 
of  the  artist  independent  of  any  human  presence.  Whereas  the  California  [of  Hutton's  eariy  films]  was  shaded  by 
the  lush  foliage  of  a  seemingly  endless  July,  New  York  is  framed  in  the  dark  nights  of  a  lonely  winter.  The  pulse 
of  street  life  finds  no  role  in  New  York  Portrait;  the  dense  metropolitan  population  and  imposing  urban  locale 
disappear  before  Hutton's  concern  for  the  primal  force  of  a  universal  presence.  With  an  eye  for  the  ordinary  Hutton 
can  point  his  camera  toward  the  clouds  finding  flocks  of  birds,  or  turn  back  to  the  simple  objects  around  his 
apartment  struggling  to  elicit  a  personal  intuition  from  their  presence.  One  might  expect  the  rainy  winter  landscape 
to  evoke  a  nightmare  of  urban  decay  and  human  isolation  reminiscent  of  Brakhage  's  Reflections  on  Black  (1955), 
but  Hutton  finds  a  harmonious,  if  at  times  melancholy,  rapport  with  the  natural  elements  that  retain  their  grace  in 
spite  of  the  city's  artificial  environment.  The  city  becomes  a  ghost  town  that  the  filmmaker  transforms  into  a 
vehicle  reflecting  his  personal  mood.  The  last  shot  looks  across  a  Brooklyn  beach  toward  the  skyline  of  Coney 
Island's  amusement  park.  A  January  wind  shifts  sand  across  the  abandoned  shore,  and  the  roller  coaster  and  ferris 
wheel  sit  deserted  and  still  as  if  they  will  never  move  again.  The  quiet  park  evokes  the  once  frantic  city  smothered 
by  winter.  Nature  continues  its  eternal  cycles  impervious  to  the  presence  of  man,  the  aspirations  of  society,  or  the 
decay  of  the  metropolis." 

— Leger  Grindon.  Millennium  Film  Journal,  nos.  4/5,  Summer/Fall,  1979 


23 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


MAKING  IS  CHOOSING...,  A  SUPERS  FEATURE  BY  WILLIE  VARELA 
Filmmaker  Willie  Varela  in  person 

Saturday,  March  31, 1990 


Making  is  Choosing:  A  Fragmented  Life:  A  Broken  Line:  A  Series  of  Observations  (1989),  by  Willie  Varela; 
Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  104  minutes. 

The  creation  of  Super-Smm  (and  before  it,  Regular-Smm)  was  predicated  on  its  viability  as  a  home-movie  format: 
it  was  cheaper  and  less  technically  cumbersome  than  16mm,  and  its  smaller  image  size  was  analogous  to  the 
domesticity  of  home  movies  which  localized  experience  as  opposed  to  the  worldlier  project  of  Hollywood  movies 
in  35mm  or  the  industrial  and  educational  usages  of  the  16mm  format. 

One  of  the  many  cultural  shifts  concurrent  with  the  Reagan  80s  was  the  displacement  of  Super-8mm  as  the  format 
of  choice  for  making  home  movies.  The  increasing  affordability  of  video  cameras,  commingled  with  video's  sense 
of  instant  gratification  and  its  use  of  that  domestic  mainstay,  the  television  set,  for  its  "projection"  have  all  served 
to  render  Super-8mm  an  endangered  species. 

Yet  Super-Smm  remains  alive  and  kicking  as  a  format  for  personal  filmmaking,  and  for  filmmaker  Willie  Varela, 
a  format  still  viable  for  portraying  one 's  home  life.  Yet,  Making  is  Choosing...  is  not  an  innocent  or  naive  "return" 
to  an  outmoded  or  outdated  practice:  it  is  an  ironic  attempt  to  come  to  terms  with  its  own  jaded  existence  as  an 
artifact  of  the  Reagan  80's.  Varela's  use  of  Super-Smm  and  sound  is  an  idealistic  choice,  but  one  which  co-exists 
with  and  informs  what  comes  across  as  an  overwhelming  sense  of  inefficacy. 

Making  is  Choosing...  is  ostensibly  a  diaristic  portrait  of  six  years  of  Varela's  life,  a  time  marked  by  the  birth  of 
a  daughter  to  he  and  his  wife,  and  a  move  of  the  Varela  home  from  San  Francisco  to  El  Paso,  Texas.  The  film  is 
not  a  linear  diary  but  rather  is  made  up  of  impressionistic  observations  organized  in  a  way  that  testifies  to  the 
"fragmented  life"  of  the  film's  full  title.  Separated  by  crude  "home-made"  titles  which  are  at  turns  descriptive 
("Colma,  CA"),  cryptic  ("FDIC  Insured")  or  bitterly  ironic  ("The  Merry  Month  of  May"),  the  sections  of  Making 
isChoosing...  reflect  a  struggle  for  completeness  in  life  which  inevitably  results  in  the  antithesis  of  such,  "a  broken 
line." 

Much  of  the  struggle  of  the  film  seems  to  revolve  around  a  tension  between  representing  everyday  familial  life  such 
as  Varela's  wife's  pregnancy,  the  birth  of  their  daughter,  and  family  trips  on  one  hand,  and  a  more  subjective,  less 
representational  view  of  the  filmmaker's  life  on  the  other,  the  latter  by  necessity  an  abstracted  vision  more 
concerned  with  ephemeral  imagery  and  light  and  shadow.  Both  of  these  modes  of  expression  are  played  against 
what  emerges  as  the  center  of  Varela 's  domestic  life,  the  television,  which  pervades  the  film  with  its  own  set  of  ways 
of  representing  and  inflltrating  domestic  life. 

Snake  handlers.  New  Age  hucksters,  professional  wrestlers,  and  of  course,  Ronald  Reagan — these  mix  with  images 
from  both  commercial  and  "art"  films  (Rollerball,  Godard'sAlphaville,  Herzog's  Fitzcarraldo)  to  form  a  melange 
of  scanlines  and  video  static  that  exudes  an  inescapable  malaise.  The  television  set  is  constantly  being  re-framed 
by  Varela's  Super-Smm  camera  so  that  its  imagery  does  not  function  as  a  body  of  reference  points  on  a  map  of 
popular  culture  that  beg  to  be  appropriated  of  subverted,  but  rather  as  a  solid  entity  which  must  be  grappled  with 
whole.  Varela's  re-framing  is  an  attempt  to  wrest  control  at  the  same  time  as  it  documents  TV's  own  domineering 
frame. 

To  label  Making  is  Choosing...  a  "feature"  is  part  of  the  film's  ironic  status  as  a  personal  statement.  With 
connotations  of  "Hollywood,"  "narrative"  or  "first-run,"  the  term  "feature"  carries  with  it  an  economic  and  cultural 
base  at  odds  with  the  film's  identity  as  a  document  originating  from  the  hearth/heart  of  home  life.  However,  Varela 
is  not  so  much  concerned  with  his  film's  place  vis-a-vis  dominant  cinema  as  he  is  with  his  own  place  as  father  and 
filmmaker  within  a  home  life  that  is  constantly  being  exteriorized  and  enlarged,  but  not  fulfilled,  by  the  outside 
world. 

(K.E.) 


24 


1990  Program  Notes 


THE  FILMS  OF  ROBERT  FRANK  PROGRAM  11: 
Narrative  Digressions 

Sunday,April  1,1990 

This  Song  for  You,  Jack  (1983);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  30  minutes.  Director,  producer,  cinematographer:  Robert 
Frank.  Sound:  Jay  Markel.  Editor:  Sam  Edwards.  With  David  Amram,  William  Burroughs,  Carolyn  Cassady, 
Gregory  Corso,  Allen  Ginsberg,  Abbie  Hoffman,  John  Clelion  Holmes,  Herbert  Huncke,  Edie  Parker  Kerouac, 
Ken  Kesey,  Michael  McClure,  Peter  Orlovsky,  Gary  Snyder,  Carl  Solomon,  Anne  Waldman,  and  others. 

/  met  Jack  Kerouac  on  a  hot  summer  night  —  a  party  in  New  York  City.  We  sat  down  on  the  side  walk,  I  showed 
Jack  the  photographs  for  The  Americans.  He  said,  'Sure  I  can  write  something  about  these  pictures ..." 

— Robert  Frank  in  The  Lines  on  My  Hand 

. . .  what  poems  can  be  written  about  this  book  of  pictures  some  day  by  some  young  new  writer  high  by  candlelight 
bendingover  themdescribingevery  gray  mysterious  detail,  the  gray  film  that  caught  the  actual  pink  juice  of  human 
kind.  Whether  'tis  the  milk  of  humankind-ness,  of  human-kindness,  Shakespeare  meant,  makes  no  difference  when 
you  look  at  these  pictures.  Better  than  a  show. 

— Jack  Kerouac  in  the  "Introduction"  to  The  Americans  (1958) 

"This  Song  for  Jack  is  based  on  footage  Robert  Frank  shot  at  'On  the  Road:  The  Jack  Kerouac  Conference,'  held 
at  the  Naropa  Institute,  Boulder,  Colorado,  from  July  23  to  August  1,  1982.  The  film  is  dedicated  to  Kerouac, 
Frank's  late  friend  and  collaborator  on  Pull  My  Daisy  and  The  Americans." 

— program  notes  for  In  the  Margins  of  Fiction:  the  Films  of  Robert  Frank 

About  Me:  A  Musical  (1971);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  35  minutes.  Director,  producer,  writer,  editor:  Robert  Frank. 
Cinematography:  Danny  Seymour.  Sound:  Robert  McNamara.  With  Lynn  Reiner,  Jaime  deCarlo  Lotts,  Robert 
Schlee,  Sheila  Pavlo,  Bill  Hart,  Vera  Cochran,  Sidney  Kaplan,  June  Leaf,  Allen  Ginsberg,  Hugh  Romney  (Wavey 
Gravy),  Danny  Lyon,  and  others. 

"About  Me:  A  Musical  was  planned  as  cinematic  study  of  indigenous  American  music.  Robert  Frank  decided 
instead  to  make  the  film  about  himself.  An  actress  (Lynn  Reiner)  plays  Frank.  He  examines  his  life  symbolically, 
questioning  the  personal  toll  his  work  has  taken  and  the  value  of  his  contribution  as  a  photographer.  His  search 
for  freedom  is  represented  by  the  music.  The  film  cuts  back  and  forth  between  theatrical  and  documentary  scenes 
that  show  different  forms  of  music  making:  Allen  Ginsberg  rocking  at  the  piano,  the  Hope  Freaks  wailing  into  a 
New  Mexico  sunrise,  a  whistle  player  on  a  New  York  street  comer,  a  gospel  choir  in  a  Texas  prison.  The  musical 
sequences  were  shot  in  expository  close-up  with  a  hand-held  camera.  In  contrast,  the  scenes  with  actors  were 
carefully  laid  out  and  scripted  with  a  confessional  dialogue." 

— program  notes  for  In  the  Margins  of  Fiction:  the  Films  of  Robert  Frank 

Keep  Busy  (1975);  16mm.  B&W,  sound,  38  minutes. 

1 975. 1  travel  in  California.  I  teach.  June  and  I  get  married  and  go  back  to  the  icy  sea.  It 's  nice  to  be  alive,  isn  't 
it  ?  I  make  a  film.  People  who  live,  who  barely  survive,  in  huts  on  an  island.  Winter  comes.  The  man  who  takes  care 
of  the  lighthouse  by  himself  at  the  top  of  the  island  talks  to  me  about  the  weather  and  tells  me  what  it  was  like 
before ... 

—Robert  Frank  in  Robert  Frank  ( 1985) 


25 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


Keep  Busy,  written  by  Rudy  Wurlitzer  and  completed  in  1975,  is  an  improvised  story  about  a  group  of  islanders 
who  are  played  by  friends  and  neighbors  of  Frank  and  Wurlitzer  in  Mabou.  It  is  one  of  the  most  abstract  films  Frank 
has  made  ...  The  islanders  are  shown  to  be  obsessed  with  the  dailiness  of  their  lives  and  the  cycles  of  nature. 
Therefore  they  are  subjugated  by  the  lighthouse  keeper  and  his  messenger,  who  have  access  to  the  only  radio, 
giving  them  control  of  all  the  news.  "One  of  the  interesting  things  about  the  film  is  that  we  used  actors  and  real 
people,  "  says  Wurlitzer.  "  What  interested  me  was  questioning  where  the  boundaries  of  fiction  lie  and  where  the 
margins  are,  how  to  use  reality  on  one  level  and  fictional  approach  on  the  other.  They  mutated  where  you  use  them 
together. " 

— Philip  Brookman  in  Robert  Frank:  From  New  York  to  Nova  Scotia  (1986) 

To  make  films: 

In  making  films  I  continue  to  look  around  me;  but  I  am  no  longer  the  solitary  observer,  turning  away  after  the  click 
of  the  shutter  Instead  I'm  trying  to  recapture  what  I  saw,  what  I  heard  and  what  I  feel.  What  I  know!  There  is  no, 
"decisive  moment.  "  It's  got  to  be  created.  I've  got  to  do  everything  to  make  it  happen  in  front  of  the  lens: 


searching...     explaining... 


digging... 

watching... 


judging...  erasing... 
pretending...  distorting.. 


...lying...  judging...    recording... 

crying...   singing.. 


exhorting...   cutting... 

whispering...  hoping... 
talking...  hoping...  directing... 
shouting...   hoping...   helping... 

trying...   trying...    trying... 

running...  telling  a  truth... 
running...  crawling...  working  towards  the  truth. 

what  a  mess  until  it  is  done! 


-Robert  Frank  in  Robert  Frank 


(E.S.T.) 


FILMS  BY  JIM  CAMPBELL  AND  JAN  MILLSAPPS 
Both  filmmakers  in  person 


Thursday,  April  5, 1990 


Letter  to  a  Suicide  (1985),  by  Jim  Campbell;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  29  minutes. 

The  letter  addresses  the  audience  in  place  of  the  filmmaker's  brother,  who  killed  himself  thirteen  years  after  being 

diagnosed  schizophrenic.  The  filmmaker  and  his  parents  speak  directly  from  video  monitors  set  varyingly  in  a 


26 


1990  Program  Notes 


sparsely  furnished  room  or  in  darkness.  The  viewer  can  take  on  a  schizophrenic  position  through  being 
simultaneously  spoken  to  as  the  beloved  dead  man,  identifying  emotionally  with  the  family  and  their  grief,  and 
being  conscious  of  the  originality  and  formal  strength  of  the  film  image  created  out  of  that  grief. 

*** 

Folly  Beach  Journal  (1982),  by  Jan  Millsapps;  16mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 

"Folly  Beach  is  washing  away  and  no  one  can  stop  it.  I  didn't  try  but  some  people  did.  When  I  first  arrived,  a  week 
after  a  hurricane,  there  were  huge  bulldozers  working  night  and  day,  whenever  low  tide  came,  to  scoop  sand  from 
the  lower  beach  and  stack  it  into  dunes.  It  didn't  help."  (From  the  soundtrack  of  the  film.) 

The  combination  of  animation  and  live  action  in  Folly  Beach  Journal  revolves  around  the  meeting  points  of  reality, 
the  physical  presence  of  the  ocean,  and  subjectivity,  the  powerful  meanings  we  apply  to  the  ocean,  both 
individually  and  collectively.  The  filmmaker  says  that  she  eventually  came  to  trust  the  beach  to  hold  out  as  long 
as  she  needed  it  to,  emphasizing  the  mark  the  beach  has  left  in  her  mind.  She  counterpoints  this  with  images  of 
marks  people  have  made  on,  and  of,  the  beach. 


Maternal  Life  (1989),  by  Jan  Millsapps;  16mm,  color,  sound,  30  minutes. 

Millsapps'  newest  film  is  an  examination  of  the  "motherhood  issue"  that  gives  equal  voice  to  the  irrational  side 
of  a  woman's  decision  of  whether  or  not  to  have  a  child.  Maternal  Life  depicts  a  succession  women  in  the  role 
of  potential  mother,  with  the  cinema-verite  style  birth  sequence  as  evidence  that  the  filmmaker,  for  one,  did  choose 
motherhood.  However,  what  is  emphasized  by  the  multiplicity  of  viewpoints  and  heightened  color  and  sound  is 
that  no  woman  can  decide  one  way  or  another  without  trying  on  several  subjective  perspectives.  The  images  are 
illuminative  surprises  to  anyone  who  imagines  motherhood  to  be  a  perfect  fulfillment  which  all  women  desire. 


(E.C.) 


SLOW  SHUFFLES,  FAST  GLANCES:  NEW  WORK  FROM  BOSTON 

Curated  by  Saul  Levine 

Saturday,  April  7, 1990 

Movies  and  Pearls  by  Janet  Callahan;  Super-8mm.  sound.  4  minutes. 

Vacant  Lot  by  Lynn  Toland;  Super-8mm,  silent,  3  minutes. 

Dot  to  Dot  by  Lynn  Toland,  Super-8mm,  silent,  3  minutes. 

Fall  by  Dana  Moser,  Super-8mm,  silent,  13  minutes. 

Echoes  by  Chris  Nickerson,  16mm,  silent,  5  minutes. 

Trouble  Is  by  Chris  Nickerson.  16mm.  silent,  3  minutes. 

27 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

Caitlin  No.  2  by  Ann  Steueraagel,  Super-8mm,  silent,  5  minutes. 

Henry,  My  Henry  by  Ann  Steuemael,  Super-8mm,  silent,  3  minutes. 

Kaleidoscope  by  Lynn  Toland,  16mm,  silent,  2  minutes. 

Haze  by  Lynn  Toland,  16mm,  silent,  2  minutes. 

No  Orchids  by  Janet  Callahan,  Super-8mm,  sound,  4  minutes. 

Sodom  by  Luther  Price,  Super-Smm,  sound,  21  minutes. 


EARLY  EAUL  RUIZ 

Sunday,  April  8, 1990 


Bom  in  Chile,  Raul  Ruiz  began  as  a  writer  of  stage  plays  before  shooting  his  first  film  La  Maleta  (unfinished)  in 
1960.  He  was  forced  into  European  exile  after  a  coup  displaced  the  socialist  government  of  Salvador  Allende  in 
1973.  Ruiz  has  worked  for  many  years  in  French  television.  A  recent  wave  of  critical  acclaim  has  lifted  him  out 
of  obscurity  into  a  leading  position  within  the  French  avant-garde.  Ruiz  has  been  described  as  "a  total  filmmaker, 
for  whom  theater,  music,  literature,  and  visual  arts  are  familiar  territory,  Ruiz  successfully  combines  intellectual 
inquiry  with  Latin  American  hedonism"  (Z.M.  Pick). 


The  Penal  Colony  (Chile,  1971),  68  minutes. 

"The  Penal  Colony  is  very  loosely  based  on  Kafka's  story  about  a  perfect  execution  machine,  but  transferred  to 
a  Latin  American  island,  Captiva,  once  a  penal  colony,  but  now  an  independent  republic  ruled  by  a  capriciously 
dictatorial  president.  Its  only  industry  is  the  manufacture  of  news  (mostly  disasters  and  atrocities)  about  Latin 
America  for  the  international  news  agencies.  A  woman  journalist  arrives  to  prepare  a  report.  The  President  denies 
that  there  is  any  repression  or  torture;  but  the  journalist  witnesses  bizarre  scenes  of  punishment  and  execution  in 
the  prison.  After  inspecting  the  bodies  in  the  morgue,  the  journalist  prepares  a  favorable  report." 

— from  International  Film  Circuit  Inc. 

Of  Great  Events  and  Ordinary  People  (France,  1979),  65  minutes. 

"Commissioned  by  French  television  as  a  personal  view  of  the  1978  elections.  Of  Great  Events...  functions  as  both 
the  commentary  of  an  outsider  on  internal  French  politics  and  as  a  capsule  history /critique  of  the  forms  and  uses 
of  the  documentary.  Ruiz  began  by  dutifully  interviewing  his  friends  and  neighbors  as  to  their  reactions  to  the 
elections;  the  course  of  the  shoot,  however,  raised  questions  about  such  interviews,  what  they  reveal  and  what  they 
conceal,  and  how  they  are  conducted.  A  Latin  American  refugee  discusses  Montesquieu's  Persian  Letters;  a 
Canadian  filmmaker  complains  that  'it's  easier  to  make  documentaries  in  the  Third  World  than  in  Europe.'  The 
voiceover  commentary  written  by  Ruiz  in  Spanish  and  sight  read  by  another  Chilean  refugee  into  French  —  with 
its  inevitable  hesitations,  repetitions,  and  mistakes  —  becomes  a  constant  reminder  of  the  filmmaker  as  foreigner- 
observer." 

— ^Judy  Bloch,  Pacific  Film  Archive 

(B.C) 

28 


1990  Program  Notes 


THE  FILMS  OF  DOMINIC  ANGERAME 
Filmmaker  in  Person 

Thursday,  April  12, 1990 


"Since  1969,  Dominic  Angerame  has  made  more  than  20  films,  which  have  been  shown  at  festivals  throughout 
the  United  States  and  have  won  numerous  awards.  His  approach  to  filmmaking  has  evolved  from  a  casual  personal 
documentary  style  to  the  almost  passionate  abstraction  of  the  highly  imagistic  recent  work.  Such  films  as 
Continuum  (1987)  and  Deconstruction  Sight  (1990)  rely  heavily  on  the  technique  of  montage  and  on  apparently 
random  (yet  most  deliberate)  sequencing  of  images  that  work  on  the  viewer's  sensibility,  leading  to  powerful 
feelings  and  ideas  which  are  never  stated  or  limited  by  Angerame  the  filmmaker.  A  conventional  narrative  style, 
visual  or  aural,  will  not  be  found  in  these  films.  Truly  experimental,  yet  hardly  arbitrary,  and  possessed  of  an 
intensely  individual  aesthetic,  Angerame 's  cinema  packs  a  punch  that  nonetheless  reveals  an  underpining  of 
consistent  social  and  political  awareness,  and  a  driving  poetic  vision  lifted  from  the  self  out  to  the  world  beyond 
the  self." 

— Barbara  Jaspersen  Voorhees 


A  Ticket  Home  (1982);  16mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 

I'd  Rather  Be  in  Paris  (1982);  16mm,  B&W/color,  silent,  16  minutes. 

Hit  the  Turnpike!  (1984);  16mm,  B&W/color,  sound,  2  minutes. 


Voyeuristic  Tendencies  (1984);  16mm.  B&W,  sound  optional. 

''Voyeuristic  Tendencies  is  not  so  much  a  film  about  voyeurism  as  it  is  about  our  tendency  to  be  voyeuristic.  That 
tendency,  nurtured  by  the  filmmaker's  carefully  crafted  succession  of  visual  teases  and  exploited  by  the  camera's 
ability  to  become  our  eyes,  becomes  increasingly  evident  as  the  film  progresses.  The  camera  teases  the  viewer, 
in  this  cases,  co-voyeur,  not  with  sexual  or  erotic  innuendo,  but  rather  with  graphic  and  aesthetic  challenges.  The 
partially  opened  window  of  a  women's  dressing  room,  for  example,  forces  us,  the  viewers,  to  realize  our  urge  to 
see  more.  That  urge  comes  not  so  much  from  a  longing  for  exposed  breasts,  but  more  as  a  need  to  make  the  picture 
whole,  and  to  know  more  about  these  hidden  worlds." 

— Roger  Nieboer 


Continuum  (1987);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  15  minutes. 

"In  Dominic  Angerame's  Continuum,  the  world,  the  workers  within  the  world,  and  the  labor  of  making  the  film 
itself  are  equated  through  montage  and  a  brilliantly  concentrated  filmic  painterliness'.  The  result  is  an 
experimental  film  which  is  at  the  same  time  a  document  of  propaganda  in  the  sense  that,  at  its  conclusion,  one  finds 
oneself  closer  to  the  science  of  the  motion  of  society  in  its  monumentality,  with  streets,  buildings,  the  building  of 
them,  and  the  workers  and  their  instruments  (drills,  tar)  creating  a  constructivist  poetry  within  the  eyes. 

"Without  sloganeering,  Angerame  has  nevertheless  organized  harmonies  and  dissonances  of  people  and  objects 
to  the  extent  that  aesthetics  leads  to  the  threshold  of  revolutionary  consciousness,  so  that  Continuum  is  a  film  that 

29 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


can  be  received  with  enthusiasm  in  both  union  hall  and  cinematheque.  And  that  is  no  mean  achievement  in  a  time 
when  sophisticated  cultural  forms  are  often  so  removed  form  the  real  needs  of  the  populace,  hiding  behind  masks 
of  liberty  that  do  not  get  out  of  the  prison  of  the  tyrannies  of  individuality,  and  therefore  opportunism." 

— Jack  Hirschman 


Deconstruction  Sight  (1990);  16mm,  B&W,  sound.  13  minutes. 

"Since  the  Industrial  Revolution  our  civilization  has  suffered  from  a  growing  discrepancy  between  ideological 

potentiality  and  actual  realization."  (Laszlo  Moholy-Nagy) 


LANCELOT  OF  THE  LAKE 

By  Robert  Bresson 

Preceded  by  Michael  Snow 's  Breakfast 


Sunday,  April  15, 1990 


Breakfast  (1972-76),  by  Michael  Snow;  16mm,  color,  sound,  14  minutes. 

Snow's  Breakfast  recalls  his  earlier  and  better  known  Wavelength  in  that  it  consists  of  a  continuous  forward 
movement  of  a  camera,  here  moving  across  the  space  of  a  sumptuously  laden  breakfast  table,  creating  what  Deke 
Dusinberre  called  "a  grand  metaphor  for  indigestion." 


Lancelot  of  the  Lake  (1974),  by  Robert  Bresson,  85  minutes. 

The  Arthurian  legends  of  Britain  have  yielded  a  rich  source  of  material  for  such  diverse  films  as  John  Boorman's 
Wagemian  Excalibur ,  Joshua  Logan's  kitschy  musical  Camelot  and  tonight's  Lancelot  of  the  Lake  by  French 
director  Robert  Bresson.  Bresson's  film  eschews  the  musical  theatricality  of  both  Boorman's  and  Logan's  films, 
and  instead  creates  a  formal,  comfortless  and  unspectacular  vision  of  the  end  of  chivalry. 

Lancelot...  begins  with  the  failure  of  King  Arthur's  knights  to  secure  the  Holy  Grail  —  a  task  Bresson  makes  clear 
is  tantamount  to  a  quest  for  God  Himself.  As  leader  of  ihe  grail  knights,  Lancelot  bears  the  responsibility  for  the 
failure  of  the  quest.  Unable  to  renounce  his  earthly  love  for  his  Queen  Guinevere,  Lancelot  lacks  the  purity  of  spirit 
necessary  to  attain  the  pure  and  holy  love  for  God  represented  by  the  grail.  Neither  Lancelot  nor  Guinevere  can 
inspire  any  but  the  most  formal  and  joyless  expressions  of  love  for  each  other:  he  kisses  the  hem  of  her  gown  in 
a  gloom-filled  loft;  fights  a  mechanical  tournament  for  her  honor  against  indistinguishable  armoured  knights;  cries 
her  name  aloud  as  he  throws  his  dying  body  on  the  junkheap  of  Arthur's  slaughtered  regiments.  In  the  end  it  is 
Arthur's  cunning  bastard  son  Mordred  who  emerges  victorious  and  Guinevere  is  left  to  mourn  "Poor  Lancelot. 
Trying  to  stand  firm  in  a  shrunken  world." 

Bresson  says  that  the  mythological  content  of  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table  story  attracted  him.  Since  the 
legends  are  so  well  known  Bresson  can  dispense  with  crucial  plot  elements  and  pick  up  the  story  at  the  decisive 
point  of  the  Knight's  return.  The  acting  is  in  Bresson's  traditional  deadpan  style,  employing  amateurs  whom  the 
director  uses  more  as  models  than  performers.  "It's  not  a  question  of  directing  a  person,"  says  Bresson,  "  it's  a 
matter  of  directing  oneself.  The  rest  is  telepathy." 

(B.C) 
30 


1990  Program  Notes 


FILMS  BY  PHIL  SOLOMON 
Filmmaker  in  person 

Thursday,  April  19, 1990 

Phil  Solomon  often  likes  to  describe  his  filmmaking  as  a  reverse  form  of  archaeology,  attempting  to  find  buried 
artifacts  not  by  removing  soil,  but  by  dumping  more  on.  In  Solomon's  case  the  "soil"  is  the  layers  of  surface  texture 
and  imagery  he  acquires  through  optically  printing  (re-photographing)  or  chemically  treating  pre-existing  film 
footage,  either  his  own  or  found.  Solomon's  project,  though  employing  a  process  contrary  to  that  of  the 
archaeologist,  shares  with  the  latter  the  same  inquisitive  impulse  to  search  for  what  is  hidden  below  the  surface: 
both  are  engaged  in  a  quest  for  remains. 

Visually,  Solomon's  films  border  on  the  abstract,  hiding  behind  scrims  of  densely-packed  images  and  shifting 
textures.  But  it  is  precisely  this  refractive  nature  of  the  films  that  works  against  the  abstraction  of  a  particular 
reality.  The  more  we  try  to  define  exactly  where  our  place  is  in  the  amorphous  nature  of  the  actual  film  material, 
the  deeper  we  enter  into  what  is  behind  its  surface.  In  the  end.  the  role  of  archaeologist  is  placed  onto  the  viewer. 
We  search,  we  dream,  we  long — both  with  Solomon  and  through  Solomon.  The  territory  we  begin  to  traverse 
is  sometimes  murky,  at  other  times  ghostly,  but  always  one  destined  to  yield  buried  treasures.  These  riches  are 
not  handed  to  the  viewer  on  a  silver  platter,  however.  There  is  no  mapped-out  yellow  brick  road;  only  the  darkness 
of  a  starry  night  where  the  constellations  formed  are  our  own. 

Despite  their  technical  virtuosity,  the  films  remain  handmade.  The  heavily  textured  surfaces  give  the  films  a 
fragility,  as  if  at  any  moment  the  film  material  itself  could  break.  More  importantly,  though,  it  is  their  placing  of 
the  viewer  in  the  uncomfortable  realm  of  the  past  that  makes  one  feel  like  one  is  walking  on  eggshells.  The  effort 
to  grasp  that  which  is  slipping  past,  and  the  attendant  sense  of  loss,  pervades  the  work  of  Solomon,  and  as  such, 
his  films  require  ginger  steps.  But  they  also  require  a  wide-eyed  innocence,  for  through  the  fog  Solomon  is 
discovering  remains  to  be  seen,  and  so  should  we. 

*  f  * 

Nocturne  (1980,  revised  1989);  16mm,  B«&W,  silent,  10  minutes. 

"Finding  similarities  in  the  pulses  and  shapes  between  World  War  Two  night  bombing  footage,  lightning  flashes, 

and  my  own  experiments  in  'open  shudderings,'  I  induced  the  W^r  at  Home." — P.S. 

What's  Out  Tonight  Is  Lost  (1983);  16mm,  color,  silent.  8  minutes. 

"This  film  began  in  response  to  an  evaporating  relationship,  but  gradually  seeped  outward  to  anticipate  other 
inevitable  and  imminent  'disappearing  acts':  youth,  family,  friends,  time.. ..I  wanted  the  tonal  shifts  of  the  film's 
surface  to  act  as  a  barometer  to  the  changes  in  the  emotional  weather.  Navigating  the  schoolbus  in  the  fog,  the 
lighthouse  in  disrepair." — P.S. 

Remains  to  be  Seen  (1989,  revised  1990);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  15  minutes. 

"Using  chemical  and  optical  treatments  to  coat  the  film  with  a  limpid  membrane  of  swimming  crystals,  coagulating 

into  silver  recall,  then  dissolving  somewhere  between  the  Operating  Theatre,  The  Waterfall,  and  the  Great 

Plains my  wish  for  a  'moving  painting'  finally  realized.   Dedicated  in  loving  memory  to  my  mother,  Ruth 

Solomon."  —PS. 

Songs:  Charies  Ives:  "At  the  River"  (1916) 

"Serenity"  (1919) 


31 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


The  Exquisite  Hour  (1989);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  15  minutes. 

The  Exquisite  Hour 
by  Paul  Verlaine 

The  white  moon 
shines  in  the  woods; 
from  every  branch 
there  comes  a  voice, 
under  the  arbor, 
o  well-loved 

The  lagoon 

a  deep  mirror 

reflects  the  silhouette 

of  the  black  willow 

where  the  wind  moans. 

Let  us  dream!  It  is  the  time  for  it. 

A  vast  and  gentle 

calm 

seems  to  be  descending 

from  the  heavens, 

iridescent  with  stars. 

It  is  the  exquisite  hour. 

"A  new  work,  which  is  in  many  ways  a  companion  piece  with  Remains  to  be  Seen.  Partly  a  lullaby  for  the  dying, 
partly  a  lament  at  the  dusk  of  cinema.  Culled  from  the  following  songs: 

'The  Exquisite  Hour'  (1891) — written  at  the  dawn  of  cinema;  words  by  Verlaine,  music  by  Reynaldo 
Hahn. 

A  song  overheard  in  the  backyard  of  my  parent's  home,  sung  by  a  young  Hasidic  girl,  in  the  dark. 

'Bondo;Mbola' — A  divine  song,  sung  by  two  Aka  Pygmy  girls  sitting  in  a  hut. 

'Mo  Boma  (A  lullaby)' — 'my  eyes  are  still  full  of  sleep...be  quiet,  my  child,  so  I  can  sleep  a  little  more.' 
Sung  by  Aka  pygmy  girls  in  a  hut  of  leaves. 

'A  Farewell  to  Land'  (1925) — words  by  Byron,  music  by  Charles  Ives. 

"This  film  is  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  my  grandparents,  Albert  Solomon  (whose  voice  is  heard  on  the  track), 
who  was  a  projectionist  for  'FOX,'  and  Rose  Solomon,  who  ripped  tickets  at  the  Loews  Paradise  theater  on  the 
Grand  Concourse  in  the  Bronx." — P.S. 

Rocket  Boy  vs.  Brakhage  (1973-???);  16mm,  B&W/color,  sound  on  tape,  25  minutes. 

"Okay,  well,  this  film  started  out  as  a  punk  Joke,  made  10  minutes  before  class,  in  8mm,  shot  Brakhage,  camera 
jammed,  used  accident  to  shoot  him  down  again,  in  order  to  move  on.  you  know  what  I  mean?  But  now. ..the  whole 
thing  is  gettin'  out  of  hand.  I  keep  adding  more  chapters  whenever  I  get  pissed  off,  or  incredulous  at  the  whole 
Avant  number,  like  when  the  Faust  films  came  out,  I  knew  it  was  time  to  go  to  work  again 

PART  ONE  (structured  after  Dog  Star  Man,  soundtrack  'Starman'  by  Jack  Nietsche) — in  which  the  young, 
impressionable  (green)  boy  is  awestruck  by  the  Master  from  the  Mountains,  only  to  discover  that  there's  still 
baseball  to  be  played. 

32 


1990  Program  Notes 


PART  TWO— THE  UMPIRE  STRIKES  BACK. 

Brakhage  and  the  Babe  compete  for  the  young  boy's  affection;  the  New  Kid  in  town,  Mike  Snow,  brings  Back 
and  Forth  to  the  classroom,  the  kids  get  confused,  trying  to  figure  out  how  to  make  Structural  Films,  Brakhage 
gets  pissed,  invokes  the  Muses  (or  the  Moses,  Blue  Moses,  as  it  were)  and  Rocket  Boy  drops  the  big  one,  let's  call 
the  whole  thing  off. 

PART  THREE— DOG  STAR  MAN  RIDES  AGAIN. 

Our  hero  returns,  learns  to  drive  in  his  new  costume,  and  resorts  to  closed  eye  vision  in  a  time  of  crisis.  A  trailer. 

PART  FOUR— WHO'S  ON  FAUST? 

An  educational  film  for  those  youngsters  thinking  about  Avant-Garde  Filmmaking  as  a  profession;  finally,  Abbott 
and  Costello  meet  Brakhage  in  Hell,  before  Rocket  Boy  rescues  Stan  the  Man  from  his  mid-wife  crisis. ...Dedicated 
to  Jack  Smith,  who  was  once  a  "MEKAS  COLLABORATOR" 

The  whole  Series  is  dedicated  to  Jane  and  the  Kids 


MADE  POSSIBLE  BY  A  GRANT  FROM  THE  ROCKETFELLAH  FOUNDATION,  THE  WARREN  SONBERT 
FUNDS  FOR  POOR  HLMMAKERS  FOUNDATION.  AND  THE  PERSONAL  GENEROSITY  OF  ABIGAIL 
CHILD'S  DECONSTRUCnON  COMPANY."— PS. 


(K.E.) 


TEN  TO  ELEVEN  -  MADE  FOR  TV 

by  Alexander  Kluge 
Program  I 


Saturday,  April  21, 1990 


Tonight's  program  includes  four  episodes  of  the  series  Ten  To  Eleven  produced  for  West  German  television  by 
Alexander  Kluge.  Since  the  early  60s  Kluge  has  made  his  mark  as  a  filmmaker,  theoretician  and  neglected  member 
of  the  New  German  Cinema  movement  of  the  60s  and  70s.  Kluge 's  rational  for  choosing  to  work  in  television 
is  that  "if  people  do  not  leave  their  homes  anymore.and  they  look  through  this  so-called  window  which  is 
television,  then  we  have  to  go  to  people  and  not  just  wait  in  the  cinema."  However,  far  from  abandoning  the  cinema 
Kluge  sees  television  as  a  tactical  end-around  route  through  a  private,  domestic  distribution  system  on  the  way 
to  reclaiming  the  movie  houses  from  escapist  fare.  "We  will  come  through  television  to  cinema  again,"  says  Kluge. 

In  Ten  To  Eleven  Kluge  works  with  the  materials  of  popular  fantasy  —  film,  radio,  cartoons,  advertising  and 
television  —  into  an  analog  of  19th  century  opera.  Each  episode  is  an  amalgamation  of  cultural  fantasies 
synthesized  into  a  magazine  show  format.  Despite  his  manipulation  of  many  pre-existing  texts  (including  his  own 
films),  Kluge  never  dominates  the  materials,  allowing  them  to  retain  their  own  integrity  and  leaving  the  meanings 
of  his  manipulations  up  to  the  audience.  Nor  does  Kluge  see  Ten  To  Eleven  as  a  postmodern  endeavor  which  he 
equates  with  domination.  Instead  he  identifies  with  both  the  avant-garde  and  the  derriere-garde  saying,  "  If  we 
have  to  lead  something.. .at  this  time,  it  may  be  necessary  to  be  behind  and  bring  everything  forward." 


33 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

Madame  Butterfly  Waits  (1988);  3/4"  videotape,  15  minutes. 

19th  century  opera  is  evoked  in  silent  film,  postcards,  and  radio.  An  executive  serenades  his  lover  with  the  aria 
from  Don  Carlos  ("She  never  loved  me...")  recalling  the  words  as  best  he  can  from  popular  memory.  Films  play 
to  an  empty  theater  with  mysterious  interuptions  by  a  curious  glowing  ball. 

Antiques  of  Advertising  (1988);  3/4"  videotape,  15  minutes. 

Commodity-based  greed  is  subverted  when  defunct  or  foreign  products  appear  in  unusual  contexts:  Nazi  movies, 

space  scapes  and  Soviet  fashion  shows. 

ne  African  Lady,  Or  Love  With  A  Fatal  Outcome  (1988);  3/4"  videotape,  25  minutes. 

Die  Valkyrie,  Othello,  Madame  Butterfly,  Carmen,  Aida  in  the  imaginary  operas  "of  our  lives  in  big  format."  The 

dark  heroine  meets  a  fatal  end  while  her  white  lover  returns  home  to  tell  the  tale. 

Blue  Hour  Tango  Time  (1988);  3/4"  videotape,  25  minutes. 

The  tragic  tale  of  Argentine  tango  star  Carlos  Gardel  plays  against  a  computer  backdrop  of  a  theater  showing  his 

1935  film. 

(B.C.) 


FILMS  BY  EMILY  BREER  AND  MARY  FILIPPO 
Artists  in  person 


34 


Thursday,  April  26, 1990 


Emily  Breer  is  a  New  York-based  filmmaker  whose  work  combines  live  action,  found  footage  and  animation  is 
absurdist  conjunctions. 

Brute  Charm  (1989);  16mm,  color,  sound,  25  minutes. 

"Lion  Sex,  Flamingo  Death  and  a  yellow  rubber  glove  in  the  Kenyan  wild.  There's  a  mud  in  your  eye  easier  than 
an  Elephant  through  the  eye  of  a  beholder.  Brute  Charm  consists  primarily  of  images  of  animals  I  shot  in  Africa 
combined  with  animation  on  an  optical  printer.  A  steady  stream  of  conscious  and  unconscious  visual  choices, 
loosely  constructs  a  journey  through  the  animal  kingdom  and  my  thoughts  which  developed  around  it.  Brute  Charm 
is  an  exploration  into  our  unsocialized  selves."  — E.B. 

"The  film  looks  as  though  it  is  about  to  fall  apart  from  some  degenerative  film  disease.  Breer's  narrator  proposes 
'this  film  is  about  inflammation.. .the  response  of  tissue  to  injury,'  as  if  to  explain  its  style.  Exposures  are  varied, 
editing  loose  and  the  humor  broad  and  vulgar.. .The  subject  is  brutality,  but  the  charm  of  the  film  is  in  its  forthright 
acknowledgement  of  the  touristic  subjectivity  represented." 

— Marjorie  Keller 


MoonaLuna  (16mm  work-in-progress,  shown  on  videotape),  10  minutes. 

"'Moona  Luna  winks  at  film  vocabulary  and  conventions  with  a  pell-mell  spontaneity  that  belies  the  complex 

relationships  created  between  sound  and  image  and  within  the  image  itself. 

"Moona  Luna  is  about  my  first  trip  to  the  moon.  I  painted  a  set  into  my  apartment  to  allow  for  Dr.  Goodfriends 
to  become  Mr.  Bad  Actors.  Virgins  always  tell  all  so  I  always  took  the  first  take.  Cast  includes  3  French  boat 
workers,  no  whales  and  a  host  of  'others.'"  — E.B. 


1990  Program  Notes 


*  *  * 


Mary  Filippo  has  been  working  in  film  since  1978.  She  is  currently  teaching  video  art  and  computer  graphics  at 
the  School  of  Visual  Arts,  New  York  City,  and  the  Center  for  Media  Arts,  respectively. 

Who  Do  You  Think  You  Are  (1987);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  11  minutes. 

"Filippo  herself  plays  a  woman  addicted  to  smoking,  who  feel  guilty  for  making  a  film  on  that  seemingly  slight 
subject  when  there's  a  war  going  on,  baby. ..she  thinks  she'd  better  concoct  works  'that  would  change  the  world.' 
No  one  else  has  dealt  with  the  powerful  mimicry  that  comes  from  watching  too  many  old  movies..." 

— Katherine  Dieckmann 

[Filippo]  uses  everything  including  the  kitchen  sink  (as  her  last  shot)  to  try  out  her  role  as  an  important  filmmaker 
—  found  footage,  computer  generated  imagery,  acting,  simulated  documentary,  first-person  commentary.  And 
none  suffice,  so  you  might  say  that  the  film's  success  is  its  representation  of  failure.  It  refuses  ideology,  just  as 
it  refuses  to  be  tied  to  a  single  form  or  technique.  If  post-modem  means  eclectic,  then  Filippo 's  film  is  our  most 
post." 

— Marjorie  Keller 

Feel  the  Fear  (1990);  16mm,  B&W,  sound.  20  minutes. 

For  Filippo 's  characters,  subjectivity  is  entirely  learned  from  the  outside.  Emotion  is  prompted  by  television, 

desire  by  advertising,  and  conscience  by  self-help  books.  The  characters  attempt  to  "measure  up"  to  the  mythic 

figures  of  media  by  drinking  or  smoking  the  same  brands  as  their  heroes  —  the  only  material  emulation  possible. 

For  the  filmmaker,  this  extends  to  the  use  of  found  footage,  both  as  a  tool  for  social  dissection  and  as  an  addiction 

itself. 

"Let's  see  how  alcohol  affects  a  fish.  4-3-2-1.  A  spokesman  for  the  tribe  said,  'they  must  be  from  another  planet, 
the  way  they  treat  this  one.'  They  responded,  'God  wants  nothing  more  of  us  than  the  ability  to  make  the  outer 
world  a  perfect  mirror  of  our  own  minds.'  Blastoff.  God  hasn't  overlooked  you  in  the  space  age.  Why  then  this 
feeling  of  vague  discontent,  pessimistic  melancholy,  world  sadness?  He  has  given  you  a  little  computer.  Could 
it  be  gravity?  It  is  the  size  of  a  walnut  and  it  is  sitting  between  your  ears  right,  now.  Actually  it  might  be."  (from 
the  soundtrack  to  Feel  the  Fear.) 

(E.C.) 


TEN  TO  ELEVEN  -  MADE  FOR  TV 

By  Alexander  Kluge 

Program  II 


Saturday,  April  28, 1990 


Tonight's  program  presents  three  more  episodes  of  the  series  Ten  To  Eleven  produced  for  West  German  Television 

by  Alexander  Kluge. 

*  *  * 

The  Eiffel  Tower,  King  Kong  and  the  White  Woman  (1988);  3/4"  videotape.  25  minutes. 

Some  one  has  stolen  the  Eiffel  Tower  and  transported  it  to  the  American  west.  King  Kong  takes  a  cruise  and  plays 


35 


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bridge  in  his  white  dinner  jacker  —  standing  in  for  the  hero  who  is  mysteriously  absent.  In  the  meantime,  France 
has  won  World  War  I  and  is  busy  photographing  its  victory. 

Why  Are  You  Crying,  Antonio?  (1988)  3/4"  videotape,  25  minutes. 

Chamberlain  and  Mussolini  attend  a  1938  performance  of  the  opera  Macbeth  in  Rome.  Graphic  signs  in  the  opera 
expose  Chamberlain's  inability  to  fantasize  a  result  Hitler  invades  and  conquers  Czechoslovakia.  Two  bodies 
address  each  other  on  the  battlefield.  Finally,  French  soldiers  in  1918  celebrate  the  end  of  war. 

Changing  Time  (Quickly)  (1988);  3/4"  videotape,  25  minutes. 

Recurring  images  of  clocks  shape  human  experiences  which  are  reproduced  across  time  from  1812  to  1988. 

(B.C.) 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  WILLIAMS.  BURROUGHS 
Curated  and  Presented  by  Michael  Wallin 

Sunday,  April  29, 1990 

Burroughs  on  Bowery  (1978)  by  Marc  Olmsted;  16mm,  color,  sound,.5  minutes. 

Energy  and  How  to  Get  It  (1981)  by  Robert  Frank;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  28  min. 

The  Discipline  of  DE (1918)  by  Gus  Van  Sant;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  9  minutes. 

Towers  Open  Fire  (1963)  by  Antony  Balch;  16mm,  B«feW,  sound,  10  minutes. 

Bill  and  Tony,  by  Antony  Balch;  video,  6  minutes. 

William  Buys  a  Parrot  by  Antony  Balch;  video,  2  minutes. 

The  Cut  Ups,  by  Antony  Balch;  video,  20  minutes.  (The  works  by  Antony  Balch  were  produced  in  the  period 
1962-1972.  Dates  of  individual  works  are  unclear;  they  were  films  in  their  original  form.  Their  availability  on 
video  is  due  to  Mystic  Fire  Video.) 

*  «  * 

I  first  came  upon  the  writings  of  William  S.  Burroughs  through  the  writings  of  Jack  Kerouac,  and  those  through 
the  liner  notes  from  Tom  Robinson's  TUB  II  album.  I  hadn't  connected  with  Salinger's  Catcher  in  the  Rye  as 
a  teenager — ah,  the  Chicago  public  school  system  —  so  in  my  early  twenties  On  the  Road,  Desolation  Angels, 
and  The  Town  and  the  City  provided  a  valve  for  venting  my  pent-up  rebellious  male  adolescent  angst.  There, 
in  the  background  of  Kerouac 's  novels  and  in  the  foreground  of  his  biographies,  lurked  the  sinister,  shady, 
trench-coated  figure  of  William  Seward  Burroughs. 

Can  anyone's  view  of  the  worid  escape  untainted  from  a  reading  of  Burroughs'  first  published  novel?  Naked 
Lunch  judiciously  fills  in  the  details  of  a  Boschian  hell-on-earth,  recounting  tale  after  tale  of  sexual  perversity, 
aggressive  medical  malpractice,  and  inept  attempts  by  the  government  to  control  its  insect-eyed,  paraffin- 
skinned,  junk-sick  citizens.  The  last  book  to  be  banned  in  Boston,  it  renders  its  shelfmates  —  Ulysses,  Fanny 
Hill,  Tropic  of  Cancer,  Lady  Chatterley's  Lover  —  prudish  and  repressed.  When  the  Massachusetts  Supreme 
Court  lifted  the  censorship  oi.  Naked  Lunch  in  1965,  it  was  a  two-edged  sword;  recent  swings  in  the  pendulum 
notwithstanding,  the  possibilities  for  artistic  expression  and  exploitative  pornography  were  changed  forever. 


36 


1990  Program  Notes 


For  me,  Burroughs-the-writer  has  never  matched  Naked  Lunch .  Immediately  after  that  text,  he  devoted  himself 
to  experiments  with  the  cut-up  technique,  a  Surrealist  exercise  developed  with  the  late  painter  Brion  Gysin.  Text, 
any  text,  is  sliced  into  strips  and  rearranged;  though  the  results  can  produce  hilarity  and  brilliant  insight,  they 
are  equally  likely  to  induce  a  tedious  delirium.  Eventually  abandoning  his  use  of  the  technique.  Burroughs  has 
devoted  himself  to  exploring  peripheral  literary  forms:  science  fiction  and,  most  recently,  the  Western,  with  his 
trilogy  Cities  of  the  Red  Night,  Place  of  Dead  Roads,  and  Western  Lands. 

However,  Burroughs-the-personage  continues  to  be  a  source  of  fascination.  His  nasal,  contemptuous,  measured 
voice,  harrumpfing  and  thfunking  down  his  nose,  is  as  deadly  a  weapon  as  the  shotguns  he  has  brandished 
through  the  years.  And  his  physical  presence  —  tall,  reedy,  wielding  a  cane,  wearing  three-piece  suits  of 
questionable  fabric  —  predictably  turns  all  heads,  commanding  attention  whether  in  person  or  on  the  movie 
screen  (as  in  Gus  Van  Sant's  Drugstore  Cowboy). 

In  recognition  of  his  presence  as  novelist  and  counter-culture  hero,  filmmaker  Michael  Wallin  (Decodings)  has 
assembled  tonight's  film  tribute  to  the  76  year  old  Burroughs.  The  films  and  tapes  on  the  program  explore 
Burroughs'  writings  and  methods,  public  image,  and  excursions  into  acting. 

Burroughs  aficionados  will  be  most  interested  in  two  oft-discussed,  but  rarely  seen  films  by  Antony  Balch: 
Towers  Open  Fire  and  The  Cut  Ups.  Balch,  a  British  filmmaker,  traveled  in  the  same  circles  (New  York  to  Paris, 
London  to  Tangiers)  as  Burroughs,  Gysin,  and  Ian  Sommerville  during  the  heyday  of  the  cut  up  experiments. 
While  the  technique  was  a  revolutionary  and  controversial  form  for  producing  text,  Balch  recognized  it  as  an 
alternative  form  of  montage,  a  different  structure  for  making  edits. 

Towers  Open  Fire  is  the  shorter  and  more  narrative  of  the  two  films.  The  script  is  made  up  of  Burroughs'  texts, 
and  he  plays  the  film's  central  characters:  narrator,  chairman  of  the  board,  commando,  junkie,  man  on  the  street. 
Amidst  racist  diatribes  and  cut  up  texts,  the  stock  market  crashes  and  aliens  invade.  Folded  into  the  film  are  shots 
of  Gysin 's  Dream  Machines,  flickering  zoetrope-like  sculptures  that  were  designed  to  induce  alpha  waves  in 
the  viewer.  The  black  and  white  footage,  reportedly  shot  in  35mm,  veers  between  exquisite  naturalism  and  comic 
trickfilm  gestures,  and  the  soundtrack  alternates  between  a  harsh,  driving  composition  and  one  with  fife  and 
drums. 

Yes.  Hello.  Look  at  that  picture.  Does  it  seem  to  be  persisting?  How  does  it  seem  to  you  now?  Good!  Thank  you. 
These  phrases  are  central  to  the  soundtrack  of  The  Cut  Ups.  Apparently  shot  at  the  same  time  as  Towers  Open 
Fire,  the  film  dismisses  narrative  in  favor  of  cyclical  montage.  Footage  of  New  York  and  Paris  streets  —  the 
Horn  and  Hardart  Automat  near  Times  Square,  the  Hotel  Chelsea,  the  Beat  Hotel  —  is  combined  with  Brion 
Gysin  painting,  a  less-than-chaste  doctor's  examination,  and  various  cafe  scenes.  Although  the  film  functions 
on  one  level  as  a  ripe  time  capsule,  it  also,  through  its  concerns  with  phase  and  repetition,  has  a  surprisingly 
contemporary  feel. 

Gus  Van  Sant's  interest  in  Burroughs  goes  back  at  least  as  far  as  1978,  when  he  made  a  low  budget  adaptation 
of  the  Rolling  Stone  piece,  "The  Discipline  of  DE."  The  film  tells  the  story  of  one  retired  Colonel  Sutton-Smith 
who,  in  the  course  of  writing  his  memoirs,  discovers  the  simple  and  basic  discipline  of  DO  EASY;  a  way  of  doing 
everything  in  the  easiest,  most  relaxed,  quickest,  and  most  efficient  way.  The  Discipline  of  DE  faithfully  excerpts 
about  two-thirds  of  Burroughs'  story;  the  trims,  combined  with  snappy  edits  and  more  trickfilm  gestures,  result 
in  a  delightful  film. 

Robert  Frank's  Energy  and  How  to  Get  It  is  a  natural  choice  for  this  program.  Burroughs  is  in  the  film  physically 
and  philosophically;  he  has  a  minor  role  as  the  Energy  Czar  and,  more  importantly,  Frank,  Rudy  Wurlitzer,  and 
Gary  Hill  draw  from  his  vision  in  this  subjective  documentary  on  electronics  experimenter  Robert  Golka.  Golka 
may  or  may  not  have  the  solution  to  the  energy  crisis;  he  cleariy  has  something  capable  of  manipulating  high 
voltages,  but  the  fictional  Energy  Czar  and  a  very  real  police  force  combine  to  thwart  this  renegade  genius.  With 
appearances  by  John  Giomo  and  Robert  Downey,  music  by  Dr.  John  and  Libby  Titus. 

Also  on  the  program:  Burroughs  on  Bowery  by  Marc  Olmsted  and  two  other  Balch  films  (on  video):  Bill  and 
Tony  and  IVilliam  Buys  a  Parrot.  Olmsted  mixes  Super-8mm  footage  of  Burroughs  with  rephotographed  images 


37 


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of  gangster  movies  and  Japanese  science  fiction  films.  While  the  found  footage  is  sufficiently  campy  and  the 
process  yields  and  interesting  palette  of  steely  blues  and  fiery  oranges,  the  film  suffers  from  being  on  the  same 
program  as  The  Cut  Ups,  which  addresses  similar  concerns  with  greater  sophistication.  In  Bill  and  Tony,  Burroughs 
and  Balch  permute  voices  as  they  recite  texts;  Burroughs'  facial  gestures,  pursing  his  lips  after  delivering  each 
line,  is  the  film's  most  noteworthy  contribution.  And  William  Buys  a  Parrot  is  an  odd  fragment  featuring  a 
dapper  Burroughs  entering  a  doorway  for  oceanside  cocktails  with  a  cockatoo;  harmless  at  a  minute  and  a  half. 

(E.  S.  T.) 


HOME  MOVIES  IN  THE  PARK 

Washington  Square  Park 

Co-sponsored  by  The  Exploratorium 


Thursday,  May  3, 1990 

Tonight's  program  was  selected  by  Lissa  Gibbs,  Liz  Keim,  Alan  Mukamal,  and  Bruce  Smithhammer. 

Coyne-Kiernan  Wedding  (circa  1947);  16mm,  10  minutes. 

Cramp's  Hawaii  Footage  (1972),  submitted  by  Kurt  Easterwood;  16mm,  3  minutes. 

Underwater  Vacation,  by  Josh  Wallace;  Super-8mm,  10  minutes. 

Pool  Scenes  and  Easter  (1968),  by  Neal  Smithhammer;  Super-8mm,  6  minutes. 

Lw4.,  Tiicson,  Connecticut,  Florida  (1971),  by  Perry  and  Shirley  Gibbs;  Super-Smm,  15  minutes. 

Brother's  Communion  1969  (1%9),  submitted  by  Al  Hernandez;  Super-Smm,  3  minutes. 

Dad  with  Duke,  by  Lisa  Bostwick;  Regular-8mm,  3  minutes. 

Vacation  1939,  by  A.  Cedric  Gordon;  Regular-8mm,  15  minutes. 

Courtship,  by  A.  Cedric  Gordon;  Regular-8mm,  15  minutes. 

Dad's  Home  Movies,  by  Ed  Holmes;  Regular-8mm,  10  minutes. 

Carlsbad  Caverns,  submitted  by  Scott  Amis,  Regular-8mm,  3  minutes. 

Hillegass  St.,  submitted  by  Scott  Amis;  Regular-8mm,  3  minutes. 

Kelly  Dancing,  submitted  by  Scott  Amis;  Regular-8mm,  3  minutes. 

San  Francisco,  submitted  by  Scott  Amis;  Regular-8mm,  3  minutes. 

San  Francisco  1952,  by  Dr.  Schmid,  Regular-8mm,  3  minutes. 


38 


1990  Program  Notes 


ENR4PTURED  IMAGES: 

New  films  by  Gunvor  Nelson  and  Warren  Sonbert 
Co-sponsored  by  the  San  Francisco  International  Film  Festival,  Kabuki  Theater 

Sunday,  May  6, 1990 

"The  films  of  Gunvor  Nelson  are  psychological,  emotional,  humorous  and  erotic.  Her  style  of  filmmaking  uses 
fast-paced  editing  combined  with  striking,  often  symbolic,  images.  Her  work  is  characterized  by  a  strong  feeling 
for  the  graphic,  textural  qualities  of  the  film  image,  for  expressive  potentials  inherent  in  shape  and  color." 

— Fred  Camper 

Gunvor  Nelson,  a  native  of  Sweden,  moved  from  a  career  as  a  painter  to  bring  her  visions  to  film.  Amos  Vogel 
said  that  she  is  the  "true  poetess  of  the  visual  cinema."  Nelson,  who  teaches  at  the  San  Francisco  Art  Institute, 
has  been  the  recipient  of  numerous  grants  and  awards,  including  a  Guggenheim  Fellowship,  an  American  Film 
Institute  grant,  two  grants  from  the  National  Endowment  for  the  Arts,  two  Western  States  Regional  Media  Arts 
Fellowships,  and  a  Rockefeller  Foundation  Fellowship  this  year.  Her  work  has  been  the  subject  of  many  one- 
person  shows,  as  well  as  of  retrospectives  at  the  Museum  of  Modem  Art,  NY  (1985)  and  the  Anthology  Film 
Archives,  NY  (1989). 


Natural  Features  (1990),  by  Gunvor  Nelson;  16mm,  color,  sound,  30  minutes. 

"The  fifth  film  in  the  series  of  collage  films  I  call  'field  studies.'  Here  I  used  cut-outs,  photographs,  mirrors, 

water,  toys,  paint,  ink.. .in  many  different  combinations.  The  central  theme  is  faces.  A  dark  delicacy  lingers." — 

G.N. 


Gunvor  Nelson  Filmography 

Schmeerguntz  (1966);  co-maker:  Dorothy  Wiley 

Fog  Pumas  (1967);  co-maker:  Dorothy  Wiley 

My  Name  Is  Oona  (1969) 

Kirsa  NichoUna  (1970) 

Five  Artists  BillBobBillBillBob  (1971);  co-maker:  Dorothy  Wiley 

Take  Off  {1912) 

One  &  The  Same  (1973);  co-maker:  Freude 

Moons  Pool  {1913,) 

Trollstenen  (1976) 

Before  Need  (1979);  co-maker:  Dorothy  Wiley 

Frame  Line  (1983) 

/?erfS/i//lf(1984) 

Light  Years  (1987) 

Light  Years  Expanding  (1988) 

Field  Study  U2{\9^) 

Natural  Features  (1990) 


Warren  Sonbert's  films  have  been  shown  in  many  film  festivals  throughout  the  worid,  including  the  Beriin  Film 
Festival,  the  London  Film  Festival,  and  the  New  York  Film  Festival.    His  work  has  been  selected  for  four 


39 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


Whitney  Biennials,  and  he  has  been  the  subject  of  retrospectives  at  the  Whitney,  the  Vienna  Film  Museum,  the 
Paris  Centre  Beauborg,  the  London  National  Film  Theatre,  the  Munich  Stadt  Museum,  and  the  Bologna 
Cinemateca.  In  October  of  this  year,  Sonbert's  work  will  be  featured  in  his  sixth  "Cineprobe"  at  the  Museum  of 
Modem  Art,  NY. 


Friendly  Witness  (1989),  by  Warren  Sonbert;  16mm,  color,  sound,  32  minutes. 

'"Friendly  Witness  is  comprised  of  material  shot  by  myself  over  the  last  23  years.  The  locales  include  Europe, 
North  America,  North  Africa,  the  South  Pacific,  Australia  and  Asia  (including  those  hot  spots  Iran  and 
Afghanistan).. ..Spectacle,  public  domain,  objective  (god's  eye)  point  of  view  is  the  aesthetic  approach  with  the 
constant  idea  that  all  this  activity  is  perhaps  occurring  simultaneously.  Hence  the  irony/tragedy  that  dire  events 
(via  montage)  are  canceled  out  or  at  least  'laughed  at'  by  the  more  mundane,  the  banal,  the  quotidian  which  is  given 
equal  visual  status  throughout  and  is,  in  fact,  used  to  set  off  the  spectacular.  Elements  of  a  dance  of  death,  of 
retribution  for  lightheartedness  (a  viewer's  chuckle  is  invariably  answered  by  a  more  upsetting  image)  and  a 
diabolical  skirting-of-the-surface  is  evident  throughout... .There  is  a  lot  for  the  viewer  to  decide,  to  choose  and  to 
consider.  Connections  between  images  may  be  a  geometric  shape,  a  color,  a  trajectory,  a  directional  pull,  a  visual 
pun  or  a  slap  in  the  face  contradiction.  Whatever  the  energies,  all  is  not  perfect;  that  is  not  an  ideal  worid  out  there 
(though  this  also  does  not  dissipate  the  fitful  glimpses  of  paradise  or  contentment).  These  latter  occur  usually  when 
the  singular  takes  on  the  crowd,  when  the  individual  is  set  in  opposition  to  the  mass:  the  benign,  the  positive,  the 
approving  is  then  the  stance — and  indeed  has  the  last  word  by  being  the  last  image  in  that  metaphor  for  the 
contemplative  artist.  But  this  does  not  vitiate  against  so  much  mindless  aggression  that  has  dominated  the  visual 
palette  for  so  much  of  the  film.  For  me  that's  what  montage  can  do  best — to  juggle  disparate  reactions  in  a  struggle 
against  viewer  complacency  and  easily  derived  judgments." — W.S. 


"Sonbert  makes  us  feel  how  joy  is  inseparable  from  the  primacy  of  looking,  of  sight.  [Friendly  Witness]  offers 
a  meditation  on  how  the  act  of  seeing  is  intimately  tied  to  narrative,  and  how  individual  images  (as  well  as  the  way 
they  are  accumulated)  tell  their  story.  Rather  than  deconstructing  narrative  into  its  essential  images  like,  for 
instance,  Raul  Ruiz,  Sonbert  constructs  images  in  such  a  way  that  they  reveal  the  irreducibility  of  narrative." 

— Lisa  Katzman,  Film  Comment.  December,  1989 


Warren  Sonbert  Filmography 

Truth  Serum  (1965) 

Amphetamine  (1965) 

Where  Did  Our  Love  Go?  (1966) 

Hall  of  Mirrors  {1966) 

The  Bad  and  the  Beautiful  (1967) 

Carriage  Trade  (1971) 

Rude  Awakening  (1975) 

Divided  Loyalties  (1978) 

Noblesse  Oblige  {199,1) 

A  Woman's  Touch  (1983) 

The  Cup  and  the  Lip  (1986) 

Honor  and  Obey  (1988) 

Friendly  Witness  (1989) 


40 


1990  Program  Notes 


AUSTRIAN  EXPERIMENTAL  FILMS  OF  THE  '80s 
Filmmaker  Martin  Arnold  in  Person 

Thursday,  May  17, 1990 


Souvenirs  by  Lisl  Ponger;  Super-8mm,  color,  silent,  12  minutes. 

"...Especially  the  camera  makes  everyone  a  tourist  in  other  people's  reality  and  eventually  in  one's  own."  (Susan 

Sontag,  On  Photography) 

Tabula  Rasa  (1987),  by  Peter  Tscherkassky;  Super-Smm,  color/B&W,  sound,  18  minutes. 
The  film  theory  by  Christian  Metz  (based  on  Jacques  Lacan)  considers  the  screen  as  a  mirror,  with  the  audience 
under  the  impression  that  they  are  creating  the  film  through  an  identification  with  their  own  inherent  voyeuristic 
act  of  watching.  Tscherkassky  eventually  deprives  the  viewer  of  this  impression,  by  substituting  the  figurative 
with  the  abstract. 

Shot-Countershot  (1987)  by  Peter  Tscherkassky;  Super-8mm,  b&w,  silent,  1  minute. 

"The  Great  Syntax  of  Film"  by  Christian  Metz  divides  autonomic  segments  into  autonomic  shots  and  syntagmas, 

whereby  the  last  mentioned  sub-divides  into  non-chronological  and  chronological  syntagmas.    The  latter 

subdivide  again  into  descriptive  and  narrative.  The  narrative  syntagmas  can  be  broken  down  into  the  categories 

alternating  syntagmas  and  linear  narrative  syntagmas.  The  shot-countershot  technique  is  a  typical  linear  narrative 

syntagma. 

The  Murder  Mystery  (1988),  by  Dietmar  Brehm;  Super-8mm,  B&W,  sound,  16  minutes. 

"...a  pornographic-sadistic  phantasy  of  murder  in  flickering  black-and-white  and  torn  images..." 

— Pumping  Screen 

Kugelkopf — An  Ode  to  IBM  (1985),  by  Mara  Mattuschka;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  6  minutes. 

Parasympatica  (1986),  by  Mara  Mattuschka;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  4  minutes. 

Es  Hat  Mich  SehrGefreut  (It  Was  My  Pleasure,  1987),  by  Mara  Mattuschka;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  1:50  minutes. 

Piece  Touchee  (1989),  by  Martin  Arnold;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  18  minutes. 

Originally  taken  from  18  second  of  an  American  movie,  I  manipulate  the  sequence  of  the  frames,  creating  a  new 
cinematic  reality.  Piece  Touchee  uses  optical  printing  techniques  to  bring  out  the  hesitation  and  discomfort  in  a 
Hollywood  B -movie  coupe  heading  towards  a  kiss.  -M.A. 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 
Sunday,  May  20, 1991,  5  p.m. 


Vinyl  {1965),  by  Andy  Warhol;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  64  minutes. 


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THE  GERMANS  AND  THEIR  MEN 
By  Helke  Sander 

Sunday,  May  20, 1990 

The  Germans  and  Their  Men:  Report  from  Bonn  (1989),  dir.  by  Helke  Sander.  16mm.  color,  sound.  105  minutes. 
Starring  Renee  Felden  as  Lieschen  Miiller;  photographed  by  Lilly  Grote;  edited  by  Claudia  Vogeler,  Sander;  script 
by  Sander. 

Helke  Sander's  most  recent  film  establishes  from  the  outset  a  documentary  mode  with  its  definitive  and  all- 
encompassing  title.  This  mode  is  further  stressed  in  the  film's  subtitle,  "Report  from  Bonn."  with  its  connotations 
of  an  authority-laden,  official  government  document.  Yet  Sander's  film  is  not  a  report  sanctioned  by  the  German 
state,  but  rather  a  personal  examination  of  that  state  as  it  is  characterized  and  defined  by  its  men. 

Sander  achieves  the  personal  by  using  the  fictional  character  of  a  woman  on  a  quest  for  a  husband  in  Bonn.  By 
focusing  the  film  on  Lieschen  Miiller's  very  real  (but  fictional)  search  for  a  man  "who  will  look  me  in  the  eye  and 
not  at  my  breasts,"  Sander  re-routes  the  documentary  impulse  from  a  documentarian  putting  forth  facts  in  support 
of  an  agenda,  to  a  character  whose  personal  needs  result  in  questions  that  comprise  an  agenda. 

Miiller,  on  vacation  from  her  native  Austria,  decides  to  spend  her  holiday  in  Germany  to  look  for  a  husband.  Bonn 
is  the  likely  choice  in  that  as  capital  of  the  Federal  Republic,  it  is  therefore  the  seat  of  thousands  of  men.  Note  pad 
in  hand,  Miiller  sets  out  to  interview  these  members  of  Parliament,  State  secretaries,  taxi  drivers,  civil  servants, 
salesmen,  and  even  the  Federal  Chancellor,  eventually  recasting  herself  as  documentarian. 

The  fiction  of  Miiller  the  husband-seeker  goes  hand  in  hand  with  that  of  Miiller  the  documentary  interviewer.  In 
the  end,  it  is  the  latter  fiction  which  proves  the  more  subversive,  for  it  is  the  pose  (which  is  after  all  only  half 
feigned)  of  documentarian  that  gives  Miiller  (Sander)  the  access  to  their  subjects.  Although  some  of  the 
interviewees  are  cleariy  put  off  by  the  questions  they  are  asked,  most  willingly  respond.  To  be  interviewed  is  seen 
by  them  as  a  measure  of  their  own  importance,  a  signification  as  steely  and  empty  as  a  bureaucrat's  tie. 

Whether  investigating  the  significance  of  men 's  ties  (who  wears  what  type,  and  when)  or  probing  larger  questions 
of  male  responsibility  and  shame  by  conflating  the  raping  of  millions  of  German  women  with  the  extermination 
of  the  Jews,  Miiller  is  both  documentary  interviewer  (acting  on)  and  protagonist  (acted  upon).  The  questions  she 
deems  important  to  ask  of  prospective  husbands  become  in  the  end  questions  all  women  must  ask,  and  which  all 
men  must  face  up  to. 

Ultimately,  Sander's  fact-finding  "report"  results,  like  Miiller's  search  for  a  husband,  not  in  answers  but  in  more 
questions.  More  importantly,  though,  it  also  results  in  more  people  being  interested  in  those  questions. 

(K.E.) 


RED  FISH  IN  AMERICA:  PROGRAM  I 

New  Independent  Film  and  Video  from  the  Soviet  Union 

Igor  and  Gleb  Aleinikov  in  person 

Thursday,  May  24, 1990 

While  Western  audiences  have  gained  access  recently  to  Soviet  feature  films  and  documentaries  that  were 
previously  banned  or  excluded  from  export,  very  little  has  been  known  of  the  existence,  not  to  mention  the  output. 


42 


1990  Program  Notes 


of  independent  media  artists  from  the  USSR.  A  small  but  growing  community  has,  in  fact,  existed  since  the  pre- 
glasnost  days  of  the  early  1980s.  This  exhibition,  curated  by  Marie  Cieri  of  The  Arts  Company  and  Moscow 
independent  filmmaker  Igor  Aleinikov,  features  a  cross  section  of  the  best  new  experimental  short  films  and 
videotapes  produced  outside  Soviet  government  funding  and  control. 

Like  independents  in  the  West,  Soviet  media  artists  often  deal  with  themes  that  are  outside  mass  market 
consumption  and  do  so  in  ways  that  are  provocative  and  stylistically  inventive.  Until  very  recently,  they  were  not 
able  to  show  their  work  publicly  for  lack  of  government  sanction,  but  now  are  receiving  a  surprising  amount  of 
attention  and  new  opportunities  to  make  and  show  their  work. 

The  exhibition  is  divided  into  two  programs  containing  a  total  of  15  works  dating  from  1985-1990  by  13  different 
artists  working  individually  or  in  groups.  This  is  the  first  time  most  of  these  films  and  videotapes  are  being  seen 
outside  the  USSR.  All  of  the  works  were  made  in  Moscow,  Leningrad  or  Riga,  where  independent  media  is 
strongest. 

Revolutionary  Etude  (1987),  by  Georgij  Ostretsov,  Evgenij  Kondratiev,  and  Gleb  and  Igor  Aleinikov;  16mm, 
B&W,  sound,  8  minutes. 

The  Kremlin,  a  speech  by  Brezhnev,  a  worker  at  his  machine-tool.  Pioneer  [communist  children's  organization] 
songs,  verse  by  Mayakovsky,  Red  Square,  the  Aviator's  March  (a  well-known  Soviet  song  of  the  1930s). 
Journeying  through  all  these  Soviet  riches  are  the  Engineer,  the  Athlete,  and  the  Artist,  stereotypes  of  the  Soviet 
Man.  These  images  entered  the  film  from  the  pictures  of  G.  Ostretov,  who  in  early  1987  began  to  sing  the  praises 
of  perestroika,  but  not  for  long.  This  film  is  a  collaboration  of  artists  from  Moscow  and  Leningrad. 

The  struggle  for  communism  requires  untiring  efforts  of  the  party  to  educate  all  parts  of  society,  especially  youth. 
And  this  struggle  is  inextricably  linked  to  the  struggle  against  bourgeois  propaganda ... 

— Leonid  Brezhnev 


War  and  Peach  (1989),  by  Vladimir  Zakharov;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  10  minutes. 

A  contemporary  reinterpretation  of  that  famous  Russian  title.  This  is  Zakharov 's  second  film. 

Game  of  Ho  (variation)  (1987),  by  Boris  Yukhananov;  video  (originally  VHS),  25  minutes. 

An  ardent  exploration  of  Russian  identity  and  the  Jewish  emigration  question  from  Moscow  video  and  theater 

artist  Yukhananov. 

The  film  [video]  is  built  on  an  inductive  game  which  Theater  Theater  [Yukhananov's  performance  group]  came 
up  with  in  1985-86.  The  game  became  fashionable  in  the  Leningrad  and  Moscow  underground  at  the  time.  The 
game  is  constructed  on  the  interrelationship  between  two  symbols  central  to  the  'new  culture'  of  the  1980s:  the 
symbol  of  the  cross  and  the  symbol  for  zero.  [The  Russian  word  for  "ho"  is  written  "XO."  The  Russian  letter  "X" 
is  also  the  first  letter  in  the  word  "Christ."] 

"Both  these  symbols  run  through  the  consciousness  of  the  contemporary  Soviet  underground  and  appear  in 
pictures,  poetry,  lyrics,  and  music.  The  concept  of  a  'cross'  —  this  is  my  life,  and  I'm  crossing  it  out  —  this 
interpretation  came  from  Russian  Orthodoxy.  After  life  is  crossed  out,  a  zero  takes  shape.  At  the  present  time,  the 
symbol  of  the  cross  is  the  multiplication  sign.  The  syllable  'HO'  [Russian  'XO']  is  also  formed,  something  you 
find  in  a  person  who  laughs  at  his  own  life:  'Ho  -  ho  -  ho.'" — B.Y. 

Damn  It  (1989),  by  Ilze  Petersone  (Riga);  video,  4  minutes. 

"This  work  is  a  video  of  the  Latvian  punk  rock  group  Zig  Zag,  with  their  song  entitled  The  Devil  Take  It.  Latvia 
(my  land)  is  now  a  big  garbage  can.  In  the  space  of  a  few  years  everyone  who  had  the  urge  has  dumped  all  their 
garbage  here.  And  now  I,  you.  we  all  walk  on  this  filth,  run  from  it,  maybe  from  ourselves." — LP. 

Mirages  (fragment)  (1989),  by  Gleb  and  Igor  Aleinikov;  3/4"  videotape,  5  minutes. 

First  two  sections  of  a  music  video  by  the  Moscow-based  Aleinikov  brothers.  Music  by  free  jazz  group  Three  Os 

and  Asian  vocalist  Sajikho  Namchilak. 


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Untitled  selections  of  material  (1989-90),  by  Yuris  Lesnik;  video  (originally  VHS),  16  minutes.  Leningrad  painter, 
musician,  and  video  artist  Lesnik  has  been  developing  principles  for  the  selection  of  video  material  for  the  past 
year.  Lesnik  recently  edited  much  of  this  material  in  Paris.  He  is  a  great  admirer  of  Nam  June  Paik. 

D-actors  (1987),  by  Gleb  and  Igor  Aleinikov;  16mm.  B&W,  sound,  13  minutes. 

An  ironic  recasting  of  the  language  and  symbols  of  communism.  The  tractor  has  been  a  very  popular  and  frequently 

occurring  image  in  Soviet  films  from  the  1920s  through  the  1980s. 

Funding  for  this  exhibition,  its  national  tour  and  catalog  have  been  provided  by  the  Massachusetts  Council  on  the 
Arts  and  Humanities,  the  Trust  for  Mutual  Understanding  and  The  Andy  Warhol  Foundation  for  the  Visual  Arts. 


RED  FISH  IN  AMERICA:  PROGRAM  II 

New  Independent  Film  and  Video  from  the  Soviet  Union 

Igor  and  Gleb  Aleinikov  in  person 

Saturday,  May  26, 1990 

Orderly  Werewolves  (1985),  by  Evgenij  Yufit;  16mm  (on  video),  3  minutes. 

First  film  by  the  founder  of  Leningrad  black  humor  and  "necrorealism"  (before  making  films,  Yufit  practiced 

necrorealism  in  photography  and  painting). 

From  an  article  by  I.  Iljina  outlining  the  1 1  basic  characteristics  of  necrorealism  in  the  catalog  of  the  Molodost 
Film  Festival,  Kiev,  1989: 

Spring  (1987),  by  Evgenij  Yufit  and  Andrej  Myortvyj;  16mm  (on  video),  12  minutes. 
A  nightmarish  but  curiously  whimsical  tale  reflecting  the  brutality  of  past  regimes. 

Dreams  (1988),  by  Evgenij  Kondratiev;  16mm,  B&W,  silent.  11  minutes. 
Set  in  Soviet  Central  Asia  where  the  Leningrad-based  Kondratiev  used  to  live. 

"Evgenij  Kondratiev's  recent  works.  Dreams,  Fire  in  Nature,  and  Vertical  Cinema,  are  noted  for  an  almost 
academic  clarity  and  rhythmic  virtuosity.  The  film  Dreams  was  made  in  Khakassia  and  is  reminiscent  of  visual 
meditation.  Vast  empty  spaces,  roads  leading  beyond  the  horizon,  fast  panorama  of  the  sky  and  water  are  joined 
with  close-ups  of  human  faces  and  movements.  An  almost  magical  image  of  reality  is  bom.  an  image  created  by 
means  of  "pure  cinema.'" 

— Sergei  Dobrotvorskij 

Supporter  of  Olf(\9Sl),  by  Inal  Savchenko,  Evgenij  Kondratiev,  K.  Mitenev  and  A.  Ovchinnikov;  16mm,  B&W, 

9  minutes. 

An  example  of  the  freewheeling  Leningrad  style  of  scratch  animation,  images  of  Bohemianism.  and  "life  after 

death." 

CraTy  Prince  Kuzmin,  Part  II:  "Actor"  (fragment)  (1989),  by  Boris  Yukhananov;  video  (originally  VHS),  6 

minutes. 

It  is  not  possible  to  translate  this  text,  even  in  Russian.  — Igor  Aleinikov 


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1990  Program  Notes 


Soviet  art  emerging  from  "the  underground"  in  the  obsessive  "cinema  verite"  style  of  Moscow  theater  artist 
Yukhananov. 

"For  the  viewer,  [directorial]  refinement  is  proving  to  be  too  much.  Film  seems  boring,  drawn  out,  but  the  culture 
of  perception  is  gradually  changing,  and  subtleties  which  used  to  go  unnoticed  will  be  clear  to  future  viewers.  A 
new  esthetic  canon  is  being  developed,  a  rhythm  is  beginning  to  be  felt  in  all  the  nuances  and  details.  Episodes 
which  used  to  seem  dead  are  now  coming  to  life. 

The  unit  of  measurement  for  video  is  not  a  frame,  but  a  cassette.  When  I  shoot,  I  only  use  pauses.  A  full  cassette, 
the  original,  is  the  matrix.  Then  we  can  edit  it  in  copies  as  we  see  fit.  Thus,  video  can  exist  as  a  theme  with  variations. 
The  next  cassette,  edited  from  the  matrix,  is  the  variation." 

— Boris  Yukhananov,  "Your  Head  is  in  your  Hands" 

Mission  in  Kabul  (1989),  by  Andejs  Ejtis;  16mm,  4  minutes. 

A  biting  war  vignette  by  Riga  filmmaker  Ejtis.  This  piece  won  first  prize  at  an  international  festival  of  amateur 

films  in  Leningrad  last  year. 

HomoRullis  (1989),  by  Dainis  Klava  (Riga);  video,  6  minutes. 

All  [my]  films  are  constructed  on  the  base  of  documentary  associations,  //o/wo  7?m///5  is  video  art  on  the  theme  of 

the  legend  of  Salome. — D.K. 

Waiting  for  de  Bil  (1989),  by  Gleb  and  Igor  Aleinikov;  16mm,  B&Wm,  sound,  23  minutes. 
A  dog  with  the  nickname  Bobr  [beaver]  lived  in  the  professor's  apartment  (it  was  said  that  the  dog  moved  in  before 
the  arrival  of  the  professor),  and  the  professor  was  very  kind  to  it.  The  dog  wasn '  t  eager  to  go  outdoors  in  the  spring. 
Judging  by  Bobr's  appearance,  shaved  right  down  to  his  pink  skin,  and  by  the  way  the  spot  under  the  dog's  tail 
shone  in  the  moonlight,  one  could  assume  that  the  dog  also  had  an  obliging  nature. — G.A. 

Program  notes  compiled  from  the  catalog  accompanying  "Red  Fish  in  America" 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 
Sunday,  May  27, 1990, 5  p.m. 


Is  This  What  You  Were  Born  For?  (in  seven  parts,  1981-89),  by  Abigail  Child 
Prefaces  (Part  one,  1981);  16mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 
Mutiny  (Part  three,  1982-83);  16mm,  color,  sound.  11  minutes. 
Both  (Part  two,  1988);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  3  minutes. 
Perils  (Part  five,  1985-86);  16mm,  B&W.  sound.  5  minutes. 
Covert  Action  (Part  four.  1987);  16mm.  B&W.  sound.  11  minutes. 
MAYHEM  (?m  six.  1987);  16mm.  B&W.  sound.  20  minutes. 
Mercy  (Part  seven,  1989);  16mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 


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HIGHLIGHTS  OF  THE  THIRD  NEW  YORK 

LESBIAN  AND  GAY  EXPERIMENTAL  FILM  FESTIVAL 

Curated  by  Jerry  Tartaglia 

Sunday,  May  27, 1990 

Is  there  some  inherent  quality  about  gay  artists'  work  that  can  be  said  to  comprise  a  separate  and  distinct  aesthetic 
from  that  of  heterosexual  artists?  This  question  of  whether  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  "gay  aesthetic"  has  been 
bandied  about  by  both  academic  and  artist,  straight  and  gay,  for  some  time. 

The  above  question  is  one  that  invariably  comes  up  in  the  context  of  festivals  like  New  York's  Lesbian  and  Gay 
Experimental  Film  Festival.  The  problems  of  such  a  question  are  obvious:  while  the  notion  of  a  gay  aesthetic 
speaks  to  a  sense  of  solidarity  among  gay  artists,  it  also  tends  to  elide  other  elements  of  a  person's  cultural  make- 
up (sex,  race,  economic  status)  that  might  equally  inform  their  work,  not  to  mention  the  multifarious  issues  of 
concern  to  gays  and  lesbians. 

The  question  of  a  gay  aesthetic  co-exists  with  other  questions  regarding  lesbians'  and  gays'  relation  to  the  cultural 
mainstream:  Do  such  festivals  provide  voice  to  those  who  might  not  be  heard  from  otherwise?  Or  do  they  further 
ghettoize  a  group  already  marginalized?  That  they  probably  do  both  is  a  measure  of  one  of  the  dilemmas  that 
lesbians  and  gays  find  themselves  in:  how  to  avoid  the  assimilationist  fantasy  of  the  homophiles  of  the  50s,  while 
still  being  afforded  equal  rights. 

AIDS  of  course  is  a  major  concern  of  the  gay  community,  and  many  of  the  films  on  tonight's  program  deal 
expressly  with  the  disease.  Whether  detailing  the  physical  effects  of  the  disease  or  the  more  societal  and  political 
effects  the  disease  has  wrought  on  the  gay  community,  AIDS  presents  itself  in  these  works  not  as  an 
insurmountable  problem  but  one  which  has  engendered  hope  despite  all  the  death  and  pain. 


Cirque  du  S.I.DA.  (1989),  by  Robert  Hilferty;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound  on  cassette,  4.5  minutes. 

"Gay  people  have  been  the  trapeze  artist,  acrobats,  jugglers  and  contortionists  throughout  human  history, 

especially  now  in  this  age  of  AIDS.  By  combining  footage  of  New  York's  Gay  Pride  Weekend  in  1988  and  Cirque 

du  Soleil  (a  Montreal-based  circus  troupe),  I  have  attempted  to  show  the  colorful  struggle  of  gays  and  lesbians  in 

a  hostile  environment,  one  in  which  the  spectre  and  spectacle  of  AIDS  predominates.  Music  by  Diamanda  Galas." 

(R.H.) 

D.H.RG.  mon  amour  (1989),  by  Carl  M.  George;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound  on  cassette,  10  minutes. 

Home  Avenue  (1989),  by  Jennifer  Montgomery;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  18  minutes. 
Jennifer  Montgomery's  Home  Avenue  at  its  most  basic  level  is  a  re-telling,  from  the  victim's  point  of  view,  of  the 
experience  of  being  raped.  But  here  the  "victim"  is  Montgomery  herself,  who  ten  years  later  addresses  the  camera 
(and  viewer)  both  as  subject  and  filmmaker.  The  use  of  direct  address  is  both  therapeutic  and  assertive,  enabling 
Montgomery  to  redress  the  terms  by  which  her  life  has  been  defined  —  a  victim,  "scared  and  scarred"  —  while 
at  the  same  time  making  real  (i.e.  external)  an  experience  for  which  there  was  "no  physical  evidence." 

It  is  this  notion  of  "evidence"  on  which  both  the  rape  experience  and  film  turn.  Those  in  positions  of  authority 
(the  physician,  her  mother)  are  suspicious  the  act  ever  happened,  because  the  rapist  didn't  ejaculate  (thereby 
reinforcing  male  superiority,  back-handedly).  As  such.  Montgomery's  experience  is  doubly  ignominious,  her 
"innocence  masquerading  as  guilt,  facts  masquerading  as  secrets."  In  re-presenting  (as  opposed  to  confessing) 
the  facts,  Montgomery  sets  the  record  straight  about  misplaced  suspicion  and  guilt.  But  Home  Avenue  is  also  a 
demand  for  a  world  where  openness  doesn't  lead  to  victimization. 

Dream  and  Desire  (1986),  by  Tom  Chomont;  16mm,  color,  sound,  5  minutes. 


46 


1990  Program  Notes 


Boys/Life  (1989),  by  Phillip  Roth;  16mm,  black  and  white,  sound,  10  minutes. 

"An  autobiographical  film  which  explores  the  contrast  between  the  sexual  freedom  I've  felt  as  a  gay  man  in  private 

situations  with  the  constraints  and  inhibitions  I've  felt  in  expressing  affection  with  other  men  in  public."  (PR.) 

Song  From  an  Angel  (1988),  by  David  Weissman;  16mm,  color,  sound,  5  minutes. 

"The  triumphant  final  performance  of  San  Francisco  actor/dancer  Rodney  Price.  A  founding  member  of  the 
Angels  of  Light  theatrical  troupe,  Rodney  performed  this  lighthearled  song  and  dance  about  his  own  death  two 
weeks  before  he  died  of  AIDS."  (D.W.) 

Still  Point  ( 1989),  by  Barbara  Hammer;  16mm,  color,  sound,  8  minutes. 

"Movement,  relationship,  home  and  homelessness  revolve  around  the  point  of  centeredness  in  a  4-screen  multiple 

image.  The  still  point  of  the  turning  world  —  'That's  where  the  dance  is'  (TS.  Eliot)."  (B.H.) 

Fragments  (1967),  by  Mike  Kuchar;  16mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 

Automonosexual  (1989),  by  Edgar  A.  Barens;  16mm,  black  and  white,  sound,  3  minutes. 
"The  term  automonosexual  describes  the  psychological  state  in  which  an  individual  is  able  to  achieve  sexual 
gratification  by  viewing  his/her  reflection  during  masturbation.  [This  film]  depicts  the  fantasy  and  self-fascination 
necessary  for  sexual  narcissism,  and  serves  as  an  autobiographical  account  of  the  sexual  frustration  and  isolation 
felt  in  the  face  of  AIDS."  (E.A.B.) 

Ecce  Homo  (1989),  by  Jerry  T^rtaglia;  16mm.  color,  sound,  7  minutes. 

"Thanks  to  AIDS  hysteria,  all  gay  sexuality  is  once  again  seen  as  pornographic,  politically  incorrect,  sinful,  or  a 
public  health  hazard.  One  wonders  in  this  film  whether  the  taboo  is  against  the  sex  or  against  the  'seeing'  of  the 
sex."  (J.T) 

(K.E.) 


THE  SUPER  '80s:  AUSTRALIAN  SUPER-8MM  FILMS  OF  THE  1980s 
Curated  and  presented  by  Michael  Hutak 

Thursday,  May  31, 1990 

Carumba!  (1986),  by  Nick  Meyers;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  4  minutes. 

Hoard  (1981),  by  Stephen  Harrop;  Super-8mm,  9  minutes. 

Twisted  Legend  (1985),  by  Richard  De  Souza  &  Rhondda  Kelly;  Super-8mm,  6  minutes. 

Untitled  (1984),  by  Merilyn  Fairskye;  Super-8mm,  3  minutes. 

Suspect  Filmmaker  (1984),  by  Rowan  Woods;  Super-8mm,  10  minutes. 

S.S.S.  (1986),  by  Andrew  Frost;  Super-8mm,  6  minutes. 

Shock  Corridor  (1985),  by  Mark  Titmarsh;  Super-8mm,  4  minutes. 


47 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

Westworld  Story  (1984-5),  by  Catherine  Lowing;  Super-Smm,  6  minutes. 

Ropo's  Movie  Night  (1986),  by  The  Marine  Biologists;  Super-8mm,  15  minutes. 

Macbeth's  Greatest  Hits  (1987),  by  Michael  Hutak;  super-8mm,  22  minutes. 

*  *  * 

This  program  charts  particular  moves  within  a  peculiar  film  scene:  Australian  Super-Smm  film  in  the  '80s. 

Historically,  the  emergence  of  a  renewed  local  Super-Smm  film  culture  around  the  turn  of  the  decade  sprang  from 
a  perceived  winding  down  of  16mm  activity  in  the  late  '70s. 

Super-Smm  was  championed  by  practitioners  as  almost  a  democratic  medium  offering  direct  and  easy  access  to 
the  contemporary  image  maker.  After  the  success  of  the  first  Annual  Sydney  Super-Smm  Film  Festival  in  1980 
a  new  scene  was  quickly  defined  and  promoted  as  the  "Super-Smm  Phenomenon." 

Local  art  journals  such  as  On  The  Beach  and  Tension  were  in  the  forefront  of  promoting  the  scene  as  straddling 
both  independent  film  and  the  visual  arts,  with  many  artists,  writers,  and  mixed-media  artists  trying  their  hands 
in  both  theory  and  practice. 

The  scene  reached  a  peak  of  activity  around  '84- '85  with  the  festivals  of  those  years  giving  birth  to  the  notorious 
"theatre  of  cruelty."  Here  any  film  which  exhibited  a  sincere  or  self-important  posture  was  greeted  with  howls 
of  derisive  laughter  from  the  rowdy  audience.  The  festival  was  replaced  with  a  mixed-media  event — The  Sydney 
Film  &  Video  Event  —  in  1988  and  Super-Smm  as  a  popular  phenomenon  has  been  on  the  decline  ever  since. 

The  works  which  sprang  from  this  milieu  had  at  least  one  thing  in  common:  absolute  diversity.  Therefore  this 
program  makes  no  claim  to  represent  any  wider  field  of  practice  but  rather  displays  some  of  the  more  engaging 
films  by  artists  who  produced  a  body  of  work  during  the  period. 

One  significant  feature  which  the  artists  here  do  share  is  an  absence  of  a  self-conscious  foregrounding  of  national 
identity:  Australia  more  a  state  of  mind  than  a  birthright,  and  while  not  easily  denied,  can  certainly  be  ignored. 
Made  by  citizens  of  the  worid,  these  films  celebrate  the  decade  when  the  world  went  global! 

— Michael  Hutak 


THE  ONE  REELER  SHOW 
Curated  by  Steve  Bade,  Bill  Daniel,  Greta  Snider  and  Ted  White 

Saturday,  June  2, 1990 


Short  films  rule!  The  "less  is  more"  approach  to  filmmaking  is  examined  tonight  in  a  program  of  Super-Smm 
(which  fit  on  a  50-foot  reel)  and  16mm  (which  fit  on  a  100-foot  reel)  films.  The  one-reel  genre  often  demonstrates 


48 


1990  Program  Notes 


compression,  immediacy,  1:1  shooting,  and  serendipitous  in-camera  editing.  We  will  see  28  films,  including  2 
samples  from  Owen  O'Toole's  international  The  Filmer's  Almanac.  Don't  forget-short  films  save  you  time! 
They're  convenient  and  ecologically  sound! 

—Bill  Daniel 


Crystal's  Birth  by  Elizabeth  Sher;  Super-8mm,  silent. 

Exclaim  Her  Limitless  Wisdom  by  Rock  Ross;  16mm,  sound. 

Dmitri  and  Ramona  by  Alex  Prisadsky,  16mm,  silent. 

Leaving  by  Kary  Fefer;  16mm,  silent. 

Hype  Hype  Media  Hype  by  Steve  Perkins;  16mm,  sound. 

The  Snake  Handling  Movie  by  Steve  Sandage;  Super-8mm,  silent. 

Sugar  Butt  by  Danny  Plotnick;  Super-8mm,  sound. 

Untitled  by  Al  Hernandez;  Super-8mm,  silent. 

VelAnd  The  Earthquake  by  Claire  Bain;  Super-8mm,  sound. 

Francis's  Trip  to  Morocco  by  Greta  Snider;  Super-8mm,  sound. 

Panhandler  by  Bill  Daniel;  Super-8mm,  sound. 

Crazy  by  Scott  Stark;  Super-8mm,  sound. 

Octobers*  by  Schmelzdahin;  Super-8mm,  silent. 

Straight  to  Hell  by  Rock  Ross;  16mm,  silent. 

Roger  by  Bill  Daniel;  Super-8mm,  silent. 

Cleanliness  Is  Next  To  Godliness*  by  Volker  Schonwart;  Super-8mm,  sound. 

Footage  by  Robert  Arnold;  Super-8mm,  silent. 

Speed  by  Stephen  Federico;  Super-8mm,  sound. 

Meet  Jesus  by  Chris  Simons;  Super-8mm,  Silent. 

Animal  Mar  by  Miguel  Alvear;  16mm,  silent. 

Whattaya  Doin  Brian  by  Elizabeth  &  Brian  &  Pablo;  Super-8mm,  sound. 

Me  Against  You  by  Konkapot:  Big  Boys  in  S8;  Super-8mm,  sound. 

49 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

All  The  Fun  Is  Getting  There  by  Steve  Bade;  Super-8mm.  silent. 

Blood  Story  by  Greta  Snider;  16mm,  sound. 

Untitled  by  Paul  Lundahl;  16mm,  sound. 

Water  Lily  by  Alex  Prisadsky;  16mm,  sound. 

Bad  News  by  Ted  White;  16mm,  sound. 

*From  the  Filmer's  Almanac 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 
Sunday,  June  3, 1990,  5  p.m. 


Eat  (1963),  by  Andy  Warhol;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  27  minutes. 

New  York  Portrait:  Chapter  3  (1989),  by  Peter  Hutton;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  16  minutes. 

Letter  lb  A  Suicide  (1985),  by  Jim  Campbell;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  29  minutes. 


OTHER  CULTURES,  OTHER  FORMS 

New  work  by  Larry  Gottheim,  Mark  LaPore  &  Leslie  Thornton 

Sunday,  June  3, 1990 

I  do  not  intend  to  speak  about.  Just  speak  nearby. 

That  modest  declaration,  voiced  by  Trinh  T.  Minh-ha  in  her  seminal  1982  film,  Reassemblage,  spoke  directly  to 
the  problematic  engendered  by  her  engagement  with  the  (often  complementary)  practices  of  documentary 
filmmaking  and  ethnographic  study.  By  situating  herself  and  her  camera  in  a  "Third  World"  country,  Minh-ha 
became  by  default  the  inhabiter  of  the  roles  of  both  documentarian  and  ethnographer;  the  resulting  film  was  as 
much  as  attempt  to  redress  these  roles  as  it  was  a  film  on/in  Senegal. 

Ultimately  Minh-ha 's  preciously  intellectual  voice-over  subverted  its  own  revisionist  intentions,  and  the  film 
seemed  to  fall  into  the  colonialist  trap  it  set  out  to  avoid.  But  in  spite  of  its  problems,  or  perhaps  because  of  them, 
Reassemblage  very  clearly  pointed  up  the  thorny  issues  inherent  in  trying  to  represent  (an)other  culture  via  an 
apparatus  (camera)  that  bespeaks  of  scientific  objectivity  but  which  only  works  when  at  the  service  of  human 
subjectivity. 


t50 


1990  Program  Notes 


Each  of  tonight's  three  works  deal  in  various  ways,  and  with  varying  levels  of  commitment,  with  those  heady 
questions  surrounding  the  representation  of  "other"  cultures.  Whether  overtly  set  within  another  culture  (as  in 
Machete,  Gillette.. .Mama),  or  our  own  ((Dung  Smoke  Enters  the  Palace))  or  somewhere  in  between  (The 
Sleepers),  each  work  cannot  escape  the  confines  it  places  itself  within.  In  the  end  these  confines  have  less  to  do 
with  a  culture,  other  or  otherwise,  that  may  be  depicted,  than  they  do  with  the  filmmaker's  own  position  vis-a-vis 
that  culture. 

*  *  * 

(Dung  Smoke  Enters  the  Palace)  (1989),  by  Leslie  Thornton;  16mm  and  3/4  inch  video,  sound  (video),  B&W, 
16  minutes. 

Peggy  and  Fred  in  Hell  is  a  series  of  films  and  videotapes  that  Leslie  Thornton  has  been  working  on  since  1981. 
To  date,  four  "episodes"  have  been  produced.  They  include  Peggy  and  Fred  in  Hell  (Prologue),  Peggy  and  Fred 
in  Kansas,  Peggy  and  Fred  and  Pete  and  (Dung  Smoke  Enters  the  Palace). 

"...It  is  precisely  in  the  interplay  of  difference  and  recognition  that  otherness  is  revealed.  By  working  closely  to 
our  traditions,  our  stories,  our  media,  our  narratives,  the  project  Peggy  and  Fred  in  Hell  destabilizes  the  familiar. 
It  points  to  an  otherness  within.  To  recognize  an  otherness  within  is  to  see  ourselves.  Peggy  and  Fred  in  Hell 
reinscribes  the  ethnographic  gaze,  bringing  about  reflection  upon  our  own  culture,  our  own  society,  our  own 
otherness.... 

'"Peggy  and  Fred  in  Hell  does  what  it  can  to  spread  open  the  stories  we  tell  ourselves,  about  ourselves.  And  that 
is  why  it  is  disturbing — because  it  is  familiar  yet  at  the  same  time  alien.  Peggy  and  Fred  in  Hell  looks  for  the 
structures  we  rely  on  to  make  sure  'reality'  flows  by  us  invisibly,  so  that  we  flow  within  its  stream.  It  does  this 
by  working  with  children,  because  children  are  not  quite  us  and  not  quite  other.  They  are  our  others.  The  are 
becoming  us.  Or  they  are  becoming  other.  They  are  at  a  dangerous  point...." — L.T. 

The  Sleepers  (1989),  by  Mark  LaPore;  16mm,  color,  sound,  15  minutes. 

"77je  Sleepers,  while  verging  on  the  confessional,  never  loses  sight  of  a  world  whose  structures  it  must  try  to 
penetrate.  The  discourse  quoted  in  the  film,  although  profoundly  insightful  about  the  situation  of  pre-capitalist 
third  world  cultures  in  a  period  of  global  totalization  of  technology,  are  never  simply  illustrated  by  the  images, 
which  range  from  North  Africa  to  New  York's  Chinatown.  In  this  film  LaPore  speaks  to  the  profound 
deterritorialization  of  the  twentieth  century  in  a  way  [that  is]  neither  documentary  nor  lyrical,  neither  diaristic  nor 
didactic,  but  employing  elements  of  all  these  discourses  in  order  to  weave  a  language  of  ambiguity  and  sensual 
specificity." 

— Tom  Gunning,  Motion  Picture,  Winter  1989-90. 

Machete  Gillette. ..Mama  (1989),  by  Larry  Gottheim;  16mm,  color,  sound,  45  minutes. 
"The  film  is  deliberately  not  documentary  in  form  or  character,  but  chooses  to  live  at  the  conjunction  of  the  real, 
the  narrative,  the  formally  experimental.  This  is  not  just  a  matter  of  negative  gestures — the  avoidance  of 
conventional  interviews,  translations,  explanations,  background  music — but  a  series  of  positive  cinematic  acts 
which  reach  for  a  purer,  more  authentic  relationship  both  with  the  'subjects'  depicted  in  the  film  and  the  audience 
which  looks  and  listens.  This  is  nowhere  more  apparent  than  in  the  active  disjunctive  style  which  is  based  on  the 
intensity  of  actual  seeing  and  interacting,  penetrated  by  significant  intervals  of  darkness  as  the  dense  soundtrack 
is  punctuated  and  enlivened  by  intervals  of  silence. 

"The  form  and  style  of  the  film  partly  grow  out  of  an  awareness  of  the  problems  involved  in  the  representation 
of  'other  cultures '  in  our  time,  but  the  film  stays  clear  of  an  easy  address  to  the  marketplace  of  current  theory,  opting 
instead  for  the  vitality  of  sensual  truth  and  the  deepest  mysteries  that  grow  between  the  self  and  the  other." — L.G. 

(K.E.) 


51 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


CANADIAN  FILMMAKERS  —  OLD  AND  NEW 
Curated  by  Daria  Stermac  and  Mike  Hoolboom 

Thursday,  June  7, 1990 

The  Maltese  Cross  Movement  (1967),  by  Keewatin  Dewdney;  16mm,  color,  sound,  8  minutes. 
"The  film  reflects  Dewdney 's  conviction  that  'the  projector,  not  the  camera,  is  the  filmmaker's  true  medium. '...The 
film  is  organized  around  the  principle  that  it  can  only  complete  itself  when  enough  separate  and  discontinuous 
sounds  have  been  stored  up  to  provide  the  male  voice  on  the  soundtrack  with  the  sounds  needed  to  repeat  a  little 
girl's  poem." 

— William  Wees 

Current  (1986),  by  Ellie  Epp;  16mm,  color,  silent,  2.5  minutes. 

The  rhythmic  pulsing  of  shafts  of  blue  light  here  in  this  short  film  create  a  silent  musicality.  Resembling  a  pipe 
organ,  these  luminescent  lines  are  conduits  for  an  ever  ebbing  and  flowing  intensity  that  has  as  much  to  do  with 
darkness  as  it  does  with  light. 

No.  5  Reversal  (1989),  by  Josephine  Massarella;  16mm,  B&W  sound,  8.5  minutes. 

"The  idea  for  No.  5  Reversal  arose  spontaneously,  out  of  personal  experience,  imagination,  and  memory. 
Although  my  ideas  are  not  the  results  of  programmed  deliberation  on  a  certain  topic  or  theory,  during  editing  and 
shooting  I  often  hold  the  idea  'up  to  the  light,'  testing  it  for  originality  and  clarity.  I  prefer  to  leave  as  much  open 
to  interpretation  as  possible  without  losing  sense."  — J.M. 

See  You  Later/Au  Revoir  (1990),  by  Michael  Snow;  16mm,  color,  sound,  18  minutes. 
By  taking  a  banal,  common  event  —  one  which  probably  lasted  a  half  a  minute  in  real  time  —  and  stretching  it 
out  over  the  course  of  an  18-minute  film,  Michael  Snow  does  not  heighten  or  increase  the  banality  of  the  event 
but  rather  questions  if  the  event  was  so  banal  in  the  first  place.  The  original  action  of  a  man  (Snow)  leaving  an 
office  and  saying  goodbye  to  the  secretary  is  stripped  of  its  ordinariness  and  instead  acquires  a  poignancy  rarely 
accorded  to  the  mundane. 

Allowing,  as  opposed  to  forcing  —  a  verb  too  often  mistakenly  associated  with  Snow's  work  —  the  viewer  to 
contemplate  both  the  action  and  the  environment  where  that  action  occurs,  a  new  space  opens  up  for  the  viewer 
that  isn't  tangibly  present  but  palpable  nonetheless.  Snow's  very  deliberate  use  of  color,  shapes  and  geometric 
patterns  is  played  against  the  varying  quality  of  light  and  shadow  to  create  an  emotional  space  not  at  odds  with 
the  scene's  original  banality  but  rather  one  tied  up  in  that  banality.  The  simple  passage  of  a  man  from  inside  to 
outside  is  not  unlike  that  45-minute  zoom  that  drove  Snow's  landmark  Wavelength  (1967).  Movement  here,  as 
there,  is  both  mediated  and  inevitable,  open  to  examination  yet  finally  irreducible  —  nothing  very  simple  after 
all. 


Condensation  of  Sensation  (Reel  One)  (1987),  by  Cari  Brown;  16mm,  color,  sound,  35  minutes. 
"      In  these  frames  are  the  essence  of  my  sensations 
carefully  nurtured  and  felt  over  and  over  again 
out  of  these  frames 

these  frames  and  you 
These  sensations  are  what  are  common  between  us 
take  them  with  you 
use  them  when  you  like 

Tell  me  a  riddle"  — C.B. 

(K.E.) 

52 


1990  Program  Notes 


OPEN  SCREENING  HIGHLIGHTS,  1989-1990 
Curated  and  presented  by  Lissa  Gibbs 

Saturday,  June  9, 1990 


Looking  Back  (1989),  by  Ramon  Quanta  La  Gusta;  3/4"  videotape,  30  seconds. 

The  History  of  America  (1990),  by  Andy  Meade;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  8  minutes. 

Pure  Horseradish  (1990)  by  Bruce  Smithhammer,  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  11  minutes. 
My  father  had  told  me  about  his  moving  out  to  California  from  the  East  Coast  in  the  early  fifties,  and  I  got  to 
thinking  about  how  that  type  of  trip  can  no  longer  be  experienced  in  quite  the  same  way;  the  architecture  which 
early  highway  culture  gave  rise  to,  the  difference  in  the  kind  of  relationships  that  people  had  with  their  automobiles, 
the  fact  that  three  thousand  miles  was  a  much  greater  distance  then.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  nostalgia.  This  is 
a  film  about  that  and  what  can  occur  when  it's  cold  enough  and  the  fish  aren't  biting. — B.S. 

Town  of  Day  (1989),  by  Jerome  Carolfi;  16mm,  color,  sound,  13.5  minutes. 

The  film  straddles  the  boundaries  between  the  personal  and  the  documentary.  The  sensibility  behind  the  film 
comes  from  a  realm  where  documentary  is  free  of  having  to  pretend  to  objectively  "present  reality"  and  the  poetic 
is  allowed  to  enter  into  the  work.  The  film  interweaves  bits  and  pieces  of  family  history  with  historical  and  archival 
sources  to  achieve  its  effect.  Many  of  the  voice-overs  in  Town  of  Day  are  by  my  mother  Eleanor,  my  sisters  Jeannie 
and  Ruthie  and  myself.  Many  of  the  images  were  drawn  from  the  State  Historical  Society's  archives  in  Madison, 
Wisconsin.  The  assemblage  is  concerned  as  much  with  the  poetics  of  the  image  and  sound  as  it  is  with  wanting 
to  "inform"  or  create  narrative  structure. — J.C. 

The  Pain  of  Goats  (1989-90),  by  Michael  Perkins;  16mm,  color,  sound,  13  minutes. 

First  from  a  group  of  optically  printed  films  called  the  The  Vampire  Series  that  are  inspired  by  metaphorical 
parallels  between  the  vampire  myth  and  certain  quahties  of  our  culture  of  consumption  and  of  cinema.  An  optically 
printed,  rhythmic  onslaught  of  images  about  consuming  and  personal  transformation. — M.P. 

Michael  G.  Page's  Laundry  (1989),  by  Duncan  Macleod;  Super-8mm  installation. 

A  Piece  of  Skin  (1989),  by  Katherine  Enos;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  7  minutes. 
An  experimental  film  about  vulnerability  and  the  ambiguity  of  touch. — K.E. 

Untitled  (1989),  by  Wallace  King;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  3  minutes. 

Condemnation  (1989),  by  Kevin  Deal;  16mm,  color,  sound,  6  minutes. 

An  exploration  of  personal  and  social  alienation  through  stream  of  consciousness  editing  and  motion  graphics. 
By  dealing  with  high  speed  information  and  transitions  as  imagery,  the  film  comments  on  the  manipulative  power 
of  current  media. — K.D. 

Red  (1990),  by  Kent  Howie;  Super-8mm,  color,  silent,  2.5  minutes. 

This  tiny  film  is  from  my  heart.  I  know  you  should  mistrust  what  I  say  about  my  work.  Stuttering  and  stammering 
won't  help.  I  looked  at  this  magazine  and  it  turned  around  and  looked  back  at  me.  It's  just  a  dismemberment  of 
a  discarded  commodity  like  the  ones  from  my  childhood  that  I  always  found  crumpled  and  rolled  up  in  the  wood 
box.  After  I  sorta'  read  them,  I  would  roll  them  back  up  and  lightem'  up.  It's  really  about  temporality  and 
awakenings.  It  reminds  me  in  a  funny  way  like  the  sound  that  the  leaves  make  when  the  wind  is  in  the  tops  of  the 
Cottonwood  trees. — K.H. 


53 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


History  of  Texas  City  (1990),  by  Bill  Daniel;  Super-8mm,  B&W,  sound,  1.5  minutes. 
A  portrait  of  a  Texas  refinery  town  as  told  by  the  history  of  country  music. — B.D. 

Cement  City  Expedition  (1990),  by  Bill  Daniel  and  Elizabeth  House;  Super-8mm,  B&W,  sound,  9  minutes. 
Dallas  urban  archaeologist,  Alex  Troup,  leads  an  unofficial  search  for  the  lost  graveyard  of  cement  factory 
workers. — B.D. 

Untitled  (1989),  by  Kurt  Easterwood;  16mm,  B«feW,  sound,  1.5  minutes. 

In  this  footage  found  inside  a  Daddy 's  closet  the  loneliness  of  a  long  distance  runner  is  pitted  opposite  a  maelstrom 
of  male  bodies  clumsily  tackling  problems  of  nature.  Will  boys  be  boys?  Do  nice  guys  finish  last?  Remember, 
it  ain't  over  till  it's  over. — K.E. 

Little  8's  (1989),  by  Phyllis  Christopher;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  2.5  minutes. 

Little  8's  is  a  humorous  glimpse  at  the  effects  of  repetitive  work  as  it  invades  that  space  between  waking  and 

dreaming. —  P.C. 


UPA:  RARE  ANIMATION  FROM  A  REBEL  STUDIO 
Curated  and  presented  by  Reed  Kirk  Rahlmann  and  Russell  Merritt 


Sunday,  June  10, 1990 


UPA  occupies  a  unique  position  in  the  history  of  animation,  influencing  both  avant-garde  and  commercial 
animation.  It  is  also  considered  the  first  politically  involved  studio,  championing  progressive  causes  that  no  other 
studio  dared  touch.  Today  its  influence  can  be  felt  in  the  work  of  the  Zagreb  animation  studio  in  Yugoslavia,  the 
surreal  work  of  the  Pannonia  studio  in  Hungary,  and  —  closer  to  home  —  in  the  experimental  shorts  of  the  National 
Film  Board  of  Canada. 

It  is  customary  to  write  of  the  UPA  "style"  —  the  famous  experimental  look  that  appeared  flat  and  abstract,  the 
graphic  counterpart  to  UPA's  contemporary,  off-beat  humor.  Yet  although  the  UPA  films  were  as  immediately 
recognizable  as  the  Silly  Symphonies  of  the  1930s,  the  artists  never  limited  themselves  to  a  single  pictorial  model. 
As  we  will  see,  the  dark,  brooding  backgrounds  Paul  Julian  painted  for  The  Tell  Tale  Heart  have  little  in  common 
with  the  bright  pasteboard  look  of  "Hell  Bent  for  Election,"  and  neither  seems  related  to  the  garish  colorings  of 
The  Man  in  the  Flying  Trapeze.  As  UPA  production  manager  Herb  Klynn  told  Charles  Solomon,  "No  two  UPA 
pictures  were  ever  done  in  the  same  style.  Every  time  we  did  something,  it  became  a  creative  experiment  and  an 
innovative  search."  The  true  trademark  of  UPA  was  its  constant  experimentation  with  modernist  styles,  tamed  to 
entertain  middle-class  America. 

From  the  start  UPA  was  conceived  as  a  commercial  studio  that  combined  liberal  idealism  with  hardheaded 
business  sense.  Its  origins  can  be  traced  back  to  1943,  when  Stephen  Bosustow  joined  Zack  Schwartz  and  Dave 
Hilberman  to  form  the  Industrial  Film  and  Poster  Service —  a  studio  set  up  to  provide  film  strips,  graphic  materials, 
and  animated  shorts  to  defense  contractors  and  the  military.  The  studio  was  an  immediate  success.  Soon  IFP  had 
won  so  many  assignments  that  the  company  began  farming  out  work  to  animators  at  rival  studios.  Top  animators, 
excited  by  the  creative  freedom  IFP  gave  them,  were  eager  to  moonlight  as  free  lancers.  With  the  success  of  their 


54 


1990  Program  Notes 


most  famous  industrial  film  —  Hell  Bent  for  Election  —  the  partners  re-christened  their  company  United  Pro- 
ductions. Within  months  Bosustow  bought  out  his  partners  and  recruited  many  of  the  most  important  designers 
and  animators  in  the  business 

As  a  company  shaped  in  post-war  America,  UPA  was  on  the  cutting  edge  of  the  new  markets  opened  up  by 
advertising,  television,  and  the  new  enthusiasm  for  animation  among  adults.  Above  all,  UPA  saw  itself  as  the 
antidote  to  Walt  Disney.  Most  of  the  staff,  in  fact,  were  Disney  ex-employees,  who  had  been  purged  in  the  ruinous 
Disney  strike  of  1941.  Among  them  were  the  three  UPA  founders  themselves,  their  most  famous  directors,  John 
Hubley  and  Robert  "Bo"  Cannon,  and  most  of  their  top  animators.  This  was  the  studio  that  would  turn  the  Disney 
formulas  on  their  head,  both  organizationally  and  creatively. 

Less  frequently  observed  was  UPA's  equally  emphatic  reaction  against  Warner  Brothers  animation.  Robert 
Cannon,  who  had  worked  for  both  Disney  and  Warners,  was  particularly  vehement  in  his  reaction  against  the 
slapstick  animation  he  had  done  for  Chuck  Jones.  According  to  UPA  writer  Bill  Scott,  the  two  things  UPA  writers 
had  to  avoid  were  "Disney  cute"  and  "Warner  Brothers  violent  humor."  The  challenge  was  to  And  ways  to  entertain 
and  provoke  without  assaulting  an  audience. 


Hell-Bent  for  Election  (1944),  directed  by  Chuck  Jones;  S8mm,  13  minutes 

The  break-through  film  that  established  the  unique  UPA  style  when  the  studio  was  still  called  the  Industrial  Film 
and  Poster  Service.  Hell-Bent  was  commissioned  by  the  United  Auto  Workers  as  a  campaign  film  for  Franklin 
Roosevelt's  1944  campaign,  and  from  all  accounts  became  a  labor  of  love  for  those  who  worked  on  it.  Chuck  Jones 
directed  the  film  at  nights  after  putting  in  a  full  day  at  Warner  Brothers.  Earl  Robinson  and  Yip  Harburg,  soon  to 
run  afoul  of  HUAC,  wrote  the  music. 

So  far.  it  remains  a  one-of-a-kind  cartoon:  the  first  and  last  time  an  animated  film  has  been  commissioned  for  a 
presidential  election. 

The  Magic  Fluke  (1949),  directed  by  John  Hubley;  16mm,  7  minutes. 

The  Fox  and  Crow  were  part  of  the  unwelcome  luggage  UPA  inherited  when  it  signed  with  Columbia.  The  two 
characters  had  been  created  at  Columbia  in  1941,  and  had  quickly  degenerated  into  the  kind  of  banal  animal  clowns 
UPA  had  been  formed  to  attack.  Nobody  at  UPA  wanted  to  work  with  any  animal  characters,  let  alone  this  pair. 
John  Hubley  took  the  assignment  under  protest,  directed  three  of  them,  and  won  an  Academy  Award  nomination 
for  this  one. 

The  Ragtime  Bear  (1949),  directed  by  John  Hubley;  16mm,  7  minutes 

The  start  of  Mr.  Magoo;  often  cited  as  the  first  theatrically  released  cartoon  made  in  the  UPA  style.  In  1949  UPA 

initiated  the  Jolly  Frolics  series  with  this  film,  in  an  effort  to  supplant  animal  cartoon  characters  with  human 

caricatures. 

Those  anticipating  the  genial  puttering  uncle  in  the  later  Magoos  may  be  startled  by  the  original  conception, 
modelled  on  W.C.  Fields.  "Magoo  was  very  spiky  when  Art  Babbitt  animated  him,"  UPA  coworker  Bill  Hurtz 
told  Charles  Solomon.  "He  was  all  Hint  and  outthrust  jaw.  His  head  was  much  smaller  than  the  baby-doll  head  he 
got  later,  and  he  walked  with  this  purposeful,  aggressive  stride." 

Gerald  Mc  Boing  Being  (1951)  directed  by  Robert  Cannon;  16mm,  7  minutes. 

This  won  UPA  its  first  Oscar  for  one  of  its  most  famous  films.  According  to  Bill  Hurtz,  "We  worked  out  this  crazy 
linear  pattern  that  plays  all  the  way  through  the  film,  almost  on  a  continuous  line.  Where  the  character  ends  up 
in  one  scene  is  where  he  picks  up  in  the  next.  Also  the  props  were  all  silent  characters.  You  couldn't  tell  what  the 


55 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


rooms  in  ihat  house  were  like,  so  the  animation  carved  out  the  space.  That  was  the  strong  thing  that  Bob  Cannon 
was  really  excited  by." 

The  Oopahs  (1952),  directed  by  Robert  Cannon;  16mm.  8  minutes 

Cannon's  most  abstract  work  yet;  this  one  stars  a  tuba  and  his  rebel  son,  a  Dixieland  trumpet,  animated  figures 
entirely  free  of  anthropomorphic  detail.  These  extremely  odd  characters  speed  around  in  bright  abstract  decor, 
caught  up  in  the  most  prosaic  of  middle-class  father-son  disputes. 

Rooty  Toot  Toot  (1952)  directed  by  John  Hubley;  16mm,  8  minutes. 

Hubley  took  his  inspiration  for  this  tour  de  force  from  a  Broadway  musical  comedy  that  had  featured  a  ballet 
treatment  of  "Frankie  and  Johnny."  The  splenetic  be-bop  rhythms  and  compulsive  movements — the  combination 
of  strongly-held  key  poses  with  unevenly  spaced  in-betweens  —  could  not  be  further  from  the  silky  smoothness 
of  Cannon's  UPA  style. 

This  was  the  only  UPA  film  to  be  censored.  In  the  original,  when  Nellie  Bly  claims  she's  a  singer,  Frankie  replies, 
"She's  no  singer,  she's  a..."  Columbia  knew  bawdy  when  it  heard  it,  and  scissered  out  the  "she's  a..." 

Willie  the  Kid  (1952),  directed  by  Robert  Cannon;  16mm.  7  minutes 

Cannon's  preference  for  innocent,  whimsical  fantasies  often  led  him  to  make  films  about  children.  In  this  one,  he 
outdid  himself  in  blending  the  make-believe  world  of  children  and  the  prosaic  routine  of  adults  in  the  suburbs. 
James  Thurber  regarded  this  as  UPA's  most  perfect  film,  and  its  influence  on  John  Hubley 's  later  independent 
work,  notably  Moonbird  and  Cockabooty,  is  pronounced. 

The  Tell  Tale  Heart  (1953),  directed  by  Ted  Parmelee;  16mm.  8  minutes 

Design  and  color  by  Paul  Julian. 

Probably  UPA's  most  influential  film;  this  was  UPA's  pioneering  effort  at  showing  what  can  be  done  in  animation 

with  serious  literary  material.  The  style  is  derived  from  the  theatrical  designs  of  Jo  Mielziner,  blended  with  the 

Surrealist  landscapes  of  de  Chirico  and  Dali.  The  film  was  shot  in  3-D  to  intensify  the  broad  expanse  of  the  dream 

sets,  but  released  only  in  flat  versions. 

The  Man  on  the  Flying  TYapeze  (1954),  directed  by  Ted  Parmelee;  16mm,  7  minutes 

Parmelee's  follow-up  to  Tell-Tale  Heart  that  works  with  a  new  set  of  painteriy  and  theatrical  sources  to  create 
UPA's  most  cynical  film.  Here  Parmelee  is  decisively  shaped  by  the  garish  circus  worid  of  Toulouse-Lautrec  and 
the  Fauves.  As  a  satire  directed  against  Victorian  melodrama  and  notions  of  true  love,  the  film  is  marked  by  bright 
dissonant  colors,  distorted  drawings,  and  the  joyful  pyrotechnics  of  syncopated  animation. 

Fudget*s  Budget  (1954)  directed  by  Robert  Cannon;  16mm,  8  minutes 

For  all  his  stylistic  virtuosity.  Cannon's  themes  remain  remarkably  consistent.  "Bobe  and  T  Hee  were  agreeable 
components  of  a  very  agreeable  pattern,  doing  small  quiet  things  with  an  original  turn  of  mind,"  designer  Paul 
Julian  remarked.  "But  there  was  never  any  bite  to  them  —  it  was  if  Bobe  didn't  have  any  front  teeth."  The  harrassed, 
henpecked  husband  matched  with  the  prim,  conventional  wife,  became  as  much  a  Cannon  trademark  as  the  ever- 
increasing  tendency  towards  graphic  abstraction. 

The  Jaywalker  (1965),  directed  by  Robert  Cannon;  16mm,  8  minutes 

By  the  end  of  1955,  UPA  had  established  itself  at  the  forefront  of  the  animation  industry.  Bosustow  had  opened 
a  UPA  office  in  NYC  at  Fifth  &  53rd  to  handle  UPA's  advertizing  and  industrial  accounts,  responsible  for  almost 
half  the  studio's  revenues.  Then,  UPA  opened  a  London  branch,  to  compete  head-on  with  European  animation 
companies.  Back  in  Hollywood,  all  three  Oscar  cartoon  nominees  were  UPA  films,  a  feat  that  even  Disney  never 
rivaled.  The  Jaywalker  lost  to  Mr  Magoo's  Puddle  Jumper. 

— Russell  Merritt 


56 


1990  Program  Notes 


METAPHORICAL  JOURNEYS:  NEW  BRITISH  A  VANT  GARDE 
Curated  and  presented  by  Moira  Sweeney 

Thursday,  June  14, 1990 


Tonight's  program  represents  contemporary  work  by  women  in  Britain.  The  films,  taken  together,  are  informed 
by  the  juncture  of  feminist  film  theory  and  psychoanalysis  theory  (more  influential  in  Europe  than  in  the  U.S.). 
They  share  concerns  of  interior/exterior  space  and  identity  in  terms  of  subjectivity,  while  questioning  the  denial 
of  visual  pleasure  seemingly  advocated  by  "classic"  feminist  theory.  The  program  was  curated  by  filmmaker 
Moira  Sweeney,  who  is  the  film  programmer  for  the  Arts  Council  of  Great  Britain. 


Looking  for  the  Moon  (1986),  by  Moira  Sweeney;  16mm,  color,  silent,  7  minutes. 

Evoking  an  iconography  that  stems  from  the  work  of  Maya  Deren,  Sweeney  uses  both  movement  within  the  frame 
and  editing  as  choreographic  elements.  The  tension  created  is  between  the  pull  of  an  off -screen  person's  hands 
and  the  private  world  the  woman  sees  through  her  window. 

"Tentative  gestures  of  hands  and  body  become  symbolic  of  opposing  emotions  involved  in  the  closeness  to  one 
person;  trust  —  the  need  to  escape.  Actions  merge  into  one  continual  unresolved  movement."  — M.S. 


K  (1989),  by  Jayne  Parker;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  12  minutes. 

"Starkly  photographed  in  a  bare  room,  a  woman  pulls  her  insides  out  through  her  mouth.  The  precise  minimalism 
of  the  film  is  reminiscent  of  modem  dance  and  performance  art  emphasizing  pure  movement.  Here,  the  object 
is  as  assertive  as  the  movement...  the  woman  weaving  her  intestines  into  a  garment  she  does  not  put  on. 

Divested  of  all  external  trappings,  the  artist  pulls  out  her  own  intestines,  to  finally  knit  the  tangled  mass  at  her  feet 
into  a  symmetrical  structure.  A^is  concerned  with  facing  up  to  fears,  exerting  control  and  gaining  strength.  Its 
balance,  structure  and  serene  pacing  reflect  the  artist's  ultimate  imposition  of  order."  — M.S. 


Kugelkopf  — An  Ode  to  IBM  (1985),  by  Mara  Mattuschka;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  6  minutes. 
"Another  of  Mara  Mattuschka's  witty  and  daring  films.  In  Kugelkopf  a  woman  shaves  and  bandages  her  head, 
cuts  it  with  a  razor  and  proceeds  to  make  patterns  and  marks  with  the  blood  from  it  on  a  glass  wall.  This  ritual 
is  performed  with  ease  and  almost  delight.  It  is  one  of  those  rare  films  which  transcends  any  simple  notion  of 
masochism,  allowing  for  a  compelling  view  of  the  line  between  pleasure  and  pain"  — M.S. 

The  only  one  of  tonight's  films  made  outside  Britain,  Kugelkopf  is  present  as  a  contrast  to  the  British  work  in  its 
treatment  of  women's  bodies.  Historical  in  its  striking  black  and  white  images  and  staccato  motion,  it  makes 
reference  to  Bunuel's  Un  Chien  Andalou  (1928)  but  puts  a  woman  in  control  of  violence  against  herself. 


Beauty  in  the  Most  Profound  Distortion  (1989),  by  Sophia  Phoca;  16mm,  B&W,  10  minutes. 
"Beginning  as  a  crisp  dance  of  shadows,  its  flowing  movement  is  disturbed  and  complicated  by  rippling  water, 
refracting  and  expanding  the  image.  Authority  defines  its  own  antithesis.  Antitheses  defines  its  own  authority." 
—M.S. 


57 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


Three  Paces  (Moving  Through  the  Mirror)  (1989),  by  Alia  Syed;  16mm,  B&W,  15  minutes. 
"Based  on  Tennyson's  poem  The  Lady  of  Shallot ,  the  film  is  a  disturbing  play  of  misrecognition  and  idealization 
between  two  women,  place  in  different  spheres  (inner  and  outer  worlds)  and  on  opposite  planes  of  a  mirror.  It 
unfolds  in  a  series  of  discontinuous  images  and  sounds  reflecting  the  fragmented  reality  of  the  characters.  A 
collision  of  elliptical  traces  which  form  the  multiplicity  of  desire."  — M.S. 

"In  a  memorable  sequence,  a  couple  in  a  cafe  chat  and  order  tea.  They  are  observed  from  a  variety  of  angles  and 
in  extreme  close-u[  with  sudden  shifts  in  focus  and  depth  of  field.  Their  conversation  is  caught  in  snippets  which 
switch  in  and  out  of  sync,  while  elsewhere  there  are  only  mute  lip  movements.  A  regular  pattern  of  sync,  voice- 
over  and  silence  is  established  suggesting  an  autonomous  formal  structure  that  sometimes  coincides  with  the 
actions  of  the  characters  and  sometimes  does  not,  and  the  interaction  of  these  two  strands  gives  the  film  much  of 
its  energy  and  appear." 

— Nicky  Hamlyn 


Imaginary  (1988-89).  by  Moira  Sweeney;  16mm,  color,  silent,  18  minutes. 

"The  most  concerned  with  film  as  material  of  any  on  the  program.  Imaginary  succeeds  in  creating  a  tactile  ex- 
perience in  the  viewer.  Glass  bottles  near  a  window  recur  with  a  arm  nostalgia.  The  camera  skids  gently  over  a 
nude  male  body  with  the  tentative  quality  of  a  finger  reaching  out — a  quality  in  contrast  to  usual  images  of  women 
filmed  by  men. 

"Fragments  of  countryside,  objects,  houses,  interior  spaces  and  outer  worlds,  by  also  almost  bodily  gestures  of 
tenderness  between  camera  and  people.  A  dream  like  reality  is  created,  the  mosaic  of  life,  a  diary  of  electrical 
shadows,  pure  form  of  cinema." 

— AlfBold 


The  Pavement  (1989),  by  Diana  Mavroleon;  16mm,  color,  sound,  14  minutes. 

"The  film  convincingly  blurs  everyday  life  with  a  fertile  and  imaginary  world  created  by  four  very  different  women 
for  themselves.  This  montage  weaves  Indian  film  music  and  Gothic  opera  into  a  dreamy  evocative  and  unsettling 
piece  where  female  interior  and  exterior  worids  shift  and  collide."  — M.S. 

The  Pavement  endows  prosaic  events  with  operatic  passion  as  four  women  are  drawn  together  in  reaction  to  the 
malice  of  the  public  sidewalk. 


(E.C.) 


SAVLLEVINE:  POLITICS  AND  VISION 
Filmmaker  in  person 


Saturday,  June  16, 1990 

The  Big  Stick/An  Old  Reel  (1967-73);  16mm  blow-up  from  Regular-8mm,  B&W,  silent,  15  minutes. 
Raps  and  Chants,  Part  One  (1981);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  12  minutes. 

58 


1990  Program  Notes 


Notes  After  Long  Silence  (1989);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  14  minutes. 
New  Left  Note  (1968-82);  16mm  blow-up  from  Regular-8mm,  color,  silent,  25  minutes. 
A  Brennen  Soil  Columbusn  ^s  Medina  (1976-84);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  15  minutes. 
Preview  (1989);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 


«   <K   * 


The  films  of  Saul  Levine  are  tenacious  works  which  command  respect  at  the  same  time  as  they  sear  notions  of  what 
is  acceptable  film  practice.  The  technical  rawness  of  the  work  flies  in  the  face  of  such  distinctions  as  are  made 
between  "professional"  and  "amateur,"  while  confronting  the  viewer  with  a  style  that  refuses  to  be  easily 
accessible,  or  to  produce  easy  conclusions.  However,  Levine 's  is  not  a  cinema  of  negation:  it  is  a  direct  response 
to  the  world  and  Levine 's  vision  of  that  world.  The  tenor  of  this  vision  is  gritty  and  aggressive,  to  be  sure,  but  also 
humorous  and  sad  as  well. 

Levine's  films  are  frenetic  tapestries  created  by  a  radical  juxtaposition  of  images  —  often  with  lightning  speed 
—  and  his  employment  of  the  visual  and  aural  lacerations  that  arise  from  using  the  "smaller"  gauges  of  Regular- 
and  Super-8mm.  In  the  end,  it  is  these  lacerations  that  help  shape  the  dominant  impressions  one  gamers  from  these 
films,  for  they  epitomize  both  the  violence  and  displacement  of  Levine 's  experience.  The  splice  marks  that  divide 
the  frame  in  both  The  Big  Stick/ An  Old  Reel  and  New  Left  Note  are  on  one  hand  symbolic  of  the  frenzied  activity 
of  the  events  depicted,  while  also  reflective  of  a  tenuous  attempt  to  make  some  cohesive  statement  about  a 
contradictory  society. 

With  the  addition  of  sound,  Levine  has  gone  one  step  further  in  dislocating  his  films  (and  consequently  the  viewer) 
from  any  easily  legible  reading.  The  disjunction  of  sound  and  image  that  occurs  when  editing  single -system  Super- 
8mm  sound  is  the  aural  complement  to  the  splice  bars  of  the  earlier  Regular-8mm  films.  The  lack  of  a  synchronous 
relationship  between  sound  and  image  goes  directly  to  the  center  of  what  Levine's  "music"  is  all  about:  how  to 
sift  through  the  multiplicity  of  viewpoints  one  is  bombarded  with,  while  keeping  in  sync  with  one's  identity. 

Within  the  conviction  of  these  films  there  also  lies  a  sense  of  frustration,  and  it  is  this  sense  which  renders  the 
insistency  of  Levine's  style  more  of  a  revelatory  gesture  than  a  didactic  attack.  In  the  end,  these  "notes"  by  Saul 
Levine  reveal  that  they  are  the  product  of  an  idealism  that  just  won't  go  away,  and  as  such,  they  are  both  tenacious 
and  tenuous. 


(K.E.) 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 
Sunday,  June  17, 1990,  5  p.m. 


Films  by  Stuart  Sherman: 

Roller  Coaster-Reading  (1979);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  3  minutes. 

Flying  (1979);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  1  minute. 


59 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

Camera-Cage  (1978);  16mm,  B«&W,  silent,  3  minutes. 
Baseball-TV  (1979);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,!  minute. 

Films  by  Phil  Solomon: 

Nocturne  (1980,  revised  1989);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  10  minutes. 

The  Exquisite  Hour  (1989);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  15  minutes. 

*  *  ♦ 

In  the  Shape  of  Waking:  Meditations  (1989-90),  a  series  of  four  films  by  Peter  Herwitz: 
Body  of  Light  (1989);  Super-8mm,  color,  silent,  6  minutes. 
In  the  Rhythm  of  Falling  (1989);  Super-8mm,  color,  silent,  8  minutes. 
Encircling  the  Shadow  (1990);  Super-8mm,  color,  silent,  4  minutes. 
As  You  Lift  Your  Eyelids,  TYacing  Lightly  (1990);  Super-8mm,  color,  silent,  7  minutes. 


YASUJIRO  OZU:  SILENT  MASTERWORKS 
Sunday,  June  17,1990 


"The  Japanese  continue. ..to  think  of  Yasujiro  Ozu  as  the  most  Japanese  of  all  their  directors.  This  does  not  mean 
he  is  their  favorite,  although  he  has  been  given  more  official  honor  than  any  other.  It  means  that  he  is  regarded 
as  a  kind  of  spokesman;  Ozu,  one  is  told,  had  the  real  Japanese  flavor.  This  Japanese  flavor  has  a  more  definite 
meaning  than,  say,  the  American  way  or  the  French  touch  if  only  because  Japan  remains  so  intensely  conscious 
of  its  own  Japaneseness.  Modem  civilization,  only  a  century  old,  remains  a  Western  veneer  over  an  Asian  culture 
that  has  endured  for  two  millenia." 


Donald  Richie,  Ozu:  His  Life  and  Films 


*  *  * 


Tokyo  no  Onna  (Woman  of  Tokyo,  1933);  16mm,  B&W,  silent  at  18  f.p.s.,  47  minutes. 
Script  by  Kogo  Noda  and  Tadao  Ikeda,  after  a  story  by  Ernst  Schwartz,  a  pen  name  for  Ozu.  Photographed  by 
Hideo  Shigehara.    With  Yoshiko  Okada,  Ureo  Egawa,  Kinuyo  Tanaka,  Shinyo  Nara,  and  others.    Released 
February  9,  1933. 


60 


1990  Program  Notes 


"Ozu's  theme  here  is  reminiscent  of  the  "social  realist"  films  Kenji  Mizoguchi  began  making  at  about  this  time 
...  all  of  which  deal  with  women  who  sacrifice  themselves  for  the  betterment  of  young  men  they  love.  One  brief 
diversion  from  his  sad  story  —  and  Ozu  was  always  fond  of  diversions  —  has  Ryoichi  and  Harueoff  to  the  movies 
(of  course)  to  see  If  I  Had  A  Million,  a  1932  omnibus  film;  the  part  we  see  is  the  segment  directed  by  Ozu's  favorite, 
Ernst  Lubitsch,  and  featuring  Charies  Laughton." 

—  David  Owens  of  the  Japan  Society,  Ozu 


Ukigusa  Monogatari  {A  Story  of  Floating  Weeds,  1934);  16mm,  B&W,  silent  at  18  f.p.s.,  89  minutes. 
Script  by  Tadao  Ikeda,  after  the  American  film  The  Barker.  Photographed  by  Hideo  Shigehara.  With  Takeshi 
Sakamoto,  Choko  lida,  Hideo  Mitsui,  Emiko  Yagumo,  Yoshiko  Tsubouchi,  Reiko  Tani,  Tokkan  Kozo,  and  others. 
Eighteen  feet  cut  from  print  by  Japanese  censors  before  release.  Released  November  23, 1934.  Ozu  remade  this 
film  in  color  in  1959,  under  the  title  Floating  Weeds. 

"Restless,  shifting,  fugacious  as  time  itself  are  certain  groups  of  people  who  lead  the  life  of  floating  weeds,  as  it 
were,  transient  forever  in  their  place  of  residence,  transient  in  heart  and  mind.  Homeless,  they  have  many  homes, 
to  which  they  flit  one  after  another,  as  their  irregular  orbits  may  take  them  to  those  out-of-the-way  small  towns 
in  various  parts  of  Japan.  They  are  traveling  troupers,  who  furnish  the  inhabitants  of  such  towns  with  their  cheap 
versions  of  famous  Kabuki  plays  and  added  vaudeville  acts." 

— New  Yorker  Films 

//  's  something  I  always  say  — 

most  important  thing  for  me  is  me 

And  in  that  me  the  most  important  position 

is  that  of  work. 

—  From  Ton  Satomi's  Shikaru,  quoted  by  Ozu  in  his  diary  entry  of  April  6, 1935 


JIKKENEIGA: 

New  Japanese  Experimental  Films 
Presented  by  Artist/Curator  Tatsu  Aoki 


Thursday,  June  21, 1990 

Cherry  Blossom  Time  (1989),  by  Noriko  Harada;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  26  minutes 

My  Collections  (1989),  by  Kohei  Ando;  16mm,  color,  sound,  8  minutes 

Prelude  (1989),  by  Makoto  Tezuka;  16mm,  color,  sound,  15  minutes 

Story  of  the  Worm  (1989)  by  Keita  Kurosaka;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  15  minutes 

Shi-Shosetsu  3  (1989),  by  Nobuhiro  Kawanaka;  16mm,  color,  sound,  21  minutes 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


Chicago-based  Innocent  Eyes  and  Lenses  {Jikken  Eiga)  and  Tokyo's  IMAGE  FORUM  co-present  tonight's 
program  of  recent  Japanese  films. 

The  seeds  of  an  experimental  film  movement  were  planted  in  Japan  as  early  as  the  1920's  with  the  introduction 
of  small-format  cameras  and  filmstocks  from  the  West.  While  this  event  marked  the  beginning  of  personal 
exploration  in  film  the  true  experimental  film  movement  in  Japan  did  not  blossom  until  much  later.  To  all  accounts 
the  first  Japanese  experimental  film  was  Kinecalligraphy  produced  in  1955  by  an  artist's  group  called  "Graphic 
Shudan."  The  movement  gained  momentum  throughout  the  1960's,  and  in  1966  American  and  European 
avantgarde  films  became  available  for  the  first  time  in  Japan.  In  the  period  of  1968-1970  a  film  art  festival, 
Japanese  filmmaker's  corporation,  and  a  Cinematheque  were  all  established,  laying  the  soil  for  an  unprecedented 
flowering  of  film  activity  in  the  1970's  and  80's.  Since  1985  IMAGE  FORUM  andlnnocent  Eyes  and  Lenses  have 
organized  a  touring  exibition  of  new  Japanese  films  bringing  international  recognition  to  many  of  tonight's  artists. 

"In  the  Japanese  films,  the  notion  of  an  autonomous  self,  which  in  one  way  or  another  haunts  virtually  every 
American  avant-garde  film,  hardly  even  arises.  One  is  bom  inside  a  grand  mechanism,  and  one's  existence  consists 
of  the  variety  of  smaller  mechanisms  found  along  life's  journey." 

— Fred  Camper 

"The  free  senses  of  the  individual  artist  was  the  catalyst  needed  to  refresh  the  established  system.  As  with  the  pen 
of  the  poet  and  the  brush  of  the  painter,  the  camera  and  film  of  the  filmmaker  has  allowed  cinema  to  be 
emancipated,  freely  and  fluently,  from  cinema." 

— Filmmaker  Nobuhiro  Kawanaka 

(B.C.) 


VIDEOS  BYERIKA  SUDERBURG/FILMS  BY  JULIE  MURRAY 
Julie  Murray  in  person 


Saturday,  June  23, 1990 


Erika  Suderburg  is  a  video  maker  working  in  Los  Angeles.  Her  tapes  deal  with  history,  politics  and  memory  in 
the  context  of  images  both  enigmatic  and  insistent. 

TapelBernadette  Devlin  (1981);  3/4"  videotape,  6  minutes. 

An  anti-memorial  to  the  Irish  activist  combines  unstable  hand-held  footage,  television  news  excerpts,  photographs 

and  terse  intertitles.  The  tape  conveys  a  chaotic  and  shifting  world,  as  information  on  Devlin  is  fragmentary  and 

fleeting. 

Trick  Performed/Dance  Interference  (1981);  3/4"  videotape,  10  minutes. 

The  camera  remains  fixed  on  a  dancer  in  a  bare  room,  stationary  as  the  woman's  movements  grow  more  violent 
and  frenetic.  The  undercurrents  of  the  piece  come  from  the  soundtrack;  piercing  noises  and  the  thud  of  the  dancer's 
body  hitting  the  floor.  Another  woman  entering  the  room  may  be  an  enemy,  rescuer,  or  intrusion. 


62 


1990  Program  Notes 


Displayed  Termination:  The  Interval  Between  Deaths  (1988);  3/4"  videotape,  25  minutes. 
"This  tape  is  both  a  eulogy  and  the  start  of  a  question.  It  is  about  the  transfer  of  history,  via  electronic  signal  over 
the  airwaves  into  the  headphones:  illustrative  images.  The  tape  was  meant  as  a  place  where  images  merge  into 
constant  illogical  and  'substitute'  pictures.  On  a  more  basic  level  it  is  about  war,  storytelling  and  the  location  and 
speaking  of  (or  telling  of)  cultural  and  physical  death. 

"There  are  (contained  within  the  tape),  stories  obsessed  over,  cultivated  and  never  absent  that  belonged  to  someone 
who  is  now  dead.  They  are  images  that  were  brawn  out  form  modern  'history'  and  gnawed  at  until  they  became 
bedtime  stories  that  refused  to  have  the  covers  drawn  over  them.  Stories  that  bear  an  uncanny  familiar  resemblance 
to  one  another,  that  speak  of  cultural  and  historical  amnesia. 

"'In  this  setting  death  in  life  is  no  longer  able  to  offer  any  resistance  -  mourning  is  a  selective  means  of 
remembering.  Perhaps  the  dead  may  indeed  strive  to  signal  us,  but  we  are  unable  to  hear  them.  We  suffocate  them 
out  of  a  sense  of  duty  or  guilt  or  from  sheer  love  with  flowers,  prayers;  tears.  Once  buried  the  suicide  ceases  to 
offend  our  sense  of  decorum  and  order.  In  time,  we  even  stop  asking  ourselves.  Why. '(from  The  Fall  of  Summer 
by  Walter  Abish)"  --E.S. 


Julie  Murray  is  an  Irish-born  artist  who  has  been  working  in  San  Francisco  for  the  past  five  years.  Her  Super-8mm 
films  are  texturally  rich,  accumulating  layers  of  images  in  such  a  way  that  they  collide  with  and  comment  on  each 
other. 

Fuckface  (1986);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 

"3  years  worth  of  collected  footage  in  a  variety  of  formats  culled  from  all  sources  from  dumpsters  to  video.  It  is 
put  together  in  such  a  way  as  to  provide  miniature,  almost  instantaneous  fictions,  confined  and  numerous,  where 
meaning  can  occur  between  the  frames  as  much  as  it  might  in  the  frames.  The  original  condition  of  the  found 
footage  (damaged,  scratched,  etc.)  and  the  methods  and  processes  of  re-photography,  are  intended  to  be  as  much 
a  vital  part  of  the  film  as  is  the  content  represented."  — ^J.M. 

TY'cheot'my  p'sy  (1988);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  4  minutes. 

"A  hiccuping  audio  news  segment  to  which  the  footage  is  loosely  choreographed.  3D  postcard  images  are  mixed 
with  found  footage,  re-photographed  film  and  video,  and  combined  with  the  audio  to  fragment  the  information 
and  aggravate  the  flow  of  any  would-be  sequiturs."  — J.M. 

Expulsion  (1989);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 

"A  compilation  of  found  and  live  footage  assembled  in  such  a  way  as  to  present  a  different,  more  ambiguous  view 
of  Ireland  and  its  predominant  religion,  Catholicism,  in  a  fragmented  and  frantic  way,  liberally  peppered  with 
visual  and  aural  references  to  a  main  aspect  of  the  religion  —  patriarchy.  This  is  coupled  with  a  brief  hint  at  an 
ancient  Irish  space  program  as  a  way  to  rationalize  the  presence  of  the  many  round  towers  that  exist  there.  The 
stereotypical  image  of  the  peasant  is  cut  alongside  images  of  recognizably  American  characters  emphasizing  the 
blurring  of  distinctions  and  confused  identity  that  occurs  when  cultures  are  melded  together  as  the  cannonball  of 
global  internationalism  picks  up  speed."  — J.M. 

"Molly  Bawm,  why  leave  me  pining 
while  lonely  waiting  here  for  you 
the  stars  above  are  brightly  shining 
because  they've  nothing  else  to  do..." 

— John  McCormack 


63 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


A  Legend  of  Parts  (1990);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound  on  cassette,  8  minutes. 

Murray  returns  to  her  images  the  way  some  filmmakers  return  to  the  same  actors  in  film  after  film.  Her  films  dissect 
the  patriarchal  eye  implicit  in  disparate  footage  from  kitschy  pom  to  Disneyesque  ski  movies.  Images  and  sounds 
are  related  by  Murray's  understanding  (and  efforts  to  frustrate)  our  all-encompassing  urge  to  construct  narratives, 
cause -effect  connections  between  things  we  see  and  hear. 

(E.C.) 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 
Sunday,  June  24, 1990,  5  p.m. 


TheDeadman  (1989),  by  Peggy  Ahwesh  and  Keith  Sanborn;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  38  minutes. 
Sodom  (1989),  by  Luther  Price;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound  on  cassette,  21  minutes. 


FORGOTTEN  PEOPLE 
Sunday,  June  24, 1990 


Street  of  Forgotten  Men  ,  (1935);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  3  minutes. 

A  short  newsreel  showing  life  on  the  streets  of  the  post-depression  Bowery. 

Howie  (1978),  by  Chuck  Hudina;  16mm,  color,  sound,  52  minutes. 

"Howie,  a  70  year  old  alcoholic  and  ex-sailor,  sums  up  his  life  in  the  following  terms:  'Travel  and  drink,  drink 
and  travel,  that's  all  I've  ever  done.'  The  film  Howie  redefines  its  subject  in  terms  of  the  present,  documenting 
Howie's  two  year  hiatus  in  a  small  college  town,  his  confrontations  with  the  townspeople,  and  his  relationship  with 
the  filmmaker.  A  fusion  of  narrative  and  documentary.  Howie  neither  romanticizes  its  subject  nor  regards  it  as  a 
specimen  for  analysis,  but  emerges  as  an  expression  of  caring  and  a  restitution  of  dignity." 

— Elizabeth  Cleere 

On  the  Bowery  (1956),  by  Lionel  Rogosin;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  65  minutes. 

"...a  film  made  from  the  inside....  In  the  bars  and  on  the  sidewalks,  the  camera  leans  sympathetically  across  a  table 
or  grating  towards  these  men  and  women  who  have  reached  the  point  of  no  return,  and  have  reached  a  hideous 
sort  of  happiness  achieved  at  best  by  gin  and  whiskey,  and  at  worst  by  a  shared  squeeze  from  a  can  of  metal  polish. 
We  are  with  these  people  and  we  hear  what  they  say.  And  Rogosin  insists  that  we  must  love  them  he  seems  to 
say,  with  Dostoyevsky,  that  'the  sense  of  their  own  degradation  is  as  essential  to  those  reckless  unbridled  natures 
as  the  sense  of  their  own  generosity.'" 

— Basil  Wright,  Sight  and  Sound 
64 


1990  Program  Notes 

OPEN  EYES,  OPEN  EARS,  OPEN  MOUTHS: 

An  Evening  of  Film,  Video,  Poetry  and  Performance 

Saturday,  June  30, 1990 

A  benefit  for  the  San  Francisco  Bay  Area  Coalition  for  Freedom  of  Expression,  with  work  selected  and  presented 
by:  Canyon  Cinema,  Cine  Acci6n,  Film  Arts  Foundation,  Independent  Feature  Project,  New  American  Makers, 
Other  Cinema,  San  Francisco  Cinematheque,  Small  Press  Distribution,  Small  Press  Traffic,  and  Video  Free 
America. 

*  *  * 

Splatter  Trio  -  music  by  Dave  Barrett,  Myles  Boisen,  and  Gino  Robair. 

Steve  Benson  performing  with  Splatter  Jhio 

Genny  Lim 

Dorothy  Allison 

Bye-Bye  Briinhilde  by  Camille  Roy;  performed  by  Camille  Roy,  Gina  Hyams,  and  Dey  Ehrlich 

Fireworks  (1947),  by  Kenneth  Anger;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  15  minutes. 

Martina's  Playhouse  (1989),  by  Peggy  Ahwesh;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  20  minutes. 

She  Begins  (1989),  by  Hrafnhildur  Gunnarsdottir;  3/4"  videotape,  9  minutes. 

Boycott  Folgers  Coffee,  advertisement  by  Neighbor-To-Neighbor,  presented  by  Denise  Bergez;  3/4"  video- 
tape, 30  seconds. 

Against  Censorship,  work-in-progress  by  Dirk  Dirksen;  3/4"  videotape,  10  minute  excerpt. 

Barrett  Watten 

Ruthanne  Lum  McCunn 

Lucha  Corpi 

Secret  Garden  performed  by  Kevin  Killian  and  Mark  Ewert 

Dodie  Bellamy  and  Dennis  Cooper  in  performance 

Hermes  Bird  (1979),  by  James  Broughton;  16mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 

Near  The  Big  Chakra  (1972),  by  Anne  Severson;  16mm,  color,  silent,  16  minutes. 

Ronnie  (1972),  by  Curt  McDowell;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  7  minutes. 

Sodom  (1989),  by  Luther  Price;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound  on  cassette,  21  minutes. 

The  San  Francisco  Bay  Area  Coalition  for  Freedom  of  Expression  would  like  to  thank  the  San  Francisco  Art 
Institute  and  Video  Free  America  for  the  use  of  their  facilities  in  making  tonight's  event  possible. 


65 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


THE  FILMS  OF  YVONNE  RAINER 
A  Retrospective 

September  9  ■  October  7, 1990 


Collage,  ambiguity,  resonance,  accretion — the  very  nerve  center,  narrative  theory  and  drive  which  catalyze  the 
narrative  threads  of  her  films.  Films  which  over  the  past  twenty  years  work  through,  question  and  interrogate  the 
layers  and  gooey  webs  of  desire,  oppression,  passion,  love,  work,  war,  power,  politics,  relations  and  their  ships. 
To  approach  her  films  is  to  approach  work  that  doesn't  sit  still  but  moves  on  and  through  a  series  of  questions 
in  relation  to  practices  and  experiences  of  various  kinds:  artistic,  social,  historical,  cinematic,  individual/personal, 
political,  unconscious,  theoretical.  The  territory  and  texture  she  explores  is  thick  with  contradiction  and 
confusion,  which  is  necessary  and  generative,  interrupting  and  exploding  the  textures  and  methods  through  which 
flesh  and  spirit  have  been  formed  and  deformed.  "Any  such  problematizing,  calling  into  question,  or  'playing  off' 
of  the  terms  of  signification  of  necessity  involves  an  'unfixing '  of  meaning,  a  venturing  into  ambiguity,  an  exposing 
of  the  signs  that  constitute  and  promulgate  social  inequities. "  [Rainer]  Through  a  rebellious  form  of  cinema, 
Rainer  travels  into  and  through  dominant  modes  of  narrative  authority,  white  privilege  and  masculinist  desires, 
assumptions  and  technologies.  Maybe  it  is  only  in  the  verb  form —  as  process  —  that  one  can  get  at  the  substance 
of  and  in  her  work.  If  anything  describes  and  qualifies  her  six  films  from  1972  to  1990,  it  is  that  those  problems 
that  arise  in  the  spaces  between  each  work —  historically,  personally,  theoretically  as  well  as  artistically  — 
engender  the  questions  and  nodal  moments  of  what  is  to  follow.  The  move  from  dance  into  film,  taking  the  body 
into  cinema,  marked  the  turn  through  a  desire  —  "what pushed  me  toward  narrative  and  ultimately  cinema  was 
'emotional  life'  [Rainer]  —  for  narrative:  "The  conventions  of  cinematic  narrative  seemed  to  offer  more 
possibilities,  were  more  interesting  tome  to  operate  both  within  and  against  than  were  the  conventions  of  dramatic 
theatrical  narrative,  i.e.,  the  play  dialogue  and  monologue  format.  In  fact,  Ididn  7  even  question  it.  There  was  no 
decision  to  make.  I  was  already  thinking  in  terms  of  framing  and  voice-over  "  Nonetheless,  she  refused  the 
conventions  of  the  body  in  dance,  Body  into  words,  words  into  action,  and  therefore  the  conventions  of  that 
translation  into  film. 

''More  Kicking  and  Screaming  from  the  Narrative  Front/Backwater  "  — Rainer  chewing  away  at  the  edifices  of 
narrative  authority: 

"I  didn't  need  it  anymore,  I  told  myself....  What  a  thrilling  idea:  to  be  free  of  the  compelling  and  detested 
domination  of  cinematic  narrativity  with  its  unseen,  unspoken  codes  for  arranging  images  and  language  with  a 
'coherence,  integrity,  fullness,  and  closure,'  so  lacking  in  the  imperfect  reality  it  purports  to  mirror.  Upon  closer 
examination,  however,  it  became  clear  that  a  particular  aspect  of  narrative,  namely  character,  is  a  consistent 
presence...  it  seems  to  me  that  I  am  going  to  be  banging  my  head  against  narrative  for  a  long  time  to  come." 

Journeys  From  Berlin/ 1971  (1980) — a  "deep-sea  dive  into  the  wreck  of  the  psyche  and  the  violence  of  history" 
which  is  utteriy  and  inescapably  produced  and  interrogated  by  the  kicking  and  screaming  from  the  narrative  front/ 
backwater.  History  is  interrogated  here  (as  in  all  of  her  recent  films)  not  as  the  fine-tuned  white  line  of  history 
that  appears  in  the  news  and  history  books  but  as  one  scarred  and  burned  by  individual  and  collective  memory  and 
struggles.  From  the  more  formal  Lives  of  Performers  (1972)  to  the  moving  and  meditative  JoMrne>'5  From  Berlin/ 
1971  to  her  most  recent  film  Privilege  (1990)  form  :  narrative  ("...  a  continual  flirtation  and  side  stepping,  not 
foxtrotting,  but  sidestepping, "  )  slips  through  the  skin  making  it  ideologically,  theoretically,  and  politically 
necessary  to  voice  those  places  outside  the  white  line  of  narrative  history.  "Play  off  different,  sometimes  con- 
flicting authorial  voices.  And  here  I'm  not  talking  about  balance  or  both  sides  of  a  question  like  the  Almighty 
news,  or  about  finding  a  'new  language'  for  women.  I'm  talking  about  registers  of  complicity/protest/ 
acquiescence  within  a  single  shot  or  scene  that  do  not  give  a  message  of  despair  " 


66 


1990  Program  Notes 

Wanting  very  much  not  to  produce  despair  but  a  kind  of  active  agency  —  rumination  —  around  the  critical 
questions  of  vision  and  social  change,  this  is  how  Rainer's  production  of  "moral  or  ethical  feelings"  just  might 
work.  Privilege  is  engaged  in  a  range  of  such  productions.  "Spectator  of  my  dreams — will  my  filmmaking  pr... 
will  my  films  ever  produce  you  ?! ""  Menopause  is  the  film 's  narrative  center,  explored  through  various  testimonies, 
perverse  medical  documentaries,  and  an  array  of  information  and  statistics,  constituting  Privilege  as  among  the 
bravest  and  most  poignant  films  on  the  taboo  and  muted  topic  of  women  and  aging.  "Aging  is  such  an  emotional 
subject  for  me.  No  one  told  me  how  many  hours  of  the  day  I'd  spend  mourning —  what —  my  self?  "  [character  in 
Privilege] 

Spinning  around  and  through  the  discussions  of  menopause.  Privilege  examines  the  contradictory  positions 
among  people  inhabiting  separate  areas  of  narrative  and  social  space.  Economic,  geographic,  and  cultural 
positions  are  explored  in  an  accretion  of  detail  and  embedded  narrative,  through  and  at  the  viewer .  The  movement 
from  contradiction  and  risk  into  narrative  progression  allows  for  a  political  vision  to  be  drawn  from  the  many 
voices  and  experiences  of  struggle.  This  move  marks  the  substance  and  form  oi  Privilege .  The  film  could  be  seen 
as  the  apotheosis  of  Rainer's  work,  aligning  and  transforming  her  debate  with  narrative — as  a  site  of  Oedipal 
contagion  and  renewal — by  furiously  reshaping  this  thing  called  woman;  that  thing  which  has  been  so  ever- 
presently  and  all  too  easily  transferred  back  into  film  as  of  one  never  aging — or  only  aging  (the  wise  old  woman 
separated  from  the  woman  of  desire  and  passion) — white  mind  and  body. 

This  has  been  excerpted  from  'Yvonne  Rainer:  Risks,  between  you  and  me, "  by  Thyrza  Goodeve,  from  Yvonne 
Rainer:  Declaring  Stakes,  a  monograph  produced  by  Kurt  Easterwood,  Susanne  Fairfax  and  Laura  Poitras, 
published  by  the  San  Francisco  Cinematheque  (1990).  Footnotes  have  been  omitted  for  space  considerations. 


Schedule  of  Film  Screenings 


September  9  (Yvonne  Rainer  in  person) 

Lives  of  Performers  (1972);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  90  minutes. 

TYioA  (1968/1981);  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  10  minutes.  Directed  by  Sally  Banes. 
September  11-13  (Yvonne  Rainer  in  person  September  11) 

Privilege  (1990);  16mm,  color/B&W,  sound,  100  minutes. 
September  16 

Film  About  A  Woman  Who...  (1974);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  105  minutes. 
September  23 

Kristina  Talking  Pictures  (1976);  16mm,  color/B&W,  sound,  90  minutes. 
September  30 

Journeys  From  Berlin/1971  (1980);  16mm,  color/B&W,  sound,  125  minutes. 
October  7 

The  Man  Who  Envied  Women  (1985);  16mm,  color/B&W,  sound  125  minutes. 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


37°49  W  / 122°22  W:  NEW  BA  Y AREA  WORK 
Thursday,  September  20, 1990 


Tonight's  program  marks  (he  beginning  of  a  series  showcasing  works  by  local  film  and  video  makers.  Established 
to  create  a  forum  where  local  work  can  be  seen  and  considered  on  an  ongoing  basis,  this  series  is  a  direct  reflection 
of  the  range  and  diversity  of  work  being  produced  in  the  Bay  Area.  Tonight's  program  represents  works  by  both 
new  and  established  artists. 

Overlay  (1989),  by  Jenny  Femald  Link;  3/4"  videotape,  11  minutes. 

"What  constitutes  pornography?  Is  it  'pornographic'  for  a  woman  (artist)  to  talk  about  masturbation  and  present 
it  as  art?  In  Overlay,  I'm  calling  into  question  what  pornography  is.  It  is  a  refutation  of  the  idea  that  women  aren't 
sexually  stimulated  by  visual  pleasure.  In  both  a  playful  and  serious  process  of  writing/speaking,  I  am  questioning 
who  has  access  to  pornography,  sexuality;  and  whether  we  even  have  access  to  ourselves." — J.F.L. 

Hymn  (1989),  by  Claire  Dannenbaum;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  11  minutes. 

Memory  Eye  (1989),  by  Alfonso  Alvarez;  16mm,  color,  sound,  6  minutes. 

"'Memory  Eye  examines  the  process  of  remembering:  a  flickering  memory,  images  emerging  from  childhood, 
glimpses  of  an  old  photo,  a  familiar  sound  or  smell.  This  is  a  filmic  exploration  of  the  places  where  memory  is 
held  and  the  importance  of  its  flickering  images.  The  main  body  of  the  film  was  shot  on  VHS,  Video  8  and  Super- 
8mm,  then  rephotographed  and  optically  printed  as  many  as  six  to  eight  times." — A.A. 

TYansplanted  Seven  Years  Later  (1986),  by  Leslie  Alperin;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  2  minutes. 
"An  experimental  portrait  of  my  parents  in  their  backyard.  This  film  was  prompted  by  an  incident  which  made 
me  abruptly  aware  of  my  parents'  advancing  years  and  my  desire  to  create  a  daughter's  version  of  a  home 
movie." — L.A. 

Clementine  (1990),  by  Kurt  Keppeler;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  10  minutes. 

"A  miniature  anti-road  film  under  amber.  Clementine  is  a  desperate  and  futile  attempt  to  throw  a  cloak  over  a 
transitional  moment.  A  sepia  ballad  on  the  verge  of  evaporation.  Whole  modes  of  labor,  sentiment  and  narrative 
are  giving  and  must  given  away.  Notions  of  causality  in  particular  are  cast  in  doubt.  We  may  no  longer  know  what 
orders  the  break  of  the  cue  ball;  what  is  really  spilling  the  blood?" — K.K. 

Weather  Diary  #6,  Scenes  From  a  Vacation  (1990),  by  George  Kuchar;  3/4"  videotape,  30  minutes. 
"This  latest  installment  in  the  Weather  Diary  series  has  no  natural  sounds  or  running  commentary  by  me.. .it's  all 
music  on  the  audio.  The  social  interactions  are  there,  somewhat,  but  they  take  a  back  seat  to  the  passing  parade 
of  clouds  and  springtime  thunderstorms  in  central  Oklahoma.  The  8mm  Video  was  shot  with  a  small  Sony 
camcorder  (TR-5)  and  edited  in-camera.  The  events  depicted  are  a  condensation  of  a  visit  which  lasted  about  a 
month.  I  got  a  chance  to  use  all  the  buttons  and  special  features  built  into  that  camcorder  plus  try  out  the  new  wide- 
angle  lens  I  purchased  for  it.  Although  plagued  by  faulty  plumbing,  tragic  neighbors  and  dangerous  weather, 
loneliness  is  absent  in  this  tape  (for  the  most  part),  and  the  tone  is  one  of  a  sing-along  travelogue  with  operatic 
inclinations." — G.K. 

Fractious  Array  (1990),  by  Mark  Street;  16mm,  color,  silent,  7  minutes. 

'"Fractious  Array  was  made  by  hand  painting  a  variety  of  camera  and  print  stocks.  The  images  were  created  in 
a  random  and  at  times  accidental  way.  However,  the  segments  of  the  film  are  arranged  so  as  to  investigate  issues 
concerning  editorial  manipulations  and  control  within  the  framework  of  abstract  imagery." — M.S. 


68 


1990  Program  Notes 


A  Different  Kind  of  Green  (1989),  by  Thad  Povey;  16mm,  color,  sound,  6  minules. 

"Gazing  back  at  the  child  watching  me 

I  glimpse  a  sense 

of  the  nonsense 

that  defines  me  currently." — T.P. 


JENNIFER  MONTGOMERY  IMA  TTHIAS  MULLER 

Both  artists  in  person. 

Saturday,  September  22, 1990 


Home  Avenue  (1989),  by  Jennifer  Montgomery;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  18  minutes. 
Home  Avenue  at  its  most  basic  level  is  a  re-telling,  from  the  victim's  point  of  view,  of  the  experience  of  being  raped. 
Here  the  victim  is  Montgomery  herself,  who  ten  years  later  addresses  the  camera  (and  viewer)  both  as  subject  and 
filmmaker.  Montgomery 's  use  of  direct  address  is  both  therapeutic  and  assertive,  enabling  her  to  redress  the  terms 
by  which  her  life  has  been  defined — a  victim,  "scared  and  scarred" — while  at  the  same  time  making  "real"  (read 
external)  an  experience  for  which  there  was  "no  physical  evidence." 

It  is  this  notion  of  "evidence"  on  which  both  the  rape  experience  and  film  turn.  Those  in  positions  of  authority 
(the  male  physician,  the  mother)  are  suspicious  the  act  ever  happened,  because  the  rapist  didn't  ejaculate  (thereby 
reinforcing  male  dominance,  back-handedly).  As  such,  Montgomery's  experience  is  doubly  ignominious,  her 
"innocence  masquerading  as  guilt,  facts  masquerading  as  secrets."  In  re-presenting  (as  opposed  to  confessing) 
the  facts.  Home  Avenue  clears  the  record  of  misplaced  suspicion  and  guilt  at  the  same  time  as  it  demands  a  world 
where  openness  isn't  an  open  door  to  victimization. 

Age  12:  Love  With  a  Little  L  (1990),  by  Jennifer  Montgomery;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  24  minutes. 
Object  and  subject,  and  their  sometimes  attendant  corporal  corollaries,  objectivity  and  subjectivity  (you  can't  have 
one  without  the  other,  or  you  have  a  lack  of  communication)  are  the  steadfast  and  slippery  standards  against/ 
through  which  Montgomery('s  memory)  works.  Like  Home  Avenue,  autobiography  forms  the  basic  material 
which  Montgomery  draws  on  in  Age  12....  But  here,  autobiography  could  be  a  dream,  or  at  least  its  narrative  path 
more  closely  follows  the  unreality  (logic)  of  a  dream.  Or  perhaps  autobiography  is  only  what  Montgomery  wants 
to  remember,  for  there  is  a  confusion  in  the  film  as  to  whether  memory  is  subjected  to  Montgomery's  wants  and 
wishes,  or  the  other  way  around.  Obviously,  the  two,  Montgomery  and  her  memor(y/ies),  are  not  mutually 
exclusive. 

"I  tell  this  story  through  the  use  of  salvaged  pieces  of  memorabilia:  fetishized  objects,  photographs,  and 
correspondence,  thus  establishing  for  myself  and  the  viewer  a  safe  distance  from  the  messiness  of  childhood 
events.... 

"These  nostalgic  remembrances  are  sporadically  interrupted  by  jarring,  awkward,  and  fleshly  scenes  from  the 
present — the  intervention  of  adult  sexuality. ...These  scenes  function  as  a  kind  of  reverse  flashback:  rather  than 
being  haunted  by  the  past,  it  is  the  eternal  return  of  the  present,  with  the  confusions  and  obscenities  of  real  human 
contact,  that  haunts  me  in  my  attempts  to  lay  out  a  neat  picture  of  the  past.... 

"Since  my  material  is  autobiographical,  the  stakes  for  Truth  are  even  higher — yet  in  retracing  my  past  I  discover 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


the  fault  lines  of  my  own  memory.  There  is  catharsis  both  in  reconstructing  the  past  and  in  realizing  that  your 
memories  are  not  monolithic.  1  try  to  use  film  to  neutralize  the  spectacular  function  of  nostalgia,  and  yet  validate 
the  act  of  remembering."  — J.M. 


Aus  der  Feme  {The  Memo  Book,  1989),  by  Matthias  Miiller;  16mm  blow-up  of  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  28 

minutes. 

"Begun  with  the  AIDS-related  death  of  a  close  friend,  Aus  der  Feme  is  both  eulogy  and  science  fiction,  closing 

hands  with  an  indiscriminate  contagion  without  succumbing  for  fatalism  or  despair. 

"That  the  site  of  desire  should  be  so  resolutely  joined  to  death — or  that  the  passage  of  death  should  follow  the  lines 
of  love — these  are  the  paradoxes  beneath  with  Miiller  refashions  the  bodies  of  film  and  maker.  While  the  film 
is  shot  throughout  with  the  passing  of  a  friend,  it  belongs  finally  to  the  filmmaker  himself,  who  returns  obsessively 
to  his  own  body  to  gauge  the  possibility  of  going  on.... 

"Aus  der  Feme  seeks  to  re-make  the  male  body,  not  in  the  service  of  higher  ideals,  but  in  a  celebratory  flow  of 
communion  and  despair,  mythos  and  logos." 

— Mike  Hoolboom,  Independent  Eye,  Toronto  (1989) 

(K.E.) 


FORBIDDEN  IMAGES  BYBIRGITAND  WILHELM  HEIN 

Birgit  Hein  in  Person 

Co-sponsored  by  the  Goethe-Institut 


Thursday  September  27, 1990 


Birgit  and  Wilhelm  Hein  have  been  influential  in  German  experimental  film,  nurturing  its  infancy  in  the  1960's 
and  lasting  long  past  many  of  their  contemporaries.  Their  first  film  was  accepted  for  the  fourth  International 
Experimental  Film  Competition.  Together  with  other  filmmakers  and  film  journalists,  they  founded  A'Screen,  the 
first  exhibition  venue  for  avant-garde  film  in  Germany.  Their  first  international  success  came  with  Rohfdm  in 
1968.  In  1971  the  paperback  FUm  im  Underground  by  Birgit  Hein  appeared  —  the  first  German  publication  on 
the  subject  of  underground  film.  They  organized  the  Dokumenta  Film  as  Film  exhibition  in  1977.  In  an  interview 
in  The  Independent  Eye,  Birgit  marks  this  exhibition  as  the  end  of  their  formal  film  work: 

"The  hope  was  that  somehow  radical  avant-garde  practice  could  affect  society.  After  awhile  we 
understood  that  what  we  were  discussing  was  anti-art,  and  that  it  would  all  lead,  like  Dada  or  Fluxus, 
to  a  discussion  within  the  art  frame.  No  one  outside  the  codes  understood  the  work.  This  was  the 
problem  of  the  separation  of  art  and  life,  you  want  to  get  your  life  with  your  art  but  you  can't.  So 
something  has  to  change."  — B.H. 

In  1978  they  stopped  making  films  and  began  doing  performance,  going  outside  the  art  circles  to  perform  in 
German  pubs.  They  performed  with  big  paper  dolls  made  to  masturbate  in  front  of  slides  and  films  projected  on 
screens.  "This  performances  were  very  much  [about]  getting  into  life  after  ten  years  of  structural  film,"  says  Birgit. 


70 


1990  Program  Notes 


When  given  a  grant  for  a  performance  and  year's  residence  in  New  York,  they  gradually  worked  themselves  back 
into  film  with  Love  Stinks  (1982),  embarking  on  their  new  concern  of  sex  and  alienation. 


Verbotene  Bilder  {Forbidden  Images,  1985)  by  Birgit  and  Wilhelm  Hein;  16mm,  color,  sound,  90  minutes. 
"Everybody  has  his  or  her  own  individual  forbidden  images,  of  course.  The  film  doesn't  deal  with  these 
phantasies,  as  a  kind  of  common  pornography.  The  forbidden  images  in  this  film  come  from  the  forbidden 
voyeurism  of  a  child,  from  its  suppressed  jealousy,  that  resulted  in  the  loss  of  the  voice  for  more  than  three  years. 
It  shows  a  presence  of  sexual  obsession,  aggression,  hatred  and  fascination  and  tries  to  find  the  reason  for  it  in  the 
past.  Memories,  phantasies  and  dreams  are  interwoven  with  reality  to  one  stream  of  consciousness.  When  I  look 
at  the  film  now,  it  beats  me  how  much  it  tells  the  truth."  — B.H. 

(S.F.) 


A  GRIN  WITHOUT  A  CAT 
by  Chris  Marker 

Saturday,  September  29, 1990 

A  Grin  Without  a  Cat  (1977/1988),  written,  directed  and  edited  by  Chris  Marker.  Music  by  Luciano  Berio. 
Originally  35mm  film  Le  Fondde  I'Air  est  Rouge  (1977).  Revised  for  Channel  4  Television,  Great  Britain,  in 
1988.  Color,  3/4"  videotape,  240  minutes. 

The  following  is  excerpted  from  a  review  of  the  original  Le  Fondde  I'Air  est  Rouge  (1977)  by  Will  Aitken,  Take 
One,  September,  1978: 

"  ...±e  Fondde  I'Air  est  Rouge  is  remarkable  for  what  it  shows,  for  how  it  shows  what  it  shows  and  finally  for  what 
it  says. 

"What  it  shows,  with  startling  range,  detail  and  clarity,  is  the  last  fifteen  years  of  revolutionary  struggle  across  the 
world  (although  emphasis  is  mainly  on  events  in  the  West).  Subtitled  'Scenes  de  la  troisieme  guerre  mondiale  — 
1966-1977,'  the  film  divides  into  two  fairly  equal  parts,  the  successes  and  hopes  of  the  sixties  —  'Les  mains 
fragiles'  —  and  the  defeats  and  pessimism  of  the  seventies  —  'Les  mains  coupees.' 

"There  is  very  little  in  all  this  that  could  be  called  director  Chris  Marker's  own  footage.  He  dedicates  Le  Fond 
de  I'Air  to  'the  real  auteurs  of  this  film. ..the  innumerable  cameramen,  soundmen,  witnesses  and  militants  whose 
work  ceaselessly  opposes  that  of  the  Powers  That  Be,  the  Powers  that  would  have  us  forget.'... 

"The  repetition  of  violence  and  the  futile  gestures  against  it  [in  the  film]  would  become  deadening  were  Marker 
not  so  keen  in  forwarding  one  of  the  central  points  of  his  film:  that  in  the  twentieth  century,  revolution  can  in  no 
way  be  seen  through  the  Romantic  eyes  of  the  nineteenth.  His  point  is  not  just  that  Revolution  is  Hell  but  that  it 
is  a  nearly  hopeless  struggle.  The  other  side  has  the  technology,  the  money,  the  training,  the  experience  and  all 
the  skilled  brutality  these  combined  can  muster.  They  have  the  air  and  only  at  the  very  edges  can  we  see  a  tinge 
of  red.  Le  Fond  de  I'Air  gives  little  reason  to  hope  for  success  while  offering  every  conceivable  reason  for 
continuing  the  struggle. 

"And  yet  all  this  is  accomplished  with  us  sensing  little  of  the  doctrinaire  in  Marker  himself.  His  commitment  to 
changing  a  world  where  the  vast  majority  are  allowed  to  possess  one-sixth  of  its  wealth  is  unquestionable,  but  he 
avoids  by  a  long  shot  being  hagiographer  of  the  Left.  The  footage  assembled  here  is  too  strong  and  immediate 
to  allow  much  idealization.... 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


"Marker  —  Godard  referred  to  him  once  as  Magic  Marker  —  by  moving  events  into  opposition,  by  providing  a 
consistent,  albeit  continually  revised,  viewpoint  that  is  always  instructive  but  too  ironic  to  ever  be  didactic,  gives 
us  back  our  pasts,  provides  us  with  the  collective  memory  he  says  those  in  power  would  deny  us.  Taking  the 
contradictory  headlines,  the  columns  of  newsprint,  the  blotchy  wirephotos,  the  glossy  TV  newsclips,  the  amateur 
footage,  he  somehow  fits  them  all  together  until  they  make,  not  just  good  sense,  but  historical  and  political  sense 
too. 

"Beyond  imposing  a  coherent  viewpoint.  Marker  brings  a  pragmatism  of  a  kind  one  doesn't  expect  to  find  in  a 
film  this  wide-ranging:  he's  not  so  much  interested  in  designating  which  revolutionary  line  is  the  correct  one  to 
tow  as  he  is  in  examining  whether  the  struggles  of  the  Left  have  given  the  results  originally  hoped  for...." 

Partial  Filmography 

Olympia  52  (1952) 

Dimanche  a  Pekin  (1955) 

Letter  From  Siberia  (1958) 

Cuba  Si!  (1961) 

LaJetee  (1962,  released  1964) 

LeJoli  Mai  {1967,) 

The  Koumiko  Mystery  (1965) 

Far  From  Vietnam  (1967,  producer,  editor)  ^ 

Jourde  tournage  (1969,  released  by  SLON  ) 

Cuba:  Battle  of  the  10,000,000  (1970) 

Le  train  en  marche  (1971,  credited  to  SLON) 

The  Battle  of  Chile  (1975-6,  co-producer  only) 

Le  Fond  de  I 'Air  est  Rouge  (1977) 

Sans  soleil  (19S2) 

A.K.  (1985) 

Homage  a  Simone  Signoret  (1986) 

In  1966,  Marker  formed  the  production  company,  SLON,  specifically  for  the  production  o(  Far  From  Vietnam. 
In  post-May  1968,  Marker  reactivated  SLON  (which,  as  well  as  being  the  Russian  word  for  "elephant,"  is  an 
acronym  for  Societe  pour  le  Lancement  des  Oeuvres  Nouvelles)  for  the  production  and  distribution  of  agit-prop 
material.  The  group,  like  the  similarly-inspired  Dziga  Vertov  Group  and  those  filmmakers  involved  in  producing 
Cinetracis,  had  a  decidedly  anti-"auteur"  stance,  and  several  of  the  films  were  shot  by  workers  from  the  plants  and 
factories  mentioned  in  the  films'  titles. 


THE  IMMEDMTE  IMAGE:  DIRECT  MONTAGE 
Curated  by  Konrad  Steiner  and  Nathaniel  Dorsky 


October  4, 1990 

Pneuma  (1987/90),  by  Nathaniel  Dorsky;  16mm,  color,  silent,  26  minutes. 

Renga  (1990),  by  various  artists;  16mm,  color/B&W,  6  minutes. 

Simulated  Experience  (1990),  by  Caroline  Avery;  16mm,  color,  silent,  30  seconds  (shown  twice). 

Cassandra  (1990),  by  Avery;  16mm,  color,  silent,  2  minutes. 

Remains  (1990),  by  Konrad  Steiner;  16mm,  color/B&W,  silent,  13  minutes. 

Senseless  (1962),  by  Ron  Rice;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  25  minutes. 


72 


1990  Program  Notes 


This  group  of  films  illustrate  what  I'm  (now)  calling  "responsive  montage."  The  emphasis  on  sequencing  of 
disparate  images  and  the  challenge  to  use  all  modes  of  linkage  at  our  disposal  may  make  these  works  appear  overly 
formal  to  some.  But  I  believe  the  density  of  cinema  (or  its  potential)  has  not  been  fully  realized.  This  is  especially 
true  in  film,  where  the  image  largely  retains  its  sensuous  aspect.  As  such,  a  rich  contemplative  form  of  expression 
is  possible  in  contrast  to  TV/video  's  more  social,  gregarious  and  sometimes  agressive  style. 

Responsive  montage  means  simply  that  the  cut  is  the  expreession  of  the  response  to  an  image  (shot).  One  can  read 
and/or  feel  the  cuts  as  movements  of  images  with  respect  to  each  other  or  as  indicative  of  a  point  of  view  (e.g.  the 
filmmaker's).  TTie  range  and  depth  of  montage  gesture  is  enormous.  The  basic  impulse  exhibited  in  this  program 
is  reflective  or  lyrical. 

In  Ptieuma  texture,  color  and  movement  (agitation)  are  the  formal  parameters.  The  image  consists  of  film 
illuminated,  revealing  the  grain  pattern  of  the  substrate  on  which  "pictures"  are  light-etched.  At  various  times 
dazzling,  sublime  and  curious,  this  "inventory"  of  outdated  filmstocks  is  a  delightful  parade  of  effects.  Shifting 
veils,  boiling,  seething,  shimmering  liquids,  pelting  rain,  windy  amber  fields,  etc.,  all  there  for  the  eye  to  imagine: 
will  any  two  people  see  the  same  film?  The  marvelous  repose  of  the  montage  allows  these  "shots"  to  resonate  and 
conrast  with  minimally  imposed  structure.  (To  make  this  film  function,  Dorsky  was  obliged  to  withdraw  all 
intention  and  search  for  a  best  fit  of  the  textures  at  his  disposal.)  The  film's  metaphorical  achievement  is  the 
condensation  of  the  world  of  perception  and  thought  to  elements  that  insist  on  Mind's  aesthetic  responsiveness. 

The  Japanese  verse  form  of  "linked  poety,"  oxRenga,  later  "Haikai,"  was  a  form  of  entertainment  at  parties.  With 
refinements  (Sogi  in  the  late  15th  century,  Basho's  circle  in  the  late  17th,  and  Buson  in  the  late  18th)  the  linked 
poem  became  a  high  comic  art,  not  without  the  poignant  lyricism  and  brevity  of  the  Buddhist  ethos.  You  could 
think  of  a  renga  party  as  a  round  of  storytelling.  Each  verse  traded  was  a  vivid  detail  meant  to  evoke  a  precise  scene, 
but  in  a  vague  enough  context  for  the  following  player  to  plausibly  respond  with  a  new  verse,  linking  to  the  prior 
scene  using  conventions  defined  by  poetic  practices  of  the  ages. 

It  is  kalaidoscopic  in  this  way,  and  Renga  reflects  this  in  its  montage  by  an  alternation  of  abstract,  fleeting  forms 
and  intimate  details.  As  far  as  we  know,  this  film  is  unique  in  being  made  by  12  people  each  contributing  at  every 
decision,  unlike  the  traditional  divisions  of  labor  in  Hollywood,  or  the  supreme  authority  of  the  personal 
filmmaker.  The  film  was  made  for  a  class  of  Nathaniel  Dorsky's  at  SFAI.  Dorsky  served  in  the  role  of  Renga 
Master:  part  consultant,  part  umpire,  part  contributor.  The  resulting  work  is  not  a  film  any  of  these  people  could 
have  made,  and  its  strength  lies  in  its  dexterity  and  momentum. 

Simulated  Experience .  After  the  title  the  film  suggests  a  "critique  of  pure  image,"  that  is,  the  effect  of  our  image 
making  on  our  knowledge  of  the  worid,  filtering,  forming,  distoring — a  creative  yet  detergent  effect.  The  brevity 
and  "crudeness"  characterize  Avery's  approach:  sensual,  wary  of  argument. 

Cassandra  was  cursed  by  prescience  without  credibility.  The  paint-on-film  idiom  is  a  hard  one  to  work  in.  The 
achievement  is  apparent  here  when  you  observe  the  scaled,  reptilean  rhythmic  aspect  transform  to  the  flowing 
veils-over-veils  aspect,  when  you  observe  the  form  of  smooth  motion  that  can  occur  within  the  rigid  stepping  (the 
film  was  "step-printed"  to  an  effective  speed  of  nine  frames-per-second). 

The  inspiration  {ox  Remains  was  the  present  (1988)  form  of  Beriin,  city  of  remains  (ruins)  that  remains  (endures), 
and  that  by  now  has  found  itself  reborn.  What  will  remain  of  its  legacy?  The  architecture  itself  is  a  clue  to  the 
spirit  of  Berlin.  Hulking  buildings,  family  "barracks"  (however  brightly  colored),  the  Nazi-era  Olympic  Gates 
which  verge  on  prison  walls.  The  Wall  can  be  set  in  the  context  of  a  culture  with  an  emphatic  sense  of  order,  yet 
a  deeply  ambivalent  obedience  to  authority. 

Finally,  the  film  responds  to  the  anarchy  of  grafitti  on  the  Wall,  as  a  forum  for  the  public  anger  and  despair,  its 
therapeutic  and  mischievous  aspects,  and  its  effulgent  color  —  a  layering  of  voices  and  image. 


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A  film  called  Senseless  is  what  every  filmmakers  wants  to  make  at  some  point.  One  way  a  diary  film  can  succeed 
is  to  embrace  life.  This  could  be  a  cynical  title  to  some,  but  to  Ron  Rice  it  is  at  its  best  equanimous.  There  is  a 
passage  when  the  scope  of  the  film  is  most  illuminated.  After  discovering  passion  in  nervous  protesters  seated, 
blocking  the  AEC  in  San  Francisco,  in  a  lusty  show  of  a  woman,  in  friends  playful  for  the  camera,  we  get  this 
montage  of  a  bullfight/hot  kiss/pregnant  woman  which  clinches  it  as  a  celebratory,  beatnik  ode,  striving  to 
comprehend  life's  breadth  (like  Jack  Chambers'  Hart  of  London).  Senselessness  is  enlightened  wonder,  and  the 
final  shot  of  a  gull  flying  plays  in  my  mind  against  the  equally  moving  final  image  of  a  gull  freezing  and  dropping 
in  a  film  about  the  dark  side  of  passion,  Dan  Barnett's  Dead  End  Dead  End. 

— Konrad  Steiner 


THE  BLACK  FOLK  DRAMAS  OF  SPENCER  WILLMMS 

Program  I 

Thursday,  October  11, 1990 

The  Blood  of  Jesus  (1941);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  50  minutes. 
Produced  by  Amergo  Films/Sack  Amusement,  Inc. 

GoDown  Death  (1944);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  50  minutes. 
Produced  by  Harlemwood/Sack  Amusement  Corporation. 

*  *  * 

"Between  1910  and  1950  scores  of  individuals  and  corporations  in  major  cities  across  the  United  States  entered 
the  genre  of  Black  films.  They  may  have  been  motivated  by  profit,  altruism,  or  both.  Many  of  these  enterprises 
were  short  lived;  some  never  produced  any  films  at  all.  Some  wee  only  fronts  for  White  backers  who  recognized 
the  potential  of  a  Black  consumer  market.  Of  these,  several  were  managed  by  White  independents  who  specialized 
in  producing  all-Black  movies  for  Black  theatres.  For  a  few  (like  the  Ebony  Film  Corporation,  and  the  later 
ventures  of  Alfred  Sack  and  the  Goldberg  Brothers),  business  was  relatively  good.  Still,  their  films  paled  next  to 
those  produced  by  the  competition  in  Hollywood... 

"The  appeal  to  Black  audiences  of  these  'race'  movies,  as  they  were  often  called,  lay  in  their  complementarity  of 
the  social  themes  that  formed  constant  undercurrents  in  Afro-American  life.  Among  these  were  upward  mobility, 
racial  pride,  social  achievement,  and  patriotism. ..'Social  uplift'  films  did  not  constitute  the  total  output  of  Black 
filmmaking  in  the  early  years  of  its  development....  Mysteries  and  westerns  satisfied  the  taste  of  Black  audiences 
for  adventure.. ..Whether  shaped  by  Black  middle-class  aspirations  and  values,  or  recast  into  worn  Hollywood 
formulas,  or  both,  these  films  offered  dreams  in  place  of  reality,  and  valuable  emotional  options  that  kept  hope 
alive... 

"Only  a  very  few  of  the  films  made  to  cater  to  a  Black  consumer  market  in  the  1920s,  1930,  and  1940s  deliberately 
lapped  the  African-American  cultural  and  expressive  folk  tradition.  At  least  one  filmmaker,  however,  did  attempt 
to  experiment  with  folk  forms  as  suitable  material  for  films  and  Black  film  audiences:  Spencer  Williams. 

— Adrienne  Lanier  Seward 
"A  Film  Portrait  of  Black  Ritual  Expression",  Expressly  Black,  1987. 


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1990  Program  Notes 


"Luckily  for  Williams,  sometime  in  1940  he  grasped  the  opportunity  to  make  race  movies  in  concert  with  Alfred 
Sack  in  Tfexas.  Of  all  the  white  entrepreneurs,  only  Sack  trusted  the  instincts  of  black  filmmakers.  Among  the 
others,  Buell  lost  interest,  the  Goldbergs  focused  on  imitations  of  Hollywood,  Savini  turned  to  potted  musical 
revues,  and  Toddy  combined  buying  up  old  film  rights  with  making  eye-rolling  Mantan  Moreland  comedies. 

"The  alliance  of  Sack  and  Williams  resulted  in  a  unique  opportunity  to  make  race  movies  outside  of  Hollywood 
and  New  York,  thereby  inspiring  a  fleeting  black  genre,  made  outside  the  established  circles  of  technological  skill. 

"Their  first  release  was  The  Blood  of  Jesus,  an  evangelical  tract  done  in  the  spirit  of  black  Southern  theology. 
Rather  than  Hollywood  sources,  it  emerged  from  a  black  point  of  view  and  focused  on  an  anatomy  of  black 
religion.  It  was  like  the  work  of  Eloise  Gist,  a  black  evangelist  who  roved  the  South  showing  her  pious  movies 
in  church  halls  in  the  1930s.  Williams  built  on  her  raw  style  and  carried  it  into  black  Southern  houses... 

"Shamelessly  literal  and  fundamentalist,yet  densely  packed  with  powerful  symbols,  The  Blood  of  Jesus,  even  if 
it  cannot  stand  as  art,  nevertheless  was  a  generic  gem  because  of  its  anatomy  of  black  folk  religion.  An  assertion 
of  folk  faith,  the  second  half  of  the  film  becomes  a  struggle  for  the  woman's  soul.  The  devil,  appropriately  dressed 
in  white,  topped  by  a  rakish  fedora,  sends  an  emissary  to  claim  her.  His  evil  dominance  is  seen  in  the  same  earthy 
urban  terms  perceived  by  'de  Lawd'  in  TTie  Green  Pastures:  saloons,  jitterbugs,  a  woman  in  white  picking  a 
pocket.  Graphic  signs  literally  define  the  sides  in  the  combat  —  one  pointing  'To  Hell,'  the  other  'To  Zion.'  In 
the  end,  the  God  of  the  Christians  wins  her  soul,  for  we  see  an  angel  above  the  bedstead  and  hear  heavenly  voices 
singing  'A  Little  Child  is  Coming'  and  we  see  the  blood  of  Jesus  drip  from  the  portrait.  Is  this  too  fundamentalist? 
Alfred  Sack,  just  before  his  death,  remembered  that  The  Blood  of  Jesus  'was  probably  the  most  successful  of  all 
Negro  films  and  lived  the  longest. ..and  possessed  that  certain  chemistry  required  by  the  Negro  box-office'... 

"Williams'  [Go  Down  Death]  spoke  to  its  audience  through  a  primitivism  so  un-self-conscious  that  it  could  be 
seen  as  a  form  of  genre  film  —  pristinely  black  in  its  advocacy,  locale,  point  of  view,  social  ethic,  and  its  resolutely 
non-Hollywood  folk  technique.  Williams'  combination  of  primitive  verisimilitude  on  location  and  his  simplistic 
theology  compare  in  manner,  if  not  devices,  with  the  earliest  achievements  of  post-W&r  Italian  'neo-realism.' 
Even  then,  Lugigi  ZLampa  and  the  other  Italians  knew  far  more  about  filmmaking  and  therefore  merely  used 
primitivism  as  a  style  or  strategy,  in  the  way  an  advertisement  might  use  a  child's  drawing  to  sell  candy. 
Nevertheless,  even  among  Afro-Americans,  audiences  probably  divided  into  indifferent  and  scoffing  Northerners 
and  faithful  Southern  fundamentalists..." 

— Thomas  Cripps, 
"The  Films  of  Spencer  Williams",  Black  American  Literature  Forum,  Winter  1978 


Selected  Filmography  (All  films  originally  35mm,  B&W,  sound). 

The  Blood  of  Jesus  (1941);  50  minutes.  Produced  by  Amergo  Films/Sack  Amusement,  Inc. 

Go  Down  Death  (1944);  50  minutes.  Produced  by  Harlemwood/Sack  Amusement  Corp. 

Of  One  Blood  (1945);  60  minutes.  Produced  by  Sack  Attractions. 

Beale  Street  Mama  ((1946);  67  minutes.  Produced  by  Sack  Entertainment. 

Dirty  Gertie  from  Harlem  USA  (1946);  60  minutes.  Produced  by  Alfred  Sack. 

The  Girl  in  Room  20  (1946);  63  minutes.  Produced  by  United  Films. 

Juke  Joint  (1947);  67  minutes.  Produced  by  Harlemwood/Sack  Attractions 


(E.S.T) 


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EYE  FOR  I:  VIDEO  SELF-PORTRAITS 

Program  I 

Co-sponsored  by  New  American  Makers  and  The  Oakland  Museum 

Friday,  October  12, 1990 


Tonight,  Cinematheque  presents  the  first  of  two  programs  which  examine  from  an  historical  perspective  the 
seemingly  inevitable  adaptation  of  the  "self-portrait"  form  by  American  and  European  video  artists  of  the  last  two 
decades.  The  videos  selected  for  the  two  programs  are  based  on  a  travelling  exhibit  guest  curated  by  the  French 
literary  and  film  critic/theorist  Raymond  Bellour  that  was  originally  presented  at  Whitney  Museum  of  American 
Art  in  1989. 

"In  the  mid-1960's,  the  development  of  the  less  expensive  portable  video  camera  and  player  revolutionized  the 
creative  use  of  the  medium.  Now  individual  artists  had  access  to  equipment  that  could  record  electronic  moving 
images  directly  onto  videotape. ...The  video  system,  unlike  film,  produces  an  immediately  recorded  image;  thus, 
artists  working  with  the  video  camera  could  see  what  they  were  recording.  The  instantaneous  nature  of  video 
invited  the  reflexive  exploration  of  the  process  of  art  making.  As  they  turned  the  camera  on  themselves,  artists 
discovered  possibilities  for  a  new  form  of  self-portraiture  and  a  representation  of  the  self  as  both  image  and 
process." 

— ^John  Hanhardt  (Curator,  Film  and  Video,  Whitney  Museum  of  American  Art) 


Don 't  Believe  I  Am  an  Amawn  (Glauben  Sie  nicht,  dass  ich  eine  Amazone  bin,  1975),  by  Ulrike  Rosenbach; 
11  minutes. 

"Women  who  want  to  assert  themselves  are  our  Amazons  —  so  say  men,  who  even  intend  that  as  a  compliment. 
Films  about  Amazons  show  them  as  beautiful,  boot-wearing  lesbians.  Indeed,  that  is  not  quite  the  image  of  the 
'emancipated  woman,'  even  as  seen  by  our  product  advertisers!?  How  are  we  to  present  ourselves  so  that  we  will 
be  taken  seriously?  All  female  characteristics  are  simplified,  clichdd;  we  are  not  allowed  to  be  multi-faceted, 
according  to  society." — U.R. 


Three  Transitions  C1973),  by  Peter  Campus;  5  minutes. 

"This  was  the  first  tape  I  made  at  WGBH.  It  deals  with  duality  in  an  ironic  sort  of  way,  but  also  with  the  video 
space  I  could  make  with  this  enormous  technological  tool.  The  question  of  the  self  is  most  important  as  the 
performer  tries  to  expose  the  illusions  the  artist  has  set  up.  The  performer  steps  through  himself  in  a  two-fold  three- 
dimensional  space;  then  removes  the  surface  of  his  face  to  reveal  the  same  face;  then  bums  his  living  image,  leaving 
only  blackness." — RC. 


The  Space  Between  the  Teeth  (1976),  by  Bill  Viola;  9  minutes. 

"Standing  there  with  a  camera  and  recorder,  I  was  fascinated  by  the  fact  that  the  (playback)  reality  of  those 
recording  moments  was  to  be  found  more  in  the  space  through  the  lens  of  the  camera,  on  the  surface  of  the  vidicon 
tube,  than  out  in  the  space  where  I  was  standing,  hearing,  smelling,  watching,  touching.  For  me,  the  focus  of  those 
moments  (when  the  recorder  was  going)  was  on  that  magic  surface,  and  my  conscious  concentration  was  aimed 
there  inside  the  camera.  I  realized  that  it  offered  the  only  way  out  of  the  scene  I  was  in,  through  a  little  aperture 
and  off  into  another  place  which  would  exist  beyond  the  present  time  and  place." — B.V.,  excerpt  from  statement 
for  Red  Tape,  1975. 


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1990  Program  Notes 


Hyaldide  (1985),  by  Danidle  and  Jacques-Louis  Nyst;  27  minutes. 

"Clearly  Hyaloide  owes  everything  to  childhood.  The  final  image  leads  directly  back  to  the  distant,  personal  past 
with  the  little  pink  shovel,  seen  throughout  the  tape,  and  placed  next  to  a  child 's  photograph,  which  surely  is  a  photo 
of  Dani^le  Nyst  as  a  child.  But  we  arrive  at  this  ambiguous  image  through  a  detour,  that  of  fiction,  a  path  planted 
with  simultaneously  encyclopedic  initiatory  and  ironic  associations.  The  path  winds  around  a  series  of  language 
games,  both  written  and  verbal,  which  lake  us  from  one  place  to  another,  and  from  one  image  to  the  next.  It  is  a 
journey  recalling  one  of  the  components  of  the  self-portrait,  those  wild  verbal  lists  that  are  the  distant  echo  of  the 
great  taxonomies  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance...." 

— Raymond  Bellour 


Vertical  Roll  (1972),  by  Joan  Jonas;  20  minutes. 

"My  first  video  performance  piece.  Organic  Honey 's  Visual  Telepathy  (later  Organic  Honey 's  Vertical  Roll),  evolved 
as  I  found  myself  continuously  investigating  my  own  image-making  in  the  monitor....!  became  obsessed  with 
following  the  process  of  my  own  theatricality  as  the  images  fluctuated  between  the  narcissistic  taboo  and  a  more 
abstract  representation.  I  played  the  sorceress  working  with  qualities  peculiar  to  video.  In  this  way  the  video  tapes 
and  performances  developed  simultaneously.  In  Vertical  Roll,  a  tape  that  came  from  these  investigations,  I  used 
the  rolling  bar  as  a  structuring  device  to  make  images  that  seemed  to  roll  by  like  frames  in  a  film.  Action  was 
performed  in  relation  to  the  roll.  I  moved  in  and  out  of  sync  with  its  rhythm.  There  are  no  edits  in  Vertical  Roll. 
The  process  of  taping  was  a  performance."— J.J. 

VitoAcconci:  One  Minute  Memories  (1971-74,  compiled  in  1989),  by  Raymond  Bellour;  23  minutes. 
Between  1971  and  1974,  Vito  Acconci  shot  numerous  tapes  in  real  time  with  an  almost  static  camera.  With  his 
permission,  Raymond  Bellour  compiled  the  first  minute  of  each  of  the  twenty-three  extant  tapes  to  create  One 
Minute  Memories . 

"I  was  thinking  in  terms  of  video  as  close-up,  video  as  place  where  my  face  on-screen  faces  a  viewer's  face  off- 
screen— a  place  for  talk,  me  talking  to  you,  the  viewer.  So,  at  that  time,  I  did  a  lot  of  videotapes  and  the  beginning 
question  would  always  be,  'Where  am  I  in  relation  to  the  viewer?  Am  I  face  to  face?  Am  I  at  one  end  of  a  table, 
viewer  at  the  other  end?  Am  I  below  the  viewer?  Am  I  to  the  side  of  a  viewer?'"  — V.A. 


EYE  FOR  I:  VIDEO  SELF-PORTRAITS 
Program  II 

Saturday,  October  13, 1990 


Tonight  the  Cinematheque  presents  a  second  program  of  video  self-portraits  selected  from  a  travelling  exhibition 
curated  by  the  French  theorist  and  critic  Raymond  Bellour. 

"The  self-portrait  [in  literature]  is  distinguished  from  autobiography  by  the  absence  of  a  story  one  is  obliged  to 
follow.  Narration  is  subordinated  in  the  former  to  a  logic,  a  collage  of  elements  ordered  according  to  a  series  of 
rubrics,  or  thematic  types.  The  self-portrait  clings  to  the  analogical,  the  metaphorical,  the  poetic,  far  more  than 


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to  the  narrative.  Its  coherence  lies  in  a  system  of  remembrances,  afterthoughts,  superimpositions,  correspon- 
dences. It  thus  takes  on  the  appearance  of  discontinuity,  of  anachronistic  juxtaposition,  of  montage.  Where 
autobiography  closes  in  on  the  life  it  recounts,  the  self-portrait  opens  itself  up  to  a  limitless  totality.  The  self- 
portraitist  announces:  'I'm  not  going  to  tell  you  what  I've  done,  but  I  am  going  to  try  to  tell  you  who  I  am.'... 

"The  tradition  [of  the  self-portrait]  is  to  be  found,  with  all  the  expected  displacements,  in  certain  obscure  comers 
of  the  modern  cinema.  Here  the  impossible  autobiography  of  cinema  tends  toward  the  forms  of  the  self-portrait 
in  various  ways,  more  or  less  fragmentary,  more  or  less  developed.  And  it  is  this  same  movement  that  appeared 
about  fifteen  years  ago  in  video  art,  only  endowed  with  a  new  force  and  specific  possibilities.  This  happened  first 
in  American  video  art,  which  took  shape  in  this  sense  at  the  beginning  of  the  1970s.  Soon  after,  the  same  idea  took 
hold  in  European  video  art,  with  both  similar  effect  and  undeniable  difference,  especially  in  light  of  the  more 
profound  connection  European  video  art  had  maintained  with  cinema...." 

— Raymond  Bellour,  "Eye  for  I:  Video  Self-Portraits,"  in  catalogue  accompanying  travelling  exhibition. 

*  *  * 

The  Contradiction  of  Memories  (Der  Widerspruch  die  Erinnerungen ,  1982),  by  Marcel  Odenbach;  13  minutes. 
"Chains  of  associations  along  a  drive,  set  to  the  rhythm  of  a  Steve  Reich  composition.  Reality  and  imagination 
alternate  with  one  another;  caesuras  mark  looses  of  information  and  simultaneously  allow  new  memories  to 
emerge.  Or,  also:  the  story  of  a  friendship  (with  Rudolf),  the  interchangeable,  or  double  identity  of  both  friends, 
the  interchangeability  of  their  actions."  — M.O. 

Portrobot  0984),  by  Gerd  Belz;  5.5  minutes. 

"A  self-portrait  realized  as  an  electronic  first  ascent  of  the  head  and  upper  body  by  the  video  camera.  All  editing 
took  place  during  recording,  by  proper  application  of  the  'Live-assemblecut,'  i.e.,  by  making  use  of  the  pause/play 
function  while  recording.  The  sound  consists  of  the  mechanical  clicking  of  the  on/off  switch.  It  was  recorded 
directly  from  the  machine.  I  chose  to  have  editing  and  sound  rhythm  correspond  with  each  other  in  a  mechanical 
way.  Portrobot  is  derived  from  the  French.  The  term  stands  for  the  vague  sketch  of  a  criminal  yet  to  be  caught, 
made  up  of  the  descriptions  of  various  eyewitnesses.  Images  valid  for  the  time  being."  — G.B. 


The  Looking  Glass  (1981),  by  Juan  Downey;  28  minutes. 

"...LasMeninas,  a  painting  by  Velasquez  that  reflected  across  the  gallery  in  a  small  mirror.  The  magic  atmosphere 
of  the  full  room,  where  the  natural  light  entering  from  a  side  window,  enveloped  me  many  times,  in  the  illusion 
that  I  was  within  the  Baroque  space  of  the  painting,  as  if  it  were  possible  for  me  to  walk  around  the  fuzzy-edged 
figures  of  the  Maids.  I  could  feel  my  body  disappearing  behind  the  Infanta's  bright  silky  torso:  my  skin  becoming 
brown  ochre  and  painteriy-textured.  Charged  with  fire  many  times,  after  these  total  art  experiences,  I  would  have 
to  rush  to  the  men's  room  and  quickly  throw  cold  water  on  my  face,  heart  beating  fast,  blood  rushing  to  my  head, 
similar  to  an  orgasm  during  which  I  visualized  the  voluptuousness  of  the  Italian  paintings  on  the  second  floor." 
— J.D. 


Scenario  dujilm  Passion  (1982),  by  Jean-Luc  Godard;  54  minutes. 

"I  didn't  want  to  write  the  screenplay,  I  wanted  to  see  it.  It's  actually  a  quite  terrible  story,  because  it  goes  back 
to  the  Bible.  The  question  is,  can  you  see  the  Law,  or  has  the  Law  already  been  seen,  and  then  written  on  tablets 
by  Moses.  I  personally  think  that  you  see  the  worid  first,  and  then  it's  written.  And  with  the  worid  represented 
in  Passion ,  it  had  to  be  seen  first,  to  see  if  it  existed,  in  order  to  film  it."  — excerpt  from  Scenario  dufilm  Passion. 


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1990  Program  Notes 


THE  BLACK  FOLK  DRAMAS  OF  SPENCER  WILLIAMS 

Program  II 

Sunday,  October  14, 1990 


Of  One  Blood  (1945);  16mm,  B&W,  sound  60  minutes. 
Produced  by  Sack  Attractions. 

Dirty  Gertie  from  Harlem  USA  (1946);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  60  minutes. 
Produced  by  Alfred  Sack. 


"...Of  One  Blood  (1945)  and  Dirty  Gertie  from  Harlem  USA  (1946)  —  suggest  an  on-going  flirtation  with  themes 
of  religious  faith.  In  Dirty  Gertie...,  which  resembles  a  loosely  adapted  version  of  Somerset  Maugham's  Rain, 
the  allusions  are  vaguely  mystical  and  psychological  rather  than  tied  to  any  specific  tradition  in  Afro-American 
fundamentalism.  The  app)earance  of  a  conjure  woman,  'Hager'  (Hager),  played  by  Williams,  doesn't  fully  succeed 
in  making  the  cultural  connection  that  her  name  and  role  suggest.  Of  One  Blood  uses  the  biblical  theme  of  the 
Deluge  to  introduce  the  story  of  brothers  separated  and  later  reunited.  The  film  is  flawed  by  the  incredible 
circumstances  set  up  in  the  narrative,  and  the  moral  urgency  created  in  the  first  scenes  dissipates  all  too  quickly. 
In  Williams'  other  films  of  the  1940s,  such  as  Juke  Joint  (1947)  and  The  Girl  in  Room  20  (1946),  he  entirely 
abandoned  the  successful  formula  that  he  had  used  in  The  Blood  of  Jesus." 

— Adrienne  Lanier  Seward,  Whitney  Museum  of  Modem  Art 
New  American  Film  and  Video  Series  program  notes 


DISPUTED  IDENTITIES,  PARTI 

Curated  by  Portia  Cobb 

Sharon  Jue  &  Portia  Cobb  in  Person 

Co-sponsored  by  San  Francisco  Camerawork 

Saturday,  October  20th,  1990 


Tonight  the  Cinematheque  and  San  Francisco  Camerawork  present  the  first  of  two  programs  which  attempt  to 
acknowledge  a  shared  and  collective  vision  between  image-makers  living  within  the  marginality  of  the  Western 
Diasporas  of  Britain  and  the  United  States. 

Works  invited  for  exhibition  in  Disputed  Identities  (  which  include  works  by  still  photographers  currently  on 
exhibit  at  S.F.  Camerawork)  are  representatives  of  two  very  different  independent  sectors.  The  individual 
subjectivities  are  very  distinctly  and  specifically  informed  by  locality,  but  share  in  common  a  reconstructed 
memory,  understanding  and  experience  of  transition,  migration  and  institutionalized  racism. 

The  preoccupation  is  with  the  reconstruction  of  cultural  identity  of  a  "present"  presence  here  in  the  "new  world," 
one  that  often  reveals  what  W.E.B.  DuBois  once  described  as  the  "double-consciousness."  It  is  both  individual 
and  multiple  and  its  on-going  process  is  not  one  that  remains  fixed  or  frozen  within  the  fantasy  of  lost  origins. 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


Affirmations  (1991),  by  Marlon  Riggs  (U.SA.);  3/4"  videotape,  10  minutes. 

This  is  a  powerful  provocative  continuation  of  the  filmmaker's  confrontation  with  issues  surrounding  the  black 
gay  male  identity  which  was  initiated  with  the  previous  tape  Tongues  Untied.  This  time  specific  dialogic  ref- 
erences are  given  to  separation,  exile,  and  displacement  from  the  African-American  community. 

Buckwheat:  The  Dinner  Hour  (1989),  by  Alfonso  Moret  (U.S.A);  3/4"  videotape,  5  minutes. 
The  acceptable  exploitation  of  a  cultural  icon  is  put  to  the  test  by  Moret  as  he  deconstructs  the  destructive  and 
demeaning  lenses  that  the  American  media  has  provided '  us '  of  the  Buckwheat  caricature.  Moret  then  reconstructs 
Buckwheat  with  dignity. 

All  Orientals  Look  the  Same  (1989),  by  Valerie  Soe  (U.S.A.);  3/4"  videotape,  2  minutes. 
An  extract  of  a  longer  piece  which  was  created  for  a  multiple  monitor  installation.  All  Orientals...  is  a  brief,  to- 
the-point  confrontation  with  a  cultural  misgiving  which  is  often  based  in  racist  and  culturally  ignorant  notions  and 
presumptions  about  cultural  identity. 

My  Mother  Thought  She  Was  Audrey  Hepburn  (1989),  by  Sharon  Jue  (U.S.A.);  16mm,  color,  sound,  17  minutes. 
Jue  proves  that  the  irony  of  assimilation  here  in  the  "new  world"  is  not  without  humor.  My  Mother...  is  an  au- 
tobiographical sketch  of  her  own  understanding  and  grip  on  the  pitfalls  of  assimilation.  Her  mother's  cultural 
identity  is  won  over  by  that  of  Jackie  Onasis  and  Audrey  Hepburn,  using  isolated  and  collective  memories  that 
capture  the  reality  of  cultural  changes  brought  about  by  immigration  and  disenfranchisement. 

Territories  (1984),  by  Isaac  Julien  (U.K.);  16mm,  color,  sound,  25  minutes. 

Julien  is  the  maker  oi  Looking  for  Langston  and  a  founding  member  of  British  Sankofa  Film  and  Video  Workshop, 
where  this  earlier  work  was  produced.  Using  a  montage  of  images  shot  at  a  Notting  Hill  Carnival,  he  recreates 
an  atmosphere  of  public/private  boundaries  and  social  divisions  in  which  social  identities  seem  to  be  constructed. 

—Portia  Cobb 


WEBS  OF  EVIL:  TRAFFIC  IN  SOULS  AND  SPIES 
Sunday,  October  21, 1990 


Traffic  in  Souls  (1913);  16mm,  B«feW,  silent,  50  minutes. 

Directed  by  George  Loane  Tucker.    With  Jane  Gail,  Matt  Moore,  Ethel  Grandin,  William  Welsh,  Howard 

Crampton,  William  Turner,  Arthur  Hunter,  and  Laura  Huntley. 

It  all  began,  it  seems,  back  in  the  '90's  when  Dr.  Parkhurst  went  into  the  Tenderloin  of  New  York  and  came  forth 
with  the  revelations  of  the  vice  world  which  resulted  presently  in  the  famous  Lexow  investigation,  and  for  twenty 
years  a  long  sequel  of  similar  revealing  movements  in  many  centers...  it  became  apparent  to  the  usually 
unconscious  public  that  there  was  a  national  and  international  traffic  in  "white  slaves,"  well  organized  and  capably 
managed... 

Carl  Laemmle,  the  president  of  Universal...  was  of  short  patience  with  young  men  who  wanted  to  bother  him  with 
such  details  —  especially  since  Tucker  admitted  that  he  wanted  to  spend  $5000  on  this  picture.  That  was  enough 
money  to  make  a  dozen  Imp  program  pictures.  George  Loane  Tucker  found  himself  and  his  little  white  slave  idea 


80 


1990  Program  Notes 


talking  to  themselves  in  the  hall  at  1 600  Broadway  with  the  door  shut  behind  them.  Tucker  went  back  to  the  studio 
to  report  defeat.  A  conspiracy  was  bom.  Five  of  the  enthusiasts  plotted  to  make  the  picture  even  without  the 
approval  of  the  big  boss,  and  then,  if  in  last  resort  he  could  not  be  won  by  a  screen  demonstration,  to  pay  the  costs 
themselves... 

While  [Mark  M.  Dintenfass,  owner  of  the  Champion  brand  pictures  on  the  Universal  program]  was  busy 
concentrating  his  attention  on  the  affairs  of  the  Powers-Laemmle  war,  the  boys  in  the  studio  were  merrily  engaged 
in  photographing  Trajfic  in  Souls,  a  scene  at  a  time  in  odd  moments  when  opportunity  permitted,  keeping  up 
meanwhile  the  continuous  grind  of  one  and  two-reel  pictures....  In  four  weeks  the  picture  was  photographed.  It 
was  ten  reels  long,  without  titles....  It  became  the  text  of  a  violent  meeting  of  the  board  of  directors. 

"All  right,  I'll  take  the  picture  off  the  company's  hands  and  pay  $10,000  for  it,"  Laemmle  shouted. 

Then  came  a  lull,  a  whispering  in  conference.  Dire  suspicion  arose  in  the  opposition. 

"If  you'll  put  up  ten  thousand  it  must  be  worth  a  million,"  taunted  the  opposition,  crying  a  bid  of  $25,000.  This 
resulted  in  the  picture  remaining  the  property  of  Universal... 

Traffic  in  Souls  opened  at  Joe  Weber's  theatre  on  Monday  afternoon,  November  24,  1913.  The  announcing 
advertisement  read: 

TRAFFIC  IN  SOULS.  —  The  sensational  motion  picture  dramatization  based  on  the  Rockefeller  White 
Slavery  Report  and  on  the  investigation  of  the  Vice  Trust  by  District  Attorney  Whitman  —  A  $200,000 
spectacle  in  700  scenes  with  800  players,  showing  the  traps  cunningly  laid  for  young  girls  by  vice  agents 
—  Dont  miss  the  most  thrilling  scene  ever  staged,  the  smashing  of  the  Vice  Trust. 

The  picture  played  to  thirty  thousand  spectators  in  the  first  week.  There  were  four  showings  daily  and  five  on 
Sunday.  The  admission  price  was  a  flat  25  cents  all  over  the  house.  In  a  short  time  the  picture  was  playing  a  total 
of  twenty-eight  theatres  in  Greater  New  York.  Its  gross  receipts  totaled  approximately  $450,000. 

— Terry  Ramsaye, 
A  Million  and  One  Nights:  A  History  of  the  Motion  Picture  (1926) 


Spies  (Spione,  1928);  16mm,  B&W,  silent ,  85  minutes. 

Produced  by  U.F.  A.  Directed  by  Fritz  Lang.  Script  by  Lang  and  Thea  von  Harbou  based  on  a  novel  by  von  Harbou. 
Photographed  by  Fritz  Amo  Wagner.  Art  Direction  by  Otto  Hunte  and  Karl  Vollbrecht.  With  Rudolf  Klein- 
Rogge,  Willy  Fritsch,  Gerda  Maurus,  Lupu  Pick. 

After  the  monumental  styles  of  his  two  previous  films,  Die  Nibelungen  (1924)  and  Metropolis  (1927),  Lang  re- 
turned to  the  adventure-film  serial  form  of  Z)r.  Mabuse  (1922).  Master  criminal  Haghi  is  a  banker  who  is  also  a 
spy.  Government  agents  try  in  vain  to  identify  and  capture  him,  until  one  is  successful  because  one  of  Haghi's 
spies  falls  in  love  with  him.  Haghi  and  the  agents  appear  in  innumerable  disguises.  Lang's  avoidance  of  the 
establishing  shot  and  emphasis  on  objects,  details,  expressions,  and  movement  places  the  film  in  a  paranoid  fantasy 
context.  Haghi  sits  like  a  spider  in  his  web  in  a  chaotic  and  violent  universe  filled  with  machinery  in  motion,  while 
in  his  underground  headquarters  all  is  ordered,  calm,  and  rational.  Lang's  earlier  films  emphasized  the 
supernatural  and  mysticism,  but  here  he  moves  toward  a  psychological  realism  built  of  gestures  and  expressions. 
The  film  retains  the  episodic  form  of  the  serial,  and  therefore  this  version,  though  abridged  by  half  for  the  American 
release,  still  contains  the  original  flavor. 

— The  Museum  of  Modem  Art 


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San  FVancisco  Cinematheque 


ODILE  &  ODETTE 

A  SlidelText  Event  by  David  Levi  Strauss 

Artist  in  Person 

Thursday,  October  25, 1990 


"But  it  is  not  obvious  that  the  photograph,  if  photograph  there  be,  is  already  taken,  already 
developed  in  the  very  heart  of  things  and  at  all  points  of  space. . . ." 

Bcrgson,  Matter  &  Memory 

"A  letter  is  like  an  otherworldly  communication,  less  perfect  than  a  dream  but  subject  to  the  same 
rules." 


Marina  Tsvetaycva  to  Boris  Pasternak,  1922 


OdUe  &  Odette  began  several  years  ago,  when  I  first  saw  a  photograph  of  two  girls  arm-in-arm,  looking  up  at  a 
couple  in  a  window  across  a  barbwire  barrier.  The  poet  Norma  Cole  had  found  the  photograph  in  a  newspaper 
somewhere  {Liberation  in  Paris?),  named  the  girls  Odile  &  Odette,  and  had  written  a  dialogue  for  them.  1  was 
immediately  drawn  to  the  two  girls  in  the  photograph,  and  I  began  to  write  letters  to  them.  At  various  times  over 
the  course  of  this  correspondence,  Odile  &  Odette  became  Norma  &  my  wife,  Gret,  or  my  two  older  sisters,  or 
other  women  &  men,  or  word  &  image.  Old  Worid  &  New  Worid,  past  &  future,  good  &  evil. ...They  came  to 
represent  the  relation  between  dualities.  I  could  address  anything  I  wanted  to  say  to  them.  Last  February  I  went 
to  Beriin,  ostensibly  to  cover  the  Beriin  Film  Festival  for  several  magazines,  but  actually  to  look  for  Odile  & 
Odette. 

What  I  am  most  interested  in  is  the  relation  between  words  and  images;  what  has  been  called  "the  third  image," 
what  happens  betwee/;  the  two. 

"What  I  love  is  the  relation  of  the  image  and  the  text,  a  very  difficult  relation  but  which  thereby 
provides  truly  creative  enjoyment,  the  way  poets  used  to  enjoy  working  on  difficult  problems  of 
versification.  The  modem  equivalent  is  to  find  a  relation  between  text  &  images." 

Barthes,  The  Grain  of  the  Voice 


Odile  &  Odette  is  an  ongoing  correspondence  in  word  &  image,  and  an  inquiry  into  their  relations.  It  is  part  lyric, 
part  essay,  part  travel  diary  and  part  memoir.  It  juxtaposes  quotations  from  appearances  (photographs)  with 
quotations  from  the  writings  of  myself  &  others.  It  juxtaposes  things  which  don't  necessarily  go  together,  but 
as  soon  as  they  are  placed  together,  they  begin  to  have  to  do  with  one  another.  TTiey  become  related.  "I  am  divided 
for  love's  sake,  for  the  chance  of  union."  The  "scale  of  resemblances  &  disrcsemblances"  runs  from  "illustration" 
to  more  complicated  rhymes.  Fact  &  fiction  intermingle,  as  always. 

Somewhere  behind  it  all  is  the  White  Swan  &  the  Black  Swan  oiSwan  Lake,  with  the  ruined  chapel  in  the  distance. 

— David  Levi  Strauss 


ip 
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1990  Program  Notes 


BLOOD,  HISTORY  &  THE  BODY:  THE  ART  OF  SILVIA  GRUNER 

Media/performance  artist  Silvia  Gruner  in  person 
Co-sponsored  by  Headlands  Center  for  the  Arts  and  Galeria  de  la  Ram 

Saturday,  October  27, 1990 

Silvia  Gruner  was  bom  in  Mexico  City  where  she  presently  lives  and  works. 

"Silvia  Gruner's  work,  with  the  simplest  of  materials,  opens  up  a  wealth  of  associations  that  speak  of  Mexico's 
history,  religion,  economics  and  ecological  problems ...  The  strength  of  Gruner's  work  lies  in  her  facility  for  visual, 
philosophical  and  historical  languages.  There  is  an  interesting  simultaneity  in  her  work,  where  a  multiplicity  of 
time  and  identity  operate,  creating  a  dialectical  argument,  a  forum  of  questioning  and  reclaiming. 

"A  major  elemental  theme  of  Gruner's  work  is  the  crossing  of  borders/boundaries.  This  is  most  obviously  evident 
in  her  inter-disciplinary  approach  to  artmaking.  Sculpture,  installation,  video,  photography,  film,  assemblage  are 
all  equally  utilized  and  developed.  She  is  both  literally  and  figuratively  multi-lingual." 

— Mark  Alice  Duranl 

*  *  * 


I  Am  That  Symmetry  {Yo  Soy  Esa  Simetria,  1990)  performance 

"I  am  that  symmetry  —  I  am  the  act  that  annuls  my  desires."  — Paul  Valery 

In  this  piece  my  body  is  represented  as  a  "still  life"  ready  to  be  examined  by  the  audience  through  magnifying 
glasses.  The  text  by  Paul  Valery  tries  to  describe,  watch  and  quantify  the  body  as  a  measurable  object. 

Arena  (1986);  Super  8mm,  silent,  6  minutes. 

In  this  film  I  explore  the  physical  erosion  of  the  body  caused  by  the  repetitious  rolling  of  my  body  down  a  sand 

dune. 

The  Original  Sin/Reproduction  {ElPecaso  Original/Reproduction,  1978);  Super-8mm,  silent,  5  minutes. 
This  is  a  self  portrait  that  explores  the  representation  of  women  in  art.  I  embody  both  the  physical  poses  and  the 
psychological  roles  adopted  by  the  models  and  deconstruct  them  through  irreverent  acting  and  a  hysterical  and 
accelerated  camera  operated  by  me. 

Untitled  {Sin  Titulo,  1987);  Super-8mm;  color,  silent,  6  minutes. 

This  film  is  a  diptych  in  which  I  use  my  skin  as  a  screen,  both  absorbent  and  reflective.  That  is,  it  becomes  a 

receptacle  for  memory. 

Gypsy  Song  (Cancion  Gitana,  1987);  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  3  minutes. 
This  short  film  uses  sound  to  react  to  a  state  of  friction  within  a  love  relationship. 

Question  {Pregunta,  1988);  Super-8mm,  B&W,  silent,  6  minutes. 

This  film  explores  the  ephemeral  nature  of  film  and  memory  —  "Is  there  anything  more  tenacious  than 

memory?"  "Yes,  forgetting." 

The  Flight  {El  Vuelo,  1989);  3/4"  videotape,  19  minutes. 

El  Vuelo  is  about  the  simultaneous  expression  of  contradictory  states  of  mind:  death  and  desire;  escape  and 
returning;  flying  and  being  bound  to  the  ground.  This  videotape  was  part  of  a  cumulative  installation  that  also 
incorporated  sculptural  structures,  objects  and  a  performance. 

— Silvia  Gruner 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


MONSTERS  FROM  MEXICO 

Sunday,  October  28, 1990 


Tonight,  the  Cinematheque  presents  three  bone-chillin'  masterpieces  of  low  budget  Mexican  horror.  Dating  form 
the  late  1950's  and  early  1960's,  these  films  assimilated  the  form  of  30's  and  40's  Hollywood  horror  into  a 
decidedly  Mexican  product. 

"During  the  50's,  60's  and  early  70's,  the  horror/chiller  genre  proved  to  be  an  integral  part  of  Mexico's  film 
industry.  Familiar  beings  of  terror  mythology  turned  up  in  one  form  oranother;  vampires  and  mad  doctors  rubbed 
shoulders  with  Aztec  curses  or  witches.  Produced  on  modest  budgets,  many  of  these  films  managed  to  evoke  an 
effective  atmosphere  in  keeping  with  their  eerie  or  Gothic  themes. 


The  Vampire's  Coffin  (1958),  by  Fernando  Mendez;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  85  minutes. 
An  undead  fiend  returns  in  this  slightly  campy  chiller  in  the  traditional  vein.  A  doctor,  seeking  to  investigate  the 
truth  behind  whether  or  not  there  really  was  a  vampire,  removes  the  staked  corpse  form  its  crypt.  A  petty  crook, 
trying  to  steal  a  valuable  medallion  from  the  body,  removes  the  stake  from  the  vampire's  heart. ..and  the  city 
becomes  the  happy  haunting  ground  for  the  blood-hungry  Count  Lavud  who  plans  to  make  the  film's  heroine  his 
undead  bride. 

The  Robot  vs.  The  Aztec  Mummy  (La  MomiaAzteca  Contra  ElRoboto  Humano),  by  Rafael  Portillo;  16mm, 
B&W,  sound,  65  minutes. 

Dr.  Kmpp,  the  villain  oi  Curse  of  the  Aztec  Mummy,  returns  once  again  (even  after  his  supposedly  "certain"  death 
in  the  last  film),  still  eager  to  get  his  greedy  hands  on  the  Aztec  treasure.  But  this  time  he  has  a  weapon  to  deal 
with,  the  unstoppable  Aztec  guardian  mummy;  a  "human  robot"  powered  by  radium  that  will  destroy  the  undead 
creature. ..or  at  least  its  supposed  to. 

TheBrainiac  {El  Baron  del  Terror),  by  Chano  Ureta;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  65  minutes. 
A  baron  accused  of  many  sordid  misbehaviors,  including  sorcery  and  the  "seduction  of  other  men's  wives",  is 
burned  alive  by  order  of  the  inquisition.  While  inflamed  he  vows  to  return  300  years  later  in  order  to  avenge  his 
death.  Flash  forward  to  1960  and  the  Baron  has  returned  to  keep  his  promise  via  comet.  Something  must  have 
happened  during  those  300  years  —  although  he  may  look  suave,  underneath  there  is  a  creature  whose  appetite 
in  inclined  towards  sucking  the  brains  out  of  his  victim's  heads. 


MATTRESS 

A  Sound  Picture 

by  Jun  Jalbuena 

Eye  Gallery,  4pm  -  9pm. 

October  30  -  November  6, 1990 


IT'S  NEVER  TOO  LATE  TO  BE  OUT  OF  DATE,  THE  HI-STORY'S  CALLED  HISTORY,  THE  TERRAIN 
IS  TALK,  HEAVY  ON  THE  SAVVY  CAUSE  IT'S  STICKY,  SAYS  HELLO  L  IKE  UP  YOUR  NOSE,  SO  YOU 
FOAM  IN  THE  MOUTH  AND  GOT  A  MATTRESS  FOR  LIPS,  IT'S  A  KIND  OF  CONFUSED  CARRESS. 


84 


1990  Program  Notes 


MATTRESS  is  basically  prerecorded  sound  and  mattresses  in  a  room  with  a  big  picture  window  overlooking  the 
Greyhound  bus  station.  It's  a  set-up,  with  the  light  changing  to  night.  Jun  Jalbuena  works  with  media  and  is  based 
in  San  Francisco. 

*  *  * 

ISOmin.  cycle 

tape  1 

EXPLORER  IN  THE  MISSION  (VISIONARY) 

EXPLORERS  DEMAND  DESIRE 

BOREDOM  KILLS  THE  KINGDOM  (THE  MOB  DOES  THE  JOB) 

ABSOLUTE BLACK 

I  SAW  YOU  EAT  EACH  OTHER 

HUMOR  EXPLOITS  THE  SPIRALING  RHYTHM  OF  LANGUAGE 

ROMEO  YOU  RE  A  BLAST 

GOD  IS  DEAD  (STOP  FUCKING  ME  UP  WITH  YOUR  LOOKS) 

SNORE 

tape  2 

PERFECT  LOVE  -  IT'S  AN  OPEN  SECRET 

THE  GAS  WAR  IS  A  GAS  (PRETTY  COOL  LADY  THAT  WOMAN) 

PLEASE  DON'T  GO  (MAGELLAN  -  LAND  ON  WATER) 

I  STILL  SEE  YOU  EATING  EACH  OTHER 

THUNDER  STORM 

*  *  * 

THE  GALLERY  IS  NEUTRAL,  BUT  IT'S  GROSS,  IT'S  FULL  OF  ECHOES,  SOUND  RE-SOUNDS,  KEEPS 
BOUNCING  ALL  OVER  THE  PLACE  AND  WARMS  YOU  UP  TIGHT  WITH  ITS  RAP. 


MATTRESS  IS  A  CUSHION  FOR  LIARS. 
CUSHIONS  THE  IMPACT 
WATERS  IT  DOWN  WITH  A  FLOOD 
LIKE  SHIT  HITTING  THE  FAN. 

DISPLACEMENT  AND  REPLACEMENT 

RE-SITUATING  THE  HI-STORY  IN  THE  CROSSNESS  OF  A  STERILE  CHAMBER.  IT'S  SO  FUCKING 

PERSONAL,  IT'S  FUCKING  PUBLIC. 

BASICALLY  YOU  GOT  THIS  GOD  THING  GOING  ON, 

HEARING  THE  VIBRATIONS  OF  A  BIG  MOUTH. 

TOUCHING  THE  ORAL  TRADITION 

AND  THE  FIRE  POWER  OF  THE  BURNING  TONGUE 

TALKING,  EATING  AND  ROMANCE. 

VOICE  AND  REJOICE 

BE  HEARD  AND  BE  A  HERD 

GO  ON  THE  R^^^PAGE,  THIS  PAGE  OF  HISTORY  IS  YOURS. 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


THE  MOB  DOES  THE  JOB. 

"SET  UP  THE  MATTRESSES"  IN  AMERICAN  GANG  WAR  MYTHOLOGY,  THE  SOLDIERS  OF  THE 

MOB  FORTIFIY  THEMSELVES  IN  A  ROOM  FULL  OF  MATTRESSES.  IT  WAS  AN  ASYLUM  RIDDLED 

WITH  BULLETS.  IT  LEFT  YOU  NUTS,  WELL  HUNG,  OR  ELECTRIC  LIKE  GLOW  BABIES.  THE 

RHYTHM  IS  HUMAN  AND  INSANE,  WARM  AND  BLOODY,  WARFARE  FOR  WELLFARE,  THEY 

LEARN  WHEN  THEY  BURN,  DEFACE  AND  ERASE,  FIRST  TEAR  THEIR  FUCKING  FACES  OFF  THEN 

WIPE  'EM  OUT  OR  PUT  IT  THIS  WAY,  DISMEMBER  THEIR  MEMBER  AND  THEY'LL  REALLY 

REMEMBER. 

INSULT  GETS  RESULTS,  IT  ALWAYS  WORKS,  MAKE  EM  MINIMAL,  IT'S  CLEANER  THAT  WAY. 

COMMENTS:  THE  SITUATION  IS  THICK,  AND  THE  TIME  FRAME  IS  A  FUCKING  LONG  STRECH, 
STRECH  OUT  'CAUSE  YOU'RE  STRESSED  OUT  IS  THE  3  HOUR  COMPONENT  FEASIBLE? 

— JJ 


LIVING  IN  THE  AMERICAN  DREAM 
Films  and  Videotapes  by  Lewis  Klahr,  Tom  Rhoads  and  Eric  Saks 

Saturday,  November  10, 1990 


Tonight's  program  consists  of  work  that  subverts  the  familiar  world  of  pop  commodity  and  communication, 
transforming  everyday  objects  into  absurd,  compelling  icons. 


Mr.  Wonderful  (1988),  by  Tom  Rhoads;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  10  minutes. 

Positive-reinforcement  with  the  spooky,  frozen  image  of  Mr.  Rogers.  Three  entire  songs  and  lots  of  words  to  live 

by.  Do  you  leave  your  children  alone  with  this  man? 


Tales  From  the  Forgotten  Future,  Part  Two:  Five  O'Clock  Worlds  (1990),  by  Lewis  Klahr. 

Klahr's  films  combine  drawn  and  painted  images  with  cut-out  photographs,  objects  and  occasional  live  footage 
in  collages  describing  a  surreal  interior  Americana.  These  three  installments  continue  his  four-part  cut-out 
animation  series,  all  of  which  "integrate  the  dream  logic  of  an  experimental  film  with  the  emotional  continuity 
of  a  Hollywood  feature"  (L.K.) 

Tales  From  the  Forgotten  Future  consists  of  nine  films  in  three  parts.  Five  O'  Clock  Worlds  is  the  second  part, 
comprised  of  the  following  films: 

The  Organ  Minder's  Gronkey  (1990),  by  Lewis  Klahr;  Super-8mm,  color/B&W,  sound,  16  minutes. 
The  main  character  of  The  Organ  Minder 's  Gronkey  wanders  over  a  still  image  of  cars  on  a  freeway,  their  stillness 
and  anachronism  implying,  not  a  photograph,  but  frozen  time.  His  search  for  "organ  minders"  seems  impossibly 
distant  as  he  rests  in  a  decaying  YMCA  in  1957. 


86 


1990  Program  Notes 


Hi-Fi  Cadets  (1990),  by  Lewis  KJahr;  Super-8mm,  color/B&W,  sound,  10  minutes 

"Real"  and  imaginary  photographs  are  increasingly  indistinguishable  in  Hi-Fi  Cadets.  The  fantastic  and  the 
everyday  are  combined,  given  equal  weightlessness,  floating  on  the  surface  of  an  unfamiliar  space.  Sailing  ships 
succumb  to  dragons  under  a  boundless  sky  of  TV  white  noise  and  JFX  drinks  Mr.  Boston  Lemon  Gin  while  a  high 
school  teacher  visits  outer  space  in  a  coffee  cup. 

Verdant  Sonar  (1990),  by  Lewis  Klahr;  Super-8mm,  color/B&W,  sound,  2.5  minutes. 

Verdant  Sonar  builds  a  noirish  crime/escape  fantasy  out  of  music  and  the  most  minimal  visual  elements. 


Don  From  Lakewood  (1989),  by  Eric  Saks  and  Pat  Tiemey;  3/4"  videotape,  22  minutes. 
You  Taik/I  Buy  (1990),  by  Eric  Saks;  3/4"  videotape,  8  minutes. 

"When  Fisher-Price  introduced  its  'Pixelvision'  camcorder  to  the  American  market  a  few  years  ago,  the  company 
really  only  meant  it  as  a  toy  for  kids.  But  here  was  an  actual  video  camera  available  for  about  $100;  the  word  quickly 
got  around  to  the  various  media  communities,  and  soon  all  sorts  of  artmakers  were  exploring  its  potential. ..Los 
Angeles  filmmaker  Eric  Saks  is  the  first  filmmaker  I've  heard  of  who's  really  exploring  and  promoting  the  use 
of  Pixelvision  beyond  its  toy  intentions.  The  camera  is  a  curious  anomaly,  says  Saks,  because  it's  not  really  a  new 
technology,  but  a  'divergence  from  technical  development'  that's  extremely  low-fi.  In  addition,  Fisher  Price  no 
longer  makes  them,  and  although  some  stores  still  carry  them,  it's  a  medium  that  could  very  soon  become  extinct. 

"The  soundtrack  (of  Saks'  and  Pat  Tiemey 's  Don  From  Lakewood  )  is  a  series  of  phone  conversations  Tiemey 
had  with  a  fumiture  salesman  in  L.A.  from  whom  he's  trying  to  buy  a  couch.  It's  illustrated  with  cardboard  sets 
and  puppet  figures. ..the  Pixelvision  image  giving  it  a  seedy  used-fumiture  store  tone... 

"In  You  Talkll Buy  Saks  uses  a  similar  technique;  juxtaposing  his  telephone  conversation  with  a  used  car  salesman 
('I'll  give  you  a  deal  on  everything')  against  a  collage  of  car  parts,  talking  thumbs,  old  home  movies  and  Saks 
himself  wearing  an  indefinable  headpiece.  Since  the  salesman  does  all  the  talking,  the  video  acts  as  Saks'  reply." 

—Kurt  Wolff,  Bay  Guardian 
(E.C.) 


Framing  Cinema:  A  Re-presentation 
Sunday,  November  11, 1990, 5 p.m. 


Lights  (1964-66),  by  Marie  Menken;  16mm,  color,  silent,  6  minutes. 

New  York  Street  Scene  and  Brooklyn  Bridge  (both  1897),  Lumi^re  Productions;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  approx. 
1  minute  each  at  16  f.p.s. 

Window  (1964),  by  Ken  Jacobs;  16mm,  color,  silent,  12  minutes  at  16  f.p.s.. 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 

3160  Trees  in  Autumn  (1960),  by  Kurt  Kren;  16inm,  B&W,  sound,  5  minutes. 
Sirius  Remembered  (1959),  by  Stan  Brakhage;  16mni,  color,  silent,  12  minutes. 
Boston  Fire  (1979),  by  Peter  Hutton;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  8  minutes. 
Notes  on  the  Circus  (1966),  by  Jonas  Mekas;  16mm,  color,  sound,  12  minutes. 


TOO  EARLY,  TOO  LATE 

by  Jean-Marie  Straub  and  Daniele  Huillet 


Sunday,  November  11, 1990 


TooEarly,  TboLo/e  (1981),  directed  by  Jean-Marie  Straub  and  Danidle  Huillet;  16mm,  color,  sound,  100  minutes. 
Photography  by  Willy  Lubtchansky,  Caroline  Champetier,  Robert  Alazraki  and  Marguerite  Perlado;  script  by 
Straub  and  Huillet,  based  on  the  writings  of  Friedrich  Engels  and  Mahmoud  Hussein. 


"...Central  to  the  unique  impact  of  Too  Early,  Too  Late. .As  the  resonance  it  gives  to  specific  places,  particularly 
in  the  second  part;  no  other  film  has  come  even  remotely  close  to  making  me  feel  I've  been  to  Egypt,  which  this 
film  does.  A  lot  of  this  has  to  do  with  tempo,  rhythm,  pacing:  the  sight  and  sound  of  a  donkey  pulling  a  carl  down 
a  road  towards  the  camera  is  recorded  in  long  shot  and  at  leisure,  with  no  sense  of  either  ellipsis  or  dramatic 
underlining  according  to  any  principle  other  than  the  placement  of  camera  and  microphone  in  relation  to  the  event. 
The  extraordinary  result  of  this  technique  is  that  one  almost  feels  able  to  taste  these  places,  to  contemplate  them 
— observe  and  think  about  them..  Some  spectators  find  this  activity  tedious;  many  of  the  first  spectators  of  Jacques 
Tati's  Playtime  complained  about  it  in  a  comparable  manner,  claiming  that  "nothing  happens."  Yet  the  significant 
relationship  between  Straub-Huillet's  long  shots  and  Tati's  is  that  something  is  always  taking  place  in  them,  if  only 
the  spectator  can  learn  to  watch  and  listen  without  expecting  to  be  led  by  the  nose  through  the  sequence. 

"Discovering  this  capacity  in  one's  self  is  part  of  the  experience  the  film  potentially  offers.  Is  there  any  other  film 
about  the  countryside  and  landscape  —  barring  only  such  special  cases  as  James  Benning's  work  and  Snow's  La 
Region  centrale  —  in  which  something  is  always  happening  in  the  shot?  It's  the  absence  of  plot  and  characters 
that  causes  one's  initial  feelings  of  loss,  absence  and/or  boredom;  yet  once  the  feel  and  complexity  of  these  places 
begin  to  seep  into  one's  consciousness,  without  the  confusions  and  distractions  of  a  story  or  a  too-rigid  thesis  that 
might  regiment  or  codify  them,  something  at  once  mysterious  and  materialistic  starts  to  take  place.  (Many 
American  critics,  myself  included,  have  committed  the  error  of  identifying  the  mysterious  aspect  of  the  film  as 
'religious'  —  an  assumption  I  believe  a  European  critic  with  more  familiarity  with  a  Marxist  tradition  would  be 
less  likely  to  make.  It  is  ideologically  interesting  that  Americans  find  it  difficult  to  recognize  any  intense  practice 
that  is  not  capitalistic  under  any  category  except  religion  or  mysticism.  The  intensity  of  Straub-Huillet's 
materialism  may  indeed  seem  'religious'  and/or  'mystical,'  but  such  labels  in  this  case  may  well  run  the  risk  of 
confusing  more  than  they  clarify.)  Too  Early,  Too  Late  may  have  no  characters,  but  it  is  the  most  densely  populated 
and  inhabited  of  all  Straub-Huillet's  films  —  a  paradox  that  the  entire  film  is  structured  around...." 

— Jonathan  Rosenbaum,  Film:  The  Front  Line,  1983  (Arden  Press,  Inc.,  1983) 


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1990  Program  Notes 


"...[In  overpopulated  Egypt],  the  fields  are  no  longer  empty,  fellahs  work  there,  one  can  no  longer  go  anywhere 
and  film  anyone  any  which  way.  The  terrain  of  performance  again  becomes  the  territory  of  others.  The  Straubs 
(whoever  knows  their  films  realizes  that  they're  intransigent  on  this  matter)  accord  much  importance  to  the  fact 
that  a  filmmaker  should  not  disturb  those  whom  he  films.  One  therefore  has  to  see  the  second  part  of  Too  Early, 
Too  Late  as  an  odd  performance,  made  up  of  approaches  and  retreats,  where  the  filmmakers,  less  meteorologists 
than  acupuncturists,  search  for  the  spot  —  the  only  spot,  the  right  spot  —  where  their  camera  can  catch  people 
without  bothering  them.  Two  dangers  immediately  present  themselves:  exotic  tourism  and  the  invisible  camera. 
Too  close,too  far.  In  a  lengthy  'scene,'  the  camera  is  planted  in  front  of  a  factory  gate  and  allows  one  to  see 
Egyptian  workers  who  pass,  enter  and  leave.  Too  close  for  them  not  to  see  the  camera,  too  far  away  for  them  to 
be  tempted  to  go  towards  it.  To  find  this  point,  this  moral  point,  is  at  this  moment  the  entire  art  of  the  Straubs. 
With  perhaps  the  hope  that  the  'extras'  thus  filmed,  the  camera  and  the  fragile  crew  'hidden'  right  in  the  middle 
of  a  field  or  a  vacant  lot  would  only  be  an  accident  of  the  landscape,  a  gentle  scarecrow,  another  mirage  carried 
by  the  wind. 

"These  scruples  are  astonishing.  They  are  not  fashionable.  To  shoot  a  film,  especially  in  the  country,  means 
generally  to  devastate  everything,  disrupt  the  lives  of  people  while  manufacturing  country  snapshots,  local  color, 
rancid  back-to-nature  museum  pieces.  Because  the  cinema  belongs  to  the  city  and  no  one  knows  exactly  what  a 
'peasant  cinema'  would  be,  anchored  in  the  lived  experience,  the  space-time  of  peasants.  It  is  necessary  therefore 
to  see  the  Straubs,  city  inhabitants,  mainland  navigators,  as  lost.  It  is  necessary  to  see  them  in  the  middle  of  the 
field,  moistened  fingers  raised  to  catch  the  wind  and  ears  pricked  up  to  hear  what's  it's  saying.  So  the  most  naked 
sensations  serve  as  a  compass.  Everything  else,  ethics  and  aesthetics,  content  and  form,  derives  from  this." 

— Serge  Daney,  "Cinemeteorology,"  Liberation  20-21,  February,  1982  (quoted  in  Rosenbaum,  1983) 


Filmography: 

Machorka-Muff  {\962) 

Not  Reconciled  (1965) 

Chronicle  of  Anna  Magdalena  Bach  (1%7) 

The  Bridegroom,  the  Comedienne  and  the  Pimp  (1968) 

Othon  (1969) 

History  Lessons  (1972) 

Introduction  to  Arnold  Schoenberg's  "Accompaniment  to  a  Cinematographic  Scene  "  (1972) 

Moses  and  Aaron  (1975) 

Fortini-Cani  (1976) 

"Every  Revolution  Is  a  Throw  of  the  Dice  "  (1977) 

From  the  Cloud  to  the  Resistance  (1978) 

Too  Early,  Too  Late  (1981) 

En  Rachdchant  (1982) 

Class  Relations  (1984) 

The  Death  ofEmpedocles  (1987) 


Jean-Marie  Straub 

Bom  1933,  Metz,  Lorraine 
Daniele  Huillet 

Bom  1936,  Paris 

(K.E.) 


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San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


JOURNEYS  TO  MISREPRESENTATION 
Featuring: 
THbulation  99:  Alien  Anomalies  Under  America  by  Craig  Baldwin 
Filmmaker  Craig  Baldwin  in  Person 

Thursday,  November  15, 1990 


Know  Your  Enemy  (1967?),  produced  by  the  U.S.  Army.  3  minute  excerpt. 

U.S.  Army  editor  "Max"  deconstructs  and  re-contextualizes  an  appropriated  discourse  of  the 

'Other'. 

Crisis  in  the  Americas  (1985),  produced  by  the  Coalition  for  Peace  through  Strength.  4  minute  excerpt. 
The  plane  that  the  CIA  camera-rigged  to  frame  the  Sandinistas  with  a  very  ambiguous  photo  turned  out  to  be  the 
same  one — The  Fat  Lady — later  shot  down  with  Eugene  Hasenfus  aboard. 

Attack  on  the  Americas  (1980),  produced  by  the  Coalition  for  Peace  through  Strength.  7  minute  excerpt. 
Jean  Kirkpatrick  bemoans  the  loss  of  the  canal.  Plus  the  familiar  'Oil  Factor'. 

Civil  Defense  Compilation  (mid  50's).  10  minute  excerpt. 

A  mangled  amalgam  of  4  atomic  docu-dramas.  Edward  R.  Murrow  narrates  a  part. 

The  Deadly  Mantis  (1957),  produced  by  William  Alland.  2  minute  excerpt. 

Insect-monster  breaks  free  from  giant  ice  cube  after  earthquake  in  the  Arctic,  super-imposing  itself  on  a  lot  of  stock 

footage  on  its  way  to  Washington. 

The  Mysterians  (1957),  by  Inoshiro  Honda.  4  minute  excerpt. 

Spectacular  special  effects  in  one  of  the  last  releases  from  RKO,  sold  by  Howard  Hughes  so  he  could  devote  more 

time  to  espionage  work.  (Lab  reject). 

Your  Chance  To  Live  (mid  70's?).  6  minute  excerpt. 
Weird  whirlwinds  from  an  unknown  producer. 

The  Black  Giant  (late  30's).  4  minute  excerpt. 

South  American  adventure/travelog  short;  source  of  excellent  volcano  footage,  but  shrunken. 

Adam  of  the  Andes  (early  60's),  produced  by  Maryknoll  Missionaries.  1  minute  excerpt. 
Quechua  India  turns  to  Christ  amongst  the  ruins  of  Macchu  Picchu. 

Pan  American  Bazaar  (1940's).  4  minute  excerpt. 
Trade  show  report.  Shrunken  Kodachrome. 

Journey  to  Banana  Land  (1950),  produced  by  the  United  Fruit  Co;  Technicolor?.  10  minute  excerpt. 

The  people,  the  land,  the  fruit,  and  the  many  ways  we  can  eat  it.  Though  they  boast  of  their  railroad-building,  it 

was  their  reneging  on  a  rail  agreement  that  led  Arbenz  to  implement  the  land  reform  program  of  1954. 

Journey  to  the  Seventh  Planet  (1962),  by  Sidney  Pink.  10  minute  excerpt. 

Swedish  sci-fi  cheapie,  set  in  2001,  featuring  Cinemagic  effects  and  a  heavenly  theme  song  under  the  end  credits. 

Ba  Balu  (1942),  with  Corinna  Mura.  2  minute  excerpt. 
Latin  "soundie"  with  the  dancing  Agrilio. 


90 


1990  Program  Notes 


Tribulation  99:  Alien  Anomalies  Under  America  (1990),  by  Craig  Baldwin;  16mm,  B&W/color,  sound,  48 

minutes. 

"...Points  out  with  graphic  clarity  the  way  in  which  our  world  is  on  a  collision  course  with  destruction. ..Baldwin 

has  a  singular  way  of  bringing  together  the  most  fearsome  and  most  glorious  aspects  of  the  spiritual  warfare  of 

our  present  age...  A  timely  film  of  great  value  to  those  who  stand  with  God  and  those  that  do  not." — Zola  Levitt 

(TV  talk-show  host). 


— Craig  Baldwin 


DISPUTED  IDENTITIES,  PART  II 

Curated  by  Portia  Cobb 

Valerie  Soe  &  Portia  Cobb  in  person 

Co-sponsored  by  San  Francisco  Camerawork 

Saturday,  November  17, 1990 


Tonight  the  San  Francisco  Cinematheque  and  San  Francisco  Camerawork  will  present  its  second  of  two  programs 
designed  as  pilot  screenings  to  highlight  Camerawork's  current  exhibition  cnlilledDisputedldenrities,  which  surveys 
the  work  of  British  and  American  image-makers  of  color. 

Striking  similarities  in  discursive  and  cinematic  representation  have  led  to  a  powerful  kinship  of  politicized 
memory.  This  kinship  that  is  noticeably  manifest  in  the  realism  and  subjectivity  of  the  work  of  the  artists  in  both 
the  exhibition  and  film  and  video  programs  is  not  a  collaborative  trans-Atlantic  undertaking,  yet  it  echoes  a  strong 
sensibility  of  shared  social,  political  and  historical  experiences. 


New  Year  (1987),  by  Valerie  Soe  (USA);  3/4"  video  installation  for  two  monitors,  5  minutes. 
An  autobiographical  memory  of  growing  up  in  a  family  that  struggled  to  hold  onto  its  Chinese  culture  in  the 
suburbs  of  Pinole,  California.  The  irony  of  these  childhood  memories  are  grounded  and  the  struggle  to  maintain 
a  sense  of  cultural  identity  becomes  unapologetically  poignant  when  juxtaposed  with  racist  and  stereotypical 
images  that  existed  and  continue  to  exist  in  the  American  media. 

Coffee  Coloured  Children  (1989),  by  Ngozi  A.  Onwurah  (UK);  16mm,  color,  sound  15  minutes. 
This  is  a  semi-autobiographical  narrative  fiction  based  on  an  unsettling  memory  of  the  reality  of  a  child's 
perception  and  defense  to  racist  harassment.  It  is  the  tale  of  the  remembrance  of  self-hatred  inflicted  as  a  result 
of  being  the  offspring  of  a  white  mother  and  a  black  father  and  caught  in  the  social  barricade  of  racial  prejudice. 
Profound  internalized  grief  leads  two  children  to  the  drastic  measure  of  attempting  to  remove  the  color  of  their 
coffee  colored  skin  with  a  bleaching  cleanser. 

Dreaming  Rivers  (1988),  dir.  by  Martina  Attille;  produced  by  the  Sankofa  Film  and  Video  Workshop  (UK); 
16mm,  color,  sound,  30  minutes. 

Haunting  in  its  fictionalized  depiction  of  exile  and  migration  brought  to  life  in  the  memory  of  three  adult  children 
eulogizing  their  mother,  who  seemingly  died  from  the  despair  of  being  displaced  by  the  unfulfilled  promise  of 
migration  to  the  "new  worid."  The  film's  beautiful  imagery  was  inspired  by  UK  painter,  Sonja  Boyce. 


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Measures  of  Distance  (1988),  by  Mona  Hatoum  (UK);  3/4"  videotape,  15  minutes. 

An  exploration  of  feeling  evoked  by  separation  and  seemingly  self-imposed  exile.  The  Palestinian-bom 
videomaker  and  performance  artist  Hatoum  integrates  intimate  photographs  of  her  mother's  nude  body  with 
handwritten  Arabic  text  of  personal  letters,  her  mother's  voice  and  her  own  translation.  All  of  this  is  realized 
against  a  backdrop  of  contemporary  traumatic  social  rupture  and  the  politics  of  displacement. 

Hairpiece:  A  Film  for  Nappy  Headed  People  (1985),  by  Ayoka  Chenzira  (USA);  16mm  (show  on  videotape), 
color,  sound.  10  minutes. 

A  satirical  comment  on  the  question  of  self-image  for  black  women.  Chenzira  locates  the  black  female  in  her 
subjectivity  with  an  historical,  internalized  view  of  unattainable  ideals  of  beauty  standards  as  dictated  by  the 
dominant  white  culture. 

One  Drop  Rule  (1990),  by  A.  Malaika  Williams  (USA);  3/4"  videotape,  25  minutes. 

This  is  yet  another  approach  to  the  complexities  of  "two-ness."  A  personalized  investigation  of  a  law  which 
declared  that  having  one  drop  of  "negro"  blood  determined  which  side  of  the  tracks  one  would  live  and  legally 
love.  Williams  examines  the  long  term  effects  on  the  psyches  of  adult  children  of  integrated  families,  brought 
about  by  a  rule  created  by  white  supremacist  ideology  in  order  to  preserve  Anglo-Saxon  civilization. 

-Portia  Cobb 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 
Sunday,  November  18, 1990, 5  p.m. 


Crazy  (1987),  by  Scott  Stark;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  3  minutes. 

Simulated  Experience  (1990),  by  Caroline  Avery;  16mm,  color,  sound,  30  seconds  (shown  twice). 
A  Different  Kind  of  Green  (1989),  by  Thad  Povey;  16mm,  color,  sound,  6  minutes. 
Velandthe  Earthquake  (1989),  by  Claire  Bain;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  3  minutes. 
Fudget's  Budget  (1954),  by  Robert  Cannon  (UPA  studios);  16mm,  color,sound,  7  minutes. 
Weather  Diary  #6,  Scenes  from  a  Vacation  (1990),  by  George  Kuchar;  3/4"  videotape,  30  minutes. 


CHARLES  BURNETT'S  KILLER  OF  SHEEP 
Preceded  by  Burnett's  Horse 

Sunday,  November  18, 1990 


Horse  (1972),  by  Charles  Burnett;  16mm,  color,  sound,  14  minutes. 
Killer  of  Sheep  (1978),  dir.  by  Burnett;  16mm,  B&W,  87  minutes. 

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"'Killer  of  Sheep  is  a  moving  portrait  of  Stan,  a  young  black  man  employed  in  a  Los  Angeles  slaughterhouse.  His 
grueling  work,  gutting  and  cleaning  carcasses  of  dead  sheep,  infects  his  whole  life,  including  his  relationships  with 
his  wife,  children  and  friends.  Burnett  unfolds  Stan's  story  with  compassion  and  honesty.  His  film  hauntingly 
evokes  the  physical  details  and  the  bittersweet  emotions  of  working-class  life.  The  extraordinary  soundtrack, 
made  up  of  a  wide  range  of  musical  styles,  together  with  the  film's  mood  and  powerful  vignettes,  dramatically 
suggest  a  vast  social  and  historical  experience  beyond  the  individual  hardship  and  tragedy  of  one  person." 

— Third  World  Newsreel 


"'[Killer  of  Sheep]  makes  its  protagonist,  Stan,  a  gun  sight  for  the  camera's  eye.  Stan  (Henry  Sanders)  works  in 
a  slaughterhouse  where  sheep  are  butchered  and  processed.  The  disheartening  work  deadens  the  spirit.  'I  work 
myself  into  my  own  hell,'  he  tells  a  friend  with  resignation,  i  can't  close  my  eyes  at  night.  Can't  get  no  peace 
of  mind.'  Not  only  is  he  insomniac,  he  also  is  unable  to  respond  to  the  loving  overtures  of  his  supportive  wife. 

"Though  colored  by  Stan's  depression,  his  surroundings  still  teem  with  life.  Burnett's  script,  camera  and  direction 
refuse  sentimentality;  there  is  a  good  deal  of  offhand  humor  in  small  touches,  visual  and  musical.  There  is  no  neat 
resolution  of  the  problems  raised  and  mercilessly  examined  in  Killer  of  Sheep.  In  the  end,  the  living  are  shown 
to  be  both  sheep  —  passively  accepting  the  social  system  that  shuts  out  spiritual  nourishment — and  slaughterer." 

— Calvin  Ahlgren,  San  Francisco  Chronicle,  February  2,  1986. 


LA  DIALECTIQUE  PEUT-ELLE  CASSER  DES  BRIQUES 
CAN  DIALECTICS  BREAK  BRICKS? 

by  Reni  Vienet  a.k.a.l?land  Gerard  Cohen 
Presented  by  Keith  Sanborn 


Saturday,  November  24, 1990 


This  is  a  situationist  film.  This  is  not  a  situationist  film. 

La  Dialectique  was  made  in  1973;  the  Situationist  International  disbanded  in  1972.  Ren6  Vi6net  was  a  member 
of  the  SI  from  1963  until  February,  1971  when  he  resigned.  As  a  member  of  the  SI,  he  wrote  on  film  and  its  possible 
uses.  His  essay  entitled  "The  situationists  and  new  forms  of  action  against  politics  and  art"  appeared  in 
Internationale  SituationnisteUll  (October  1967).  He  begins  by  noting:  "Up  to  now,  we  have  stuck  principally  to 
subversion  through  the  utilization  of  forms,  categories  inherited  from  revolutionary  struggles  principally  from  the 
last  century."  He  continues:  "I  propose  that  we  bring  to  fulfillment  the  expression  of  our  contestation  by  means 
which  proceed  with  no  reference  to  the  past.  It  is  not  however  a  matter  of  abandoning  forms  within  which  we  have 
made  battle  on  the  traditional  terrain  of  the  surpassing  of  philosophy,  the  realization  of  art,  and  the  abolition  of 
politics;  it  is  a  matter  of  taking  through  to  the  end  the  work  of  our  journal,  in  areas  where  it  is  not  yet  operational." 
He  then  outlines  a  new  offensive  against  politics  and  serious  culture  based  on  four  tactics: 

1)  experimentation  with  the  ddtoumement  of  the  photo-roman  and  porno  pictures 

2)  promotion  of  guerilla  tactics  in  the  mass-media:  the  seizure  of  radio  and  tv 
stations,  pirate  radio,  etc. 

3)  the  further  development  of  situationist  comics  and  the  strategic  alteration  of  public  signage 

4)  the  realization  of  situationist  films 


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His  outline  for  the  realization  of  "situationist  films": 

The  cinema,  which  is  the  newest  and  most  serviceable  means  of  expression  of  our  era  has  been 
marking  time  for  3/4  of  a  century.  By  way  of  review,  let  us  say  that  it  has  in  fact  become  the  7th 
art  dear  to  cinephiles,  cine-clubs,  PTA'S.  Let  us  state  that  for  our  purposes  the  cycle  has  come 
to  an  end  (Ince,  Stroheim,  the  one  and  only  L'aged'or,  Citizen  Kane  and  Mr.  Arkadin,  the  lettrist 
films);  even  if  there  remain  to  be  discovered  at  foreign  distributors  or  in  cinematheques  certain 
masterpieces,  but  of  a  classical  and  recitative  making.  Let  us  appropriate  the  stammerings  of  this 
new  writing;  let  us  appropriate  above  all  its  most  achieved  examples,  the  most  modem  ones, 
those  which  have  escaped  artistic  ideology  even  more  than  American  B -movies:  newsreels, 
trailers,  and  above  all  advertisements. 

In  the  service  of  the  commodity  and  of  the  spectacle,  that  is  the  least  that  one  can  say,  but  free 
of  its  means,  advertisements  have  established  the  basis  of  what  Eisenstein  glimpsed  when  he 
spoke  of  filming  The  Critique  of  Political  Economy  or  The  German  Ideology. 

I  am  confident  I  could  make  a  film  of  The  decline  and  fall  and  the  spectacular-commodity 
economy  in  a  way  which  would  be  immediately  comprehensible  to  the  proletarians  of  Watts  who 
are  ignorant  of  the  concepts  implied  in  such  a  title.  And  this  new  development  of  a  form  will 
without  any  doubt  deepen  and  exacerbate  the  "written"  expression  of  the  same  problems;  this 
we  could  verify,  for  example,  by  shooting  the  film  Incitement  to  murder  and  debauchery  before 
publishing  its  equivalent  in  our  journal,  Correctives  to  the  consciousness  of  a  class  which  will 
be  the  last.  The  cinema  lends  itself  particularly  well,  among  other  possibilities,  to  the  disman- 
tling of  the  processes  of  reification.  Certainly  historical  reality  can  be  attained,  known  and 
filmed  only  in  the  course  of  a  complicated  process  of  mediations  which  permit  consciousness 
to  recognize  one  moment  in  another,  its  end  and  its  action  in  destiny,  its  destiny  in  its  end  and 
its  action,  its  own  essence  in  this  necessity.  A  mediation  which  would  be  difficult  if  the  empirical 
existence  of  the  facts  themselves  was  not  already  a  mediated  existence  which  takes  on  the 
appearance  of  immediacy  only  insofar  as  the  facts  have  been  ripped  out  of  the  network  of  their 
determinations,  placed  in  an  artificial  isolation  and  poorly  joined  together  in  the  montage  of 
classical  cinema.  This  mediation  has  been  deficient  precisely,  and  must  necessarily  have  been 
deficient,  in  the  presituationist  cinema,  which  stopped  at  the  point  of  so-called  objective  forms, 
in  the  taking  up  of  politico-moral  concepts,  aside  from  the  recitative  of  a  scholarly  type  with  all 
its  hypocrisies.  Ibis  is  more  complicated  to  recognize  in  reading  than  to  see  when  filmed  and  this 
is  only  so  many  banalities.  But  Godard,  the  most  celebrated  of  the  pro-chinese  Swiss,  will  never 
be  able  to  comprehend  them.  He  will  be  able  to  recuperate,  as  is  his  habit,  what  has  come  before 
—  that  is  to  say  in  what  has  come  before  to  recuperate  a  word,  an  idea,  like  that  of  film 
advertisements  —  he  will  never  do  other  than  to  brandish  a  few  novelties  taken  from  elsewhere, 
a  few  images,  a  few  star  words  of  the  era  which  have  without  a  doubt  a  certain  resonance,  but 
which  he  cannot  grasp  (Bonnot,  worker,  Marx,  made  in  U.S.A.,  Pierrot  le  Fou,  Debord,  poetry, 
etc.).  He  is  in  fact  a  child  of  Mao  and  coca-cola. 

Vi6net  concludes:  "The  cinema  can  express  everything,  as  can  an  article,  a  book,  a  tract  or  a  poster.  That  is  why 
we  must  henceforth  require  that  each  situationist  be  capable  of  making  a  film,  as  well  as  of  writing  an  article  (cf. 
Anti-public  relations,  [IS]  #8,  p.  59).  Nothing  is  too  beautiful  for  the  blacks  of  Watts."  The  cinema  is  one  medium 
among  many  —  though  a  privileged  one  —  for  articulating  revolutionary  insights  through  d^toumement. 

"D6toumement"  was  variously  defined  by  the  SI;  it  is  most  simply  "the  reemployment  in  a  new  entity  of 
preexisting  artistic  elements."  In  "D6toumementas  Negation  and  Prelude"  (ISU3  December  1959)  we  are  referred 
to  Jom  's  d^toumed  paintings,  Debord 's  film  Sur  le  passage  de  quelquespersonnes  a  trovers  une  assez  courte  unite 


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de  temps,  Constant's  projects  for  detourned  sculpture,  and  Jorn  and  Debord's  detoumed  book  Memoires.  In  the 
"Definitions"  section  o{  IS^l,  (June  1958)  we  find:  "ddtoumement  is  employed  by  way  of  abbreviation  for  the 
formula:  ddtoumement  of  prefabricated  aesthetic  elements.  Integration  of  current  or  past  productions  in  the  arts 
into  a  superior  construction  of  the  milieu.  In  this  sense  there  can  be  no  situationist  painting  or  music,  but  a 
situationist  usage  of  these  means.  In  a  more  primitive  sense,  d6toumement  within  old  cultural  spheres  is  a  method 
of  propaganda,  which  bears  witness  to  the  exhaustion  and  loss  of  importance  of  these  spheres."  We  note  in  passing 
that  Vidnet's  later  essay  specifically  contradicts  the  letter  if  not  the  spirit  of  this  definition  by  calling  for  "films 
situationnistes." 


This  is  a  situationist  film.  This  is  not  a  situationist  film. 


With  specific  reference  to  film,  Debord  and  Wolman  in  Les  Levres  Nues  #8  (May  1956)  published  a  year  or  so 
before  the  founding  of  the  SI,  in  "Instructions  for  d^toumement"  speak  of  detouming  "a  sequence  from 
Eisenstein."  They  develop  their  analysis  in  detail  using  Griffith: 

The  powers  of  the  cinema  are  so  extended,  and  the  absence  of  coordination  of  these  powers  so 
flagrant,  that  almost  all  films  which  surpass  the  poor  average  can  feed  infinite  polemics  between 
various  spectators  or  professional  critics.  Let  us  add  that  only  the  conformism  of  these  people 
prevents  them  from  finding  charms  as  enticing  and  faults  as  glaring  in  the  films  of  the  latter 
category.  To  dissipate  this  risible  confusion  of  values,  let  us  say  that  Birth  of  a  Nation  by  Griffith, 
is  one  of  the  most  important  films  in  the  history  of  the  cinema  by  the  mass  of  new  contributions 
that  it  represents.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  racist  film:  it  absolutely  does  not  merit  being  projected 
in  its  current  form.  But  its  pure  and  simple  interdiction  could  pass  for  regrettable  in  the  domain 
—  secondary  but  susceptible  of  improvement  —  of  the  cinema.  It  is  much  better  to  detoum  it 
in  its  entirety,  without  there  being  any  need  whatsoever  of  changing  its  montage,  by  means  of 
a  sound  track  which  would  make  a  powerful  denunciation  of  the  horrors  of  the  imperialist  war 
and  of  the  activities  of  the  Ku-Klux-Klan  which,  as  one  knows,  persist  even  now  in  the  United 
States. 

Such  a  decidedly  moderate  d6toumement  is  nothing  more  in  sum  than  the  moral  equivalent  of 
the  restoration  of  old  paintings  in  museums.  But  the  majority  of  films  do  not  merit  anything  more 
than  to  be  dismembered  in  order  to  compose  other  works.  Obviously,  this  reconversion  of 
preexisting  sequences  will  not  go  without  the  concurrent  use  of  other  elements:  musical,  pictorial 
as  well  as  historical.  Since  up  to  now,  all  the  special  effects  of  history,  in  the  cinema,  align 
themselves  more  or  less  with  the  kind  of  bufooneries  of  the  reconstitutions  of  Guitry,  one  can 
make  Robespierre  say  before  his  death:  in  spite  of  so  many  trials,  my  experience  and  the  greatness 
of  my  task  force  me  to  conclude  that  all  is  well.  If  Greek  tragedy,  opportunely  revived,  serves 
us  on  this  occasion  to  exalt  Robespierre,  let  us  imagine  in  turn,  a  sequence  of  the  neo-realist  sort, 
before  the  zinc,  for  example,  of  a  truckstop  bar-one  of  the  truck  drivers  saying  seriously  to 
another:  Morality  was  in  the  books  of  the  philosophers,  we've  put  it  into  the  governing  of  nations. 
One  sees  what  this  encounter  adds  as  it  radiates  out  to  the  thought  of  Maxmilien,  to  a  dictatorship 
of  the  proletariat. 

La  Dialectique  stands  as  a  model  —  in  fact  our  only  even  remotely  accessible  model  even  on  video  since  Debord 
refuses  to  allow  his  work  to  be  seen  —  of  ddtoumement  in  film  by  a  member  or  former  member  of  the  Paris-based 
SI.  The  theoretical  and  technical  sophistication  of  La  Dialectique  compares  instructively  with  such  a  bludgeon  as 
The  Situationist  Life  by  Thorsen,  a  member  of  the  Situationist  Bauhaus,  started  by  Nash  and  a  part  of  the  "Second 


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International."  Whatever  one  may  think  of  the  personal  or  nationalistic  aspects  of  the  expelling  of  the  Scandinavian 
Nashists  and  the  German  Spur  Group  from  the  SI,  the  tension  between  the  realization  and  suppression  of  art 
insisted  upon  by  Debord  and  his  partisans  in  Paris  against  the  privileged  position  for  "art"  maintained  by  the 
Second  International,  clearly  gives  an  edge  to  La  Dialectique  which  is  absent  from  the  film  work  of  the  Second 
International  whether  by  design  or  default. 

Vidnet's  project  is  the  heir  to  a  body  of  nearly  twenty  years  of  theoretical  reflection  and  practice  by  the  SI.  It  is 
also  a  product  of  his  interest  in  and  knowledge  of  China.  He  taught  Chinese  at  the  Faculte  des  Langues  Orientales 
of  the  University  of  Paris. /Ic/we/,  rumor  and  Ralph  Rumney  have  it  that  recent  years  have  found  Vi6net  in  the  PRC 
from  which  he  is  now  banned  for  having  translated  several  pamphlets  critical  of  Mao,  later  at  a  university  in 
Taiwan,  and  currently  as  a  stock-broker  in  either  Hong  Kong  or  Taiwan.  He  made  two  films  in  1977:  Chinois: 
encore  un  effort  pour  etre  revolutionnaire  [Chinese:  a  little  more  effort  to  be  revolutionary],  and  Mao  par  lui- 
meme  [Mao  in  his  own  words],  both  allegedly  scathing  critiques  of  Mao's  China.  His  interests  in  Reichian  sexual 
political  analysis  brought  him  to  make  a  series  of  detoumed  porno  films,  including  L'aubergine  est  farcie  [The 
eggplant  is  stuffed],  Une  soutane  n  'a  pas  de  braguette  [A  cassock  has  no  fly  J,  Lesfilles  de  Kamare  [The  girls  of 
KamareJ  and  Unepttiteculottepourl'ete[Apair  of  panties  for  summer].  Vi^net's  book,  Enragisetsituationnistes 
dans  le  mouvement  des  occupations,  soon  to  be  republished  in  English  by  Semiotexte,  remains  the  definitive  text 
both  on  a  documentary  and  an  analytical  plane  on  May  '68  by  someone  who  was  there. 

One  should  note  that  much  of  the  dialogue  and  many  of  the  voiceovers  of  La  Dialectique  consist  of  detoumed 
phrases,  drawn  from  a  body  of  texts  which  form  a  code  meant  to  inflect  the  original  texts  and  to  refer  to  a  particular 
reading  of  the  texts  involved  by  those  who  understand  the  connections  within  the  network  of  allusions.  It  is  fair 
to  say  that  this  practice  is  both  a  defensive  labyrinth  —  consciously  modeled  on  the  tactics  of  secret  societies  in 
China  whose  members  would  use  part  of  a  famous  line  of  poetry  for  a  password  —  intended  to  deflect  the  casual 
spectator  or  recuperator  and  an  integral,  critical  and  historically-grounded  view  of  the  worid. 

This  film  is  translated  and  presented  without  Vidnet  's  help  and  without  his  permission.  If  you  find  mistakes  or  have 
improvements  to  offer  please  let  me  know.  It  is  done  not  to  parade  a  corpse  embalmed  among  the  sainted  heroic 
dead  of  some  cinematic  or  political  pantheon,  but  in  order  to  add  to  historical  understanding  and  to  release  what 
remains  of  its  revolutionary  analysis  and  praxis  —  in  short,  its  orgone  energy. 

— Keith  Sanborn 


HA  VNTED  MEMORIES: 
Rare  Films  by  Douglas  Sirk  &  Edgar  G.  Ulmer 

Sunday,  November  25, 1990 

In  the  '50's,  Douglas  Sirk  and  Edgar  G.  Ulmer,  both  German  expatriates,  made  melodramas  that,  while  fulfilling 
studio  and  audience  demands  for  conventional  stories  and  happy  endings,  subverted  these  conditions  and 
contained  implicit  social  criticism.  Through  visual  elements  that  function  as  expressions  of  emotions  disguised 
in  the  narrative,  and  irony  (often,  as  in  Sirk's  film,  in  the  title),  the  proof  is  provided  that  the  happy  ending  is 
impossible. 

There's  Always  Tomorrow  (1955)  directed  by  Douglas  Sirk;  70  minutes 

"This  is  the  kind  of  'if  only '  picture  on  which  soap  operas  are  based:  if  only  I  was  twenty  years  younger';  if  only 

his  phone  hadn  't  been  busy ';  if  only  I  knew  you  didn  't  love  me  anymore. '  These  correspond  to  a  series  of  invented 

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1990  Program  Notes 


choices  that,  had  they  been  made  at  some  time  in  the  past,  would  have  made  everything  fine  in  the  present.  It  is 
a  cheap  kind  of  manipulation  of  audience  wishes  —  a  pornography  of  feeling.  'If  only  she  had  told  me  that  she 
loved  me'  was  the  basis  of  the  film.  It  proved  my  theory  that  no  true  happiness  is  ever  possible  —  that  you  can 
never  go  back." 

— Douglas  Sirk,  American  Film,  April  1988. 

'After  seeing  Douglas  Sirk's  films,  I  am  more  convinced  than  ever  that  love  is  the  best,  most  insidious,  most 
effective  instrument  of  social  control." 

— R.W.  Fassbinder. 

"And  so  here  the  curtains  part  to  reveal  the  blissful  household  of  Fred  MacMurray  with  perfect  wife  Joan  Bennett 
(one  of  the  most  devastating  characters  in  all  cinema:  so  wretchedly  unknowing  in  her  smothering  of  her  husband, 
so  cheerfully  oblivious  of  all  the  pain  around  her,  the  only  personage  to  escape  even  a  tinge  of  anguish,  existing 
in  a  dream  world  of  smug  politeness;  when  her  husband  has  to  flee  to  the  piazza  for  a  moment  of  brooding  sanity, 
she  calls  back  to  the  bedroom  with  the  admonition  "You  might  catch  a  cold"  with  the  solicitude  of  pure 
strangulation)  a  charming  Father  Knows  Best  trio  of  offspring  (watch  their  faces  at  the  dinner  table  and  try  not 
to  quake),  and  a  lucrative  toy-manufacturing  concession.  Enter  Barbara  Stanwyck.  The  man  who  plays  with  toys 
grows  up  but  it's  too  late.  At  the  end  Stanwyck  leaves  alone  on  a  plane  to  start  anew.  And. ...the  unknown  is  better 
than  the  reality  we've  just  witnessed.  In  no  other  movie  does  the  claustrophobia  of  domestic  rigidity  become  so 
shattering  as  in  this  Greek  drama  of  a  complacent,  insulated  man  becoming  aware.  After  you  see  it  you'll  be  glad 
you're  not  straight." 

— ■y^^rren  Sonbert 


Strange  Illusion  (1945)  directed  by  Edgar  G.  Ulmer;  97  minutes 

"If  there  is  an  odder  mix  of  high-  and  low-art  than  Strange  Illusion,  I've  never  run  across  it.  This  'noir  Hamlet' 
was  made  for  Producer's  Releasing  Corporation,  the  lowest  of  low-budget  studios,  by  Edgar  Ulmer,  best  known 
for  the  hauntingly  deranged  Detour  but  also  director  of  such  engagingly  titled  items  as  Girls  in  Chains  and  St. 
Benny  the  Dip.  In  [Strange  Illusion  ],  a  weak-willed  young  man  could  (as  Hamlet  puts  it)  count  himself  a  king  of 
infinite  space,  were  it  not  that  he  has  bad  dreams.  Haunted  by  his  criminologist  father's  accidental  death,  he's 
pushed  over  the  edge  by  the  father's  post-mortem  letters,  and  by  his  mother's  unseemly  surrender  to  a  pin-striped 
and  mustachioed  lover,  engagingly  overacted  by  Warren  William.  When  Mom  consigns  a  treasured  portrait  of 
dear  old  Dad  to  the  back  room,  all  evidence  points  to  foul  and  most  unnatural  murder,  and  the  gloomy  adolescent 
concocts  fake  insanity  to  ferret  out  the  killer.  The  production  is  slapdash  (Ulmer  typically  shot  at  least  sixty  set- 
ups a  day  at  PRC),  but  with  a  neurotically  urgent  style,  laced  with  schoolbook  Freudianism  and  psychiatrists.  As 
one  of  them  explains,  hopefully,  'We're  facing  in  the  direction  of  normality.'  Ulmer's  film  itself  faces  the  other 
way." 

— Scott  Simmon 

(E.C.) 


N.B. :  The  Cinematheque  was  not  able  to  show  Ulmer 's  Strange  Illusion  because  of  the  severely  degraded  quality 
of  the  16mm  print  rented. 


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SCENES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  ANDY  WARHOL 
Thursday,  November  29, 1990 

Super-Artist  Andy  Warhol  (1967),  by  Bruce  Torbet;  16mm,  B&W/color,  sound,  23  minutes. 

With  Warhol,  Henry  Geldzahler,  Billy  Name  (Linich),  Paul  Morrissey,  Ondine,  Edie  Sedwick,  and  many  others. 

Andy  Warhol's  Exploding  Plastic  Inevitable  with  the  Velvet  Underground  (1967),  by  Ronald  Nameth;  16mm, 
B&W/color,  sound,  22  minutes. 

Show  Coordinator:  Paul  Morrissey.  Light:  San  Williams.  The  Velvet  Underground:  John  Cahill  [sic]  —  vocal, 
Sterling  Morrison  —  lead  guitar,  Mo  Tucker — bass  guitar,  Angus  McLiess  —  drums.  Dancers:  Gerard  Malanga, 
Ingrid  Superstar,  Susan  Pile,  Edward  Wilsh. 

"Andy  Warhol's  hellish  sensorium,  the  Exploding  Plastic  Inevitable,  was,  while  it  lasted  the  most  unique  and 
effective  discotheque  environment  prior  to  the  Fillmore/Electric  Circus  era,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  EPI  has 
never  been  equaled.  Similarly,  Ronald  Nameth's  cinematic  homage  to  the  EP/ stands  as  the  paragon  of  excellence 
in  the  kinetic  rock-show  genre.  Nameth,  a  colleague  of  John  Cage  in  several  mixed-media  environments  at  the 
University  of  Illinois,  managed  to  transform  his  film  into  something  for  more  than  a  mere  record  of  an  event... 

"EPI  was  photographed  on  color  and  black-and-white  stock  during  one  week  of  performances  by  Warhol's  troupe 
[at  the  defunct  Mr.  Kelly's  in  Chicago;  Lou  Reed  was  absent  due  to  a  bout  of  hepatitis].  Because  the  environment 
was  dark,  and  because  of  the  flash-cycle  of  the  strobe  lights,  Nameth  shot  at  eight  frames  per  second  and  printed 
the  footage  at  the  regular  twenty-four  fps.  In  addition  he  developed  a  mathematical  curve  for  repeated  frames  and 
superimpositions,  so  that  the  result  is  an  eerie  world  of  semi-slow  motion  against  an  aural  background  of  incredible 
frenzy... 

"Watching  the  film  is  like  dancing  in  a  strobe  room:  time  stops,  motion  retards,  the  body  seems  separate  form  the 
mind.  The  screen  bleeds  onto  the  walls,  the  seats.  Flakburstsoffierycolorexplodewithslowfury.  Staccato  strobe 
guns  stitch  galaxies  of  silverfish  over  slow-motion,  stop-motion  close-ups  of  the  dancers'  dazed  ecstatic  faces... 

"The  final  shots  of  Gerard  Malanga  tossing  his  head  in  slow-motion  and  freezing  in  several  positions  create  a 
ghostlike  atmosphere,  a  timeless  and  ethereal  mood  that  lingers  and  haunts  long  after  the  images  fade.  Using 
essentially  graphic  materials,  Nameth  rises  above  a  mere  graphic  exercise:  he  makes  kinetic  empathy  a  new  kind 
of  poetry" 

— Gene  Youngblood,  Expanded  Cinema 

Taylor  Mead  Dances  (1963),  by  Paul  Morrissey;  16mm,  B&W  sound  on  tape,  16  minutes. 
With  Taylor  Mead,  Tony  Crowther,  Katherine  Cody,  Mohammed  Ali,  Roberts  Blossom. 


Taylor  travels  in  his  white  Rolls  Royce  to  The  Second  City  nightclub,  where  he  dances. 


— Paul  Morrissey 


Anyone  who  has  flipped  through  the  pages  of  the  New  York  Film-makers'  Cooperative  catalog  knows  this 
experience:  you  discover  an  early  film  by  someone  who  later  became  famous.  No  one  is  willing  to  rent  it.  No 
one  sees  the  film. 

In  the  same  spirit  as  our  5:00-on-Sunday  shows,  we  thought  we'd  take  a  chance  on  screening  this  unseen  work 
by  the  director  who  went  on  to  direct  the  "Warhol"  films  that  weren't  Warhol  films:  Flesh,  Trash,  L' Amour,  Andy 
Warhol's  Frankenstein,  and  Andy  Warhol's  Dracula.  While  the  content  goes  further  than  Morrissey 's  terse 
description  —  Mead  daydreams  in  the  sunlight,  picks  up  an  exotic  companion,  passes  out  riches  to  children  and 


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1990  Program  Notes 


well-wishers,  and  becomes  the  center  of  attention  during  a  Bowery  brawl  —  the  film  remains  the  work  of  a  young 
filmmaker  attracted  to  the  glamor  of  New  York  high  life. 

Scenes  from  the  Life  of  Andy  Warhol  (1990),  by  Jonas  Mekas;  16mm,  color,  sound,  35  minutes. 
With  Warhol,  Peter  Beard,  Brigid  Berlin  (Polk),  Joe  Dallesandro,  Henry  Geldzahler,  Allen  Ginsberg,  Tuli 
Kupferberg,  John  Lennon,  George  Maciunas,  Paul  Morrissey,  Nico,  Yoko  Ono,  Peter  and  Julius  Orlovsky,  Lee 
Radziwill,  Lou  Reed,  Barbara  Rubin,  Ed  Sanders,  and  many,  many  others. 

"Since  1950  I  have  been  keeping  a  film  diary.  I  have  been  walking  around  with  my  Bolex  and  reacting  to  the 
immediate  reality:  situation,  friends.  New  York,  seasons  of  the  year.  On  some  days  I  shoot  ten  frames,  on  others 
ten  seconds,  still  on  other  ten  minutes.  Or  I  shoot  nothing.  When  one  writes  diaries,  it's  a  retrospective  process: 
you  sit  down,  you  look  back  at  your  day,  and  you  write  it  all  down.  To  keep  a  film,  (camera)  diary,  is  to  react  (with 
your  camera)  immediately,  now,  this  instant:  either  you  get  it  now  or  you  don't  get  it  at  all.  To  go  back  and  shoot 
it  later  would  mean  restaging,  be  it  events  or  feelings.  To  get  it  now,  as  it  happens,  demands  the  total  mastery  of 
ones  tools  (in  this  case,  Bolex):  it  has  to  register  my  state  of  felling  (and  the  memories)  as  I  react.  Which  also 
means  that  I  had  to  do  all  the  structuring  (editing)  right  there,  during  the  shooting,  in  the  camera." 

— Jonas  Mekas,  quoted  by  P  Adams  Sitney  in  Visionary  Film 

Read  More: 

David  Bourdon,  Warhol,  Harry  Adams,  1989 

Jonas  Mekas,  Movie  Journal:  The  Rise  of  a  New  American  Cinema,  1959-1971,  Collier  Books,  1972 

Jean  Stein  and  George  Plimpton,  Edie:  An  American  Biography,  Knopf,  1982. 

(E.S.T.) 


KIDLAT  TAHIMIK:  A  DIFFERENT  PATH 

Filmlvideomaker  in  person 

Preceded  by  films  commemorating  DAY  WITHOUT  ART 
Saturday,  December  1, 1990 


Confessions  (1971),  by  Curt  McDowell;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  16  minutes. 

How  To  Be  a  Homosexual,  Part  H  (1982),  by  Roger  Jacoby;  16mm,  color,  silent,  8  minute 
excerpt. 

In  support  of  DAY  WITHOUT  ASJ,  a  national  day  of  action  and  mourning  in  response  to  the  AIDS 
crisis.  Cinematheque  will  donate  all  proceeds  from  tonight's  event  to  San  Francisco  AIDS  groups. 


Kidlat  Tahimik,  one  of  the  most  renowned  and  resourceful  Filipino  filmmakers,  brings  attention  to  "process"  and 
to  unexpected  connections,  in  both  the  topics  of  his  films  and  in  his  own  particular  brand  of  filmmaking.  Accepting 
his  "third  world"  budget  and  equipment,  and  plugging  away  "one  cup  of  gas  at  a  time,"  Kidlat  discovers  paths  that 
reveal  the  steps  taken.   His  woven  films,  at  first  glance  innocent,  simple  stories  of  the  people  who  surround  him. 


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unearth  subtle  social,  cultural  and  political  threads  and  build  unanticipated  bridges  between  them.  In  his  first  film, 
Perfumed  Nightmare  (1977),  he  journeyed  in  a  Filipino  jitney  across  the  bamboo  bridge  of  his  heritage  and  planted 
the  seeds  of  reflection  that  are  picked  up  in  his  latest  work,  Take  Dera  Mon  Amour. 

"...one  day  you  will  understand  the  quiet  strength  of  the  bamboo". 

— from  the  soundtrack  oi  Perfumed  Nightmare . 


Take  Dera  Mon  Amour:  Diary  of  a  Bamboo  Connection  (1990),  videotape,  62  minutes. 

"When  an  irresistible  force  like  4  year  old  Haru-Hito  (Spring  Being) 

meets  an  irrepressible  cineaste  like  45  year  old  Kidlai  Tahimik  (Quiet  Lightening) . . . 

in  an  irreplaceable  place  like  450  year  old  Take  Dera  (  Bamboo  Temple) .  . . 

some  things  cosmic  (and  comic)  gotta  give  "  — K.T. 

"This  video  was  made  over  a  seven-year  period  of  time  (1982-89)  and  incorporates  footage  shot  on  16mm  and 
transferred  to  video.  It  is  a  diary  of  the  bamboo  connection  between  the  crazy  family  of  a  Filipino  filmmaker  and 
the  conservative  family  of  a  Buddhist  priest  in  Japan.  In  his  first  venture  into  the  video-letter  format,  Kidlat 
Tahimik  plays  around  with  the  medium  (reflectively),  breaking  down  cross  cultural  barriers  to  reach  Haru-Hito, 
his  family,  and  the  audience." 

— Collective  for  Living  Cinema  program  notes  (1990) 

How  The  West  Was  Won  (installation) 

"This  piece  is  part  of  a  film-cum-performance/installation  series  which  I  present  around  the  worid.  As  my  films 

can  take  5-10  years  to  complete,  I  have  branched  out  to  performances  and  sound-object  installations. 

"Since  my  first  film,  Perfumed  Nightmare  (1977),  the  colonization  of  the  mind  has  been  central  to  my  work,  having 
been  raised  in  the  'cocoon  of  Americanized  dreams.'  Third  World  cultures  share  the  same  experience  as  native 
Americans  —  conquistador's  swords  and  cowboy's  bullets  were  only  the  first  steps  for  the  'taming'  of  the  wild 
west  (or  east  or  south. . .)  I  see  Hollywood  cinema  (and  the  idiot  box  extension  into  our  living  rooms)  as  modem- 
day  Ji'ojan  Horses  planted  to  perpetuate  the  spinning  of  this  cultural  cocoon."  — K.T. 

(S.F) 


Framing  Cinema:  A  Re-presentation 
Sunday,  December  2, 1990,  5  p.m. 


Behind  the  Scenes  (1975),  by  Ernie  Gehr;  16mm,  color,  sound,  4  minutes. 

/,  an  Actress  (1977),  by  George  Kuchar;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  10  minutes. 

Eaux  d'Artifice  (1953),  by  Kenneth  Anger;  16mm,  B&W  (tinted),  sound,  13  minutes. 

Rube  and  Mandy  at  Coney  Island  (1903),  by  Edwin  S.  Porter;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  10  minutes  at  20  f.p.s. 

9-1-75  (1975),  by  James  Benning;  16mm,  color,  sound,  22  minutes. 

All  My  Life  (1966),  by  Bruce  Baillie;  16mm,  color,  sound,  3  minutes. 


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1990  Program  Notes 


THE  MECHANIZED  EYE: 

The  Man  With  the  Movie  Camera  by  Dziga  Vertov 

Preceded  by  The  Camera  Goes  Along! 

Sunday,  December  2, 1990 


Born  Denis  Kaufman  in  1896,  Dziga  Vertov  (the  name  means  "spinning  top")  began  working  in  cinema  in  1918. 
He  worked  on  a  film  journal  (Cinema  Weekly)  between  1918  and  1919  and  his  first  films  were  historical 
compilations  and  newsreels  of  everyday  life  in  the  new  Socialist  society.  The  Man  With  the  Movie  Camera  is  regarded 
as  the  culmination  of  both  his  filmmaking  and  his  film  theory.  Its  impact  is  still  widely  felt  in  contemporary 
documentary. 


The  Camera  Goes  Along!  (1936),  written  and  edited  by  Hans  SchipuUe;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  12  minutes. 
"The  Camera  Goes  Along!  is  an  instructional  short  subject  designed  to  acquaint  German  audiences  with  the 
newsreel  and  to  explain  its  production  methods,  from  on-location  shooting  through  the  final  editing  process.  Most 
notable  are  its  views  of  of  Nuremberg  Party  Rallies,  the  1936  Winter  Olympics,  aerial  daredeviltry,  fires,  and 
miscellaneous  news  events." 

The  Museum  of  Modem  Art  Circulating  Film  Library  Catalog 

The  Man  With  the  Movie  Camera  (1929),  by  Dziga  Vertov;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  90  minutes  at  18  f.p.s. 
"Dziga  Vertov 's  progress  in  evolving  a  newsreel  technique  appropriate  to  the  times  was  punctuated  by  a  number 
of  manifestos  in  which  he  outlined  his  theoretical  position.  These  manifestos  —  which,  with  commendable  zeal, 
demanded  the  complete  annihilation  of  the  fiction-cinema — served  mainly  to  propound  the  principle  of  the  'Kino- 
eye.' 

"The  point,  briefly,  was  this.  The  cine-camera  is  endowed  with  all  the  potentialities  of  human  sight  —  and  more. 
It  can  peep  with  unblinking  gaze  into  every  comer  of  life,  observing,  selecting  and  capturing  the  myriad  details 
of  appearance  and  transaction  which  constitute  the  reality  of  our  epoch.  The  camera  should  therefore  be  used  to 
record  not  the  stimulated  emotions  of  paid  actors  in  locales  created  by  the  plasterer  and  set-decorator,  but  the 
authentic  and  unrehearsed  behavior  of  real  people  in  the  streets  and  houses  in  which  we  live.  All  artifice  should 
be  eliminated,  except  in  the  unavoidable  process  of  editing.  And  this  process  should  be  used  to  create,  from  the 
elements  of  unvamished  reality,  an  edifice  of  fact  which  would  face  us  with  the  world,  its  joys  and  its  sorrows, 
and  hence  with  our  own  responsibilities  towards  and  within  it. 

"...{The  Man  With  the  Movie  Camera)  is. ..about  the  Kino-eye.  It  is  not  only  an  application  of  the  theory,  but  at 
the  same  time  an  attempt  to  prove  it.  Thus  we  are  shown  the  cameraman  setting  up  in  the  most  exacting 
circumstances:  climbing  by  iron  rungs  up  a  tall  factory  chimney;  walking  along  the  girders  of  a  bridge;  and  being 
hoisted  by  crane  above  a  surging  torrent.  The  camera  can  go  anywhere.  (He  fits  the  telephoto  lens.)  And  see 
anything.  At  one  point  an  eye,  in  big  close-up,  swivels  round  in  one  direction  and  another;  and  this  is  intercut  with 
quick,  uncomprehending  pans  backwards  and  forth.  The  iris  closes  over  the  lens,  and  the  screen  blacks  out.  To 
make  a  film  to  prove  the  potentialities  of  filmmaking  —  rather  than  to  exploit  them  —  may  have  an  air  of 
circularity.  This  is  only  the  start. 

"Persistently  we  are  shown  the  mechanics  of  what  we  are  seeing.  The  shadow  and  reflection  of  the  camera  appear 
in  the  picture;  and  a  woman  smiles  at  the  cameraman,  miming  his  cranking  action.  Slow  and  fast  motion  and 
various  split-screen  effects  are  used  not  only  —  or  even  mainly  —  for  dramatic  purposes,  but  to  remind  us  that 
what  is  before  us  is  merely  an  image,  and  that  tme  reality  lay  in  the  subject  of  the  shot.  The  Man  With  the  Movie 


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Camera  is,  in  fact,  a  study  in  film  truth  on  an  almost  philosophical  level  (the  levity  of  its  treatment  —  the  fact  that 
it  is  argued  in  the  mode  of  fun  —  does  not  disqualify  this  judgement).  This  film  does  deliberately  what  most  others 
try  hard  to  avoid:  it  destroys  its  own  illusions.  It  refuses  to  allow  us  to  accept  the  screen  as  a  plane  of  reference 
for  reality,  and  instead  seeks  to  dissolve  all  such  planes  of  reference,  successively,  as  soon  as  they  are  formed,  in 
the  hope  that  reality  will  'emerge'  from  the  process  not  as  a  creature  of  screen  illusion  but  as  a  liberated  spirit." 


--Dai  Vaughan,  Films  and  Filming,  November  1960 

(E.C.) 


ENDLESS /17VZ)  OTHER  FILMS  BY  DANIEL  BARNETT 
Filmmaker  in  person 


Thursday,  December  6, 1990 


-i,.' 


The  Ogre  ((1970);  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  10  minutes. 

Endless  (1987-90);  16mm,  B&W,  silent  at  18  f.p.s.,  45  minutes. 

Popular  Songs  (1975-78);  16mm,  color,  sound,  18  minutes. 


*** 


I  lived  in  Chicago  briefly  when  I  was  19,  26,  and  43.  Each  time  I  was  moved  in  a  way  that  was  assertively  and 
profoundly  neutral.  The  city  struck  me  as  the  gimbal  in  a  compass  of  existence,  and  has  been  an  inspiration  in  much 
of  my  major  work.  Chicago  also  flies  in  the  face  of  my  nescience  —  the  feeling  that  I  don't  know  what  I'm  doing, 
a  feeling  I  have  long  accepted  and  which  has  become  a  goal  of  my  method  —  to  do  without  knowing.  Chicago 
knows  what  it  is  doing,  it  is  a  paradigm  of  artifice  and  throws  my  personal  sense  of  scale  into  a  chasm,  a  kind  of 
relief.  My  films  live  in  this  chasm  beneath  the  slipping  feeling  of  gaining  and  losing  one's  sense  of  scale. 

The  gimbal,  an  anvil  to  break  the  halves  of  dichotomies,  separates  the  moving  and  the  less  moving,  lets  them  rub, 
and  become  palpable.  The  eye,  the  frame  and  the  world,  moving  in  relation  to  one  another,  create  a  lense  to 
hyperlife. 

Being  at  the  gimbal,  on  the  anvil,  looking  at  the  picture  from  the  perspective  of  the  frame,  requires  one  to  proceed 
from  fallout  rather  than  direct  observation.  The  fallout  produces  more  tools  not  more  data,  the  data  is  inferred  from 
the  look  of  the  tools,  tools  used  without  a  reasoned  method:  a  circular  version  of  progress  where  the  quality  and 
style  of  movement  is  where  the  information  lies,  information  of  an  avowedly  hermetic  view. 

I  try,  a  little  reluctantly,  to  share  the  hermitage  with  you  this  evening,  with  these  three  films,  together  for  possible 
the  only  time.  The  films  replace  chants  and  practices  and  it's  hard  for  me  not  to  get  a  little  pious  about  them;  and 
not  feeling  especially  voluble,  in  fact  felling  pained  at  words,  I  would  like  to  beg  your  indulgence  and  not  discuss 
them  with  you  in  the  here  and  now.  However,  I  would  be  pleased  to  answer  earnestly  posed  questions  at  a  future 
time  of  mutual  convenience  (my  Phone  #  can  be  had  through  the  Cinematheque). 

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1990  Program  Notes 


There  are  people  I  am  glad  to  have  the  chance  to  thank  for  Endless: 

Mary  Ann  Blair  for  a  stimulus  and  a  deep  sense  of  correctness;  Hiromi  Matsuoka  for  spiritual  guidance  from  the 
beginning  to  whatever  degree  I  ultimately  have  been  able  to  attain;  Konrad  Steiner  for  the  concept  of  "The  Lyric 
Augur";  Nick  Dorsky  for  a  fundamental  challenge  about  the  limits  of  cinema;  and  Carl  Castro  for  a  seminal 
conversation  about  mathematics  and  imagery. 

The  Ogre  is  my  student  film,  it's  the  only  film  I  made  completely  during  my  very  short  career  as  a  grad  student 
in  an  art  school.  It  remains  one  of  my  favorite  and  most  durable  films.  I  made  it  in  order  to  learn  something  in 
particular  and  I  don't  know  if  I  know  it  yet. 

Popular  Songs  fell  together  around  me  as  I  became  magnetized  by  one  side  of  an  RCA  VIC  mono  recording  of 
"Unforgettable  Performances  of  Favorites  from  the  Italian  Operatic  Repertoire"  which  is,  almost  unedited,  the 
soundtrack.  The  footage  is  found,  though  I've  found  myself  often  involved  in  the  making  of  very  similar  work, 
a  mild  but  inclusive  nightmare,  hence  the  undercurrent  of  malicious  glee. 

— Daniel  Bamett 


37°49'N/122°22W:  NEW  BAY  AREA  WORK 
Program  II 

Saturday,  December  8, 1990 


El  Balance  (1990),  by  Dinorah  de  Jesus  Rodriguez;  video,  8  minutes. 

"A  lyrical  quest  for  balance  in  thematic,  formal,  cultural,  spiritual,  organic  tones.  Animation  design  by  Barbara 
Safille.  Still  photography  by  Alain  Diallo  and  Liliana  Blanco.  Original  music  performed  by  three  Bay  Area  artists: 
Ustad  HabibKhan  with  Auschim  Chaudhuri;  William  R.  Jack;  and  Conjunto  Cdspedes."  --D.R. 

Madeleine's  Variety  Television  U12:  Surf  Show  (1990),  directed  and  produced  by  Madeleine  Altmann,  video 
switching  by  Philip  Jackson;  15  minute  excerpt. 

"AfVTKis  a  live  interactive  show  on  Cable  Channel  25  every  Thursday  night  at  6  p.m.  The  Surf  Show  is  a  high 
spirited  send  up  of  California  beach  culture  and  an  assault  on  broadcast  standards.  The  tumescent  humor  breaks 
through  the  densely  mixed  and  degraded  video  sources."  — M.A. 

Flipper  (1990),  by  Leslie  Singer;  video,  6  minutes. 

"Sissy  has  a  vision  of  being  Angie.  To  be  Angie  is  to  be  free  and  cool.  Sissy  is  in  love  with  football  player  Willie 
"Flipper"  Anderson  because  with  him  she  can  be  Angie.  Then  Angie  and  Flipper  can  drive  to  the  disco  wearing 
matching  fur  coats  in  a  red  Jaguar."  — L.S. 

Parenthetical  Trap  (1990),  by  Emily  Cronbach  and  Elizabeth  Day;  16mm,  color,  sound,  7  minutes. 
"Originally  conceived  of  as  a  remake  of  Disney's  Parent  Trap,  the  Parenthetical  TYap  was  made  by  the  women 
who  are  often  mistaken  for  each  other.  We  explore  the  resentment  and  affection  that  accompany  mistaken  identity. 
We  were  concerned  with  determining  the  cause  of  our  resemblance  —  sugar  addiction  —  and  with  the  concept 
that  all  women  are  interchangeable  in  the  movies.  This  film  incorporates  8mm,  16mm,  Letraset,  and  borrowed 
sound."  — E.C. 


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Who  are  you?  An  Oakland  Story  (1990),  by  Portia  Cobb;  video,  4.5  minutes. 

"This  short  began  as  an  inquiry  into  the  identity  of  a  monadic  black  woman  seen  for  years  in  parts  of  East  Bay 

communities.  Dressed  in  white,  she  wore  a  blond  wig,  and  pale  white  foundation  covering  her  face,  hands,  and 

neck.  She  has  been  called  by  some  'The  White  Witch',  by  others  'Miss  Oakland',  and  by  a  few  who  have  come 

to  know  her  more  intimately,  as  'Frankie'.  There  are  varying  speculations  as  to  why  she  began  painting  herself 

white. 

"This  video  was  created  as  part  of  a  longer  anthology  entitled  Unstvilized  which  was  commissioned  by  the  Festival 
2000."  — P.C. 

Marecage  (1990),  by  Rupert  Jenkins;  Super-8mm,  B&W,  sound,  7  minutes. 

"Marecage  is  essentially  a  travelogue  -  a  celluloid  trophy  from  a  visit  to  Spain  and  Morocco  in  1988.  The  title 
of  the  film,  a  hybrid  of  'maroc'  and  'collage',  also  translates  directly  from  the  French  as  swamp,  a  state  indicative 
of  both  the  turbulent  seasonal  landscape  and  my  state  of  mind  at  the  time."  — R.J. 

Protective  Coloration  (1990),  by  Scott  Stark;  16mm,  color,  sound,  17.5  minutes. 

"In  general  the  title  Protective  Coloration  refers  to  zebras'  and  other  animals'  fur  patterns,  which  evolved  naturally 
as  a  sort  of  camouflaging  to  allow  them  to  hide  from  predator.  The  irony  is  that  it  is  these  same  Patterns  which 
make  the  animals  more  visible  to  human  predators,  since  humans  are,  unlike  most  other  animals,  attracted  to  their 
visual  uniqueness.  What  evolved  as  protective  coloration  now  serves  as  a  beacon,  especially  when  the  animals 
are  transplanted  from  their  natural  habitat.  This  is  a  concept  that  underscores  in  many  way  s  modem  humanity's 
relationship  to  the  natural  world. 

"This  idea,  though  not  overtly  addressed  in  the  film,  provides  a  context  for  the  film's  more  apparent  structuring. 
The  images,  which  overlap  onto  the  optical  soundtrack  area  of  the  film,  generate  their  own  sounds,  a  process  which 
exemplifies  the  patterns'  attention-grabbing  qualities  in  the  context  of  modem  human  society. 

"The  film  is  a  succession  of  visual  and  aural  'notes'  which  are  arranged  and  re-edited  into  a  complex  musical 
architecture,  developing  intricate  rhythms  not  unlike  the  complex  syncopations  found  in  traditional  African  music. 
Elements  of  sand,  dirt,  light  and  shadow  cross-reference  the  film's  emulsion  with  evolutionary  history,  and 
provide  a  second  level  of  musical  strocturing  through  which  the  first  layer  is  necessarily  filtered."  — S.S. 


Framing  Cinema:  A  Re-presentation 
Sunday,  December  9, 1990, 5  p.m. 


31/75  Asyl  (1975),  by  Kurt  Kren;  16mm,  color,  silent,  9  minutes. 

Rhythmus23  (1923),  by  Hans  Richter;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  3.5  minutes. 

Munich-Berlin  Walking  Trip  (1927),  by  Oskar  Fischinger;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  4  minutes. 

2/60  48  Heads  from  the  Szondi-Test  (1960),  by  Kurt  Kren;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  5  minutes. 

The  Melomaniac  (1903),  by  Georges  M61i6s;  16mm,  B&W,  silent,  3  minutes. 

My  Name  is  Oona  (1969),  by  Gunvor  Nelson;  16mm,  B&W,  sound,  9  minutes. 

Mindfall,  Parts  land  VII  (1977-80),  by  HoIIis  Frampton;  16mm,  color,  sound,  36  minutes. 


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1990  Program  Notes 


PURITY  OF  EXPRESSION 
Curated  by  Toney  Merritt 

Sunday,  December  9, 1990 

Music  is  considered  to  be  the  purest  form  of  human  expression  and  communication,  virtually  a  universal  language. 
Tonight's  program  features  two  works  by  artists  who  have  incorporated  musical  forms,  either  directly  as  a 
musician  or  indirectly  through  the  rhythms  of  poetry,  to  find  expression. 

A  Conversation  with  Nedra  (1988)  by  Jerome  Thomas;  3/4"  videotape,  32  minutes. 

This  video  provides  an  intimate  conversation  with  jazz  musician  Nedra  Wheeler  as  she  elaborates  on  the  origins 

of  jazz,  the  importance  of  family  and  her  commitment  to  life. 

"A  Conversation  with  Nedra  grew  out  of  the  many  conversations  Nedra  and  I  often  shared  while  graduate  students 
at  an  art  school.  Often  time  we  would  stop  to  say  hi,  and  eventually  end  up  talking  for  hours  about  our  work  and 
events  of  the  day.  This  interaction  went  on  for  about  a  year.  Finally  I  decided  to  sit  Nedra  down  in  front  of  a  camera 
and  just  let  her  talk.  At  the  time  I  had  no  idea  as  to  where  this  conversation  would  lead,  but  I  knew  the  idea  was 
to  good  to  push  aside. 

"I  used  one  camera,  a  soft  box  light,  and  a  rim  light  for  the  background.  I  think  this  set-up  works  because  it  makes 
Nedra  appear  as  if  she's  sitting  in  a  void.  My  cameraman,  after  a  trial  and  error  session,  suggested  photographing 
Nedra  in  a  lose,  somewhat  haphazard  style.  This,  he  later  told  me,  will  reflect  the  tone,  structure  and  artistic  approach 
jazz  music  often  demand.  After  viewing  the  recorded  material,  I  agreed." 

— Jerome  Thomas. 

Right  On:  Poetry  on  Film  (1971),  directed  by  Herbert  Danska;  16mm,  color,  sound,  77  minutes.  Produced  by 
Woodie  King. 

"This  film  features  The  Last  Poets,  three  young  black  men  (Gylan  Kain,  David  Nelson  and  Felipe  Luciano)  who 
recited  their  poetry  on  rooftops  with  the  accompaniment  of  conga  drums.  The  Last  Poets  drew  on  the  vernacular 
of  the  working  class,  employing  'street'  language  of  the  time  to  alert  their  community  to  the  dangers  of  racism 
and  to  extol  the  diversity  of  black  life  in  America." 

— Toney  Merritt. 


SYSTEMS  OF  AUTHORITY,  METHODS  OF  REPRESSION  BY  LINDA  TADIC 

With  Leslie  Thornton 's  Adynata 
Filmmaker  Linda  Tadic  in  person 

Thursday,  December  13, 1990 


Systems  of  Authority,  Methods  of  Repression  (1990),  by  Linda  T^dic;  16mm,  color,  sound,  40  minutes. 
"The  pitting  of  anti-racist  and  anti-sexist  struggles  against  one  another  allow  some  vocal  fighters  to  dismiss 
blatantly  the  existence  of  either  racism  or  sexism  within  their  lines  of  action,  as  if  oppression  only  comes  in 
separate,  monolithic  forms.  Thus,  to  understand  how  pervasively  dominance  operates  via  the  concept  of 
hegemony  or  of  absent  totality  in  plurality  is  to  understand  that  the  work  of  decolonization  will  have  to  continue 
within  the  women's  movements."  (Trinh  T.  Minh-ha) 


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Using  a  voice-over  recounting  her  experience  as  a  sexually  abused  child  with  politically  and  commercially 
invested  footage,  Linda  Tadic  globalizes  her  personal  concerns  to  delineate  patriarchal  abuse  of  power.  By 
examining  complicities  on  personal  and  institutional  levels,  Tidic  questions  the  nature  of  language,  media,  family 
structures  and  governmental  interest.  These  seemingly  disparate  territories  are  revealed  in  her  combinations  of 
texts,  images,  and  sound  as  illustrating  homologous  power  stratification  —  one  based  on  oppression.  Systems  of 
Authority,  Methods  of  Repression  unravels  the  self-perpetuations  of  the  paradigms  of  political  and  sexual  violence 
by  expressing  the  danger  of  privatization  if  separatism  is  maintained  between  the  different  forms  and  scopes  of 
abuse.  She  summons  strength  from  the  articulation  of  their  interdepcndencies  and  offers  in  Tadic 's  words,  "a 
positive  and  challenging  call  to  action  and  resistance  against  personal,  social,  political,  and  cultural  victimization." 


Adynata  (1983),  by  Leslie  Thornton;  16mm,  color,  sound,  30  minutes. 

"  In  Adynata,  within  the  perceptible  -in  its  endless  play-  strategies  of  reading  double  back,  interrogating, 
abrogating,  the  order  of  discourse  that  establishes  a  fixity,  an  invariance,  a  range,  a  bias,  a  dominance  in 
signification.  It  is  an  endless  mese-en-abyme,  an  endless  disavowal  of  the  privilege  of  method,  of  singularity,  of 
a  discrete  subject  of  or  author  of  knowledge.  Similarly  it  denies  the  completeness  of  specular  or  pleasurable 
consumption;  its  pleasure  resides  in  artifice,  in  punctae,  in  the  veil  that  it  is,  in  the  lack  that  it  obscures.  It  is  'about' 
the  impossibility  of  a  language  capable  of  closure  in  relation  to  truth,  about  the  irrecuperability  of  signs  (films) 
without  loss,  as  opaque  to  theoretical  appropriation  as  to  pleasurable  consumption. 

"Adynata  is  the  name  of  that  rhetorical  trope  which  defines  a  'stringing  together  of  impossibilities;  sometimes  a 
confession  that  words  fail  us.'"  — L.T 

Through  her  richly  colored  and  voluptuous  images,  Leslie  Thornton  probes  the  cultural  construction  of 
Orientalism  within  a  Western  perspective.  The  density  of  the  images  in  Adynata  seem  to  contain  what  is  clearly 
or  obscenely  Eastern  or  Western,  but  her  manner  of  juxtaposition  overturns  this  concrete  interpretation  and 
provides  instead  an  ambiguous  site  where  desire  is  marked  simultaneously  by  racism,  imperialism  and  misogyny. 
The  interplay  of  the  overly  saturated  images  and  sounds  titillates  the  viewer/auditor  intellectually,  politically  and 
sexually.  The  story  never  gels  told,  yet  is  compelling  because  it  exposes  the  viewer/auditor  as  wanting  the 
Otherness  of  Asia  and/or  Woman.  The  extravagance  and  overdetermination  of  her  collage  questions  what  is  seen, 
what  is  attributed  to  it,  and  the  complexity  of  exoticism. 

(CM.) 


";>\Q..-  "  t^ 


LYNN  HERSHMAN:  RECENT  VIDEO  WORKS 
Videomaker  Hershman  in  person 

Saturday,  December  15, 1990 


Lynn  Hershman  has  achieved  an  international  acclaim  for  her  bitingly  honest  videotapes.  Desire  Incorporated 
and  Shadow's  Song  offer  sharply  contrasting  explorations  into  the  video  essay  as  personal  experience,  each 
marked  by  Hershman 's  unyielding  intent  to  directly  confront  and  implicate  the  viewer. 


106 


1990  Program  Notes 


Desire  Incorporated  (1990);  3/4"  videotape;  26  minutes. 

"In  March  of  1989, 1  placed  four  'seduction  ads'  on  several  local  cable  stations.  These  were  each  30  seconds  long 
and  sold  only  the  idea  of  'response,'  giving  a  call  back  phone  number.  These  ads  were  randomly  aired  and  the 
context  shifted  according  to  the  access  at  each  station,  shifting  the  context  from  The  Black  Entertainment  station 
to  a  sequence  on  rape  of '  Cagney  and  Lacy . '  A  wide  range  of  responders  phoned,  and  they  were  in  turn  interviewed 
on  video.  This  tape  is  about  'the  seduction  of  the  media  and  how  it  infiltrates  the  audience  with  ideas  of  desire 
that  are  then  incorporated  into  our  belief  systems.  The  tape  also  incorporates  ideas  about  the  female  body  as  the 
site  of  reproductive  technology  and  notes  how  primal  erotic  impulses  that  result  from  early  (non -responsive) 
fantasy  projections  become  prime  sexual  motivations  later  on." — L.H. 

"Lynn  Hershman  is  a  master  of  inductive  reasoning.  Her  daring  confessional  tapes  have  leaped  the  bounds  of  self- 
indulgence,  infusing  television  with  a  forceful  'I,'  both  particular  and  communal.  Desire  Incorporated  continues 
this  emotive  enterprise,  but  now  emphasizing  the  medium's  role  as  internuncio  between  desire  and  the  phantoms 
that  service  it.  With  a  powerful  pimp  like  television,  Hershman  suggests  that  the  eyes  have  it." 

— Steve  Seid 


Shadow's  Song  (1990);  3/4"  videotape;  32  minutes. 

Part  4  of  The  Electronic  Diary 

"Two  very  different  people,  a  black  male  dog  trainer  and  a  white  female  professor  face  their  mortality  when  each 

discovers  they  have  a  life  threatening  illness.  The  camera  itself  is  used  as  an  instrument  with  which  to  record  death. 

One  lives,  one  dies  during  the  process  of  this  work." — L.H. 


N.B.:  Due  to  incompatible  video  playback  equipment,  The  Cinematheque  was  unable  to  show  Desire 
Incorporated  in  its  entirety. 


Another  View:  Selected  Works  Re-Screened 
Sunday,  December  16, 1990, 5  p.m. 


A  Legend  of  Parts  (1990),  by  Julie  Murray;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  8  minutes. 

Age  12:  Love  with  a  Little  L  (1990),  by  Jennifer  Montgomery;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  25  minutes. 

Blood  Story  (1990),  by  Greta  Snider;  16mm,  color,  sound,  3  minutes. 

The  Original  Sin/Reproduction  (1987),  by  Silvia  Gruner;  Super-8mm,  color,  silent,  5  minutes. 

Gypsy  Song  (1987),  by  Silvia  Gruner;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  3  minutes. 

Notes  After  Long  Silence  (1989),  by  Saul  Levine;  Super-8mm,  color,  sound,  14  minutes.- 

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INK,  PIXEL,  XEROX,  CLAY: 

An  Evening  of  Animated  Films 

Curated  and  presented  by  Eric  S.  Theise 

Sunday,  December  16, 1990 


"There  are  things  that  only  an  animator  can  get  away  with  —  things  like  transitions  and  transformations.  Even 
if  you're  telling  a  story,  you  can  just  have  someone  melt  into  another  character,  or  radically  juxtapose  things,  or 
shuffle  drawings  at  random  or  in  rhythmic  ways.  Animation  permits  you  to  take  film  to  its  most  primal  unit:  the 
single  frame."  — Paul  Glabicki 


Recurrents  (1987),  by  John  Adamczyk;  16mm,  color,  sound,  6  minutes. 

"State-of-the-art  computer  animation  exploring  the  Mandelbrot  set  and  fractal  geometry,  a  new  mathematical 
technique  developed  in  the  1970s  that  holds  promise  in  solving  certain  formerly  intractable  engineering  problems 
such  as  the  turbulent  flow  of  fluids,  and  has  graphic  applications  in  creating  reasonably  credible  images  of  chaotic' 
forms  like  coastlines,  mountain  ranges,  forests,  clouds,  snowflakes,  and  organic  patterns  such  as  the  branching 
of  trees  and  blood  vessels.  One  property  of  Mandelbrot-generated  forms  is  'self-similarity':  the  image  can  be 
magnified  infinitely  and  the  same  geometric  patterns  will  be  observed  at  all  levels  of  magnification  —  a  good 
model  for  seeking  an  'order'  underlying  apparently  chaotic  phenomena.  Adamczyk  and  his  contemporaries  make 
use  of  the  computer  and  Mandelbrot  mathematics  to  take  the  viewer  into  realms  previously  unseen  in  the  brief, 
half-century  history  of  abstract  cinema." 

— ^John  Luther  Schofill,  Experimental  Film  Coalition  (Chicago)  program  notes 

Playing  with  Blocks  (1986),  by  Stephen  Kirklys;  16mm,  B«feW,  sound,  8  minutes. 

Made  at  the  Rhode  Island  School  of  Design,  Stephen  Kirklys '  Playing  With  Blocks  contrasts  clinical  and  emotional 
views  of  the  psychological  effects  of  the  death  of  a  parent  on  two  children.  Kirklys'  own  cell  animation 
(reminiscent  of  Glen  Baxter's  non-sequitur  cartoons)  combines  with  treated  found  footage  and  cutouts  of  medical 
and  technical  diagrams  to  produce  a  wry  and  sombre  discourse  on  childhood  trauma  and  adult  self-occupation. 
One  child's  fleeting  happiness  is  played  against  the  other's  pain  while  the  audience  is  asked  to  contribute  the 
solution  to  an  algebra  problem. 

Fecundation  (1981),  by  David  Hauptschein;  16mm,  color,  sound,  9.5  minutes. 

Face  it:  clay  animation,  tradename  Claymation,  is  usually  associated  with  the  technically  accomplished  but  highly 
commercial  work  of  Will  Vinton  (The  California  Raisins).  David  Hauptschein 's  Fecundation,  wiih  its  suggestive 
shapes,  glistening  dews,  and  razor  blades,  is  about  as  far-removed  from  "cute"  as  clay  animation  can  get.  Clearly 
having  to  do  with  repression  and  aggression  in  relationships,  Hauptschein  maintains  that  the  film  is  equally 
concerned  with  digestion.  You  decide. 

Since  Fecundation,  Hauptschein 's  eyesight  has  deteriorated  to  the  point  where  he  can  no  longer  make  or  even  view 
films.  He  still  lives  in  Chicago,  and  directs  his  artistic  talents  towards  science  fiction  writing  and  public 
performance  of  his  works. 

Face  Like  a  Frog  (1987),  by  Sally  Cruikshank;  16mm,  color,  sound,  5  minutes. 

Sally  Cruikshank  is  legendary  for  her  attempts  to  revive  character  animation  in  the  tradition  of  Betty  Boop.  Most 
of  her  films  —  Quasi  at  the  Quackidero,  Quasi 's  Cabaret  Trailer  —  feature  the  same  cast  of  characters  twisting 
through  bizarre  misadventures.  Quasi 's  Cabaret  Trailer  was  produced  and  marketed  in  an  effort  to  raise  money 

108 


1990  Program  Notes 


for  the  feature-length  Quasi  project.  Instead  of  getting  Hollywood's  support  for  her  own  projects,  Cruikshank  has 
been  able  to  turn  her  talents  to  creating  opening  titles  for  films  such  as  Ruthless  People  and  Mannekin.  Oingo 
Boingo's  Danny  Elfman,  who  scored  Face  Like  a  Frog,  has  also  succeeded  in  Hollywood,  crafting  music  for 
Beetlejuice,  Batman,  and  other  projects. 


Under  the  Sea  (1989),  by  Paul  Glabicki;  16mm,  color,  sound,  24  minutes. 

"...Under  the  Sea  required  three  years  of  ink  drawing,  followed  by  one  year  of  intensive  additions  of  color.  Since 
each  drawing  in  the  film  is  unique,  I  had  to  do  every  aspect  of  it  myself.  It  would  have  been  impossible  for  me 
to  delegate  the  work  to  an  assistant.  Even  the  shooting  process  is  totally  personal... 

"I  began  Under  the  Sea  immediately  upon  completion  of  Object  Conversation  in  1985. 1  wanted  to  extend  the 
multilayered  visual  and  aural  dialogues  of  Object  Conversation  into  a  narrative  structure.  After  continuous  years 
of  work  on  a  succession  of  animated  films,  I  decided  to  use  Under  the  Sea  as  a  surrogate  travel  opportunity.  I  bean 
reading  novels  that  involved  travel  and  realized  that  although  they  were  different  in  genre,  the  novels  contained 
overlaps.  The  books  which  became  my  final  sources  were  Twenty  Thousand  Leagues  under  the  Sea ,  Gulliver's 
Travels,  Madame  Bovary,  Frankerstein ,  and  The  Voyage  of  the  Beagle. 

"I  also  designed  my  own  hieroglyphic  alphabet,  which  appears  throughout  the  film.  The  alphabet  consists  of 
twenty-six  minianimation  sequences  that  range  from  twelve  to  twenty-four  drawings  each.  The  moving 
hieroglyphs  are  very  abstract  and  are  all  designed  as  variations  on  an  L  shape,  which  refers  to  two  sides  of  the  film 
frame:  one  vertical  side  and  one  horizontal  side.  I  'spell'  out  words  and  dialogue  with  this  alphabet  as  yet  another 
'foreign  language'  of  my  own  invention.  I  also  have  included  English  titles  and  subtitles  throughout  the  film,  as 
well  as  a  variety  of  Japanese  Kanji  and  Kana  letter  forms/symbols  as  special  messages  for  my  Japanese  audiences. 

"The  animation  for  Under  the  Sea  is  the  most  complex  I  have  ever  attempted.  The  compositions  are  both  abstract 
and  figurative  and  are  designed  to  be  interpreted  in  a  variety  of  ways.  For  example,  one  sequence  features  a  sphere 
covered  with  rotating  lines  and  shapes  floating  over  a  background  of  rotating  shapes.  At  one  point  this  sequence 
seems  to  refer  to  Dr.  Frankerstein 's  sound  track  dialogue  about  experiments  with  electricity  —  lightning  and 
thunder  are  also  heard  on  the  sound  track  to  cement  the  connection.  Later  on,  the  sequence  reappears  juxtaposed 
to  Gulliver's  description  of  the  Floating  Kingdom.  Visual  and  sound  clues  appear  throughout  the  film  in  an  attempt 
to  draw  the  viewer  into  the  multiple  transformations  and  transitions  that  weave  throughout  the  film. 

"The  opening  title  of  the  film  is  preceded  by  two  sentences  from  Twenty  Thousand  Leagues:  "I  was  thrown  high 
over  the  rail  of  the  ship  and  fell  into  the  sea. ..but  did  not  lose  my  presence  of  mind.'  I  would  think  that  this  could 
sum  up  the  experience  of  entering  the  animation  and  sound  structure  of  Under  the  Sea.  It  seems  contradictory, 
but  the  film  is  an  abstract-narrative  film. 

"Under  the  Sea  represents  a  kind  of  finale  to  one  direction  in  my  work.  From  my  first  animation  experiments  in 
Super-8mm  in  1986, 1  always  saw  film  as  an  extension  of  my  work  in  painting  and  drawing.  I  have  continued  to 
produce  non-film  work,  but  animation  has  dominated  my  work  over  the  last  decade.  In  both  Object  Conversation 
and  Under  the  Sea,  I  have  become  more  involved  with  the  unique  color  and  character  of  each  individual  drawing. 
In  a  real  sense,  each  drawing  is  a  separate  painting.  Although  one  sees  continuous  motion  on  the  screen,  a  frame- 
by-frame  look  at  the  film  would  reveal  that  each  drawing  is  unique  in  some  way.  In  Under  the  Sea,  I  took  great 
pains  to  make  each  drawing  a  different  interpretation  of  the  sequence  of  which  it  is  a  part.  A  collage  bit,  special 
color  detail,  or  drawing  detail  distinguished  each  frame  of  the  film. 

"I  now  find  myself  wanting  to  work  on  separate  images  only  and  intend  to  spend  the  next  several  years  focusing 
on  painting  and  drawing.  So  I  find  that  I've  come  full  circle  and  now  intend  to  produce  drawings  and  paintings 


109 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


as  an  extension  of  my  work  in  film.  I  will  be  working  toward  future  gallery  exhibitions.  I  have  already  produced 
a  series  or  large  paper  pieces  based  on  my  experiences  in  Japan  and  on  images  from  Under  the  Sea.  Under  the 
Sea  my  be  my  last  handdrawn  film." 

— Excerpts  from  "An  Interview  with  Paul  Glabicki"  by  Lilly  Ann  Boruszkowski, 
The  Velvet  Light  TYap  24,  University  of  Texas  Press,  Austin,  Fall  1989 


Suspicious  Circumstances  (1985),  by  Jim  Blashfield;  16mm,  color,  sound,  12  minutes. 
"The  man  who  is  known  as  Portland's  premier  experimental  and  personal  (or  as  one  colleague  puts  it,  'oddball') 
filmmaker  has  been  working  obsessively  for  two-and-one-half  years  on  Suspicious  Circumstances,  a  recently 
completed  animated  film.  What  is  unique  about  it  is  that  it  is  made  from  color  photocopies  in  a  process  which, 
to  his  knowledge,  has  never  been  used  before.  As  the  first  step  in  the  process,  he  snapped  hundreds  of  photographs 
of  the  film's  two  primary  characters  and  of  various  background  objects.  After  turning  the  shots  into  slides,  he 
photocopied  them  and  cut  out  select  portions  and  images.  Then  the  various  elements  were  placed  under  a  sheet 
of  glass  set  beneath  a  wooden  animation  stand  and  arranged  into  scenes,  which  are  altered  slightly  between  filmed 
frames  to  create  the  illusion  of  movement... 

"This  surrealistic  action  adventure -comedy  might  best  be  described  as  a  Raiders  of  the  Lost  Ark  for  Dadaists." 

— Karen  Brooks,  Animator,  Portland  Art  Association,  Fall  1985 

If  Blashfield's  film  has  a  familiar  look  to  it,  it's  likely  that  you've  seen  some  of  his  commercial  work.  Blashfield 
tells  the  story  that  his  girlfriend,  unbeknownst  to  him,  sent  a  copy  o(  Suspicious  Circumstances  to  Talking  Heads 
Management.  A  few  weeks  later  came  the  phone  call  from  David  Byrne.  A  few  months  later  came  the  completed 
animation  iorAndShe  Was,  followed  by  animations  for  Joni  Mitchell  (Good  Friends)  and  Paul  Simon  (Boy  in  the 
Bubble).  When  I  met  Blashfield  in  the  fall  of  1987  he  was  under  contract  of  Michael  Jackson,  though  I'm  not  sure 
that  any  project  was  ever  completed.  At  the  time,  Blashfiled  was  obsessed  with  the  technique  of  encircling  objects 
with  a  ring  of  still  cameras  and  capturing  an  instant  from  360  degrees.  A  baby  hurled  upwards  into  such  a  device, 
then  rotated  cinematically,  was  the  most  striking  image  in  the  Boy  in  the  Bubble  piece. 


Master  of  Ceremonies  (1986),  by  Christopher  Sullivan;  16mm,  color,  sound,  9  minutes. 
Using  relatively  minimal  materials  —  brown  paper,  light  pastel  chalks,  spare  soundtrack  —  Christopher  Sullivan 
has  created  a  terrifying  series  of  vignettes  about  Death  as  an  active  principle.  Death  starts  a  fire  in  a  family 's  house, 
going  about  his  business  in  an  unflinching,  completely  professional  way.  The  family  slowly  wakes  to  this  disaster- 
in-the-making  and  horror  and  chaos  ensue.  Religion  and  familial  bonds  cannot  postpone  or  derail  this  tragedy. 
(I'd  actually  forgotten  about  the  parade  of  Christian  and  holiday  images,  coming  to  rest  on  the  Santa  Claus  mugs.) 
Death  takes  a  little  time  out  to  tell  jokes,  play  guitar,  and  do  circus  tricks  before  salvaging  some  remnants  from 
the  destroyed  household. 

Sullivan  made  Master  of  Ceremonies  while  living  in  Minneapolis.  He  has  since  relocated  to  Chicago  where  he 
teaches  in  the  filmmaking  department  of  the  city's  Art  Institute.  Sullivan  has  at  least  one  earlier  film  to  his  credit, 
The  Beholder ,  and  a  recent  nearly  feature-length  animation. 


Agnes  Escapes  from  the  Nursing  Home  (1988),  by  Eileen  O'Meara;  16mm,  color,  sound,  4  minutes. 

U  Master  of  Ceremonies  represents  accidental  death,  Eileen  O'Meara's  Agnes  Escapes  from  the  Nursing  Home 

deals  with  natural  death.  Set  to  the  aria  from  Catalina's  La  Wally,  sung  by  Wilhelmina  Wiggins  Fernandez,  the 


110 


1990  Program  Notes 


film  portrays  the  stately  Agnes  as  she  comes  to  terms  with  Death  during  the  last  of  her  interminable  games  of  chess 
played  at  the  nursing  home.  The  death  Agnes  faces  is  surreal  (witness  the  decor  by  de  Chirico),  but  no  less  sure 
than  that  faced  by  Sullivan's  doomed  family.  But  rather  than  going  out  as  a  struggling,  outraged  angel,  Anges' 
departure  is  a  joyous,  liberating,  and  peaceful  one. 


Read  more: 

Kit  Laybome,  The  Animation  Book,  Crown  Publishers,  New  York,  1979. 

Picture  Start  1991  Collection,  221  E.  Cullerton,  6th  Fl.,  Chicago,  IL  60616. 

Robert  Russett  and  Cecile  Starr,  Experimental  Animation:  Origins  of  a  New  Art,  Da  Capo  Press, 

New  York,  1988. 

(E.S.T) 


111 


Film  and  Video  Maker  Index 


1990  Program  Notes 


Acconci,  Vito     77 
Adamczyk,  John     108 
Ahwesh,  Peggy     64,  65 
Aleinikov,  Gleb     43,  45 
Aleinikov,  Igor     43,  45 
Alperin,  Leslie     68 
Altmann,  Madeleine     103 
Alvarez,  Alfonso    68 
Alvear,  Miguel     8,  49 
Ando,  Kohei     61 
Anger,  Kenneth    65,  100 
•Angerame,  Dominic    29 
Arnold,  Martin     41 
Arnold,  Robert    49 
Atchely,  Dana     8 
Attille,  Martina     91 
Avery,  Caroline     72,  92 

B 

Bade,  Steve     50 
Baillie,  Bruce     100 
Bain,  Claire     49,  92 
Balch,  Antony     36 
Baldwin,  Craig    90 
Barens,  Edgar  A.     47 
Bamett,  Daniel     102 
BeLz,  Gerd     78 
Benning,  James     100 
Blashfield,  Jim     110 
Brakhage,  Stan     5,  13,  88 
Breer,  Emily     34 
Brehm,  Dietmar    41 
Bresson,  Robert     30 
Broughton,  James     65 
Brown,  Carl     52 
Burnett,  Charles    92 


Callahan,  Janet     27 
Campbell,  Jim     26,  50 
Campus,  Peter     76 
Cannon,  Robert     55,  92 
Carolfi,  Jerome     53 
Cazazza,  Monte     8 
Chenzira,  Ayoka     92 
Child,  Abigail     10,  45 
Chomont,  Tom    46 


Christopher,  Phyllis     54 
Clair,  Ren6     5 
Cobb,  Portia     18,  91,  104 
Cohen,  Gerard    93 
Cronbach,  Emily     103 
Cruikshank,  Sally     108 

D 

Daniel,  Bill     49,  54 
Dannenbaum,  Claire     68 
Danska,  Herbert     105 
Davis,  Sandra     13 
Day,  Elizabeth     103 
De  Souza,  Richard    47 
Deal,  Kevin     53 
Dewdney,  Keewatin     52 
Dirksen,  Dirk    65 
Dorsky,  Nathaniel     4,  72 
Downey,  Juan     78 
Dulac,  Germaine     5 


Easterwood,  Kurt    54 
Ejtis,  Andejs     45 
Enos,  Katherine     53 
Epp,  Ellie     52 


Fagin,  Steve     9 
Fairskye,  Merilyn     47 
Federico,  Stephen    49 
Fefer,  Kary     49 
Filippo,  Mary     34 
Filmer's  Almanac     50 
Fischinger,  Oskar    4,  104 
Fleischner,  Bob     5 
Frampton,  Mollis     104 
Frank,  Robert     19,  25,  36 
Frost,  Andrew    47 
Fuchs,  Sally     13 


Gehr,  Ernie     100 
George,  Carl  M.     46 
Glabicki,  Paul     109 
Godard,  Jean-Luc     78 
Gottheim,  Larry     50 
Gruner,  Silvia     107 
Gunnarsdottir,  Hrafnhildur    65 


H 

Hammer,  Barbara     8,  47 
Handelman,  Michelle     8 
Harada,  Noriko    61 
Harrop,  Stephen    47 
Hatoum,  Mona    92 
Hauptschein,  David     108 
Hubert,  Pierre     12 
Hein,  Birgit     70 
Hein,  Wilhelm     70 
Henderson,  Mike    9 
Henry,  Trish     8 
Hernandez,  Al    49 
Hershman,  Lynn     106 
Herwitz,  Peter    7,  60 
House,  Elizabeth     54 
Howie,  Kent    53 
Hubley,  John     55 
Hudina,  Chuck    64 
Huillet,  Danidle    88 
Hutak,  Michael     47 
Hutton,  Peter    23,  50,  88 


Jackson,  Philip     103 
Jacobs,  Ken     87 
Jacoby,  Roger    99 
Jalbuena,  Jun     84 
Jayamanne,  Laleen     17 
Jenkins,  Rupert     104 
Jenkins,  Ulysses     19 
Jonas,  Joan    77 
Jones,  Chuck    55 
Jue,  Sharon     79 
Julien,  Isaac    80 

K 

Kaplan.  Bonnie    8 
Kawanaka,  Nabuhiro     61 
Keller,  Maijorie     13 
Kelly,  Rhondda     47 
Keppeler,  Kurt     68 
King,  Wallace     53 
King,  Woodie     105 
Kirklys,  Stephen     108 
Klahr,  Lewis     86 
Klava,  Dainis     45 
Kluge,  Alexander    33,  35 


113 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


Kondratiev,  Evgenij     43,  44 

Konkapot:  Big  Boys  in  S8    49 

Kren,  Kurt     88,  104 

Kuchar,  George     8,  68,  92,  100 

Kuchar,  Mike    47 

Kurosaka,  Keita     61 


La  Gusta,  Ramon  Quanta     53 
Lang,  Fritz     81 
LaPore,  Mark    50 
Ldger,  Femand    5 
Lesnik,  Yuris     44 
Levine,  Saul    58,  107 
Link,  Jenny  Femald     68 
Lowing,  Catherine     48 
Lumidre  Co.    87 
Lundahl,  Paul     50 

M 

Macleod,  Duncan    53 

Makarah,  O.  Funmilayo     18 

Man  Ray     5 

Marine  Biologists,  The     48 

Marker,  Chris     71 

Massarella,  Josephine     52 

Mattuschka,  Mara     41,  57 

Mavroleon,  Diana     58 

McCullough,  Barbara     19 

McDowell,  Curt    65,  99 

McLeod,  Kim     8 

McLeod,  Paul    8 

Meade,  Andy     53 

Mekas,  Jonas    88,  99 

M^lids,  Georges     104 
Mendez,  Fernando    84 
Menken,  Marie     87 
Meyers,  Nick    47 
Millsapps,  Jan     8,  26 
Mogul,  Susan    8 
Montgomery,  Jennifer    46, 

69,  107 

Moret,  Alfonso     80 
Moritz,  William     5 
Morrissey,  Paul     98 
Moser,  Dana     27 
Muller,  Matthias    69 
Murphy,  Dudley     5 
Murray,  Julie     62,  107 
Myortvyj,  Andrej     44 


N 

Nameth,  Ronald     98 
Nelson,  Gunvor    39,  104 
Nickerson,  Chris     27 
Nyst,  Dani^le     77 
Nyst,  Jacques-Louis     77 

O 

Odenbach,  Marcel     78 
Olmsted,  Marc    36 
O'Meara,  Eileen     110 
Onwurah,  Ngozi     91 
Ostertag,  Bob     12 
Ostretsov,  Georgij    43 
Ozu,  Yasujiro    60 


Paper  Tiger  Television     19 
Parker,  Jayne     57 
Parmelee,  Tfed     56 
Perkins,  Michael     53 
Perkins,  Steve    49 
Petersone,  Ilze    43 
Phoca,  Sophia    57 
Picabia,  Francis    5 
Plays,  Dana     5 
Plotnick,  Danny     49 
Ponger,  Lisl     41 
Porter,  Edwin  S.     100 
Portillo,  Rafael     84 
Povey,  Thad     69,  92 
Price,  Luther    28,  65 
Prisadsky,  Alex     49,  50 
Public  Enemy     18 


Radner,  Rebecca     8 
Rainer,  Yvonne     13,  66 
Rhoads,  Tom    8,  86 
Rice,  Ron     72 
Richter,  Hans     104 
Riggs,  Marlon     80 
Rodriguez,  Dinorah  de  Jesus 
Rogosin,  Lionel     64 
Rosenbach,  Ulrike     76 
Ross,  Rock    49 
Roth,  Phillip     47 
Ruiz,  Raul     28 
Ruttmann,  Walter     5 


Sachs,  Lynne     8 
Saks,  Eric    86 
Sanborn,  Keith     64,  93 
Sandage,  Steve     49 
Sander,  Helke     42 
Savchenko,  Inal     44 
Schipulle,  Hans     101 
Schmelzdahin     49 
Schonwart,  Volker    49 
Severson,  Anne     65 
Sher,  Elizabeth     49 
Sherman,  Stuart     15,  59 
Simons,  Chris    49 
Singer,  Leslie     8,  103 
Sirk,  Douglas     96 
Smithhammer,  Bruce     53 
Snider,  Greta     50,  107 
Snow,  Michael     30,  52 
Soe,  Valerie     18,  80,  91 
Solomon,  Phil     31,  60 
Sonbert,  Warren     39 
Stark,  Scott     49,  92,  104 
Steiner,  Konrad     72 
Steuemagel,  Ann     28 
Straub,  Jean-Marie     88 
Strauss,  David  Levi     82 
Street.  Mark     68 
Suderburg,  Erika     62 
Sullivan,  Christopher     110 
Sweeney,  Moira     57 
Syed,  Alia    58 


Tahimik,  Kidlat    99 
Tamblyn,  Christine    8 
Tkrtaglia,  Jerry     8,  47 
Tezuka,  Makoto     61 
Thomas,  Jerome     105 
Thornton.  Leslie     50,  105 
Titmarsh,  Mark     47 
Toland,  Lynn     27 
103    Torbet,  Bruce    98 
Trinh,  T.  Minh-ha     17 
Tscherkassky,  Peter    41 
Tucker,  George  Loane    80 

U 

Ulmer,  Edgar  G.     96 


114 


1990  Program  Notes 


Ureta,  Chano     84 

V 

Van  Sant,  Gus     36 
Varela,  Willie     24 
Vertov,  Dziga     101 
Vianet,  Ren6     93 
Viola,  Bill     76 

W 

Warhol,  Andy     1,  41,  50 
Weissman,  David     47 
Whitaker,  Forest     19 
White,  Ted     50 
Williams,  A.  Malaika     92 
Williams,  Spencer    74,  79 
Woods,  Rowan     47 


Yufit,  Evgenij     44 
Yukhananov,  Boris     43 

Z 

Zakharov,  Vladimir    43 


115 


Title  Index 


1990  Program  Notes 


A  Brennen  Soil  Columbusn's  Medina     59 
About  Me:  A  Musical     25 
Adam  of  the  Andes    90 
Adynata     106 
Affiimations     80 

The  African  Lady,  Or  Love  With  A  Fatal  Out- 
come   34 
Against  Censorship    65 
Age  12:  Love  with  a  Little  L     69,  107 
Agnes  Escapes  from  the  Nursing  Home     1 10 
All  My  Life     100 
All  Orientals  Look  the  Same     80 
All  The  Fun  Is  Getting  There     50 
Ana/Vermont     8 

Andy  Warhol's  Exploding  Plastic  Inevitable    98 
Anima/  Mar    49 
Antiques  of  Advertising    34 
An  Architecture  of  Desire     13 
Arena     83 
Ariel     4 
Art    9 

As  the  Worm  Turns    8 

As  You  Lift  Your  Eyelids,  Tracing  Lightly     60 
Attack  on  the  Americas  (excerpt)    90 
Aus  der  Feme  (The  Memo  Book)     70 
Auiomonosexual     47 

B 

Ba  Balu     90 

Bad  News    50 

Ballet  mdcanique    5 

Banners    5 

Baseball-TV     60 

Beauty  #2    3 

Beauty  in  the  Most  Profound  Distortion     57 

Behind  the  Scenes     100 

Berlin  (West)/Andere  Richtungen     15 

The  Big  Stick/ An  Old  Reel     58 

Bill  and  Tony     36 

The  Black  Giant    90 

Black  Steel  in  the  Hour  of  Chaos     18 

Black-Eyed  Susan  (Portrait  of  an  Actress)    16 

The  Blood  of  Jesus     74 

Blood  Story     50,  107 

Blow  Job     4 

Blue  Hour  Tango  Time     34 

Body  of  Light     7,  60 

Boston  Fire     88 


Both     11,  45 

Boys/Life     47 

The  Brainiac  (El  Baron  del  Terror)    84 

Breakfast     30 

Brooklyn  Bridge     87 

Brother's  Communion  1969     38 

Brute  Charm     34 

Buckwheat:  The  Dinner  Hour    80 

Burroughs  on  Bowery     36 


Caitlin  No.  2    28 

The  Camera  Goes  Along!     101 

Camera-Cage     60 

Carlsbad  Caverns     38 

Carumba!     47 

Cassandra     72 

Catscan     8 

Cement  City  Expedition    54 

Changing  Time  (Quickly)    36 

The  Chelsea  Girls     4 

Cherry  Blossom  Time    61 

Cirque  du  S.I.D.A.    46 

Civil  Defense  Compilation  (excerpt)      90 

Qeanliness  Is  Next  To  Godliness    49 

Qementine    68 

Coffee  Coloured  Children    91 

Condemnation    53 

Condensation  of  Sensation  (reel  one)  52 

Confessions    99 

Continuum    29 

The  Contradiction  of  Memories  (Der  Widerspruch 

die  Erinnerungen)     78 
A  Conversation  with  Nedra     105 
Conversations  in  Vermont    20 
Courtship    38 
Coven  Action     11,  45 
Crazy     49,  92 

Crazy  Prince  Kuzmin,  Part  II:  "Actor"    44 
Crisis  in  the  Americas  (excerpt)      90 
Crystal's  Birth     49 
The  Cut  Ups    36 
Current    52 


D 


46 


D.H.PG.  mon  amour 
Damn  It    43 

The  Deadly  Mantis  (excerpt) 
The  Deadman     64 
Dear  Dennis    8 


90 


117 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


Deconstruction  Sight     30 

Define     18 

Der  Kuss     8 

Desire  Incorporated     107 

A  Different  Kind  of  Green     69,  92 

Dirty  Gertie  from  Harlem  USA    79 

The  Discipline  of  DE     36 

The  Discovery  of  the  Phonograph     16 

Displayed  Termination:  The  Interval  Between 

Deaths  63 
Disque  957     5 
Dmitri  and  Ramona     49 
Don  From  Lakewood    87 
Don't  Believe  I  Am  an  Amazon  (Glauben  Sie 

Nicht,  dass  ich  eine  Amazone  bin)     76 
Dot  to  Dot    27 
Down  Here     10 
Drawn  and  Quartered     8 
Dream  and  Desire     46 
Dreaming  Rivers    91 
Dreams    44 
Ducksarenodinner     10 
(Dung  Smoke  Enters  the  Palace)    51 


Eat     4,  50 

Eating     16 

Eauxd' Artifice     100 

Ecce  Homo     8,  47 

Echoes    27 

Edwin  Denby     16 

The  Eiffel  Tower,  King  Kong  and  the  White 

Woman  35 
EI  Balance  103 
Empire    4 

Encircling  the  Shadow    60 
Endless     102 

Energy  and  How  to  Get  It    36 
Entr'acte   5 
Es  Hat  Mich  Sehr  Gefreut  (It  Was 

My  Pleasure)  41 
Exclaim  Her  Limitless  Wisdom     49 
Expulsion     63 
The  Exquisite  Hour    32,  60 


.jor 


Face  Like  a  Frog 
Fall     27 

Fecundation     108 
Feel  the  Fear    35 


108 


Film  About  A  Woman  Who...     67 

Fireworks     65 

Fish  Story     16 

Five  Flowers     16 

The  Flight  (El  Vuelo)     83 

Ripper     103 

Flying     16,  59 

Folly  Beach  Journal     27 

Footage     49 

Forbidden  Images  (Verbotene  Bilder )     71 

Fourteenth  Spectacle:  Change  in  Body  17 

Fractious  Array     68 

Fragments    47 

Francis'  Trip  to  Morocco    49 

Friendly  Witness     40 

Fuckface     63 

Fudget's  Budget     56,  92 


Game  of  Ho     43 

Gerald  Mc  Boing  Boing     55 

The  Germans  and  Their  Men:  Report  from 

Bonn    42 
Go  Down  Death     74 
Golf  Film     16 
Gray  Matter     15 
Green     8 

A  Grin  Without  a  Cat     71 
Gypsy  Song  (Cancion  Gitana)     83, 107 

H 

Hairpiece:  A  Film  for  Nappy  Headed  People    92 

Hand/Water     16 

Haze    28 

Hell-Bent  for  Election    55 

Henry  Geldzahler    4 

Henry,  My  Henry     28 

Hermes  Bird     65 

Hi-Fi  Cadets    87 

The  History  of  America     53 

History  of  Texas  City     54 

Hit  the  Turnpike!     29 

Hoard     47 

Home  Avenue    46,  69 

Home  Improvements    22 

Homo  Rullis     45 

Horse     92 

How  The  West  Was  Won     100 

How  To  Be  a  Homosexual,  Part  II     99 

How  To  Beat  A  Dead  Horse     10 


118 


1990  Program  Notes 


Howie     64 
Hyaloide     77 
Hymn     68 
Hype  Hype  Media  Hype 

1 


49 


I  Am  That  Symmetry  (Yo  Soy  Esa  Simetria)     83 

I,  an  Actress     100 

I'd  Rather  Be  in  Paris     29 

Imaginary     58 

In  der  Nacht  (In  the  Night)     5 

In  the  Rhythm  of  Falling     7,  60 

In  the  Shape  of  Waking:  Meditations     7,  60 

Is  This  What  You  Were  Bom  For?     10,  45 

It  Scares  Me  To  Feel  This  Way     13 


The  Jaywalker    56 

Journey  to  Banana  Land  (excerpt)      90 
Journey  to  the  Seventh  Planet  (excerpt)      90 
Journeys  from  Berlin/1971     14, 67 


K    57 

Kaleidoscope    28 

Keep  Busy     25 

Killer  of  Sheep     92 

Kindering     13 

Kiss    3 

Know  Your  Enemy  (excerpt)     90 

Kongostraat    5 

Kristina  Talking  Pictures    67 

Kugelkopf  —  An  Ode  to  IBM     41,  57 


La  Dialectique  peut-elle  casser  des  briques 

(Can  Dialectics  Break  Bricks?)  93 
Lancelot  of  the  Lake     30 
Landscape  Portrait  Two  (In  Titian's  Goblet)    23 
The  Last  Supper    9 
Leaving    49 

A  Legend  of  Parts    64,  107 
Letter  to  a  Suicide     26,  50 
Lichtspiel  Opus  Nr.  1  (Lightplay,  Opus  #1)    5 
Life  Dances  On...     21 
The  Life  of  Juanita  Castro    4 
Lights    87 
Little  8's    54 
Lives  of  Performers     67 
Lonesome  Cowboys     4 


Looking  Back     53 
Looking  for  the  Moon     57 
The  Looking  Glass     78 
Love  Novellas    8 

M 

Macbeth 's  Greatest  Hits     48 
Machete  Gillette. ..Mama     51 
The  Machine  that  Killed  Bad  People     9 
Madame  Butterfly  Waits     34 
Madeleine's  Variety  Television  #12:  Surf 

Show     103 
The  Magic  Fluke    55 
Making  is  Choosing:  A  Fragmented  Life:  A  Broken 

Line:  A  Series  of  Observations    24 
The  Maltese  Cross  Movement    52 
The  Man  on  the  Flying  Trapeze    56 
The  Man  Who  Envied  Women     67 
The  Man  With  the  Movie  Camera     101 
Marecage     104 
Martina's  Playhouse    65 
Master  of  Ceremonies     1 10 
Maternal  Life     27 
MATTRESS:  A  Sound  Picture     84 
Max's  Shirt     5 
MAYHEM     11,  45 
Me  Against  You     49 
Measures  of  Distance    92 
Meet  Jesus     49 
The  Melomaniac     104 
Memory  Eye     68 
Mercy     11,  45 

Michael  G.  Page's  Laundry     53 
Mindfall,  Parts  I  and  VII     104 
Mirages     43 
Misconception     13 
Mission  in  Kabul     45 
Moona  Luna     34 
Mother's  Day     10 
Movies  and  Pearls    27 
Mr.  Ashley  Proposes  (Portrait  of  George)     16 
Mr.  Wonderful    86 
Munich-Berlin  Wandering    4, 104 
The  Murder  Mystery    41 
Musique  de  Tenebres  (Music  of  the  Dark)     7 
Mutiny     11,  45 
My  Collections     61 
My  Hustler    3 
My  Mother  Thought  She  Was  Audrey 

Hepburn    80 


119 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


My  Name  is  Oona     104 
The  Mysterians  (excerpt) 

N 


90 


Natural  Features     39 

Near  The  Big  Chakra     65 

New  Left  Note     59 

New  Year    91 

New  York  Portrait:  Chapter  One     23 

New  York  Portrait:  Chapter  Two     23 

New  York  Portrait:  Chapter  Three    23,  50 

New  York  Street  Scene     87 

Night  of  the  Living  Baseheads     18 

9-1-75     100 

No  No  Nookie  TV.    8 

No  Orchids     28 

No.  5  Reversal     52 

Nocturne    31,  60 

Notes  After  Long  Silence     59,  107 

Notes  on  the  Circus    88 

Nude  Restaurant    4 

O 

October  5    49 

Odile  &.  Odette     82 

Of  Great  Events  and  Ordinary  People    28 

Of  One  Blood     79 

The  Ogre     102  ' 

On  the  Bowery     64 

One  Drop  Rule     92  * 

The  Oopahs    56 

Orderly  Werewolves    44 

The  Organ  Minder's  Gronkey    86 

The  Original  Sin/Reproduction  (El 

Pe  Original/Reproduction)    83, 107 
Ornamentals     10 
Overlay     68 

p  -—        :^^^ 

The  Pain  of  Goats     53 
The  Painted  Veil  7 
Pan  American  Bazaar    90 
Panhandler    49 
Parasympatica    41 
Parenthetical  Trap     103 
The  Pavement    58 
The  Penal  Colony  28 
Perils     11,  45 
A  Piece  of  Skin     53 
Piece  Touchee     41 


Playing  with  Blocks     108 

Pneuma     72 

The  Poet's  Veil     7 

Point  'n  Shoot     8 

Pool  Scenes  and  Easter    38 

Popular  Songs     102 

Portrait  of  Benedicte  Pesle     16 

Portrobot     78 

Prefaces     11,  45 

Prelude    61 

Preview    59 

Privilege     67 

Protective  Coloration     104 

Pure  Horseradish     53 


Question  (Pregunta)     83 

R 

R-1  ein  Formspiel  (R-1  is  a  Form-play)     5 

The  Ragtime  Bear    55 

Raps  and  Chants,  Part  One     58 

Reassemblage     17 

Recurrents     108 

Red     53 

Refried  Broccoli    8 

Refrigerator  Husband     8 

Remains     72 

Remains  to  be  Seen     31 

Renga     72 

Retour  ^  la  raison  (Return  to  Reason)    5 

Rhythmus  23     104 

Right  On:  Poetry  on  Film     105 

The  Robot  vs.  The  Aztec  Mummy  (La    Momia 

Azteca  Contra  El  Roboto  Humano)    84 
Rock/String     16 
Rocket  Boy  vs.  Brakhage     32 
Roger    49 

Roller  Coaster/Reading     16,  59 
Ronnie    65 
Rooty  Toot  Toot     56 
Ropo's  Movie  Night     48 
Rube  and  Mandy  at  Coney  Island     100 


S.S.S.    47 

Scenario  du  film  Passion     78 

Scenes  from  the  Life  of  Andy  Warhol     99 

Scotty  and  Stuart     16 

See  You  Later/ Au  Revoir     52 


120 


1990  Program  Notes 


Self-Divination     19 

Senseless     72 

Shadow's  Song     107 

The  Shape  of  Things     10 

She  Begins     65 

Shi-Shosetsu  3     61 

Shock  Corridor     47 

Shot-Countershot     41 

Simulated  Experience     72,  92 

Sinus  Remembered     88 

Skating     16 

Sleep    3 

The  Sleepers     51 

The  Snake  Handling  Movie     49 

Sodom    28,  64,  65 

Song  From  an  Angel     47 

A  Song  of  Ceylon     17 

Souvenirs     41 

The  Space  Between  the  Tbeth     76 

Species:  In.danger.ed     18 

Speed    49 

Spies  (Spione)     81 

Spring    44 

Still  Point     47 

A  Story  of  Floating  Weeds  (Ukigusa  Monogata)  61 

Story  of  the  Worm     61 

Straight  to  Hell     49 

Strange  Illusion     97 

Street  of  Forgotten  Men    64 

Sugar  Butt    49 

Super-Artist  Andy  Warhol    98 

Supporter  of  Olf    44 

Suspect  Filmmaker    47 

Suspicious  Circumstances     110 

Systems  of  Authority,  Methods  of  Repression     105 


Tabula  Rasa    41 

Take  Dera  Mon  Amour:  Diary  of  a  Bamboo 

Connection     100 
Tales  From  the  Forgotten  Future,  Part  Two:  Five 

O'clock  Worlds    86 
Tape/Bemadette  Devlin     62 
Taylor  Mead  Dances    98 
The  Tell  Tale  Heart     56 
Territories     80 
Theme  and  Variations    5 
There's  Always  Tomorrow    96 
31/75  Asyl     104 
This  Song  for  You,  Jack    25 


Three  Paces  (Moving  Through  the  Mirror)    58 

Three  Transitions     76 

3/60  Trees  in  Autumn     88 

A  Ticket  Home     29 

Too  Eariy,  Too  Late     88 

Too  Late  To  Stop  Down  Now     10 

Tom  Between  Colors     19 

The  Tower     8 

Towers  Open  Fire     36 

Town  of  Day     53 

Tractors     44 

Traffic  in  Souls     80 

Transplanted  Seven  Years  Later    68 

'R'cheot'my  p'sy     63 

Tribulation  99:  Alien  Anomalies  Under 

America    91 
Trick  Performed/Dance  Interference    62 
Trio  A    67 
Trouble  Is    27 
True  Romance     8 
Twisted  Legend    47 
2/60  48  Heads  from  the  Szondi-Test     104 

U 


Under  the  Sea     109 
Underwater  Vacation 


38 


Vacant  Lot    27 

Vacation  1939    38 

The  Vampire's  Coffin     84 

Vel  and  the  Earthquake    49,  92 

Verdant  Sonar    87 

Vertical  Roll     77 

Video  Walk     15 

Vinyl     4,  41 

Visions  in  Meditation:  #1     5 

Vito  Acconci:  One  Minute  Memories     77 

Voyeuristic  Tendencies     29 

W 

Waiting  for  de  Bil    45 

War  and  Peach    43 

Water  Lily    50 

Water  Ritual  #1:  An  Urban  Rite  of  Purifica- 
tion    19 

Weather  Diary  #5     8 

Weather  Diary  #6,  Scenes  From  a  Vacation 
68,92 

Westworld  Story     48 


121 


San  Francisco  Cinematheque 


What's  Out  Tonight  Is  Lost     31 

Whattaya  Doin  Brian     49 

When  and  Where     10 

Who  are  you?  An  Oakland  Story     104 

Who  Do  You  Think  You  Are     35 

Why  Are  You  Crying,  Antonio?     36 

Why  Can't  We  Be  Friends?     19 

Will  You  Be  My  Friend,  Cleo?    8 

William  Buys  a  Parrot     36 

Willie  the  Kid     56 

Window     87 

Woman  of  Tokyo  (Tokyo  no  Onna)     60 


You  Tklk/l  Buy     87 
Your  Chance  To  Live     90 


'.Uf 


122