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San Francisco Cinematheque
1998 Program Notes
San Francisco Cinematheque
P.O. Box 880338
San Francisco, California
94118
Telephone: 415 822 2885
Facsimile: 415 822 1952
Email: sfc@sfcinematheque.org
www.sfcineniatheque.org
San Francisco Cinematheque
Director
Steve Anker
ARTISTIC Co-Director
Irina Leimbacher
Interim Managing director. Spring 1998
Elise Hurwitz
Administrative Manager, Spring 1998
Douglas Conrad
Interim Ofhce Manager, Fall 1998
Claire Bain
CURATORUL ASSISTANTS/TECHNICL\NS
Thierry DiDonna
Eduardo Morrell
Mark Wilson
Program Note Coordinator
Jeff Lambert
Program Note Book Producer
Christine Metropoulos
PROGRAM Note Editors/Contributors
Steve Anker
Christian Bruno
Jeff Lambert
Irina Leimbacher
Janis Crystal Lipzin
Maja Manojlovic
John K. Mrozik
Steve Polta
Matthew Swiezynski
Eric Theise
Board of Directors
Stefan Ferreira Cluver
Kerri Condron
Elise Hurwitz
Marina McDougall
Program Co-Sponsors
Sandra Peters
Julia Segrove-Jaurigui
Laura Takeshita
Canyon Cinema
Headlands Center for the Arts
Jewish Film Festival
Museum of Modem Art (New York City)
Pacific Film Archive
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco International Asian American
Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco Cinematheque
Guest Curators and Co-Curators
Thorn Anderson
French section of the international front of
supercapitalist youths ©
Kathy Geritz
Jytte Jensen
John Killacky
Janis Crystal Lipzin
Mark McEIhatten
Ralph McKay
Steve Fagin
Minette Lehmann
Marina McDougall
Margaret Morse
Danny Plotnick
Valerie Soe
B. Ruby Rich
Valerie Soe
Anie S8 Stanley
Kathleen Sweeney
Gail Wight
Cover: 31/75: Asyl (Asylum) by Kurt Kren, design by Brice Hobbs
snt'
Table of Contents
ALWAYS AT THE AVANT-GARDE
OF THE AVANT-GARDE
UNTIL PARADISE AND BEYOND 1
FILMS OF JOYCE WIELAND 2
EARLY EVENING EXPERIMENTAL:
PROGRAM 1 4
BIG AS LIFE: AN AMERICAN HISTORY
OF 8MM FILMS 5
ELISABETH SUBRIN WITH SWALLOW
AND SHULIE 7
KURT KREN REACHES 50! A MARATHON
SCREENING AND POT LUCK 9
CHRISTINE TAMBLYN: A TRIBUTE 10
STEVE FAGIN'S TROPICOLA 12
LOOK HARDER:
ASIAN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS
16
COCKTAILS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN:
LILITH AND JANE BOWLES 17
EARLY EVENING EXPERIMENTAL:
PROGRAM 2 18
ALAIN TANNER AND JOHN BERGER'S
THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD PRECEDED
BY MARK WILSON'S TENSILE 19
READING OUTLET VIDEOMAKERS:
TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE 20
THE ANIMAL OTHER
22
JEAN-LUC GODARD'S EVERYMAN
FOR HIMSELF PRECEDED BY
SCOTT STARK'S NOEMA 23
UNDER THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN:
NEW FILMS AND VIDEOS FROM LA 24
ERIC SAKS' CREOSOTE PLUS
YOU TALK/I BUY AND TOUCH TONE 25
EARLY EVENING EXPERIMENTAL:
PROGRAM 3 27
AVANT-GARDE FROM HUNGARY:
FILMS OF JANOS SUGAR 27
GIRLS' NINETY NIGHT OUT:
ANIE S8 STANLEY AND GUESTS 28
WARHOL RE-DISCOVERIES:
SCREEN TEST #2 AND REST A URANT 29
FROM HAITI TO ZAIRE AND BACK:
TWO BY RAOUL PECK 31
EARLY EVENING EXPERIMENTAL:
PROGRAM 4 32
DANCING WITH/IN THE EYE 32
ROBERT FRANK: SELF-REFLECTIONS 34
PANDORA'S SCREENS 36
ROBERT FRANK: EARLY FICTIONS 37
ROBERT FRANK: DOCUMENTS AND MORE 39
FILMSTORIES 1: DZIGA VERTOV
AND THREE SONGS OF LENIN
OUT OF THE TIME CLOSET 1:
LARRY GOTTHEIM
FILMSTORIES 2: LUIS BUNUEL
A MEXICAN BUNUEL AND NAZARIN
FILMSTORIES 3: JONAS MEKAS'
BIRTH OF A NATION
OUT OF THE TIME CLOSET 2:
JOYCE WIELAND
41
42
44
45
46
FILMSTORIES 4:
CARL BROWN ON MICHAEL SNOW
BROWNSNOW + SEE YOU LA TER 47
CANYON CINEMA NIGHT!
OUT OF THE TIME CLOSET 4:
MALCOLM LE GRICE
49
51
BIG AS LIFE: AN AMERICAN HISTORY
OF 8MM FILMS— PROGRAM 1 52
LIQUID IMAGES:
MOVING WITH/IN FILM'S SURFACE 53
O NIGHT WITHOUT OBJECTS: A TRILOGY 54
LANDSCAPE SUICIDE 55
Table of Contents
BRECHT AND CINEMA! A CELEBRATION
OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 1 : SLATAN DUDOW AND
BERTOLT BRECHT' S KUHLE WAMPE 56
MESSTERPIECE THEATER:
TILTING THE LUCK-PLANE
59
BRECHT AND CINEMA! A CELEBRATION
OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 2: ALEXANDER KLUGE'S
YESTERDAY GIRL AND JEAN-MARIE STRAUB'S
THE BRIDEGROOM, THE COMEDIENNE,
AND THE PIMP 60
SILT: FIELD STUDIES 62
BIG AS LIFE: AN AMERICAN HISTORY
OF 8MM FILMS— PROGRAM 2:
PERFORMING DISCLOSURES 64
PREMONITIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS:
NEW FILMS BY ABRAHAM RAVETT 65
FILM UNDER FIRE: AN EVENING OF
OBJECTIONABLE ART
67
BRECHT AND CINEMA! A CELEBRATION
OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 3: NAGISA OSHIMA'S
DEA THBY HANGING 69
ARTISTS AND FILMS: CROSSOVER PIX 70
TROIKA 72
TWO NIGHTS WITH CHICK 73
GUNVOR NELSON: THE LONG FILMS 75
BIG AS LIFE: AN AMERICAN HISTORY
OF 8MM FILMS— PROGRAM 3 76
BRECHT AND CINEMA! A CELEBRATION
OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 3: GLAUBER ROCHA'S
DER LEONE HAVE SEPT CABEQAS 76
BRECHT AND CINEMA! A CELEBRATION
OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 4: THEO ANGELOPOULOS'
THE TRA YELLING PLA YERS 78
INTIMATE LIGHT: TRJSTE & VARIATIONS
NEW FILMS BY NATHANIEL DORSKY 82
RECENT ABSTRACTIONS:
NEW FILMS BY BRAKHAGE 83
TEENS MAKE MOVIES: TWO NIGHTS
OF TEEN-PRODUCED WORK
PROGRAM 1 : REEL GIRLS/REAL GIRLS 85
TEENS MAKE MOVIES: TWO NIGHTS
OF TEEN-PRODUCED WORK
PROGRAM 2: TEEN RIOT 4—
THE LEGEND CONTINUES 86
CHICK FLICKS WITH B. RUBY RICH 87
IN MEMORIUM: KURT KREN— FILMS
INSPIRED AND LOVED BY KURT KREN 88
BIG AS LIFE: AN AMERICAN HISTORY
OF 8MM FILMS— PROGRAM 4:
DAILY LANDSCAPES 90
APPENDIX A: EARLY EVENING
EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAMS 91
APPENDIX B: FILMATDEOMAKERS
IN PERSON 92
FILMA^IDEO INDEX
FILMA'IDEOMAKER INDEX
?MUi3*l>
Program Notes 1998
ALWAYS AT THE AVANT-GARDE OF THE
AVANT-GARDE UNTIL PARADISE AND BEYOND
Tuesday, January 20, 1998 — Pacific Film Archive — 7:30pm
Presented live by the French section of the international front of supercapitalist youths©. Some people might live
happier ever after if they understood better why the lettrists make these types of movies instead of simply making
well-made films, good old war films, tear-jerking love films, gadget-filled science fiction films, action-packed
karate films or kung fti films, like Steven Spielmerd, Michael Snuf, or Jean-Luc Grolard. Cinema being like god, the
lettrists (who as some anonymous sources indicate, gave it the last blow) have been pissing on its grave ever since
1951, which may explain why their films alone will be remembered by fiiture generations. Anyway, you are
cordially invited to contribute to the radical critique of political economy and civilization in general by donating any
piece of paper, newspaper clipping, sticker, photograph, slide, piece of film, vinyl record, audio cassette, audio tape,
videocassette, compact disc, floppy disc, etc., which you might have in your possession. (Once given, contributions
will not be returned.) — The council of the French section of the international front of supercapitalist youths©.
Imagine, infinitesimal film by Albert Dupont, 1978. The Evidence, infinitesimal film by Roland Sabatier, 1966.
Vomit Cinema, Spit Cinema, Snot Cinema, Excrement Cinema, Excretion Cinema, esthapeirist film by Maurice
Lemaitre, 1980. Like a Silent River: The Happy Deaf and Blind Man's Film, esthapeirist film by Maurice
Lemaitre, 1980. To Make a Film, supertemporal film by Maurice Lemaitre, 1963. A Super-Commercial Film,
infinitesimal and supertemporal film reduced solely to cinema's economic dimension by Roland Sabatier, 1976.
Your Film, infinitesimal film by Maurice Lemaitre, 1969. A Sentimental Film, esthapeirist and hyperchronist film
by Maurice Lemaitre, 1980. Presence(s), imaginary, nonexistent, or impossible infinitesimal film by Frederique
Devaux, 1980. A Film to Be Made, esthapeirist and hyperchronist film by Maurice Lemaitre, 1970. The
Supertemporal Film (The Auditorium of Idiots), supertemporal film by Isidore Isou, 1960. Contribution to the
Radical Critique of Political Economy and Civilization in General (pseudo-subfuturist plagiarism)®, by the
French section of the international front of supercapitalist youths©, 1997. Our Cinema, supertemporal film by
Maurice Lemaitre, 1982. Disco, accepted and denied esthapeirist and supertemporal film by Roland Sabatier, 1978.
The Infinite Cinematographic Innovation, supertemporal film by Isidore Isou, 1965. A Film to Take Home,
infinitesimal film by Maurice Lemaitre, 1979.
Total running time: c. 2-1/2 to 3 hours, with thanks to the letterist filmmakers and to the council of the French
section o/"the international front of superc^italist youths©.
San Francisco Cinematheque
FILMS OF JOYCE WIELAND
Introduced by Janis Crystal Lipzin
Thursday , February 19, 1998 — Verba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
Art writer Lucy Lippard has said: "Joyce Wieland is one of those wild cards that saves the contemporary art world
from its straight and narrow conformity to an institutionalized 'wildness.'"
Bom in 1931 in Toronto, her great grandfather was a clown; her father and uncles were in Pantomime and Music
Hall. In 1955 she joined Graphic Films, an animated film company directed by George Dunning who later made
Yellow Submarine. Her first job there was to animate Niagara Falls. Her early personal films were parodies of tea
commercials and her first painting exhibition was in 1959 at Isaacs Gallery in Toronto. When she and husband
Michael Snow moved to New York in 1962 they were more a part of the music and underground film scene than the
art scene. She began to make her own 8mm films after seeing work by George Kuchar and Jack Smith in 1963. She
said "People were revealing themselves — so much of it was autobiographical. There was a whole cinema language
that people were inventing — without money." By the late 1 960s, Wieland says "I was made to feel in no uncertain
terms by a few male filmmakers that I had overstepped my place, that in New York my place was making little
films. ... There was a tendency within the avant-garde in terms of writing and criticism to underrate my work
because I wasn't a theoretician. Many of the men were increasingly interested in films about visual theories. I feel
there was a downgrading of my work. It didn't get its proper place, its proper consideration." When Wieland moved
back to Canada, in 1971, she became increasingly involved in cultural activism with issues of ecology, feminism,
and Canadian resistance to American imperialism.
In 1984 Joyce Wieland was awarded the Order of Canada, the first woman ever so honored. In 1987, she was
honored with a retrospective of her work at the Art Gallery of Ontario — the first afforded a living Canadian woman
artist. (Janis Crystal Lipzin)
"Wieland's work became associated with the shift to the rigorous new way of seeing, the intense, almost
philosophical speculations on cinema itself that came to be described as 'structural' film. Playful wit and ironist that
she is, Wieland in particular gives the lie to the impression of austerity that radiates from the label. Her repetitive
formats, loops, re-filming, long takes, and static camera are first at the service of the irreverent, nose-thumbing,
Dadaist side of her artistic personality, strong on a sense of humour that can be ribald or teasingly ironic .... But a
second side is simultaneously present: a side that demands that we re-look at objects, animals, landscapes with fresh,
un-prejudiced eyes, and that gives us the rich colours and textures of so many of her images." (Simon Field)
"None of these films can be watched without being constantly reminded that here is a filmmaker who isn't just a
filmmaker, but is also a painter, sculptor, collagist, quiltmaker, occasional political cartoonist, and artist working
comfortably across a range of media and someone who from the late 60s onwards saw herself as a 'cultural
activist.'" (Simon Field)
Water Sark (1966); 16mm (from 8mm), color, sound-on-cassette, 14 minutes
Soundtrack by Carla Bley, Mike Mantler, and Ray Jessel.
"[H]er first fully realised 'table top' film [in which she] perfectly expresses her spontaneous, unpretentious approach
to film. While it might echo the slightly earlier, but very similar approach of... Marie Menken ... or the 'amateur'
aesthetic then being proposed by Stan Brakhage, her open-minded playfulness and celebration of the domestic,
housewife's world is very distinct from the latter's male I/eye perspective." (Simon Field)
Its whole premise was if you couldn't go out what would you do if you had to stay home, what kind of filmmaker
would you become? That's why it's called 'the housewife is high,' that's a Paul Haines statement. It's like making a
drawing only you are making it with light, and with a camera. (JW)
Program Notes 1998
Catfood (1967-6^); 16mm, color, sound, 13 minutes
Made with Wieland's cat Dwight.
"[Catfood] ... studies the eating habits of a luxuriously furred cat devouring separately five fish just arrived from the
market. The viewpoint is always as though the camera were held at the edge of the table while the cat operates on
top against a black backdrop. It is filled with supreme succulent color, sometimes recalling Manet in the silvery
glints of the fish scales, and ... getting the deep ovular splendor of a Caravaggio." (Manny Farber, Artforum)
It's like I'm sticking up for these poor creatures ... I was trying to legitimize that subject matter. If I loved Beatrix
Potter when I was a kid ... is it wrong for me to love it now? ... If you were a female in the generation that I came
from no matter what you did it would never be as good. Therefore you were feared in a way because it meant that
there was no possibility to compete, therefore you might just as well make something weird yourself It wouldn't
have the legitimacy of the general forms at that time and that's what saved me in a way to become who I became
because I was not successful at the imitation or the participation in the patriarchal view so in a way, I could play and
be myself, which was a gift to me. (JW)
Rat Life and Diet in North America ( 1 968); 1 6mm, color, sound, 1 6 minutes
"[Rat Life and Diet in North America] may be about the best (or richest) political movie around. It's all about rebels
(enacted by real rats) and police (enacted by real cats). After a long suffering under the cats, the rats break out of the
prison (in a fiill scale rebellion) and escape to Canada. There they take up organic gardening, with no DDT in the
grass. It is a parable, a satire, an adventure movie, or you can call it pop art or any art you want — I find it one of the
most original films made recently." (Jonas Mekas)
[A] film against the corporate military industrial structure of the global village. It was a domestic epic made on my
kitchen table with my pets who were gerbils, and my cats too. It's also a political film. But it all came from reading
an article in Scientific American about rat behavior under crowded conditions, simulating New York conditions ....
They were haunted little characters, little prisoners, little victims, no matter how nicely they were treated, they were
wild creatures and after photographing them for months, I started to see what the film was about; their escape to
freedom. (JW)
Dripping Water (1969) with Michael Snow; 16mm, b&w, sound, 10.5 minutes
"You see nothing but a white, crystal white plate, and water dripping into the plate, from the ceiling, from high, and
you hear the sound of the water dripping. The film is ten minutes long. I can imagine only St. Francis looking at a
water plate and water dripping so lovingly, so respectfully, so serenely .... Snow and Wieland's film uplifts the
object, and leaves the viewer with a finer attitude toward the world around him; it opens his eyes to the phenomenal
world. And how can you love people if you don't love water, stone, grass?" (Jonas Mekas, The New York Times)
Solidarity (1973); 16mm, color, sound, 1 1 minutes
Made with Judy Steed, filmed at a demonstration of striking women at the Dare Cookie Plant, Kitchener, Ontario in
1973. The soundtrack is made up of electronically amplified speeches from the stage.
There should not have to be sensual deprivation. There should always be a giving to the sense and to the enrichment
of the soul. Most political works are very puritanical, very angry .... It's a way to tell the truth but it's also a way to
open vision, how to see. It's not just jamming down a message. (JW)
A and B in Ontario (1984) with Mollis Frampton; 16mm, b&w, sound, 17 minutes
A collaboration made with her close friend and fellow filmmaker Mollis Frampton; the footage was shot in 1967.
We were going to go to Toronto and have a holiday there with some friends and we both agreed that we should
make a film out of this, which would be about each other and that is all that we had decided .... It just sort of
evolved .... Then when we went back to New York ... we didn't come to any conclusion .... It starts in one place
and goes from a to b, but for him the a and b was the A and B roll in Ontario .... It was because of Mollis
Frampton's death (in the spring of 1984) that ... his wife asked me to finish it. ... The sound was built from the
ground up in the studio .... I went out with a friend to take sound and we brought it back and we had to fool around
with it a lot. There were the different sounds where the leaves are stiff and they hit each other, his footprints on the
beach .... It was just a revelation to me. (JW)
3
San Francisco Cinematheque
Birds at Sunrise (1972-85); 16mm, color, sound, 10 minutes
This film was originally photographed in 1972. Birds from my window were filmed during the winter, through the
spring, with the early morning light. I became caught up in their frozen world and their ability to survive the bitter
cold. I welcomed their chirps and their songs which offered life and hope for spring. In 1984 I was part of a cultural
exchange between Canada and Israel. During my visit my unfinished movie came to mind. A connection was
established in my mind — so that the suffering of the birds became, in a sense, symbolic of the Jews and their
survival through suffering. The film begins with the reading in Hebrew of the 23rd Psalm. This lays the spiritual
ground for the film. I dedicate this film to Alaya. (JW)
Joyce Wieland Filmography:
Peggy's Blue Skylight (1965); Water Sark (1966); Handtinting (1967); 1933 (1967); Sailboat (1967); Catfood
(1967-68); La Raison Avant la Passion (Reason Over Passion) (1968-69); Dripping Water (co-directed with
Michael Snow) (1969); Pierre Vallieres (1972); Rat Life and Diet in North America (1973); Solidarity (1973); ne
Far Shore (1975); A and B in Ontario (1984); Birds at Sunrise (1972-85)
Program Notes and introduction by Janis Crystal Lipzin, an artist working in film and diverse media.
She has produced a public radio program about Joyce Wieland and is currently Professor of Filmmaking and
Interdisciplinary Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute.
EARLY EVENING EXPERIMENTAL
PROGRAM 1
Sunday, February 22, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 5:30pm
Prelude: Dog Star Man (1961) by Stan Brakhage; 16mm, color, silent, 25 minutes
Window Water Baby Moving (1959) by Stan Brakhage; 16mm, color, silent, 12 minutes
Eaux d'Artifice (1953) by Kenneth Anger; 16mm, color, sound, 13 minutes
Program Notes 1998
Pre-Publication and Screening Party for
BIG AS LIFE:
AN AMERICAN HISTORY OF 8MM FILMS
In Conjunction witli the Series presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
February 6, 199»-December 1999
Sunday, February 22, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Tonight's program is being held in conjunction with the Museum of Modem Art's (in New Yoric City) 50-program
retrospective of small gauge filmmaking as art in the United States, beginning in the 1940s and continuing through
today. The series began on Friday, February 6 and will continue at the Museum on a weekly basis, with periodic
seasonal interruptions, into the year 2000. Initiated and co-curated by MoMA Associate Curator Jytte Jensen and
myself, "Big As Life" will present work by 1 18 different film and video makers, many receiving their first public
screening and, whenever possible, in their original formats. Our purpose was to acknowledge the body of wonderful
films, made privately and largely for personal expression, which has been created since 8mm film was first
introduced in 1932, and to offer the public a chance to share in experiences of uncommon intimacy — especially
critical now that intimacy and vulnerability have virtually vanished from the American scene.
Of the 118 (not 1,000, as Edward Guthmann in the San Francisco Chronicle mis-heard it) film/video makers
included in the retrospective, nearly one quarter live or lived (when making their work) in the Bay Area, so it
seemed like a natural occasion to have our own celebration of small-gauge and independent filmmaking, focusing on
work by some of these makers. Also, in reference again to Mr. Guthmann's article, Jytte Jensen and my intention
was not only to represent 8mm as an embattled dying form, but rather to help appreciate particular aspects of the
film experience/tradition (however long it will live) in juxtaposition with video or newer technologies, especially as
these tools are being used to continue aspects of the small-gauge heritage.
This program was scheduled to coincide with our publication of Cinematograph #6, a volume co-produced by
MoMA devoted to writings, stills, an exhibition list, and filmographies of 8mm filmmakers included in the series.
Unfortunately, production (including an editorial process moving between San Francisco, New York, and Athens,
Georgia) has held up the book's release, but we guarantee that it will hit stores throughout the Bay Area (and be
available at all Cinematheque screenings) by late March.
Tonight's program of 11 films and videos moves between uses of 8mm as a tool for private reflection or
contemplation and for its ready availability to record home fantasy and drama. The first part includes silt's kemia, a
stunning blend of abstract forms resulting from photo-chemical alteration and disintegration with subtle intimations
of recognizable imagery; Ellen Gaine's Fragment, a mesmerizing play of black and white light reflecting off the
surfaces of rippling water; Ken Paul Rosenthal's Near fVindows, which quietly contemplates daily activities
observed from his apartment; Scott Stark's Crazy, which uses the nature of sound-on-film recording to create a
whimsically in-camera-edited Super-8 variant of a popular song; Janis Crystal Lipzin's Right Eye/Left Eye which
turns a "how-to" film on photographic developing into a somber expose of the photo-chemical process itself; and
Jacalyn White's Waiting for X to Happen, an intricate sound-image montage of "natural" textures and rhythms.
The second part begins with another film by silt, Shadows of the Son, a haunting vision of seemingly innocuous
children's play which is revealed to have ominous overtones; Mike Kuchar's Tootsies in Autumn, an early '60s
home-melodrama chronicling the angst of spiritual isolation; Danny Plotnick and Laura Rosow's Pillow Talk, a
raucous and unruly glimpse of apartment-living-from-hell; Stuart Sherman's Don't Hang Up, I'm Freezing a dia-
mono-logue with the 8mm video camera as his only witness and George Kuchar's recent Uncle Evil, an alternately
funny and horrifying vision/interpretation of parenthood and family home life. (Steve Anker)
San Francisco Cinematheque
kemia (1994) by silt; Super 8mm and 8mm, color, silent, 10 minutes (@ 6fJ3s)
"It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a fafade of order — and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks
an even eerier type of order." (Douglas Hofstadter)
This film in seven parts occured spontaneously in the midst of, or on the way toward, larger works — unplanned
births conceived in a darkness where the night of the eye's heart and black river bottom soil meet, (silt)
Fragment (1985) by Ellen Gaine; Super 8mm, b&w, silent, 14 minutes
Fragment meditates exquisitely on different levels, reflections and shapes around a body of water ... a study about
the interplay of the four classic humors — fire, earth, water, and air.
Near Windows (1997) by Ken Paul Rosenthal; Super 8mm, color, silent, 15 minutes
Nearby windows frame and illuminate four years of voyeuristic observations lyrically woven into a time-lapsed
tapestry of light, unsuspecting neighbors, and street drama. (KPR)
Crazy (1987) by Scott Stark; Super 8mm, color, sound, 3 minutes
The Patsy Cline standard is sung a capella by the artist, each mournful phrase resonating in a different urban
location, all shot in a single roll of Super-8 film. Completely edited in the camera. (SS)
Right Eye/Left Eye (1983-84) by Janis Crystal Lipzin; Super 8mm, color, sound, 6 minutes
Right Eye/Left Eye may be viewed as a film or as part of a three-projector locational film installation which
reproduces the interior of a photographic darkroom, viewed by spectators through a series of of eye holes in a
blackened window. The film component consists of World War II Navy training footage describing an early three-
dimensional photo system called Vectrographs. This film was re-edited and altered in printing by superimposing
hand-processed color motion picture film over the original found footage. The original Navy films underwent such
severe sabotage that its function changes from that of an instructional film to that of an anti-educational film. (JCL)
Waiting for X to Happen (1984) by Jacalyn White; Super 8mm, color, sound, 6 minutes
"It seems I've spent most of my life waiting ... for X to happen." You can fill in the blank any way you like. (JW)
— 1 0 - m i n u t e intermission —
Shadows of the Son (1996) by silt; Super 8mm, color, sound, 7 minutes
Shadows of the Son plays like a music box. It opens, unwinds, and closes. Images move fi-om inner circle to outer
frame creating a shifting mandala of moons, endoscopic miracles, home-movie childhoods, solar birds, and shadow
earth. A lament to an absence bom in the laboring moon's eclipse, (silt)
Tootsies in Autumn (1962) by Mike and George Kuchar; 8mm, color, sound, 12 minutes
Tootsies was started after having dinner at a friend's house. The film was then continued following various other
dinner engagements with fi-iends. It is considered an early 8mm classic.
Pillow Talk (1991) by Danny Plotnick and Laura Rosow; Super 8mm, color, sound, 18 minutes
Extreme manipulation of filmic time and space combined with an impressionistic lighting scheme help create an
urban spaces nightmare. They're fighting downstairs, they're fucking next door, they're stealing your clothes in the
laundry room, and you're no better than the rest. Loquacious and lugubrious. Sorta like Jeanne Dielman meets
"Laveme & Shirley." (DP)
Don't Hang Up, I'm Freezing (1993) by Stuart Sherman; video, color, sound, 5 minutes
A performance/play on language and food, with the camera as the only witness.
Uncle Evil (\996) by George Kuchar; 8mm video, color, sound, 5 minutes
A portrait of Panos Panagos and Suzie Ijijian's son. 1 had been there for two hours when I decided that I needed to
take out my video camera and film their kid. (GK)
Program Notes 1998
Tonight's Filmmakers:
Ellen Gaine studied filmmaking in Binghamton with Larry Gottheim and Ken Jacobs. A Bay Area resident since
1982, she words exclusively in Regular 8 and Super 8 and prefers black and white.
George and Mike Kuchar were bom in 1942 in the Bronx. Their long relationship with small format film began as
young boys when they borrowed their Aunt's Regular-8 camera; at that time, "Whatever you could afford, you
bought." Each has taught at schools across the U.S., and George continues to inspire students at the San Francisco
Art Institute. Their joint autobiography. Reflections from a Cinematic Cesspool, was published last spring.
Janis Crystal Lipzin is an interdisciplinary artist who has been making Super-8 films for 25 years. She is currently
Professor of Filmmaking and Interdisciplinary Art at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Danny Plotnick has made 14 Super-8 films since 1985. He cut his first film with a rusty razor blade and a splicing
block devoid of registration pins. He currently teaches Super-8 classes at Film Arts Foundation, as well as
workshops around the country.
Ken Paul Rosenthal is a San Francisco-based Super-8 filmmaker who teaches classes in hand-processing at Film
Arts Foundation. He contributed the article "Antidote for a Virtual World: Hand Processing Super-8 Film" to
Cinematograph 6: Big As Life.
Stuart Sherman is an internationally known performance artist and creator of "one-man spectacle" performances,
as well as a sculptor and prolific filmmaker. He is currently living in retreat at a nearby Zen center and probably
doesn't know that his video is being screened this evening.
silt is a collaborative group (Christian Farrell, Keith Evans, and Jeff Warrin) that creates films and multiple-
projector performances, as well as film-based installations. They are currently Artists-in-Residence at the Headlands
Center for the Arts.
Scott Stark has made more than 50 films and videos in the last 1 8 years, a large portion of them in 8mm, and has
created a number of installations and performances using projected images. He is also webmaster of Flicker
<http://www.sirius.com/~sstark>, the worldwide web site for experimental and personal cinema. We will be
showing his newest video, Noema, in March.
Jacalyn White started making Super-8 films in 1976. She is no longer waiting for X to happen; now everything is
all right.
ELISABETH SUBRIN WITH SWALLOW AND SHULIE
Videomaker Elisabeth Subrin In Person
Thursday, February 26, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
Elisabeth Subrin is a media artist and Assistant Professor of Film/Video at Amherst and Mount Holyoke Colleges in
Western Massachusetts; she previously taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has screened
widely in North America and Europe; Shulie premiered at the New York Film Festival and at the International Film
Festival Rotterdam. We welcome her tonight for her West Coast premiere of Shulie and her first one-person show ever!
San Francisco Cinematheque
Swallow (1995); video, b&w, sound, 28 minutes
Centered around the semi-autobiographical accounts of two precocious suburban girls, Swallow examines the
problems of detecting and defining symptoms of depression. Through multiple formats and a densely-layered
soundtrack, the video unfolds both humorous and painful scenes of potential psychological breakdown to reveal a
critical loss of meaning. Weaving narrative, documentary, and experimental strategies. Swallow intimately traces the
awkward steps from unacknowledged depression to self-recognition. Eventually it becomes clear that the actual
"subject" of the tape may not be the fictionalized Sarah Marks, but the narrator herself Swallow also explores the
impact of American '70s liberalism on its daughters, a large proportion of whom, ironically, struggle daily with
"empowerment." Investigating family relations, recent social history, and popular culture. Swallow points to the
implicit perils of female access to language and representation, and the complex consequences for anyone who
resists prescribed identities. (ES)
"Subrin's cross-texting Swallow portrays the artist as a young anorexic, bombarded by the contradictory messages of
a malign culture. Personality disorders find their formal equivalents in a work that clouds the borders of the bio-pic
by shifting voices, legitimating accounts, and skillful layerings of social history." (Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archive)
"■'Swallow examines the possibility that depression and anorexia are language disorders. The wrongly naming of
things, and the subsequent loss of meaning, is one of several devices skillfully and humorously applied to call into
question modes of representation. In Subrin's work, she successfully drifts between the first person and third person,
child and adult voices to narrate 'her' story (a depressed, anorexic, overachieving girl in the midst of the Feminist
Revolution). Shifting voices and merging accounts, she problematizes the myth of the stable, identifiable self, the
author, and biography." (Kristine Diekman, in Language and Disorder)
Shulie (1997); video, color, sound, 36 minutes
"A cinematic doppelganger without precedent, Shulie uncannily and systematically bends time and cinematic code
alike, projecting the viewer 30 years into the past to rediscover a woman out of time and a time out of joint — and in
Subrin's words, 'to investigate the mythos and residue of the late 1960s.' Staging an extended act of homage as well
as a playful, provocative confounding of filmic propriety, Subrin and her collaborator Kim Soss resurrect a little-
known 1967 documentary portrait of a young Chicago art student who a few years later would become a notable
figure in Second Wave feminism and author of the radical 1970 manifesto The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for
Feminist Revolution. Reflecting on her life and times, Shulie functions as a prism for refi-acting questions of gender,
race, and class that resonate in our era as in hers, while through painstaking meditation, Subrin makes manifest the
eternal return of film." (Mark McElhatten & Gavin Smith, "Views from the Avant-Garde")
"[Shulie is] a fascinating tape, not a clone in the end but a brilliant rethinking of history. Shulie completes a cycle:
the first generation of feminist theory as revisited, fetishized, and worshipped by the new generation. The clothes
look damn good, those eyeglasses are fresh all over again ... and, oh, the angst of that confusion, that searching for
something that was not yet there, just a dim glow on the horizon that made you feel you were crazy if you didn't
know you were right. Subrin has created a document within a document that makes us remember what we didn't
know, then makes us realize all over again how much we've lost." (B. Ruby Rich, San Francisco Bay Guardian)
Elisabeth Subrin Videography:
Interference (19Z9); Evidence Acquired Without Consent (1990); Crisis in Woodlawn: The Grace House Project
(1994); Swallow (1995); Shulie (1997)
Program Notes 1998
KURT KREN REACHES 50!
A MARATHON SCREENING AND POT LUCK
Kurt Kren In Person
Sunday, March 1 , 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Bom in Austria in 1 929, Kurt Kren emerged as a filmmaker in the late 1 950s as part of the modem Viennese art
movement; along with his contemporaries Peter Kubelka, Marc Adrian and Ferry Radax, Kren was at the forefront
of the Austrian avant-garde film movement. Utilizing highly systematic and mathematical structures to shape his
films, Kren made a number of shorts in the early '60s, including Baume im Herbst and Mama und Papa. Malcolm
Le Grice notes that Kren's films were not simply structured images without human agency, but were engaged in a
deeply existential project not unlike that of the very different filmmaker Stan Brakhage: "[L]ike Brakhage, [Kren's]
films derive essentially from his passage through the world as an individual, so that for both, the chief protagonist of
the film is the person behind the camera. In this extreme of existentialism, choice is the result of immediate
subjective response." In 1966 Kren, Hermann Nitsch, Otto Muehl, and Giinter Brus founded the Vienna Institute for
Direct Art which staged elaborate, performative aktions whose chaotic and sado-masochistic natures were seen as
reacting to the emotional fallout of the post-war period. Kren's cinematic collaborations with Muehl and Brus
document and transform these aktions into what Hans Hurch has called "a condensation of naked bodies, movement,
blood, food, color and a comucopia of material into a rapid flickering picture sequence, at once offering and
depriving the viewer of its content in a wild filmic play." Since the '60s Kren has continued to make films of formal
audacity and control including: Asyl, Sentimental Punk, and tausendjahrekino. Tonight's marathon retrospective
celebrates Kren's fiftieth film: Snapspots (For Bruce).
Part One: Recent Works (1978-96)
50/96: Snapspots (For Bruce) (1996); 35mm to 16mm, color, silent, 4 minutes
49/95: tausendjarhekino (thousandyearsofcinema) (1995); 16mm, color, sound, 3 minutes
47/91: Ein Fest (A Celebration) (1991); 16mm, color, sound, 3 minutes
46/90: Falter 2 {\990y, 35mm to 16mm, b&w, sound, 30 seconds
44/85: Foot'-age Shoot'-out (19&5); 16mm, color, sound, 4 minutes
43/84: 1984 (1984); 16mm, color, silent, 2 minutes
42/83: No Film (1983); 16mm, b&w, silent, 3 seconds
41/82: Getting Warm (1982); 16mm, color, silent, 4 minutes
40/81: Breakfast im Grauen (1981); 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 minutes
39/81: Which Way to CA? (1981); 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 minutes
38/79: Sentimental Punk (1979); 16mm, color, silent, 5 minutes
37/78: Tree Again (1978); 16mm, color, silent, 4 minutes
36/78: Rischart (1978); 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
Part Two: Aktion Films (1964-67)
6/64: Mama und Papa (Materialaktion: Otto Muehl) (Mom and Dad) (1964); 16mm, color, silent, 4 minutes
7/64: Leda und der Schwan (Materialaktion: Otto Muehl) (Leda and the Swan) ( 1 964); 1 6mm, color, silent,
3 minutes
8/64: Ana (Aktion: Giinter Brus) (1964); 16mm, b&w, silent, 3 minutes
9/64: O Tannenbaum (Materialaktion: Otto Muehl) (O Christmas Tree) (1964); 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
10/65: SelbstverstHmmelung (Action: Giinter Brus) (Selfmutilation) (1965); 16mm, b&w, silent, 6 minutes
1 Ob/65 : Silber (Action: Giinter Brus) (Silver) (1965); 16mm, b&w, silent, 2 minutes
12/66: Cosinus Alpha (Materialaktion: Otto Muehl) (1966); 16mm, color, silent, 10 minutes
13/67: Sinus Beta (1967); 16mm, b&w, silent, 6 minutes
16/67: 20. September (1967); 16mm, b&w, silent, 7 minutes
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San Francisco Cinematheque
Part Three: Early Treasures (1960-75)
2/60: 48 Kopfe aus dent Szondi Test (48 Heads from the Szondi Test) ( 1 960); 1 6mm, b&w, silent, 5 minutes
3/60: Baume im Herbst (Trees in Autumn) (1960); 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 minutes
5/62: Fenstergucker, Abfall, etc. (People Looking out of the Window, Trash, etc.) (1962); 16mm, color, silent,
6 minutes
15/67: rK(1967); 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 minutes
23/69: Undergroud Explosion (1969); 16mm, color, sound, 6 minutes
26/71: Zeichenfilm — Balzac und das Auge Gottes (Cartoon — Balzac and the Eye of God) (1971); 1 6mm, b&w,
silent, 1 minute
27/71: Auf der Pfaueninsel (\91\); 16mm, b&w, silent, 1 minute
28/73: Zeitaufnahme(n) (Time Exposure) (1973); 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
31/75: Asyl (Asylum) (1975); 16mm, color, silent, 9 minutes
Part Four: The Rest of the Story (1957-76)
1/57: Versuch mit synthestischem Ton (Test) (Experiment with Synthetic Sound [Test]) (1957); 16mm, b&w,
sound, 2 minutes
4/61: Mauem-Positiv-Negativ (Walls-Positive-Negative) (1961); 16mm, b&w, silent, 6 minutes
11/65: BildHelga Philipp (Helga Philipp Painting) (1965); 16mm, b&w, silent, 3 minutes
17/68: Grun — Rot (Green— Red) (1968); 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
18/68: Venecia kaputt (1968); 16mm, b&w, silent, 3 minutes
20/68: Schatzi (1968); 16mm, b&w, silent, 3 minutes
22/69: Happy End (1969); 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 minutes
24/70: Western (1969); 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
30/73: Coop Cinema Amsterdam (1973); 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
32/76: An W+B (To W+B) (1976); 16mm, color, silent, 8 minutes
33/77: Keine Donau (1977); 16mm, color, silent, 9 minutes
34/76: Tschibo (1976); 16mm, color, silent, 2 minutes
CHRISTINE TAMBLYN: A TRIBUTE
Presented by Steve Fagin, Minnette Lehmann, and Margaret Morse
Thursday, March 5, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
I see the artist not primarily as an imagemaker, but rather as a facilitator of dialogue. Thus it is difficult to
specifically locate the work that 1 do; my work is responsive to specific occasions or sets of circumstances.
(Christine Tamblyn)
Christine Tamblyn, a conceptual and new media artist, an influential teacher at San Francisco State from 1986-94, passed
away New Year's Day of breast cancer. The girl from tiie small town of Libertyville was a prolific reader; at a very young
age she was familiar with the Chicago art scene from afar. Later she went to the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received
her BFA in 1979. Her MFA was granted by the University of California, San Diego in 1986. Tamblyn received many
awards for work that showed in venues from Buenos Aires and Australia to New York and Berlin. She was recipient of one
of the lastNEA artist's grants for the production of the third in her series of interactive installations on women's lives.
Her life was her artistic medium in performance, writing, and electronic media. This tribute explores her life/art in
selections from her video and performance archive, her diaries, and the first and third installments of her interactive
series on women — the CD-ROMs / Love It, I Love It Not: Women and Technology (with Marjorie Franklin and Paul
Tomkins, 1993) and a preview from the uncanny, witty, and innovative Archival Quality in-progress.
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Program Notes 1998
Part One: Video, Performance, Intervention
The disquiet that arises from breaking familiar perception and behavior is an essential aspect of both
making and viewing art. Producing such disquiet by problematizing the quotidian and exposing its
ideological underpinnings forms the basis of my artistic and pedagogic practices. (CT)
Performance was the daily as well as public expression of Christine Tamblyn's art, a form notoriously difficult to
capture and hold for later review. Tamblyn's performances were conceived of as interventions in the day. They
could also be excessive and theatrical, violating societal and artistic norms. From her first performance. Blood
Stained Black Velvet (1974), a precursor of New Wave theatricalism, Tamblyn equated sex and death as the
Baudelairean voyage to another world. "My aesthetic doctrine of virtualism was already functioning in [that first]
performance. I theorized that art serves as a virtual world, an alternative universe in which I can live a consciously
fabricated life. The rules and taboos, the boundaries and limitations which govern everyday reality do not pertain to
this virtual reality." The following video documentations and performances for video give a bit of the flavor of the
period and the event in the context in which it was made and received.
The Pathetic Fallacy (1980) by Christine Tamblyn and Richard Homer; video excerpt, 4 minutes
The unnatural world surrounding Mt. Rushmore stands as an objective for a relationship between a he and a she.
A Personal History of the Female Body (1990); Document from the performance at the Eye Gallery, June 28, 1990,
3 minutes
Christine pushes the envelope.
By framing didactic situations as performance occasions, I can achieve an aesthetic distance that allows for a degree
of self-conscious manipulation that would not be possible in a less reflexive enactment of the activity. The
underlying ideological aspects of the activity — (the conventional panelist/audience relationship, the social
architectural standardization, etc.) can be recognized and addressed as part of the activity itself (CT)
Addressing the Current Arts Emergency (1990); Document from a "performative lecture presentation" to the panel
on censorship at the San Francisco Art Institute, January 23, 1990, I minute
The envelope pushes Christine.
Consuming Passions (1983) by Barbara Latham in collaboration with Christine Tamblyn; video excerpt, 5 minutes
Christine eats a French Pastry.
/ Was Raped by a Swan or God Made Me Pregnant ( 1 977); Excerpt from documentation of tfie performance, 90 seconds
A frozen swan metaphor answers the question, where does inspiration come from?
Part Two: Sex, Drugs and Theory
The CD-ROM Archival Quality will include complete transcriptions of Christine Tamblyn's over twenty diaries that
she began at the age of 12 in 1964. This visual and written record covers the period of protest and cultural change
that produced the women's movement as well as conceptual art, video, performances, and happenings and follows
her experience of their evolution and struggles over two decades. These highlights selected and presented by the
transcribers in 2- to 3-minute segments will emphasize the 1960s and 1970s and the topics of sex and drugs
interspersed with Tamblyn's astute critical commentary and theoretical inventions.
Transcription overseen by Elliot Linwood. Readers/transcribers: Erin Blackwell, Terri Cohn, Karen Davis, Robin
Deluga, Susan Greene, C.G. Grossman, Paula Levine, Sarah Lewison, Elliot Linwood, and Scott Mcleod.
Approximately 30 minutes.
Part Three: Interactivity — Human to Human
Tamblyn's series on women's lives moves from the primarily, albeit wittily didactic She Loves It, She Loves It Not:
Women and Technology toward the finest expression of her life in art. Archival Quality. (The CD-ROM-in-between,
Mistaken Identities, was left out due to lack of time.)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
She Loves It, She Loves It Not: Women and Technology (1993) by Christine Tamblyn with Marjorie Franklin and
Paul Tomkins; excerpts from the CD-ROM, 4 minutes
Why do women freak out when eyed by technology? This piece clicks on the generic fate of womanhood in the West.
Archival Quality (1998); preview from a CD-ROM in progress
In Tamblyn's selection from a life of creation, the agony and ecstasy of self-consciousness is literalized and
collected into bittersweet miniatures in anticipation of her own death.
A. Memorativa; "Moving Cornell Boxes," images Tamblyn selected from Chained Reactions, video made
with Barbara Latham in 1982; 1 minute
We see into the eyes of a voyeur at the keyhole. Secrets nonetheless remain secret.
B. Gustus — Slices of Life; 1 minutes
Sequences selected by Tamblyn from her video oeuvre, presented as slices of virtual pizza. Bon mots.
C. Vermio; ("Peels" of 4 layers collaging popular imagery of near-death experiences); 5 minutes
This unique layered collage graphic interface concludes our program and our tribute to Christine Tamblyn.
Many thanks are due to Texas Tomboy for editing the CD-ROM documentation for theatrical presentation;
to Luke Hones and BA VC (Bay A rea Video Coalition) for granting editing facilities;
to the Video Data Bank for making Latham/Tamblyn 's Consuming Passions available;
and to Steve Seidfor consultation on the CD-ROM presentation and preview facilities.
STEVE FAGIN'S TROPICOLA
Steve Fagin In Person
Sunday, March 8, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
and the San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Steve Fagin is Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California at San Diego. His video work has been
featured in a retrospective at the Museum of Modem Art, New York, and his work is the focal point of a recent book
published by Duke University Press, Talkin ' with Your Mouth Full: Conversations with the Videos of Steve Fagin.
We are pleased to present two screenings of Fagin's newest border crossing video TropiCola.
TropiCola (1998); video, b&w and color, sound, 95 minutes
This interview by Jeffrey Skoller originally appeared in the March 1998 issue of Release Print, the magazine of
Film Arts Foundation. Reprinted with permission. Jeffrey Skoller is a filmmaker who writes frequently on
experimental media.
TropiCola is video-artist Steve Fagin's fifth feature-length work. Fagin has devised an original video essay form that
is at once witty, playful, and intellectually challenging. Never afraid to tackle the difficuh side of an idea or political
situation, and always timely, Fagin's videos situate themselves in the midst of current postmodern cultural debates,
particularly the problems of globalization and FirsfThird World relations during the last 1 5 years. TropiCola is no
exception. Last year, Fagin traveled to Havana, where he connected with some of Cuba's most renowned actors.
With them, he created a unique portrait of the problems facing Cuba during its current economic restructuring. Like
Fagin's other tapes, TropiCola is an imaginative mix of documentary and soap opera. Filled with music and
dancing, the video is structured around a series of interwoven skits portraying two Cuban families from different
social sectors as they struggle to understand their new situation in a changing society. These scenes are in turn
mixed into a wonderful city portrait of Havana. For me, the tape has a kind of tropical echo of Two or Three Things
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Program Notes 1998
I Know About Her, Jean-Luc Godard's film portrait of Paris during the rise of U.S.-style consumerism in France in
the 1960s. In 1990s Cuba, however, the issue is so not much the identity struggle of Godard's "children of Marx and
Coca-Cola," but rather whether Cuba's own brand — TropiCola — can co-exist with Coke. What results in TropiCola
is a complex and colorful picture of the current Cuban reality that belies left/right ideological posturing to show the
intrepid spirit, humor and outspokenness of the Cuban people, who continue to capture the imagination of the world.
TropiCola is your third piece to explore post-colonial, Third World transitions during the '90s. The first video. The
Machine That Killed Bad People, was made in the Philippines and looked at the EDSA Revolution and the "CNN-
tat ion" of the globe. The next was Zero Degrees Latitude, made in Ecuador about the growth of the charismatic
religious movement in Latin America. TropiCola was made in Cuba during the post-Cold War period. Would you
talk about Cuba and its relation to these other two pieces?
Most obviously, the tiling that joins them is that each country is a previous Spanish colony that is very influenced in
very different ways by its relation to the U.S. But the issue that unites them in a more abstract way is the question you
just brought up about their being societies in transition. I tfiink there is a kind of history that tends to talk about one side
of the equation: there was communism, now there's capitalism. There was Catholicism, and now there's Protestantism.
My interest was to try to capture this in-between period of transition. The "bridge" or the "hole" — take your pick.
What did you see in Cuba that — at this moment — made it imperative to make TropiCola.^
I don't know about it being an imperative. I mean, some of it was much more personal, in that I had the experience of
spending the summer of '93 in Cuba. Bertha Jottar — she was the line producer, and also camera person for Zero Degrees
Latitude — her father was Cuban, and I went with her to Cuba and spent time with her family. We lived that summer, not
within a tourist context, but from the point of view of a very disenfranchised, marginal family in Cuba during a period of
extreme hardship — what is called in Cuba the "Special Period" after the withdrawal of Soviet support I really began to
understand what their lives were like. This drove me to document the ways Cubanos deal with the problems in their
society and how they have to be so creative, even though they have no clue which way the society will turn.
In TropiCola yoM use very different strategies from the more commonly made documentary or personal travelogue
films that try to explain or justify the revolution.
Well, I really didn't want to make a social-issues documentary — for instance, "Is Castro good for the Jews?" Often,
in the social documentary, it is assumed that if you want to understand people, you set up some interview structure
where you have this testimony that stands for people's daily life. In my mind, if you ask people what they think of
Castro or what they think of their lives, you wind up with overwhelmingly cliched and generalized answers. I know
if people asked me these types of questions, I'd answer in that way also. So I thought by using actors and setting up
circumstances where they were given abstract characters to play, we could find a way for them to perform everyday
life in more revealing and interesting ways. One of the major efforts of the piece was to work improvisationally with
actors in a very theatrical way to allow for very simple things to be laid bare.
In TropiCola, there are two generations of Cuba's top actors playing two fictitious families, one white and the other
Afro-Cuban. In each family there are the older people who lived through the Revolution and the younger people who
grew up within it. The dialogue between them centers around questions about what can be salvaged of the
Revolution and what can 't. The young people talk about wanting to leave the island, and the older people talk about
struggling through the problems of the moment. Was this your conceit, or did these positions develop among the
actors as part of their own generational reality?
Part of this came from the summer I spent in the Casablanca barrio in Havana, sitting on people's porches and
witnessing every night, all summer, these generational debates that clearly do have a parallel in the United
States — between, say, a Baby Boomer and a Gen-X type. I wanted to show this struggle of the generations. One
generation is trying to hold on to the history of the Revolution — which for several of the characters in the piece was
a powerful, positive event in their lives — and make the effort to keep reorganizing the present day under the
revolutionary banner. At the same time, the younger people just do not feel the use-value of holding on to that
fantasy. They don't have some inherent agenda for or against the Revolution. They just have an agenda which will
allow them to realize the type of life they want. They see themselves at the edge of an abyss facing capitalism. The
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San Francisco Cinematheque
effort by the older generation to hold on is seen by the younger ones as a hand pulling at them from the grave — like
in DePalma's Carrie. Between the coffin and the abyss, they choose the abyss.
In all your tapes, you mix different genres and narrative forms. One moment it is a black-and-white documentary
mode, other moments you use colorful cabaret scenes, melodrama, and soap opera forms. How did this style work
for the Cuban actors in developing characters and scenes?
I think that was actually a bit perplexing to a lot of them. As a director, I like working with people in fragments and
keeping for myself the understanding of how I'm going to layer it, but not to have the actors quite understand how
things are going to connect, because I think it kind of weakens their performance. But several of the actors — the
ones who were from "the older generation" — have very strong backgrounds in experimental theater, and they liked
working in this way because it reminded them of pieces they had done in their youth. In fact, they had a lot of
interest in developing this critical type of cinema as a way to discuss the problems in Cuba. It reminded them of the
contemporary Cuban theater. Cuban theater is in a very rich moment, and foreigners are often surprised at the
critical and ironic edge it occupies.
Can you talk briefly about your working process in Cuba? How did you develop TropiCola once you got there with
your cinematographer?
Greg Landau, a San Francisco record producer who had lived and studied music in Cuba, connected me with Nina
Menendez, who produced the tape. Nina was a godsend to me. Nina is someone who had both lived in Cuba for ten
years and done a Ph.D. at Stanford on Cuban women writers in the '20s. She was a tremendous producer for me in
terms of having access to the cultural community in Cuba. Her sister-in-law, Adria Santana, who became the lead
actress in the piece, is a very important theatrical presence in Cuba. It was through them that I connected with the
other actors. Nina was also a very important litmus test for me in terms of evaluating — not simply translating — what
people were saying. She could evaluate very directly the texture of what people were saying, whether it rang true or
not. This was very important, because often when I've seen pieces done by foreigners in Cuba, the first thing Cuban
exiles say when they see such pieces is, "Oh, this is bullshit. These people are just putting them on. This is just like
what they tell foreigners. This is the official rhetoric of dissidence, or this is the official rhetoric of complicity, or
this is the official rhetoric of avoidance." I wanted to avoid those three things and get a speech that sounded like
Cubans talking to each other on a porch. So Nina was very important in these terms. And aside from the
videographer, Igor Vamos, the rest of the production team were Cubans.
The dramatic scenes are striking for their emotional energy, wit, and social critique. How did you work with the
actors to develop a context for their performances?
I had this very skeletal plot outlined. When I got to Havana, I did a casting, and I worked through the umbrella of
Adria Santana's theater group for legitimacy. If an actor was good in improvisation, I would just rewrite the
character to include them. So TropiCola had this sort of organic, Wizard of Oz quality, where I kept adding and
changing as we moved down the road. Often we would divide into two groups, one working in the morning and the
other in the afternoon. We'd have critique sessions, and they'd tell me what they thought should be added in terms
of texture, and then we'd go back and forth. I felt if I kept listening to what they said, I could always find something
that would work in terms of the idea I wanted and what they would feel good doing.
Visually, TropiCola is also a unique portrait of Havana. Your mix of formats produces a textural juxtapostion of
past and present.
Igor Vamos, who I know from San Diego, shot all of the telenovella stuff with a new mini-digital camera. I wanted
to juxtapose that footage with the type of hand-held, 16mm camera style that was developed and articulated in Cuba
in the '60s by Santiago Alvarez's documentary unit. We actually did get Pablito Martinez, who was one of
Alvarez's camera people, to shoot the hand-held 16mm stuff. I wanted this kind of juxtaposition between the color
footage of Cuba facing its lived melodramatic present with its faded but elegant past, and to sort of work a bridge
between those spaces to produce a multiple view of Havana.
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Program Notes 1998
In the cabaret sections you use Cuban music and dance. In one sequence you have three young women talking about
having become jineteras.
A book that I'm tremendously inspired by is the wonderful Three Trapped Tigers by Cabrera Infante, which is a
very complex documentation of Havana circa 1958. The book opens with this wonderful Tropicana monologue and
cabaret performance of Cuban identity in dancing and music. I wanted that to be one of the angles on Cuba. There is
also the use of soliloquy, which has become a kind of signature style for me. I often have people talking at the same
time but never talking with each other. The cabaret sequence with the three girls at the bar, where they're talking
like three singers doing a round, is exemplary of that type of effort.
This sequence was also a way to talk about the issue of Cuba returning to its '50s identity of sex tourism. I wanted to
produce a scene that would emphasize multiple senses of their identity, not that they're hookers in a simple way or
that they're hookers with hearts of gold, but that they're engaged in it in a complex way. So I created three versions
of the same girl all at once, where you have the one who's talking in English in a very kind of pick-up manner,
saying, "Hi, what country are you from? I'm hungry, could you buy me a Coca-Cola?" The other girl is talking
through a type of delirious inner speech about why she's doing this and her investment in it. And the third girl is just
dancing sexily, backside to the camera. I wanted to absorb the three layers in one shot.
Throughout Tropicola, the younger characters talk about feeling conflicted between their desires to leave Cuba for a
better life and their wish to stay.
J. The two questions that obsess the piece — ^that become the kind of repetition compulsion of the piece — are the issue
\ of staying or leaving and how one is going to make it in a dollar economy. Clearly, those aren't all the questions one
could ask about Cuba, but those were the two questions which I found obsessive in Cuba. I personally have never
met a Cuban who said, "I'd rather live outside of Cuba." I mean, they do say they'd rather not live under Castro, but
I've actually never met a Cuban who I wouldn't presume to be a patriot. One of the problems of the current
impasse — this debate as to whether Cuba is a right place or a wrong place — is one of the other reasons I made the
piece. This has more to do with the struggle for what constitutes Cuban identity and whose vision of it represents
"the real Cuba." In this sense, I had two goals for the piece. One was to make a video that I could show in Cuba, and
that the actors would be able to support publicly. To that end, I did show a rough-cut in Cuba, and I was very
pleased with the response. The second goal was to make a piece that could show outside of Cuba, at least among the
Cuban community that left since 1980, especially the Marielitos and balseros. And I've felt very good about their
response. I showed the piece in Union City, New Jersey, at this Cuban club. La Esquina Habanera, and I was just
overwhelmed by their response.
One of the things I noticed in the tape is that you have done away with the icons of the Cuban revolution. I mean, there
are no images of Che or Fidel or other kinds of revolutionary rhetoric. But in some ways you 've replaced that kind of
iconography with others centered around Cuban music. It 's almost as if you were doing a re-thinking of a certain kind
of historical memory — as if Cuba 's music represented its true historical heritage, rather than the Revolution.
I feel that Cuban popular music, the music I used in TropiCola by bands like Charanga Habanera and El Medico de
la Salsa, has become the shared tone and pitch that are heard as the echo of everyday life. In Cuba, people are
always quoting song lyrics at you. There is, for instance, this one song, "La Bola," which is the song that propelled
El Medico de la Salsa into being Cuba's number one group. I mean, forget "Guantanamera." If you want to know
what is the national anthem of the new dollar-Cuba it's "La Bola." And this song appears in TropiCola all over the
place as dialogue.
Do you think that the music culture in Cuba has replaced the romanticism of the Revolution for the younger generation?
I think that there is a youth culture around the music and the musicians of the popular bands. The bands are urban,
with a rough Havana sound, and they are part of a nihilistic sub-culture; they have a kind of Rebel Without a Cause
feel. These bands provide a coherence for young people. Perhaps they create an identity without a future, but young
people are no longer burdened by an unwanted past. A journalist writing for The Nation called me before he went to
Cuba to cover the return of Che's body to Cuban soil. He wanted my take on contemporary Cuba. I told him if he
really wanted to know what was going on in Cuba, forget Che, go to the Charanga Habanera CD release party.
When he returned from Cuba, he called to thank me.
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San Francisco Cinematheque
TropiCola ends with the character Nieves, who seems to be a kind of conscience of the piece, saying Cuba is like a
melodrama, where the script is good, but it 's the staging that 's the problem.
Yes, she still deeply believes in the script, but she feels that it's time to re-organize who's directing the script and who's
in charge. I'd never met Adria Santana, who plays Nieves, but I had heard all these things about her as a person, her
commitment, her energy, her revolutionary spirit, and her strong willingness to critique officials in the name of the
spirit of the revolution. I wanted this person I'd heard of to provide the bass line for the piece. I thought the other
variations — the differences, the disagreements, the dissident voices, the comphcit voices, the curious voices, the young
voices — would produce a solar system around her voice, and the debate would be at its richest. The one thing I
promised Adria when she agreed to be in the piece is that she would have the last word. So the text that she speaks at
the end about everyday life, what she feels, is her text. The only thing I made her change was when she said, "Love
engenders miracles." She wanted to say it was a line of Silvio Rodriguez's. I said, "Forget it, you can say the line, but
just don't say it's Silvio Rodriguez," because I thought that would tie the line too much to the '60s generation.
But she is still saying that love is central to the creation of a new staging, which does link back to the idealism of the
'60s generation.
Yeah, she maintains the idealism. And she has the last word.
Steve Fagin Videography:
Virtual Play: The Double Direct Monkey Wrench in Black's Machinery — Dedicated to Lou Andreas-Salome
(1984); The Amazing Voyage of Gustave Flaubert and Raymond Roussel (1986); The Machine that Killed Bad
People (1989); Zero Degrees Latitutde (1993); Memorial Day (Observed) (1995); TropiCola (1998)
The screening tonight will be followed by live salsa at 10pm:
Fito Reynosoy Org. Ritmo y Armonia at the Seventh Note, 915 Colombus at Lombard
Presented by Dave Martinez Entertainment. Admission is $5.
LOOK HARDER:
ASIAN EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS
Curated by Valerie Soe in association with the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
Tuesday, March 10, 1 9 9 8—Kabuki T h e a t e r— 8 : 0 0 p m
From the raw-edged to the poetic, this program of experimental shorts looks at the broad range of work recently
produced by Asian American film and video artists. Reworking home movies, found footage, Super 8, hand-
processing, multimedia and the kitchen sink, these pieces run the gamut from intimate personal essays to astute
social commentary.
Seven Scenes (1996) by Miya Suzuki; video, b&w, sound, 6 minutes
This spare, haunting piece looks at the lingering effects of the Japanese American internment during World War II.
Look Harder (1996) by Stuart Gaffiiey; video, color, sound, 4 minutes
Created on a Macintosh using Adobe Premiere, this short video essay muses on Rock Hudson and Linda Evans'
infamous Dynasty screen kiss.
here, there, somewhere (1997) by Lawan Jirasuradej; 16mm, b&w, silent, 3 minutes
Layered images subtly evoke thoughts of home, culture, and place held by a Thai national new to San Francisco.
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Program Notes 1998
Myself. Portrait (1997) by Christine Lee; Super 8mm, color, sound, 4 minutes
A brief, milky meditation on identity and culture.
Looking for Wendy (1997) by Kimberly SaRee Tomes; video, color, sound, 18 minutes
Bioengineered tomatoes and Wendy's Hamburgers mascots guest-star in this pseudo-search for a Korean adoptee's
roots.
Pre-Menstrual Spotting (1997) by Machiko Saito; video, color, sound, 12 minutes
The spectra of past abuses shape present behavior in this scathing, shocking, and heartfelt video.
Mommy, What's Wrong? (1997) by Anita Chang; 16mm, color, sound, 13 minutes
A daughter's elegiac tribute to a disturbed, sensitive mother, this delicately wrought film mixes home movies, hand-
processing, and candid interviews and reminiscences.
Letters to a Stranger (1997) by Ray Wang; video, color, sound, 14 minutes
Weaving together educational films about China, documentation of a visit to the videomaker's elderly father, and
images of the Angel Island internment center, this piece links various representations and histories of the Chinese in
America.
Given Leave to Enter (1996) by Jo Law; video, color, sound, 6 minutes
A video collage that examines issues of geography, immigration, and dislocation from a Hong Kong point of view.
COCKTAILS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN:
LILITH AND JANE BOWLES
Filmmakers Lynne Sachs and Lana Lin In Person
Thursday , March 12, 1 99 8—Yerba Buena Center for the Arts— 7:30pm
"Lynne Sachs' A Biography ofLilith and Lana Lin's Almost the Cocktail How, based on the lives of Lilith and Jane
Bowles respectively, are experiments in narrative voice. The films interrogate the veracity of these mythical figures
by combining historical and original texts and by replacing the hyperbolic with depictions of the mundane. But it is
through their visual strategies — Sachs' use of decentered framing and extreme close-ups and Lin's freeze
frames — that these films finally wrest their characters from textual confinement, unraveling historical certainty. As
one character in Lin's film suggests, the filmmaker, acting like an archeologist piecing together fragments,
encounters 'gaps that I fill in.' It is in the gaps of historical documents, their silences, that stories as yet untold may
actually still lay in wait. In her essay 'Curiosity,' Sue Golding asks: 'How do we trace the specificities of the odd,
purposeless wanderings of excess?' These filmmakers attempt, and in many ways succeed in tracing the complex
web of voices which articulate a cohesive narrative. Freed from an assumption of authority, these narrative films
assert themselves as poetic approaches to auto/biography wherein the seeker herself becomes the film's subject."
(Cathy Lee Crane)
A Biography ofLilith (1997) by Lynne Sachs; 16mm, color, sound, 35 minutes
"In a lively mix of off-beat narrative, collage and memoir, A Biography ofLilith updates the creation myth by telling
the story of the first woman and for some, the first feminist. Liiith's betrayal by Adam in Eden and subsequent vow
of revenge is recast as a modem tale with present-day Lilith (Cherie Wallace) musing on a life that has included
giving up a baby for adoption and work as a bar dancer. Interweaving mystical texts from Jewish folklore with
interviews, music and poetry, filmmaker Lynne Sachs reclaims this cabalistic parable to frame her own role as a
mother. A witty contemplation of Judaism and patriarchal history, this evocative film offers both a feminist view of
ancient myths and an investigation of their cultural persistence." {Women Make Movies Distribution Catalogue)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
Lynne Sachs is a filmmaker witii an interest in blending experimental and documentary film forms. Her previous
films Sermons & Sacred Pictures, The House of Science, and Which Way is East have screened in San Francisco at
Cinematheque and in numerous international film festivals. She currently teaches courses in sound experimentation
at the New School for Social Research in New York.
Almost the Cocktail Hour (1997) by Lana Lin; 16mm, b&w and color, sound, 56 minutes
A nameless woman sets out to find the grave of Jane Bowles, one of the eccentric characters in the art salon setting of
New York and North Africa in the 1940s and '50s. In this fictitious biography, a version of Bowles emerges as a woman
paralyzed by conflict: her urge to write subsumed by crippling self-doubt; her lesbian loves throughout her marriage to
writer/composer Paul Bowles; her sense of isolation in the midst of her closest "500 goony friends." The film interweaves
fact and fantasy to depict a writer unable to write who struggles with affirmation of her own experience in a perpetual state
of padios and humor. The story skips through time and place, offering spare, introspective impressions as seen through the
eyes of the nameless woman whose search for Bowles' grave transforms into a search for self-definition. (LL)
Lana Lin approaches narrative film from a collage aesthetic where connections between disparate sources overturn
expectations and uncover new readings. Currently a visiting Assistant Professor at the Massachusetts College of
Arts, her previous short experimental films Through the Door, Mizu Shobai, and Stranger Baby have screened in
San Francisco at Cinematheque and in a range of international exhibitions.
EARLY EVENING EXPERIMENTAL
PROGRAM 2
Sunday, March 15 , 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 5:30pm
Common Loss (1979) by Doug Haynes; 16mm, color, sound, 15 minutes
A Colour Box (1935) by Len Lye; 16mm, color, sound, 4 minutes
Trade Tattoo (1937) by Len Lye; 16nmi, color, sound, 5 minutes
Recreation (1956) by Robert Breer; 16mm, color, sound, 2 minutes
A Man and His Dog Out for Air (1957) by Robert Breer; 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 minutes
Gulls & Buoys (1972) by Robert Breer; 16mm, color, sound, 8 minutes
Fist Fight (1964) by Robert Breer; 16mm, color, sound, 1 1 minutes
Necromancy (1990) by Steven Dye; 16mm, color, sound, 5 minutes
The Subtle Flight of Birds (1991) by Steven Dye; 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 minutes
Lun (1990) by Steven Dye; 16mm, color, sound, 7 minutes
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Program Notes 1998
ALAIN TANNER AND JOHN BERGER'S
THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD
PRECEDED BY MARK WILSON'S TENSILE
Sunday, March 15, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Alain Tanner's films of the seventies confront the social and economic issues of Switzerland with a point of view rarely
glimpsed beyond the mountains that separate Switzerland from tiie rest of Europe. Tanner sought to expose the
underlying structures of Swiss society to the world, commenting in 1976: "My country has escaped history for a very
long time. We have been hermetically sealed away, but now the walls are coming down." To aid him in breaking down
these walls he enlisted the help of his friend, the British critic and novelist John Berger (Ways of Seeing, Pig Earth).
Their collaboration, beginning in 1966 with the short film Une Ville a Chandigarh, produced three of Tanner's most
acclaimed features, marking him as one of narrative cinema's most innovative practitioners. Cinematheque is pleased
to present one of his rarely screened films from this period. The Middle of the World.
Tensile (1995) by Mark Wilson; 16mm, color, silent, 4 minutes
The Middle of the World ( 1 974) by Alain Tanner, co-written by John Berger; 1 6mm, color, sound, 1 1 2 minutes
''The Middle of the World describes a love affair between Paul, a Swiss engineer running for political office, and Adriana,
an Italian immigrant working as a waitress. Paul offers to leave his wife to marry Adriana; she walks out on him. Why?
Tanner and Berger take the materials of a classic femme fatale tragedy and refashion them — as they should have been
refashioned long before — into a subtly observed but invigorating tale of tfie growth of a woman's consciousness. Set in a
'period of normalization,' and punctuated with landscapes of startlingly original beauty, this cool, highly erotic, teasingly
ambiguous film is one of the few convincing, truly modem treatises on the nature of love — but a love not divorced from
the contexts of politics, class, and geography." (Pacific Film Archive Notes)
"The tension between the genuine difficulty of 'knowing' another person and the conscious manipulation of images
defines the space of social relationships in the film. Paul is associated with the material comforts of his modem
suburban home and with the hierarchical spaces of office and factory, Adriana with her small room and with the dingy
cafe where she waits on the men and operates the cash register. Their affair takes place in the countryside (associated
with Paul's childhood) and in her room, except for his attempts to impress her by taking her to a luxury hotel .. . .
"A similar set of tensions is to be found in the film's treatment of time. Berger has written that 'normal time is
longer for an Italian than for a Swiss,' and the difference in rhythm characterizes the relationship between Paul and
Adriana. Both are controlled by the time schedules set by their jobs and both initially experience their passion as a
release from everyday time. Paul's friends at the garage express shock at his desire to make love in the morning, and
the lovers walk slowly through the field or shut themselves up in their room. Although Paul does invent an excuse to
miss an election meeting, the pressures of the outside world on the relationship are exerted largely through its
demands on their time ....
"This conflict between social and natural time is reflected in the structure of the film. In the opening sequence, the
(female) commentator informs us that the film's action will cover 112 days, and each subsequent sequence is
introduced by a title giving the date on which its action occurs. But this stress on chronological, linear development
is counterpointed by the shots of landscapes at different seasons of the year that punctuate the narrative and place the
social pressures on the lovers within the context of natural rhythms and textures, and Tanner takes advantage of
making his first film in color to bring out the sensuous quality of the landscapes and the seasonal changes. The film
explores Berger's suggestion that 'perhaps the material basis for this correspondence between the natural world and
passion is to be found in the nature of sexual energy itself,' and the relation of the natural images to the story of Paul
and Adriana echoes his comment that 'the state of being in love signifies the universe.'" (Jim Leach, A Possible
Cinema: The Films of Alain Tanner)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
Alain Tanner Filmography:
Nice 7Yme(with Claude Goretta, 1957); Ramuz, Passagee d'un Poete {\96\); L'Ecole {\9 62); Les Apprentis
(1964); Une Ville a Chandigarh (co-written with John Berger, 1966); Charles, Dead or Alive (1969); The
Salamander (co-written with John Berger, 1971); Return from Africa (1972); The Middle of the World (co-written
with John Berger, 1974); Jonas Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (co-written with John Berger, 1976); Messidor
(1974); Light Years Away (1980); In the White City (1983); No Man's Land (1985); La Vallee fantome (1987); A
Flame in My Heart (1987); La Femme de Rose Hill (1989); The Man Who Lost His Shadow (1991); The Diary of
Lady M {1993); Les Hommes du port (\ 99 5); Fourbi (1996)
READING OUTLET VIDEOMAKERS:
TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
Gary Adiestein and Jerry Orr In Person
Thursday , March 19, 1 9 9 8—Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
Gary Adiestein and Jerry Orr have been making personal/experimental films since the early 1970s. In 1975, along
with Jerry Tartaglia they co-founded Berks Filmmakers, Inc. which is still functioning today as a showcase for
experimental film and video. Both artists have worked extensively in Super-8 film. Orr often utilizes rephotography
and Adiestein the JK printer for image modification. They see their more recent video — shot in Hi 8 and/or Super-8
film and reworked through consumer video processing equipment — as a natural evolution of their earlier aesthetic.
Gary Adiestein began filmmaking by co-producing (with Jerry Orr and others) the documentary, Reading 1974:
Portrait of a City. He has been the program director of Berks Filmmakers, Inc. since its inception in 1975. He also
teaches poetry and film at Albright College and resides in the verdant Oley Valley, near Reading, PA.
"The most important aspect to Adlestein's approach to video is that it is irrefutably filmic. It is sublimely tactile and
sensuous where most video landscapes ... tend to be impersonally cool and hard." (Albert Kilchesty)
Oley (1993); 8mm video, color, sound, 9 minutes
Harvest time in the Oley Valley near Reading, PA: "One of the limits of reality / Presents itself in Oley ..."
(Wallace Stevens)
Witchwt^ (1995); 8mm video, color, sound, 7 minutes
Lost under the spell of an Oley spirit and her familiar. (GA)
Der Tod UndDas Madchen (1996); 8mm video, color, sound, 6 minutes
Figure and (liquid) ground; a gothic meditation on image/flesh deterioration based on Schubert's Death and the
Maiden. (GA)
Taorrmna/Etna (1996); Super 8mm to 8mm video, color, sound, 7 minutes
A place of wild beauty pulsing with the promise of death. (GA)
"[I]n one of the most successful Landscapes 'T/E,' Adiestein re-photographs Super-8 film on video, creating,
through the chugg-chugga-chugg rhythm familiar to all 8mm filmmakers, an extremely effective visual analogue to
the molten lava which bubbles and surges under the volcano." (Albert Kilchesty)
Lotus Sketches (in progress); Hi-8 video, color, sound, 10 minutes
Selections from a series of short sketches shot in Kyoto several years ago; based on form/emptiness, emptiness/form
as per "Heart Sutra." (GA)
20
Program Notes 1998
Jerry Orr began making films in 1971 — first in Super 8, then 16mm and now in both Super 8 and video. A co-
founder of Berks Filmmakers, Inc., he has served as its Administrative Director since 1977. In the early 1980s he
directed his creative energies into the development of three-dimensional projection screens made from styrofoam
cups, packing peanuts, and other common household and industrial materials. On his films, Mike Kuchar has
written: "Jerry Orr is an audio-visual alchemist. He does with the two-dimensional image of film and video what
Einstein has done to the dimensions of space and time ... made it relative and so very elastic!" Jerry Orr lives in
Wyoming, PA.
Six Short Videos Bracketed by Two Portraits of a Psychotic Soothsayer
The WizardofOz: A Metaphysical Dream (1992); VHS, color, sound, 5 minutes
The schizoid landscape of a severed head encapsulated in a lunascape of phantasmal imagery desperately, but
lightheartedly, trying to communicate with Mother Earth. (JO)
Shrines (1991); VHS, color, sound, 5 minutes
A homage to contemporary cultural shrines as vestiges of our forgotten need for ritual celebration of the potent,
irrational forces that root our existence in the tumultuous, primordial belly of Mother Earth. (JO)
Ghost in the Machine (1993); VHS, color, sound, 7 minutes
Painting and scratching on video with two film projectors, a battery operated fan, a human hand and arm, a wood
dowel, and a video camera. An eyewash inspired by Len Lye. (JO)
Great Adventure (1994); VHS, color, sound, 6 minutes
Time/space on the tracks of a water slide. See the behind beyond. (JO)
1993 (1993); VHS, color, sound, 6 minutes
A Marionist video epistle to the Archbishop of Calcutta on the occasion of an aborted assassination attempt on the
Blessed Virgin. (JO)
"A last ditch effort to save the male ego." (Hildegard of Bingen, 1 123)
Eclipse (1995); VHS, color, sound, 5 minutes
Forward to the past. A conversation with a stranger during a trip to my parent's gravesite. (JO)
Mothers Day (1994); VHS, color, sound, 7 minutes
"A male horror film." {Men 's Health, September 1995)
"Jurassic Park was cotton candy ... a pussy film." (Joel Segal, USA Today)
Uneasy Portrait (1996); VHS, color, sound, 5 minutes
"That's him. That's the miserable son of a bitch. Look at him, he's got a crucifix for a cock. What a pussy. Lousy
motherfucker. Smash his fucking head in." (Anonymous, 1996)
"What a sad film." (High school sweetheart, date unknown)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
THE ANIMAL OTHER
Curated by Marina McDougall and Gail Wight
Sunday, March 22, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
This historical survey of short films examines the complex ways in which we humans relate to our fellow animals.
Whether taxidermed artifact, laboratory specimen, zoological wonder, meat, fable or beloved pet, animals are the
cipher upon which we humans project our notions of what it means to be animal or human.
Elephant Electrocution (1903) by Thomas Edison; 16mm, b&w, silent, 30 seconds
Dogs, baboons, seals, and elephants were all used to demonstrate the effects of electricity during the "war of the
currents." In an attempt to illustrate the dangers of alternating current, Thomas Edison electrocuted this elephant in
1903 as a kind of publicity stunt. While Edison was promoting direct current as the way to wire the world for his
new invention, the electric light bulb, his rival Nikola Tesla had developed the technology for alternating current.
The Voice of the Nightingale (1923) by Ladislas Starevich; 16mm, b&w, silent, 10 minutes
Bom in Moscow, the Polish Ladislas Starevich was a natural history museum director before he began making films.
In this film a fairy bird (a taxidermed nightingale in pixellated motion) sings legends from the "Kingdom of
Flowers" to a sleeping girl.
Le Vampire {The Fa»^p/rs)( 1945) by Jean Painleve; 16mm, b&w, sound, 20 minutes
Traversing the blurred lines between science and art, maverick scientific documentary filmmaker, Jean Painleve
made over 200 films between the 1920s and the 1980s. The Vampire is an animal behavior film starring a Brazilian
bat set to Duke Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy" and "Echoes of the Jungle" with excerpts from Mumau's
Nosferatu.
LeSang des Betes {The Blood of the 5eas/s)(1949) by Georges Franju; 16mm, b&w, sound, 30 minutes
Set in the outskirts of misty, gray Paris, Le Sang des Betes unflinchingly documents the slaughterhouse processes
behind the preparation of horse, beef, veal, and lamb meat for French dinner tables. Filmed before the days of
assembly line meat packing, the butchers have intimate contact with the animals. The film's narration written by
Painleve attempts to humanize these men who kill "without hate, without anger." Of all Franju's feature films, Le
Sang des Betes most resembles the haunting Eyes Without a Face.
"The Franju documentaries, with their disturbing metaphoric overtones, seem to have the precise beauty of
nightmares." (Erik Bamow, Documentary)
A Summer Saga (1941) by Ame Sucksdorff; Swedish translation by Tin Tin Blackwell, 16mm, color, sound,
12 minutes
"An early film by this major figure in Swedish cinema, A Summer Saga is a unique example of SucksdorfTs
depiction of the beauty and cruelty of nature. Photographed in a natural style against the rich Swedish landscape,
two foxes are followed on their adventures on a summer's afternoon. This was an enormously popular film when it
was released, establishing Sucksdorff as a gifted nature photographer whose films are strong textural and sensuous
studies of his environment." (MoMA)
Ant City (1951) by Moss and Thelma Schnee; 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 minutes
Ant City is an educational film classic about the social insect, the ant. The loose narration by Moss Schnee with his
heavy Brooklyn accent reveals as much about human notions of organized society as animal ones. The Schnees also
made the film Bee City.
Microcultural Incidents in Ten Zoos (1968) by Ray L. Birdwhistell and Floyd Van Vlack; 16mm, color, sound,
34 minutes
The anthropologist filmmakers travel across the world to capture human social interactions in ten zoos. Frame by
fi-ame analysis becomes a study of family dynamics and cultural difference.
22
Program Notes 1998
Mongreloid (197S) by George Kuchar; 16mm, color, sound, 10 minutes
George Kuchar's Mongreloid is a walk down memory lane with a beloved pet.
A man, his dog, and the regions they inhabited, each leaving his own distinctive mark on the landscape. Not even
time can wash the residue of what they left behind. (GK)
Special thanks to Rick Prelinger, Tin Tin Blackwell, and Irina Leimbacher
for their generous help in presenting this program.
JEAN-LUC GODARD'S EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF
PRECEDED BY SCOTT STARK'S NOEMA
Thursday, March 26, 1998 — Verba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
The two films tonight explore numerous positions in relation to the pornographic text. Variously engaging, teasing
and pulling away from the dialogue surrounding pornographic imagery, they open new ways of approaching a genre
that lends itself to repetitive redundancy. The repositioning that these films suggest radically interrupt the ultimate
goal of consummation that pom promises. Accepting pom on its own level, these films stylistically subvert it
through shot repetition, slow motion, sound track experimentation, and shot duration. Through a project of
aestheticizing and de-eroticizing, one is forced to look beyond the body parts and listen between the moans, probing
for moments of exasperatingly strange and difficult transcendence.
Noema by Scott Stark (1998); video, color, sound, 10 minutes
From its opening shot of a transitional three-way, Scott Stark's Noema uses repetition and graphic matches to
mechanize the fleeting moments between the fucking in video pom. Stark locates these moments by eerily using the
flat, tawdry rawness indicative of the low-budget copulatory cavalcades; repeated images of couples repositioning
and preparing for reentry situate the viewer in a position outside the eroticism that the images propose, allowing for
a shift from a more passively sadistic gaze to a gaze that engages with the images as images. They become invested
with a sense of suspense that most pom lacks, their explosive resolutions forgone conclusions — ^the only question
worth puzzling over is how long is it gonna take? Noema's sensory suspense is heightened by the minimal
soundtrack with its incessant drone that leads into silence and applause, and we are eventually allowed privileged
glimpses beyond the bouncing bodies into mysterious worlds of wallpaper and oil paintings, fires and plastic statues.
Those spaces beyond the mechanical movements mimicking intimacy in the foreground become the speculative
arenas for contemplating bliss.
Scott Stark has produced more than 50 films and videos in the last fifteen years. Bom and educated in the Midwest,
he consistently uses film to challenge traditional viewing expectations. His work has screened locally, nationally and
internationally, and he has taught classes at the San Francisco Art Institute (where he received his MFA). Stark
served for seven years on the board of San Francisco Cinematheque, during which time he co-founded
Cinematheque's joumal of film and media art. Cinematograph.
Every Man for Himself by Jean-Luc Godard (1979); 16mm, color, sound, 87 minutes
There is a young girl on a soccer field, Cecile. Her father, Paul Godard, is discussing her with the coach. There is a
shot of her, but it is mediated; the picture stops and starts, she is frozen in space and then moves again. We hear the
father on the soundtrack after discovering the coach has a daughter the same age as his: "Do you ever feel like
caressing her tits ... fucking her up the ass?" Our understanding of the scene is problematized by the sound-picture
relation and the use of slow motion which draws out an image that would usually go by without question.
Pedophilia, incest, and bestiality are only a few of the perversions that creep into Jean-Luc Godard's romantically
masochistic exploration of communication between the sexes. Cramming a decade's worth of semiotic pondering
into a manifesto on the instability of language in a world of masculine constructs, Godard also undermines our trust
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in the image. A prostitute, Isabelle, is shown in close-up, moaning, during the final moments of a sexual encounter,
but on the soundtrack she recites a list of the errands she is planning to do. Paul's girlfriend, Denise, rides her bike,
symbolically reacting against Paul's life in the city and claiming her need to have a quiet place to write; the image is
slowed down and we hear her voice on the soundtrack. Marguerite Duras apparently refuses to enter the frame; she
is heard on the soundtrack and addressed, but we never see her. Instead, Paul Godard speaks in her place, telling a
class of students to think about "women's speech" whenever they hear a truck passing. These diffusions of male
desire, a desire not only to see but to control that which is seen, allow for a new positioning of the woman's voice;
not as a truck passing, necessarily, but rather in the defiance of Duras, the writings of Denise, the staunchness of
Cecile, and perhaps in Godard's willing and beneficial collaboration with Anne-Marie Mieville, who co-wrote the
screenplay.
Jean-Luc Godard was bom in Switzerland in 1930. He is usually associated with the group of filmmakers labeled
the "French New Wave." He continues to make films and videos.
UNDER THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN:
NEW FILMS AND VIDEOS FROM LA
Curated by Thom Anderson of LA Filmforum
Sunday, March 29, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Tonight's program is presented in conjunction with the exhibit "California Suite: New Art from LA," in the
Walter/McBean Gallery of the San Francisco Art Institute.
Film artists in Los Angeles are buried but not yet dead. There's not much of a film community between Hollywood
and the galleries, but there aren't real communities of any kind in LA. So anything worth making will have a
polemical edge; this is no time for lyricism or abstraction. (TA)
Watts Super Sista Girl (1996) by John Gary; 16mm, color, sound, 25 minutes
"'[Watts Super Sista Girl is] about a young girl who aspires to be like the Afi-ican- American super-heroine character
'Super Sista Woman' she watches on television. The dynamic crime fighter defends South Central Los Angeles
(with the assistance of her talking magical afro-pick 'Kinks'). Veronika creates an imaginary friendship with the
heroine and corresponds with her by writing a letter. John Gary wrote, produced, and directed the film at the
California Institute of the Arts (founded by Walt Disney). The project is winning national acclaim with future
prospects of becoming a television series geared toward African American youth. Jon Gary was recently honored by
the Black Film Consortium of Ohio." (The Seattle Medium)
Other Families (1992) by William E. Jones; 3/4" video, color, sound, 15 minutes
Other Families employs humble materials — home movies — as a springboard for an analysis of the notion of family
in American society. Through a voice-over narration accompanying images of childhood, the work reveals the
connection between the decline of a traditional family and the rise of modem gay culture. (WJ)
Khalil, Shaun, A Woman Under the Influence (1994) by Sharon Lockhart; 16mm, color, sound, 16 minutes
A 1 6-minute film divided into three parts. The first two sections refer to make-up tests, which are often used in the
making of Hollywood films, and the third section is. a dramatic sequence based on a scene from the film A Woman
Under the Influence by John Cassavetes.
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Program Notes 1998
Framed from the chest up by a static, silent camera, tiie first section, Khalil, opens with a series of 30-second shots
featuring the ten-year-old boy. Alternately shy, bored and giggly, he is completely aware of the camera while it
methodically records the progression of his disease. The second section depicts Shaun, in his underwear, pointing out the
progression of another seemingly devastating skin disease. His unafflicted nature, however, reveals that this is merely the
progression of a skillfully applied special effects make-up. In the third section, A Woman Under the Influence, Shaun
reappears in full make-up and takes part in an emotional conversation as he is tucked into bed by his mother. (SL)
A Small Domain (1996) by Britta Sjogren; 16mm, color, sound, 18 minutes
''[A Small Domain is] about the last two days in the life of a 95-year-oId kleptomaniac as she ritually prepares for
her suicide on the anniversary of her marriage to her husband, who's been dead for many years." (Todd Lothery)
The beautiful paradox is that despite the fact that she is still very much in love with her dead husband, she hasn't lost
her attachment to life in the present. She lives, in a way, in the past, connected to death, but remains fully engaged in
her own life. With this film, I wanted to evoke this paradox. (BS)
When It Rains (1996) by Charles Burnett; 16mm, color, sound, 17 minutes
"Between The Glass Shield and Nightjohn, Charles Burnett made When It Rains; this apparent casual parable about
a community falling apart and coming together is one of his finest films." (Thorn Anderson)
ERIC SAKS' CREOSOTE
PLUS YOU TALK/I BUY AND TOUCH TONE
Film and Videomaker Eric Saks In Person
Thursday, April 2 , 1998 — Y e r b a B ue n a C enter for the Arts — 7:30pm
For the last fourteen years film- and videomaker Eric Saks has been exploring the impact of a society saturated by
media and corporate conglomerates on the struggle to preserve individuality. Often using personal stories, diaries,
and essays to provide the framework for his dense image structures, Saks deflates traditional narrative and
documentary modes to produce works that approach a hallucinatory clarity. Continually pushing the borders of
topicality and personal involvement, Saks produces work that obsessively returns to issues of environmentalism,
pranksterism, and urban space. Always experimenting and searching for different mediums for his multitudinous
vision, he was one of the first filmmakers to see the potential of Fisher-Price's "Pixelvision" and organized a
traveling exhibition of both artists' and children's Pixelvision tapes. With Pixelvision technology he created, with
his frequent collaborator Patrick Tiemey, Don from Lakewood, a tape that uses prank phone calls and puppetry to
ponder power relations in a world of commercialist hyperbole. Recently awarded a John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Fellowship, longtime Califomian Saks will embark on a project concerning the Los Angeles landscape.
Tonight Cinematheque is excited to present three video works that present pre-millennial journeys of discovery and
loss, including Saks' most recent. Creosote.
Creosote (1997); video, color, sound, 42 minutes
Creosote combines two analogous stories into a unique vision of individuality, and modem spirituality. The true
story of Jared Negrete, a young boy who was lost on a Boy Scout camping trip and never found, is embroidered with
the life story of St. Francis, also known as the "hippie saint." The visual style is arresting, and creates a liminal world
wherein figurative representations fall away into hallucinatory abstractions. Creosote is executed through stop-frame
animation and puppetry techniques, reminiscent of graphic religious pamphlets. Told through meditative voice-
overs, aleatoric sound design, and Retablo-like intertitles, Creosote presents a visceral religious experience. (ES)
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'^'Creosote is in some respects a portrait of what it means to be constructed male. With its counterpointed portrayal of
the mother and father of its young protagonist and its dual modes of address, authoritative text and a female voice-
over, it proposes a world of strangely static figures moving through a surreally shifting world. The lost boy himself,
having shed his Boy Scout uniform, ultimately embarks on a quasi-religious quest for visionary self His vision is
mirrored in the full motion religious icons lurking within the murkily presented video surface as traditional Boy
Scout modes of logic are undermined: map following gives way to drifting, knot tying gives way to unraveling. All
of this is at the expense of prescribed masculinity; a prescription that in its most rigid dosage requires extreme
observance of rules embodied in the neatly pressed uniform, whether it be that of the Boy Scouts or that of the
wonderfiilly rendered iconic Sheriff on the case (his back bathed in the sun, his hands clasping his rifle), the uniform
becomes the constricting material shell that prohibits discovery and freedom. In haunting, texturally rich black and
white Saks strings together a narrative that responds, through multiple exposure and eerie puppetry, to the spiritual
search inherent in identity construction, a particularly prescient concern in our pre-millennial time." (Jeff Lambert)
You Talk/IBuy (1990); Pixelvision on VHS, b&w, sound, 10 minutes
A reverse prank phone call with an American automobile salesman parodying marketing and foreshadowing the
Gulf War. (ES)
"This tape capitalizes upon the dreamlike flow of choppy collages of recycled pulp that is organic to Pixelvision's
texture. Saks' send-up of commercialism has some of the loopy surrealism of videos by the Residents." (Tony
Revaux, Art Week)
Touch Tone (1995); video, color, sound, 28 minutes
A discursive diary about anticipating the millennium. The tape is structured around one elongated phone-sex call, to
illuminate issues of late capitalism, particularly the machinations of vinyl record collecting and other
commodifications of culture through nostalgia at the end of this century. (ES)
"Taking the form of a long and rambling collect-call monologue that ranges from the remote titillation of telephone
sex to the seductive power of pop memorabilia, Saks' darkly provocative film offers a telling glimpse of the likely
banal realities of cyber-culture as alienated, overloaded, and trivia obsessed. Erudite, challenging (and occasionally
frustrating), Touch Tone strikes out in a markedly different direction from much recent technologically-inspired
work, but, for those who are prepared to listen, leaves a trail of images and allusions that linger powerfiilly in the
mind." (Steven Bode, Film Video Umbrella, UK)
Eric Saks FilmA'ideography:
Wipe Out (1981) 16mm; Insomnia (1982) 16mm; Suddenly I Burst into Another: The Life of Henry Tanner
(1983) 16mm; Automatic (1984) Super 8mm; 4 Songs (1986) video; Designated Shooting Area (1987) video
installation; Forevermore: Biography of a Leach Lord (1989) 16mm; Don from Lakewood (1989) Pixelvision with
Patrick Tiemey; Big Pixel Theory (Pixelvision compilation) (1990) Pixelvision; Earth Day Diary (for Toxic Video
Dispatch) (1990) Pixelvision and video; Hide (1990) video with Patrick Tiemey; Nancy (1990) Pixelvision; Old
Man (1990) Pixelvision with Patrick Tiemey; You Talk/I Buy (1990) Pixelvision; Cappy Peeper Trailers (1991)
video; Chickmas {\99\) Pixelvision and video; Gun Talk (1991) video; Hot Dogs {\99\) video with Patrick
Tiemey; / Will Testify: The Porter Wagoner Story (1991) video with Brad Vandenburg; This Summer PSA (1991)
video; Vote PSA (1991) video; Fax Attack (1992) video; Copper Connection (1993) video with Patrick Tiemey.;
KNBR (1993) video with Patrick Tiemey; Encrypt PSA (1994) Quicktime video; Like 7(1994) Quicktime video;
Media Bust{\99A) Quicktime video; Straight Talk About Deserts (1994) video; The King Cinder Story (1985-95)
video with Patrick Tiemey; Friar-fr-kinds (1987-95) video; Coin Tone (1995) video with Patrick Tiemey; Hot Dog
(revisited) (1995) video with Patrick Tiemey; Neglectosphere (1995) video with Patrick Tiemey; Premiere of
Oceania: 10 years of lounge, tiki, and exotica wanderings (1995) video with Patrick Tiemey; Touch Tone {\995)
video; /4 Call Away i\996) video; My Autumn Has Come (1996) video with Patrick Tiemey; Creosote (1997) video
Program Notes written and compiled by Matthew Swiezynski and Jeff Lambert
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Program Notes 1998
EARLY EVENING EXPERIMENTAL
PROGRAM 3
Sunday, April 5 , 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 5:30pm
Vampyr (1931-32) by Carl Th. Dreyer; 16mm, b&w, silent, 70 minutes
AVANT-GARDE FROM HUNGARY:
FILMS OF JANOS SUGAR
Janos Sugar In Person
Sunday, April 5 , 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Tonight, Cinematheque presents a rare look at contemporary avant-garde cinema from Hungary with Janos Sugar.
Originally trained as a sculptor, Sugar's films and videos often deal with gesture and experience, sometimes in
staged events, sometimes in everyday moments. He also wrestles with the question of what it means to record life
with photographic and electronic devices, injecting his work with both media theory and metaphysical meanderings.
He is currently producing an experimental feature based on the Faust myth, and the desire for knowledge in the
digital era.
Janos Sugar has, since the early eighties, been an extremely active member of the Budapest art scene. Aside from
membership in the interdisciplinary art group INDIGO in the eighties, he has participated in national and
international exhibitions in not only film and video, but performance as well. Between 1990 and 1995, he acted as a
board member of the Bela Balazs Film Studio in Budapest, and continues his position of lecturer of the Intermedia
Department of the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, a department he co-founded in 1990. Sugar participates in
many conferences on media theory worldwide: most recently, Flusser Conference 1997, Budapest and ISEA '97,
Chicago.
Pengo/Tweedle (1987); 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 minutes
Two men compete in their passion for the same woman as human size chess figures, a horse and a rook, on the
waterfront and then in a bread factory. The playful music of piano, tuned percussion and saxophone suggest early
surrealist performance films, not to mention the costumes and staging of characters and objects.
The film shows the possibility of how a passion like chess can change even the simplest, everyday situation .... For
the sake of simplicity we can observe the passion for chess as a part of altered reality, through the eyes of the
passionate chess player. (JS)
Ambiguous Window (1993); 16mm, b&w and color, sound, 15 minutes
A collage in both sound and image, each suggestive in it's discontinuity. Seemingly mundane moments become
something like exhibits, where invisible everyday gestures and signs come into question. Cafes, an artist's studio,
even a parade come under scrutiny. The rich soundtrack is a cut and paste journey, starting with snippets of
conversations continuing through commercials, schmaltzy German songs, and European avant-pop.
The title refers to a certain window, whose design allows us to see the closed window as it would be open. For
almost 30 years I did not discover the strange framing of the large staircase windows in the apartment where I lived.
I wanted to do something like this in film .... [TJhis film deals with similar invisible gestures, signs, we can realize
and understand only later .... (JS)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
Camera in Trouble (1992); 16min and video, color, sound, 70 minutes
Sugar raises questions of media and reality in two parts. A camera's conscience forms the text of part one: drawing
on theories of nature, language, the physical world, and of course, media, it directly engages the viewer in it's
monologue. In part two, we observe a singer rehearsing at a composer's flat. The absurdist play between the
characters reveal ideas raised in the first part, while the lyrics of the song suspiciously mimic snippets of the
camera's monologue.
"Dear Spectators, you can hear now the monologue of the camera, that is, you can see almost the same as I do, and
you can hear what I am saying. As long as the film is on, we create a closed system, of which I am — as the camera's
conscience — ^the sole sense organ. Standing as it were, between you and reality, I transform time into an observable
entity. This situation is owing to that strange method which transforms that which is non-recordable into a
recordable entity, in the form of images. It records the fact of passing, by which it intends to assist in envisioning the
infinite." (from Camera in Trouble)
On the monitor before screening:
Immortal Culprits (1988); video, color, sound, 30 minutes
A documented performance of a chamber opera by Gabor Litvan. Two characters. Hansel and Gretchen, a
Schoenberg-esque Bonnie and Clyde, are surrounded on stage by a human-sized video recording apparatus, asking
(operatically): How does video work? The libretto uses extremely technical explanations of video and heavy
existential query to echo notions between experience and the meaning of life in "a world of deeds," when recording
becomes an event in itself Their future as outlaws is strangely entwined in the future of video technology.
Janos Sugar FilmA^ideography:
This Type of Intention Is on the Border of Credibility (19S3) 16mm; Pengo/Tweedle (\9S7) \6mm; Immortal
Culprits (1988) video; Camera in Trouble (1992) 16mm and video; Ambiguous Window (1993) 16mm; Adriadne
Unemployed (1996) video; Faust (in progress)
Program Notes written and compiled by Christian Bruno
GIRLS' NINETY NIGHT OUT:
ANIE S8 STANLEY AND GUESTS
Anie S8 Stanley In Person
Thursday, April 9, 1998—Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
Postmodern Super 8 is to women, as S8 was to the '70s. In tonight's program, a detour from posh '90s filmmaking,
the "splicing circle" discourse is on uninhibited sexuality (male dominated in the past with Super-8 pom and home
movies). The dialogue of female hand to trigger is always evident: these women have stopped "gazing," and have
put on the welding goggles. Some of us still take a gamble with our splices to keep our integrity and aesthetic in the
creative process; we are pioneers in a boy's club of underground and experimental film. (Anie S8 Stanley)
Girls in the Band (1992) by Candy; Super 8mm shown on video, b&w, sound, 17 minutes
A trailer containing never-shown footage for an upcoming feature movie from the underground. Bruce La Bruce's
highly recommended Canadian girl film.
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Program Notes 1998
Hub Cap (1997) by Anie Stanley and Patty Chang; Super 8mm shown on video, b&w, sound, 6 minutes
A horror short using death by sex narrative images mixed with a reconstructed radio talk show. Hub Cap confounds
desire, disgust, film reality, and sexual fantasy to produce an unappetizing look at anticipation, fear, and the horror
genre.
Loose Change (1998) by Jane Gang; Super 8mm shown on video, color, sound, 6 minutes
Men standing on a street comer talking dirty about women.
Hours of the Idolate (1995) by Anie Stanley; Super 8mm, b&w, sound-on-cassette, 16 minutes
They're all wanted dead or alive! Idols and heroes reclaimed from mainstream representation and adopted for
fantasy.
Meddle {\99Z) by Teri Rice; Super 8mm post-produced on video, b&w, sound, 7 minutes
An obsessive woman sacrifices all for her art. Her alter ego and her conscious take human form and try to thwart her
plans of suicide.
What's On (1997) by Martha Colbum; Super 8mm shown on video, color, sound, 2 minutes
A hyper-fire tele-spazz-umentary rendered in orgiastic collage animation, media, mush, and hand colored film. Snot,
boobs, brats and more mutate and spew to the demented punk-rock poetry of 99 hooker ... blasting your brains into
hell-a-vision.
Our Us We Bone One So Naked Known (1994) by Anie Stanley; Super 8mm, b&w, sound-on-cassette, 10 minutes
The finest line where violence and eroticism meet in an urban Brooklyn landscape. Featuring girls from the all-girl
bands Thrust and Fresh Fish.
Nymphomania (1994) by Tessa Hughes-Freeland and Holly Adams; Super 8mm shown on video, b&w, sound,
8 minutes
The conflict between the feminine experience of sex as a loving, unifying event and its corruption by the male's
base animal instincts.
Paradice (1996) by Anie Stanley and Patty Chang; Super 8mm, color, sound, 15 minutes
Oriental femme seeks financially Secure. Loves gambling, resorts, shufHeboard, houseboats, take-offs, and landings
.... A molotov cocktail of low glamour, high rollers, pink ladies, demo derby, and demo drama.
WARHOL RE-DISCOVERIES:
SCREEN TEST #2 AND RESTAURANT
Sunday, April 12, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
"Warhol's second-period films, all in sound, were vehicles that he specially tailored for a new phenomenon — the
underground superstar. Sensing that avant-garde cinema needed its counterparts to Hollywood's legendary stars,
Warhol began to establish a stable of performers comparable to that of the old studio system. Between the final
weeks of 1964 and the early months of 1965, he ushered in a new era of cinematic glamour with films constructed
around the personalities of two underground movie queens; Mario Montez, a female impersonator, and Edie
Sedgwick, a scintillating young socialite. Montez, representing a perverse inversion of movie-star attractiveness,
contributed a new element of absurdity to Warhol's already controversial reputation, while Sedgwick gave him chic
respectability among the socially prominent. Together, Montez and Sedgwick comprised the alpha and omega of the
Warhol school of performance art. Each offered a provocative combination of vulnerability and innocence as well
as kinky far-outness." (David Bourdon, Warhol)
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Screen Test #2 (1965); 16mm, b&w, sound, 70 minutes
With Mario Montez and the off-screen voice of Ronald Tavei.
Restaurant {1965); 16mm, b&w, sound, 35 minutes
With Edie Sedgwick, Ondine and others.
The word "re-discoveries" in the title of tonight's program is worth a brief discussion. For a time in the mid-sixties,
Andy Warhol was at least as well known as a filmmaker as he was a painter and producer of serigraphs. From 1963
through 1968 he made hundreds of films, ranging in length from 100-foot camera rolls to the five-and-a-half hour
Sleep, the eight-hour Empire, and the 25-hour **** {Four Stars). But then he was shot by Valerie Solanis in June
1968, the same week as Robert Kennedy. During his recuperation, the Factory changed from an open to a closed
shop, and under the direction of Paul Morrissey these early films were withdrawn from distribution. In the seventies
and eighties, the only way to see of any of these films was at in-person screenings by Superstars such as Gerard
Malanga or Ondine who owned their own prints of, say. Vinyl or The Chelsea Girls.
In 1982, and with Warhol's permission, the Museum of Modem Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the
Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts began the Andy Warhol Film Project, whose mission was to preserve
and research Warhol's achievements as a filmmaker (Warhol died in February, 1987). Since 1988, the Film Project
has released a few dozen films from various phases of his filmmaking career. Tonight's films are both early
examples of Warhol's "talkies."
Jonas Mekas in his essay, "Notes after Reseeing the Movies of Andy Warhol," reports that Warhol purchased his
own Auricon movie camera in December of 1964. The Auricon was a newsreel camera with two capabilities that
appealed to Warhol: it was capable of recording sound optically onto the filmstock in real time, eliminating the need
for tape recording and post-shoot sound synchronization, and it carried a magazine that held 1,200-foot film
reels — as opposed to his Bolex's 100-foot capacity — allowing 35 minutes of uninterrupted shooting. A borrowed
Auricon had been used to shoot the eight-hour silent portrait of the Empire State Building, Empire, in July 1964.
The advent of sound focused attention on voice; the story goes that Warhol and Malanga invited dramatist Ronald
Tavel to work on Warhol's first sound films after hearing him read from his then-unpublished novel. Street of Stairs,
in November 1964. Tavel's first collaboration with Warhol was Harlot in December; he also collaborated on Screen
Test #/ {Phillip 's Screen Test), Suicide, The Life ofJuanita Castro, Horse, Vinyl, Kitchen, Space, Hedy (aka. The
14-Year Old Girl and Hedy the Shoplifter), Withering Sights, The Chelsea Girls, and More Milk Yvette. Most of
these were filmed in the first half of 1965, and several of them featured Superstar Mario Montez.
Sheldon Renan's breathy bio of Montez, in An Introduction to the American Underground Film (1967):
Mario Montez was discovered, as they say by Jack Smith in a subway station. His name was not then Mario
Montez. It was something else, and for Flaming Creatures it was Dolores Flores. Mario has played women
in all his films except Robert Blossom's pseudopomographic Movie. When he dresses up, he undergoes a
metamorphosis into a dizzy and vain young thing. He acts like a woman. He looks like a woman. His
fantasy is very real.
He appears as a mermaid bathing in milk in Jack Smith's Normal Love and is in Smith's In the Grip of the
Lobster. He is in Rice's Chumlum, Jose Rodriguez-Soltero's Lupita, and Bill Vehr's The Mystery of the
Spanish Lady, Lil Picards, Beauty Environment of the Year 2065, and Brothel. ...
Montez has also been one of Warhol's stable of stars, playing Jean Harlow in Harlot, Lana Turner in More
Milk Yvette, and Hedy Lamarr in The Fourteen Year Old Girl. He is in Camp, and his most touching
performance is in Warhol/Tavel's Screen Test Number Two.
Screen tests were an everyday occurrence at the Factory, with newcomers and visitors being seated before Warhol's
motorized Bolex for a three-minute portrait. Many of these were assembled into longer films like 13 Most Beautiful
Women, 13 Most Beautiful Boys, and 50 Fantastics and 50 Personalities. The worst of these show the sitter frozen
as if for a long-exposure still photograph, the best revealing something unique in the sitter's personality as they test
various tactics to deal with the unflinching camera.
30
Program Notes 1998
What makes Screen Test #2 radically different from tfiese earlier silent films is Tavel's off-screen voice. He directs
Montez to strike various poses, evoke various emotions, recite various lines — some serious, some absurd, some
demeaning — and while Montez alternatively succeeds and fails (always with panache and a brush of the wig), Tavel
remains — ^with one exception — always in charge, relentless-bordering-on-sadistic, a man who understands timing, pitch,
drama, acting, at a depth that is unexpected in a Warhol film. It must have pleased Warhol that the one thing Tavel could
not control was the length of the film reel, and the climax of one of the acting exercises Tavel gives Montez is effectively
sabotaged when the first reel runs out and the second reel kicks in with an utter emotional flatness.
Tavel left the Factory to become one of the founders of the Play-House of the Ridiculous, which featured six of his
productions during its existence in 1966 and 1967. He brought to the stage versions of Screen Test, The Life of
Juanita Castro, and Kitchen, and his later work includes such titles as Gorilla Queen, Indira Ghandi's Daring
Device, Boy on the Straight-Back Chair, Vinyl Visits an FM Station, The Ovens of Anita Orangejuice: A History of
Modern Florida and others. New York Times drama critic Mel Gussow wrote, "In the early '70s, in his best work, ...
he began to explore society, science, and history. With his linguistic ability, he seemed to be a kind of high-camp
American equivalent of Tom Stoppard."
Restaurant, filmed in May 1965, is another of the vehicles conceived for Edie Sedgwick, the others including Poor
Little Rich Girl, Beauty #2, Space, Inner and Outer Space, and Lupe. The scenario is simple: Edie, Ondine and
others of the early Superstars (notably Ed Hood, more memorable in the later Afy Hustler and The Chelsea Girls) are
having dinner in a restaurant, exchanging gossip, complaining about the service, switching seats, making a scene.
Apart from an surprising short burst of pre-shooting footage, accompanied by the screech of the Auricon's optical
audio, the film starts with a long close-up of the table — glasses, ashtray, hands — followed by a slow zoom out to
show the people around the table. There is a pan over to the table at the right, in something of the wandering,
inattentive Warhol style that, in other films, might take a long look at a ceiling or comer because the actors have
gotten boring, and there are closeups of the various diners. The sound quality is not the best; here's hoping that the
sound equipment at the Art Institute can rescue some of the dialogue that gets lost on simpler projection systems.
Program Notes written and compiled by Eric Theise
FROM HAITI TO ZAIRE AND BACK:
TWO BY RAOUL PECK
Thursday, April 16, 1998— Verba Buena Center for the Arts— 7:30pm
A Haitian who grew up in Zaire (Congo) during the tumultuous years of African independence, studied filmmaking
in Brussels, and now lives in Haiti, Raoul Peck is a unique voice in the cinema of the African diaspora. Best known
for his award-winning feature The Man by the Shore (1993), Peck was the Haitian Minister of Culture until a few
months ago and has made several poetic documentaries. Tonight Cinematheque is happy to present two of his finest
portraits of African history, both its past and present reflected through Peck's powerful sense of imagery.
Lumumba: Death of a Prophet (1992); 16mm, color, sound, 69 minutes
A combination of private autobiography and public biography, Lumumba is a powerful portrait of a visionary leader.
Taking the form of a meditation on a series of images, photographs, interviews, home movies and newsreels. Peck
deconstructs the straight forward narrative of most film biographies and presents instead, a non-chronological weave
of both past and present. Beyond a mere documentation of Lumumba's bloody rise and fall, this is a study of how
his legacy has been distorted, even erased, by politicians, the media, and time itself
"A film essay in the tradition of Night and Fog, Sans Soleil, and The Sorrow and the Pity, this work explores how
any image represses the multiple stories surrounding it, how the present captured in photographs is always in a sense
the hostage of history's winner." (California Newsreel's Library of African Cinema)
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Desounen — Dialogue with Death (1994); video, color, sound, 50 minutes
"Raoul Peck's experimental documentary film opens with a quote from the poem 'Lettre d'octobre' from 'Les cinq
lettres' by Georges Castera. The text is interwoven with images that mirror the poem throughout the documentary.
The dialogue begins with:
One day on a deserted road, a peasant encountered death. "Honor to you, " death said to him. "Respect to
you, " replied the peasant. Peasant asked death, "What are you doing here on my path? Hom/ come you are
still among the living ... " "Don 'tyou want to record the testimonies of the living? "
Peck interchanges the dialogue with interviews with people living in Haiti who have experienced the horrors of
everyday life in their country .... The testimonies of so many people whose detailed accounts of personal suffering
are echoed in the film's unifying poem brings us to better understand the depth of anguish most Haitians have
experienced." (Christine McDonald, Crandall Library, Glens Falls, NY)
Raoul Peck FilmA'^ideography:
De Cuba traigo in cantar (1982) video; Leugt (1983); Excerpt (1983) video; Bana/ (1983); Le ministrie de I'Interieur
est de notre cote (1984) video; Merry Christmas Deutschland (1984); Haitian Comer (1987-88); Lumumba: The
Death of a Prophet (1991); The Man by the Shore ( 1 993); Desounen— Dialogue with Death ( 1 994) video
EARLY EVENING EXPERIMENTAL
PROGRAM 4
Sunday, April 19, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 5:30pm
Ariel (1983) by Nathaniel Dorsky; 16mm, color, silent, 28 minutes (@ ISfps)
17 Reasons Why (1985-87) by Nathaniel Dorsky; 16mm, color, silent, 19 minutes (@18fps)
Devil's Canyon (1972-77) by Michael Mideke; 16mm, color, silent, 40 minutes
DANCING WITH/IN THE EYE
Filmmakers Al Hernandez and Ken Paul Rosenthal In Person
Sunday, April 19, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Al Hernandez and Ken Paul Rosenthal first met in 1988 as SFAI film students. Their Super-8 work navigates,
penetrates and celebrates natural, urban, and emulsive worlds. They exploit the gauge's mobility, intimacy, and
immediacy to create a lyrical and fractured interplay of these environments.
Ken Paul Rosenthal's films graphically address light and the nature of seeing through the materiality of the medium
by using techniques such as: hand-processing; exposing the film to natural elements; dying, etching, and collaging
the film surface; and multiple-projection performance. KPR was bom in New York City and raised in New Jersey
where he earned a BA in RadioA"V/Film from Glassboro State College. Following further film studies at CCSF and
32
Program Notes 1998
SFAI, he received an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts from SFSU. He teaches "Hand-Processing: The Methods and the
Madness" at Film Arts Foundation.
Hernandez's films are surreal explorations into personal and planetary identity conveyed through dramatic camera
movement and dance. His work usually reflects the beauty, psyche, and conflicts of the California landscape. Al
Hernandez was bom and raised in the Bay Area. He earned an AA in film from DeAnza College, and attended SFAI
on a Sobel Memorial National Scholarship. He has been making films for 10 years.
Near Windows (1997) by Ken Paul Rosenthal; Super 8mm, color, silent, 15 minutes
Nearby windows frame and illuminate four years of voyeuristic observations lyrically woven into a time-lapsed
tapestry of light, unsuspecting neighbors, and street drama. (KPR)
Blackbirds (1998) by Ken Paul Rosenthal; Super 8mm, color, sound, 8 minutes
A meditation on the impermanent nature of TV violence both on screen and in heart. The Rodney King/Reginald
Denny beatings are re-presented as an extended series of re-photographed, hand-processed images. Formerly a
seven-projector performance piece. (KPR)
Flow (for James Broughton) (1998, work-in-progress) by Ken Paul Rosenthal; Super 8mm, color, sound, 7 minutes
A torrential and reverential ode to H2O. A homemade homage collaging a deluge of celluloid cut-outs, bleached,
beached and beaten surfaces, and unslit Double-8mm images of water. (KPR)
Spring Flavor (1996) by Ken Paul Rosenthal; Super 8mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
Sunsquashed and squeezed/Golden Gate Park pond reeds/ kaleidoscopically colliding/ dyed in pondslide berries/
buried in-side of pond/ de & recomposing the texture of the gesture/ chasing the scent of light/ the flavor of a flower
sent. Also about my eroding image as Filmmaker, and being reborn alchemist, sculptor of light, and mad scientist.
Ah, to stripmine the frameline for its silver soul. (KPR)
Sacred Hearts (1998) by Al Hernandez; Super 8mm, color, sound, 6 minutes
Reaching glimpses of cultural and personal heritage. Music by John Steiner. (AH)
Jump Fence (1998) by Al Hernandez; Super 8mm, b&w, sound, 20 minutes
The fenced-in isolation of a suburban backyard becomes a surreal dreamscape where the dance of masked tricksters,
animal apparitions, and colossal props convey the genesis of a new self. (KPR)
That Mission Rising! (1 997) by Al Hernandez; Super 8mm, b&w, sound, 7 minutes
The trees are angry and the earth and camera quiver to shake off the relentless itch of modem man's concrete
straight jacket. (AH)
Good Medicine (1997) by Al Hemandez; Super 8mm, color, sound, 7 minutes
With camera in hand, I dance with trees and flowers. Music by John Steiner. (AH)
A reception will follow the screening.
Program Notes written by Ken Paul Rosenthal with Al Hernandez
S3
San Francisco Cinematheque
ROBERT FRANK: SELF-REFLECTIONS
Presented in association with the San Francisco International Film Festival
Robert Frank In Person
Friday, May 1 , 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
I'm always looking outside, trying to look inside. Trying to tell something that's true. But maybe nothing is
true. Except what is out there, and what's out there is always changing. (Robert Frank, Home
Improvements)
There he is. There you are, and where you are in relation to where he is shapes you, shapes him. Robert Frank's
films sing out what it means to be there, wherever there may be: New York, Switzerland, Canada, Vermont,
America. A seemingly lyrical randomness confronts you, and you wade through this man's life, this man's
obsessions, and before you know it you've learned less about him than you have about yourself Whether trafficking
his autobiographical portraits or constructing fictional spaces from which to explore, Robert Frank's visionary
America haunts and confronts. Bom in Switzerland in 1924, Frank worked as a commercial photographer before a
Guggenheim fellowship in 1955 allowed him to turn his lens on America as he saw it. In 1958 his famous book of
photographs. The Americans, was published piercing America with a black-and-white stare, her citizens mingling
with images of juke-boxes and cars, poetic and immediate. With an introduction by his traveling companion. Jack
Kerouac: "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," The Americans
established Frank as one of the most important photographers of the post-war era. His next project was a series of
photographs of strangers taken from the windows of New York city buses; as one looks at Frank's photos one
recognizes a restless drive towards movement, recurring obsessions and concerns (automobiles, transportation,
music, the lost and lonely), and ultimately one is faced with a singular vision and its increasing kineticism. Frank
responded to his need to keep moving in 1959 when he picked up a movie camera and made his first film Pull My
Daisy with Alfred Leslie and a number of Beat Generation hipsters.
/ became more occupied with my own life, with my own situation, instead of traveling and looking at the
cities and the landscape. And I think that brought me to move away from the single image and begin to
film, where I had to tell a story. (RF)
Regarded as one of the key films in the American independent film movement. Pull My Daisy inaugurates a
cinematic style that appears improvisational and free, yet is constructed with grace and control. Whether dealing in
autobiography, documentary, fiction or a fusion of these, Frank finds a style to fit his films, sometimes approaching
fi^ee-form organization {Keep Busy, Life Dances On..., Corrversations in Vermont) and sometimes sustaining a
rigorous formal elegance (OK End Here, Candy Mountain). But in whatever mode he works, Frank appears to
expose himself totally, and in doing so exposes his viewers to themselves, brutally confronting their own relation to
a life and vision that refuses to be ignored. Tonight San Francisco Cinematheque is happy to present a program
featuring three of Robert Frank's autobiographical films, tracing a cinematic construction of self through a long and
sometimes emotionally harsh development.
Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, / 1 carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go, I
swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, / I am filled with them, and I will fill them in return.
(Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road")
Conversations in Vermont (1969); 16mm, b&w, sound, 26 minutes
Sirens ring out, Robert Frank fiddles with his camera, and prepares for the film's journey. "This film is about the
past and the present," Robert Frank remarks at the beginning of Conversations in Vermont as he shuffles through a
pile of still photographs and proof sheets. His existence resides in these images: Robert Frank, "great photographer,"
and the film functions as an examination of what is gained and lost in the pursuit of the artist's life. Frank travels to
Vermont to visit his children, Pablo and Andrea, where they attend a rural boarding school. Once there, Frank
confronts himself and his children with images from the past, apparently hoping to find some kind of truth in their
34
Program Notes 1998
memories of how they became who they are and his role in that process, something not to be found solely in his
stack of pictures. But just as the film explores what it means to raise children when one is committed to art, it
explores the way that art changes when one has children: the self-criticism is more apparent, levels of responsibility
and emotional culpability are raised. Frank doesn't shy away from these issues, but his process of self-examination
becomes another work of art: the family album as performance piece. Walking with Pablo towards the house where
dinner is being prepared, Frank remarks that he wants to walk into the house, directing the film while he talks to his
son. Inside he tells Andrea that he won't be staying for dinner, he just wanted to come inside. She insists that he
stay, a place has been set, but one gets the uncomfortable feeling that the footage for the day has been shot, and the
familial act of sharing a meal has no place in the world of a film that is consistently constructing its own past.
About Me: A Musical (1971); 16mm, b&w, sound, 35 minutes
My project was to make a film about music in America. Well, fuck the music. I just decided to make a film
about myself (RF, About Me: A Musicaf)
We are told in a voice-over that Lynn Reyner (who spends the film wrapped in a bedspread) is the young lady
playing Robert Frank, but Mr. Frank himself shows up fi-om time to time discussing scenes, speaking in voice-over,
and infusing the film with himself. The stark autobiographical nature of Conversations in Vermont is tempered here
by Frank's willful flaunting of the cinematic apparatus and its ultimate aim of construction; the construction here
being an autobiographical film with a stand-in, a film that uses 360-degree pans to reveal the movement of
characters through time as well as the sound men lurking in the shadows. Despite his statement to the contrary, the
film is about music, and scenes of performance are interspersed with "Robert Frank" and her story, suggesting levels
of performativity and form that evoke melody, repetition, and lyricism. All the while, however, Frank continually
insinuates himself and the art-making process into the film's world, his presence is continually felt, and these
gestures of self-consciousness suggest that even a book of photos with a democratic title like The Americans is more
than anything about the man behind the viewfinder. This belief becomes even more suggestive in the scene where
Frank returns home to a father who looks at photographs through a stereo-viewer, acknowledging neither his wife
nor his son holding the movie camera; like Frank himself in relation to his own son, Pablo, the father is the
controller of images and thus of the family's and the film's form.
Life Dances On... (1980); 16mm, b&w, sound, 30 minutes
Seemingly disparate footage unites to construct a chaotic portrait of a world that offers no explanations for the pain
it causes. Life Dances On... is a disturbing dissection of decay, stemming fi-om the death of Frank's daughter Andrea
in a 1974 plane crash and the disappearance of his friend Danny Seymour in 1973. The film teeters on the edge of
collapse, as do the three main figures that it follows: Marty Greenbaum, a performance artist whose search for
meaning through art mirrors Frank's own search; Billy, a mentally-ill Bowery resident suffering from paranoid
fantasies that people are reading his thoughts and directly confronting Frank's voyeurism "I'm giving you my
innermost thoughts ... that's invading my privacy," a statement complicated by Billy's belief that the TV-program
"Marcus Welby, M.D." is constructing episodes around his life, something Frank is actually doing; and Frank's son
Pablo, who appears with his shirt off, exposed to a camera that is unable to decipher meaning from his free-flowing
non-sequiturs, statements that all seem to revolve around uncontrollable disaster and unexplainable phenomena
(UFOs, floods, lightning. Biblical references).
The film begins with images of Andrea discussing her future in Conversation in Vermont and Danny Seymour
passing a joint in Cocksucker Blues. At one point we see Frank hold up his own photographs and a sign reading
"words" while Greenbaum is yelling (although not at Frank directly): "I think you're really pathetic, and I think this
is really stupid and boring. That a man goes as long as you've gone to do something this trite, to make such a
fucking artificial scene like this and think you're actually doing something of consequence!" The art making process
is indicted, and Frank himself is ironically positioned when a photography class is stumbled onto and Greenbaum
asks them to name five important photographers. When Robert Frank isn't mentioned, Greenbaum starts in: "What
about Frank Roth? Robert? To be Frank ... to be ... to be ... Johnny Frank Eskimo ... Robert Frank. Does that mean a
bell ... ring a bell?" Most of the class has no clue about whom he speaks except for one woman. From there the film
cuts to Pablo and Frank grappling to communicate, the camera moving in close, the father trying to understand who
his son is, the son remarking, "Job 38:22," The Biblical reference the film cites at its conclusion offers little insight.
And the dance continues ...
n
g San Francisco Cinematheque
Robert Frank FilmA^ideography:
PullMy Daisy (1958); The Sin of Jesus (1961); OK End Here (1963); Me and My Brother (1965-68); Conversations
in Vermont (1969); Lifeaft Earth (1969); About Me: A Musical (1971); Cocksucker Blues (1972); Thb Fdm Is
About.. (1973); Keep Busy (\97 5); Life Dances On... (\9%Q); Energy, and How to Get It (\9%\); This Song for Jack
(1983); Home Improvements (1985) video; Candy Mountain (1987); Hunter (1989); C'est VraiH (One Hour) (1990)
\\d&i; Last Supper (\991); Present (\996) video; Flamingo (1997) video
Special thanks to Marianne Lundz at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Brian Gordon
at the San Francisco International Film Festival for making this screening possible; and also to Dalva and
La Mediterranee for reception donations.
Program Notes written and compiled by Jeff Lambert
PANDORA'S SCREENS
Kerry Laitala and Pabio de Ocampo In Person
A program of experimental work co-presented by the 41st San Francisco International Film Festival, the
Pacific Film Archive and San Francisco Cinematheque, curated by Kathy Geritz and Irina Leimbacher
Sunday, May 3, 1 9 9 8 — Kab uki T h e a t e r— 7 : 3 0 p m
San Francisco Cinematheque and the Pacific Film Archive present a program of seven recent experimental films
which share a fascination with troubled images, letting loose on the screen disquieting and mysterious resonances
and perturbing our relationship to the seen.
Retrospectroscope (1997) by Kerry Laitala; 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 minutes
Retrospectroscope is an homage to the imaginary forces that lie beyond the ability of language to define. The
"Retrospectroscope" apparatus itself has gone through many incarnations, and its physical presence belies the
processes that created it. As a paracinematic device, it traces an evolutionary trajectory, encircling the viewer in a
procession of flickering fantasies of fragmented lyricism. This reinvention simulates the illusion of the analysis of
motion to recall early mysteries of the quest for this very discovery now taken for granted; the "Muses of Cinema"
have emerged from a dark Neoclassical past. (KL)
Vervielfaltigung (1996) by James Otis; 16mm, b&w, sound, 4 minutes
Sheldon's neigh crackpot body typing method based on the superficially convincing fiction of universal endo-, ecto-,
and mesomorphic components of the human form, [and h]is decades of obsessive recording gave us standardized
pictures of 1200 individuals in his Atlas of Men, obvious animation fodder. ... [T]he resultant shooting script was
from the start also designed to produce the soundtrack. Further computer programs turned the coordinates of bodily
form into notes. ... Thus each point in Sheldon's parameter space implies a type of human and, by my contrivance, a
musical chord. That is, what you hear is intimately related to what you see. (JO)
if you stand with your back to the slowing of the speed of light in water (1997) by Julie Murray; 16mm, color,
sound, 1 8 minutes
This film attempts allusions to the influence of water touching water (and other fractual equivalents) upon the
ordinary confounding anxiety of complex relations, mannerisms, and exchange between the animate and the inert.
Combined with loose ascriptions of flaws in the medium itself to subject and content throughout, it aims to
illuminate a vital sense innate to perception where inversion is counterbalance, and focal myopia the articulation of
space. (JM)
36
Program Notes 1998
Sewn (1997) by Pablo de Ocampo; color, silent, 4 minutes
Sewn is a film of memory and associations; it is the detail of the personal mixed with the ambiguity and randomness
of memories that are clearly not mine. The lack of a detailed memory of pictures, places, and events clouds the
image that is seen on the screen. There is a difference between what is seen and what is perceived; in this film I am
attempting to marry the two — sewing together the abstractions of thought and emotional perception with images
fi-om a past. (PdO)
Imprint {\997) by Louise Bourque; 16mm, color, sound, 14 minutes
An obsession, a fleeting image, a longing: the concept of the home as a romanticized, idealized place of intimacy,
insistently inhabiting the most private sphere, the territory of memory, dream, and fantasy. (LB)
ImmerZu (1997) by Janie Geiser; 16mm, b&w, sound, 9 minutes
Immer Zu is an elliptical, experimental animated film which evokes a mysterious undercover world of secret
messages, cryptic language, and indecipherable codes. ... In this dark and richly atmospheric film, with a soundtrack
collaged from several film noirs, meaning is constantly covered and uncovered in a shadowed journey toward
eclipse. (JG)
The Five Bad Elements (1997) by Mark LaPore; 16mm, b&w, sound, 32 minutes
A filmic Pandora's Box full of my version of "trouble" (death, loss, cultural imperialism) as well as the trouble with
representation as incomplete understanding. (ML)
Founded by two Bay Area filmmakers in 1961, San Francisco Cinematheque is one of the oldest showcases for
non-commercial, personal, and experimental film in the United States. Striving to make experimental film and video
a part of the larger cultural landscape. Cinematheque presents over seventy programs each year, with artists present
at many of the screenings; publishes program notes and a journal. Cinematograph; and regularly collaborates with a
number of other arts organizations including the Museum of Modem Art in New York, the San Francisco
International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. For
more information or to become a member, give us a call at (415) 558-8129.
The Pacific Film Archive is celebrating its 22nd year as one of the world's most important film archives, film
studies centers, and exhibitors of film art. Their exhibition program offers a wide variety of world cinema from its
earliest days through the present, highlighted by prints of exceptional quality, with different public screenings
almost every night of the year. They have one of the finest archival programs devoted to the preservation of
experimental film. For more information or to become a member, call (510) 642-1412.
ROBERT FRANK: EARLY FICTIONS
Presented in association with the San Francisco International Film Festival
Thursday, May 7 , 1998 — Y e r b a B u e n a Center For the Arts — 7:30pm
I'm always looking outside, trying to look inside. Trying to tell something that's true. But maybe nothing is
true. Except what's out there, and what's out there is always changing. (Robert Frank, Home
Improvements)
There he is. There you are, and where you are in relation to where he is shapes you, shapes him. Robert Frank's films
sing out what it means to be there, wherever there may be: New York, Switzerland, Canada, Vermont, America. A
seemingly lyrical randomness confronts you, and you wade through this man's life, this man's obsessions, and before
you know it you've learned less about him than you have about yourself. Whether trafficking his autobiographical
portraits or constructing fictional spaces from which to explore, Robert Frank's visionary America haunts and confronts.
Bom in Switzerland in 1924, Frank worked as a commercial photographer before a Guggenheim fellowship in 1955
37
San Francisco Cinematheque
allowed him to turn his lens on America as he saw it. In 1958 his famous book of photographs, The Americans, was
published piercing America with a black-and-white stare, her citizens mingling with images of juke-boxes and cars,
poetic and immediate. With an introduction by his traveling companion, Jack Kerouac: "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," The Americans established Frank as one of the
most important photographers of the post-war era. His next project was a series of photographs of strangers taken from
tiie windows of New York city buses; as one looks at Frank's photos one recognizes a restless drive towards movement,
recurring obsessions and concerns (automobiles, transportation, music, tiie lost and lonely), and ultimately one is faced
with a singular vision and its increasing kineticism. Frank responded to his need to keep moving in 1959 when he picked
up a movie camera and made his first film Pull My Daisy with Alfred Leslie and a number of Beat Generation hipsters.
/ became more occupied with my own life, with my own situation, instead of traveling and looking at the
cities and the landscape. And I think that brought me to move away from the single image and begin to
film, where I had to tell a story. (Rf )
Regarded as one of the key films in the American independent film movement. Pull My Daisy inaugurates a cinematic
style that appears improvisational and free, yet is constructed with grace and control. Whether dealing in
autobiography, documentary, fiction or a fusion of Aese, Frank finds a style to fit his films, sometimes approaching
free-form organization {Keep Busy, Life Dances On..., Conversations in Vermont) and sometimes sustaining a rigorous
formal elegance {OK End Here, Candy Mountain). But in whatever mode he works, Frank appears to expose himself
totally, and in doing so exposes his viewers to themselves, brutally confronting their own relation to a life and vision
that refijses to be ignored. Tonight San Francisco Cinematheque presents its second of three programs of Robert
Frank's work, focusing on some of his best-known early fictions, Pull My Daisy, OK End Here, and Keep Busy.
Pull My Daisy (1959); 16mm, b&w, sound, 28 minutes
Launching us into the world of beat sensibility. Pull My Daisy presents us with narration by Jack Kerouac that
conflicts and contrasts with the portrait of middle America presented in the first shot. A mother prepares her son for
school, but voices are supplied by Kerouac, and June Cleaver is a far from this vision of the fifties. The film is based
on an actual incident that occurred during a visit by Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso to Neal Cassady's
house, and here "the beaver" is portrayed by Robert Frank's son, Pablo, adding multiple layers of reality and
autobiography to the proceedings. While Pablo heads out to have his head filled with facts and figures and the
American way, a pair of beer-swilling poets (Ginsberg and Corso) pop up for a day-long bullshit session, killing
time and, like Pablo, waiting 'til the father comes home. The style switches from slow pans around the home in the
opening shot to chaotic movement that mirrors the poets' ramblings. More friends arrive and when Pop finally
shows up and finds his pot-smoking pals lingering about his domestic kingdom, he warns them to behave because
there is going to be a visit from the bishop. The bishop arrives and the questions are thrown at him furiously: "Is
baseball holy?" The exuberance of this little male group is darkened by its ultimately patriarchal leanings, and as
Kerouac provides the voice for the wife it seems to clash with her deportment, creating an unbridgeable chasm
between image and sound that suggests an underlying sadness. This sadness is heightened by Frank's knack at
shooting some of the most beautifiil black-and-white images, squeezing all the life out of this lifeless abode and
filling it with music that exists both in Kerouac's narration and a slowly pumped, rocking organ.
OK End Here (1963); 35mm, b&w, sound, 30 minutes
A man and a woman are married and alienated. Capitalizing on art house stylings of the Antonioni/Godard variety,
Frank's film captures a couple in flux, but unlike his European counterparts Frank is firmly situating a particularly
American angst. Inability to communicate is represented by a medium shot of the couple as they sit on opposite ends
of the couch staring ahead at the television set. Where Pull My Daisy suggests alienation lying under a facade of
hey-man-hipness, OK End Here pours it on thick and struggles to pull us out of it, to provide a glimpse of hope. A
dinner companion of the couple reads a torturously personal letter from her ex-husband; no one listens, until on the
verge of a seemingly eminent psychological collapse, she gets up and runs out of the restaurant, allowing the
inaudible chit-chat to continue and leaving no trace of emotional residue. At another point a family is seen outdoors.
The father is taking home movies and the son refuses to obey his father's prompts to move forward, declaring, "I
don't want my picture took." Echoes of Frank's life resonate, and it is as if the boy (portrayed by Frank's son,
Pablo) is refusing to enter the stylized suffocation of OK End Here. The wife in the film, however, enters their home
movies as the frame is made small and the openness of this scene clearly point to a stylistic ideal of freedom and
space, albeit in miniature.
38
Program Notes 1998
Keep Busy (1975); 16mm, b&w, sound, 38 minutes
Collaborating with the neglected but brilliant screenwriter and novelist Rudy Wuriitzer, Robert Frank made this film
near his home in Nova Scotia. Using an ironic view of myth and prevailing sense of the absurd, the film tells the
story of a small community residing on a harsh stretch of beach in ramshackle dwellings. They are supervised by a
pompous and dictatorial lighthouse keeper who relays their duties via a retarded parrot of a messenger who
dysfunctionally relays them to a head woman who passes them to the people in the shack who usually seem to get it
wrong anyway. Communication is practically impossible as the people struggle to prepare themselves for a future
that is nothing more than more preparing for the future. The lighthouse keeper stands on his porch with a radio, the
only outlet to the outside world, and selectively dishes out tidbits of important information: "Tell them winter is
coming." But messages get lost and distorted as they head down the chain, causing what appears to be rebellion; the
people disregard their duties and even knock out parts of the shack, but the next day it is said to have been fixed. In
this world of the technologically deprived, the radio and lighthouse take on a godlike status, instructing and
controlling. Maddeningly hilarious. Keep Busy suggests a portrait of humans as habitual creatures reliant and
subservient to things outside their sphere of comprehension. Spiraling into a Beckett-like sense of emptiness, the
film also includes documentary interludes that present the actual inhabitants of Cape Breton who exist in striking
contrast to the comically despairing characters in the film.
A frequent collaborator of Robert Frank's, Rudy Wuriitzer also worked with Frank on Energy, and How to Get It
and Candy Mountain. He wrote the novels Nog, Slow-Fade, and Flats. He also wrote screenplays for such classic
seventies narrative films as Two-Lane Blacktop, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, and Glen & Randa. He also worked
with Alex Cox on Walker and Straight to Hell.
Robert Frank Film/Videography:
Pull My Daisy (1959); The Sin of Jesus (1961); OK End Here (1963); Me and My Brother (1965-68); Conversations
in Vermont (1969); Liferaft Earth (1969); About Me: A Musical (1971); Cocksucker Blues (1972); This Film Is
About.. (1973); Keep Busy (1975); Life Dances On.„ (1980); Energy, and How to Get It (1981); This Song for Jack
(1983); Home Improvements (1985) video; Candy Mountain (1987); Hunter (1989); C'est VraiH (One Hour) (1990)
v'vifx; Last Supper {\992); Present {1996) video; Flamingo (1997) video
Special thanks to Marianne Lundz at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Brian Gordon
at the San Francisco International Film Festival for helping to make these screenings possible.
Program Notes written and compiled by Jeff Lambert
ROBERT FRANK: DOCUMENTS AND MORE
Presented in association with the San Francisco International Film Festival
Sunday, May 10, 1 9 9 8 — S an Francisco Art Institute— 7:30pm
I'm always looking outside, trying to look inside. Trying to tell something that's true. But maybe nothing is
true. Except what's out there, and what's out there is always changing. (Robert Frank, Home
Improvements)
There he is. There you are, and where you are in relation to where he is shapes you, shapes him. Robert Frank's
films sing out what it means to be there, wherever there may be: New York, Switzerland, Canada, Vermont,
America. A seemingly lyrical randomness confronts you, and you wade through this man's life, this man's
obsessions, and before you know it you've learned less about him than you have about yourself Whether trafficking
his autobiographical portraits or constructing fictional spaces from which to explore, Robert Frank's visionary
America haunts and confronts. Born in Switzerland in 1924, Frank worked as a commercial photographer before a
^
San Francisco Cinematheque
Guggenheim fellowship in 1955 allowed him to turn his lens on America as he saw it. In 1958 his famous book of
photographs, The Americans, was published piercing America with a black-and-white stare, her citizens mingling
with images of juke-boxes and cars, poetic and immediate. With an introduction by his traveling companion. Jack
Kerouac: "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," The Americans
established Frank as one of the most important photographers of the post-war era. His next project was a series of
photographs of strangers taken from the windows of New York city buses; as one looks at Frank's photos one
recognizes a restless drive towards movement, recurring obsessions and concerns (automobiles, transportation,
music, the lost and lonely), and ultimately one is faced with a singular vision and its increasing kineticism. Frank
responded to his need to keep moving in 1959 when he picked up a movie camera and made his first film Pull My
Daisy with Alfred Leslie and a number of Beat Generation hipsters.
/ became more occupied with my own life, with my own situation, instead of traveling and looking at the
cities and the landscape. And I think that brought me to move away from the single image and begin to
film, where I had to tell a story. (RF)
Regarded as one of the key films in the American independent film movement. Pull My Daisy inaugurates a
cinematic style that appears improvisational and free, yet is constructed with grace and control. Whether dealing in
autobiography, documentary, fiction or a fusion of these, Frank finds a style to fit his films, sometimes approaching
free-form organization (Keep Busy, Life Dances On..., Conversations in Vermont) and sometimes sustaining a
rigorous formal elegance {OK End Here, Candy Mountain). But in whatever mode he works, Frank appears to
expose himself totally, and in doing so exposes his viewers to themselves, brutally confronting their own relation to
a life and vision that refuses to be ignored. Tonight San Francisco Cinematheque presents its final of three programs
of Robert Frank's work, focusing on three films that fuse documentary, autobiography, and fiction in complex and
fascinating ways.
Liferaft Earth (1969); 16mm, b&w, sound, 37 minutes
"From October 11 to 17, 1969, a group of people fasted in a parking lot in Hayward, California (and later at the
Portola Institute, near Oakland) to dramatize the problem of world hunger and malnutrition. Robert Frank made this
documentary about idealism and interpersonal politics involved in the event at the request of Stewart Brand,
publisher of Whole Earth Catalog, and Hugh Romney (Wavy Gravy), leader of the legendary Hog Farm commune
and participant in the infamous acid tests.
"The 'Hunger Show' (or 'Liferaft Earth,' as it came to be called, named for the inflatable wall that separated the
fasters from bystanders) was both a political protest and a theatrical event, of the sort practiced by Julian Beck's
Living Theater in New York or the Diggers in San Francisco. The first shot of the film, of a newspaper headline
about the event and an American flag to the side with the legend 'fly your flag today,' establishes Frank's interest in
the demonstration. Designed to call broad media attention to the causes and long-term effects of overpopulation and
malnutrition, the fast is more notable to Frank as an act of direct democracy in which people make their opinions
known. The 'liferaft' is both a framework for the ideas to evolve and a platform to express those ideas." (National
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)
This Song For Jack (1983); 16mm, b&w, sound, 30 minutes
"This Song for Jack is a documentary about '0« the Road: The Jack Kerouac Conference,' held at the Naropa
Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in July 1982. Encouraged by Allen Ginsberg to record this event commemorating the
publication of Kerouac's best known work, Frank attended and made a quiet resonant film about people's memories
of the writer and the man. Instead of showing the scheduled public events, such as speeches and panels, he primarily
filmed what happened behind the scenes." (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)
/ met Jack Kerouac on a hot summer night — a party in New York City. We sat down on the sidewalk, I
showed Jack the photographs for The Americans. He said, "Sure I can write something about these
pictures. " (RF, The Lines on My Hand)
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Program Notes 1998
Hunter (1989); 16nim, b&w and color, sound, 37 minutes
Sometimes you look out of the window and there the landscape has changed and you get the feeling that
maybe you missed your destination, maybe you chose the wrong road — and then you want to stop .... /
know nothing of the Ruhr or Germany, I have to send out the Hunter. Because the Hunter is a mystery so
far. (Rf , in the press release for Hunter)
Part travelogue, part existential quest. Hunter follows its title character through an industrialized area of Germany; his
is a confused and bemused journey that intersects with numerous characters whose lives are shaped by German history
as well as the German present. Driving in his car, Hunter picks up a music student who explains his projected
composition blending sounds from nature and sounds of industrialization: "Stockhausen without all the mystical
bullshit." Not a moment too soon. Hunter orders the student out of the car, and continues on his journey. He continues
to speak English, his language, confronting the people he meets with its difference, establishing him as an outsider. A
Moroccan worker remarks that the German oppression of Jews has been replaced by the oppression of Turks. Later, he
meets a woman selling figurines of Elvis and Hitler along with busts of "all the great ones." Next, he tries to wrangle a
freebie from a prostitute who informs him that she can't do it for free because "it's a business." The next scene has him
taking money from a bank and discussing the nature of capital with a banker; an economic climate based on
exploitation and profit reveals itself to be the possible replacement for a culture assumed to have been based on racial
hatred. When Hunter enters a classroom of laughing children, he asks the teacher why these boys grow up to be so
tough. Cut to a classroom of older students, and the question they are posed with is: "What is myth?" and one
recognizes the Hunter grappling with the same question as he stumbles through this land that refuses to grant him easy
answers about the future represented by these stammering students.
Robert Frank FilmA^ideography:
Pull My Daisy (1959); The Sin of Jesus (1961); OK End Here (1963); Me and My Brother (1965-68); Conversations
in Vermont (1969); Liferaft Earth (1969); About Me: A Musical (1971); Cocksucker Blues (1972); This Him Is
About.. (1973); Keep Busy (1975); Life Dances On.- (1980); Energy, and How to Get It (1981); This Song for Jack
(1983); Home Improvements (1985) video; Candy Mountain (1987); Hunter (1989); C'est VraiH (One Hour) (1990)
video; Last Supper (1992); Present (1996) video; Flamingo (1997) video
Special thanks to Marianne Lundz at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Brian Gordon
at the San Francisco International Film Festival for helping to make these screenings possible.
Program Notes written and compiled by Jeff Lambert
FILMSTORIES 1:
DZIGA VERTOV & THREE SONGS OF LENIN
Thursday, May 14, 1998—Yerba Buena Center for the Arts— 7:30pm
We proclaim the old films, based on the romance, theatrical films and the like, to be leprous.
— Keep away from them!
— Keep your eyes off them!
— They 're mortally dangerous
— Contagious!
WE affirm the future of cinema art by denying its present.
(Dziga Vertov, from "We: Variant of a Manifesto," 1922)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
In the Land of Cinema Veterans: A Film Expedition Around Dziga Vertov (1996) by Thomas Tode and Ale Mufioz;
16mm, b&w and color, sound, 86 minutes
"A film about the great cineaste Dziga Vertov, the poetic-revolutionary filmmaker who, with his Kino-eye theory
and films such as The Man with the Movie Camera (1929) and Enthusiasm (1931), impressed a clear stamp on film
history. Filmmakers Thomas Tode and Ale Mufioz approach Vertov from the present in their documentary portrait
of this revolutionary Soviet filmmaker. They traveled by train to Moscow, not only because Vertov loved trains, but
also so they could mix his train shots with their own. And of course so they could tell the legendary story of the agit-
prop trains: the mobile cinemas with which Bolshevik filmmakers traveled the Soviet Union in the Twenties to bring
their political ideals to the people.
"In the spirit of Vertov, Tode and Mufioz look around present-day Moscow with the 'kino-eyes,' focusing on
phenomena that can illustrate social change. Their travelogue is continually focused on getting to know more about
Vertov while also showing contemporary Russia. In this idiosyncratic combination, this film distinguishes itself
from the traditional portraits of great filmmakers and of journalistic reports on the social situation of a land in crisis.
For instance, the filmmakers talk to Vertov's cameraman Jakov Tolchan and to Russian Vertov researcher Viktor
Listov. The film comprises many well-selected film fragments from the oeuvre of Vertov and there are plenty of
quotes from the film manifestos Vertov wrote." (^Rotterdam Film Festival Catalogue)
Three Songs of Lenin (1934) by Dziga Vertov; 16mm, b&w, sound, 62 minutes
I remember my debut in the cinema. It was quite odd. It involved not my filming but my jumping one-and-a-half
stories from a summer house beside a grotto at no.7 Malyi Gnezdnikovsky Lane.
The cameraman was ordered to record my jump in such a way that my entire fall, my facial expression, all my
thoughts, etc., would be seen. I went up to the grotto's edge, jumped off, gestured as with a veil, and went on. ...
From the viewpoint of the ordinary eye you see untruth. From the viewpoint of the cinematic eye (aided by special
cinematic means, in this case, accelerated shooting) you see the truth. If it's a question of reading someone's
thoughts at a distance (and often what matters to us is not to hear a person's words but to read his thoughts) then you
have the opportunity right here. It has been revealed by the kino-eye.
It is possible, by means of the kino-eye to remove a man's mask, to obtain a bit of kinopravda. And it was the
revelation of just this truth, by all the means available to me, that I designated as my entire future path in cinema.
Speaking symbolically, can't we find a similar "leap" here in Three Songs of Lenin? Yes. It's present if only in the
woman shock-worker. Why does she have an effect? Because she's good at acting? Nothing of the kind. Because I
got from her what I got from myself during the jump: the synchrony of words and thoughts. (D V, "TTzree Songs of
Lenin and Kino-Eye," 1934)
OUT OF THE TIME CLOSET 1
LARRY GOTTHEIM
Sunday, May 17, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
The 1970s was a richly productive period for avant-garde filmmaking — yielding several major works of
extraordinary scope and complexity — yet all but few remain little-known to this day. Tonight Cinematheque
presents the first in a series of four programs including long films which represent mature and distinctive cinematic
expressions from key figures of those years. Tonight's program focuses on two films by Larry Gottheim. Gottheim's
films explore landscape and space with a formality and rigor to produce images of startling beauty and complexity.
As tenured professor of film at the State University of New York, Binghamton, he helped found the film department
there in the late '60s. Since that time Gottheim has completed a number of films that have been shown in museums
and major film showcases throughout the United States and Europe.
42
Program Notes 1998
Barn Rushes (1971); 16mm, color, silent, 34 minutes
It was the bam itself, the slats, the bam as light-image-maker that so set me going. Each technical problem (what
filming speed, what lens?) called forth a solution that led me into the form of the film. It was the camera itself,
howling for a rewind of its spring afler each sizzling rush of image grabbing (producing, in negative, that serene
bobbing movement) that pushed me out of single shot films (but not into montage editing.) Once having decided to
give each spring-run its distinct territory on the camera roll, I found I had, in microcosm, a structure for the whole
film, each roll linking onto the next in a straightforward linear form. The eight sections are not quite arranged in
chronological order, but are put together (selected from a larger collection of material) so that each makes a
particular contribution to the overall experience. Certain possibilities are amply presented in the first four sections;
the fifth and sixth are crucial to be worked through for the final sections to offer something ecstatically new. ...
Something in the form, I now see, anticipates Mouches Volantes: an urge to deal with continuously transcending
development in a form that appears to have to do with repetition. (LG)
"One of the most elusive dreams which may beset a filmmaker is the wish to spin the finest thread of meaning and
sensation out of the roughest fiber of raw day-to-day vision. The drama of hope which this dream animates is played
out against a stage setting shaded in the direction of formalist mannerism at the one side and in the direction of
narrative signification on the other. And here stage center is Barn Rushes, elegant yet rustic in its simplicity of
execution; tugged gently toward different sides of the set by hints of color and motion interactions, positive and
negative spaces, etc., and the unyielding delivery of one of the great apotheoses of poetic cinema at fade-out time."
(Tony Conrad)
Mouches Volantes (Elective Affinities II) (1976); 1 6mm, b&w and color, sound, 69 minutes
"Larry's film is another that should bear the Nietzschean legend 'Don't understand me too quickly.' It's new
territory and first viewing can only be a tentative getting of one's bearings with it. The first obvious characteristics
of the work, home-movie pictoralism, an up-the-hill/down-the-hill march of the absolutely self-same sound material,
these simple ordering devices only begin to suggest where and how the film is to be experienced; where its real and
unique feeling out of form, event, and meaning is taking place. ...
"For Mouches Volantes the work of Peter Kubelka has really happened; it is premised on acceptance of the level of
demand for significance of image-sound relationship set by Kubelka. The ways it fulfills itself — necessitating the most
profound, sensitized immersion in its materials by the artist and now by its audience — are astonishing, glorious, deeply
moving, and ennobling. It helps to know the people pictured in the film are Larry's family, the two older people (on the
beach) his parents. Also helpful, the attitudes that challenge one's capacity for adaptation may be, along with the
opportunity for commune, what's most interesting and valuable in art." (Ken Jacobs)
Three elements, at first quite independent, struck me so deeply, were brought together: this title which suggested so
much to me; this narration by Angelina Johnson of the story of the life of her husband Blind Willie Johnson; and
groups of visual material, light fragments from my own world and preoccupations. As in Horizons I worked to
discover relationships between shots, so in Mouches Volantes I sought out and attempted to bring to light pre-
existing but not consciously planned relationships between the visual imagery and the fixed (in three sound "shots")
verbal-musical aural flow.
Thus a film of relationships — formal ones, between word and image, sound and image, image and image, one formal
section and another of these twice-seven units; elusive floating fragments of narrative, relationships among people
and motifs related to me and among those from another person's life and its relationships. As in all my films, the
basic processes of cinema, the exposing of film stock to light, here the stringing together of linear patterns of sound
and image, become metaphors, embodiments of acts of coming to feel, coming to know. The external arrangement
of material allows discoveries to be made that have to do with a flow of images, purely visual, and this "same" flow
of vision transformed by its marriage with sound. The film, very far from a traditional sound narrative, still has
much to do with the essence of cinema narrative. Words, images, sounds, light, flows of energy leaping and
cavorting in consciousness, taking form. A celebration of elusive relationships. (LG)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
FILMSTORIES 2:
LUIS BUNUEL: A MEXICAN BUNUEL AND NAZARIN
Thursday, May 21, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
After a shocking debut with his outrageous film, Un Chien Andalou (in collaboration with Salvador Dali), Luis
Bunuel's rightful place alongside fellow Spanish geniuses Dali and Garcia Lorca was established, but came to a
premature end in the tumult of Franco's rise to power and the spread of fascism throughout Europe. After a miserable
relocation to the U.S. and finally Mexico, he shattered nearly two decades of silence with the release of Los Ohidados
in 1950, arguably his true "debuf as a director. Its appearance so shocked a society unaware of, or refusing to see, the
poverty and disenchantment of contemporary Mexico City that the nation feverishly debated the censorship of both the
film and the director. A brief six-day run in Mexican theaters was a deceptive precursor to the critical acclaim Los
Ohidados would achieve at Cannes and its subsequent recognition as one of the great films of International Cinema.
While living mainly in Mexico between 1946 and 1965, Bunuel directed such classics as El, The Criminal Life of
Archibaldo de la Cruz, The Exterminating Angel, Simon of the Desert, and one of his personal favorites, Nazarin.
Tonight, Cinematheque salutes Buiiuers prolific Mexican years with Emilio Maille's recent documentary on Bunuel's
Mexican years followed by a rare screening of his 1958 Nazarin.
A Mexican Bunuel (1997) by Emilio Maille; video, color, sound, 56 minutes
In the desert of Mexico, a toppled one-ton stone column lays on the property of a peasant landowner. It is a remnant
from Luis Buiiuel's 1965 film Simon of the Desert, and it stands not as a monument to the great director's work but,
rather, as an obstacle to the landowner's plough. Bunuel may not be regarded primarily as one of the great Mexican
directors, but his years of filmmaking while in Mexico, where he made 21 films, were vital to his own development
as one of cinema's most brilliant, mature directors.
Emilio Maille takes his camera to Mexico to explore those particular elements of Bufiuel's Mexican films that were
relevant to both Mexican culture and to world cinema. Starting with Buiiuel's acclaim as the darling of Surrealism in
the '30s and his subsequent escape to America (including a doomed position as the supervisor of Spanish-language
dubbing for Warner Bros.), Maille arrives in Mexico to find some of Bunuel's colleagues, critics, friends, and fringe
characters. In reminiscences by his longtime collaborator, screenwriter Luis Alcoriza; his wife, Jeanne; actress Silvia
Pinal (Viridiana, The Exterminating Angel, Simon of the Desert); and even the peasant landowner, we discover a
complex, brilliant, and uncompromising man who stuck to his own ideas, establishing himself as a director of
immense aesthetic and social value. A Mexican Bunuel is also filled with archival interviews with Buiiuel and rarely-
seen photographs and footage (including excerpts fi-om Bunuel's two Mexican commercial films and the recently
discovered "other" ending of Los Ohidados). Luis Bunuel remains one of the great artists of the 20th century as
well as a tireless critic of the hypocrisy and absurdity of both the Church and the bourgeoisie. Emilio Maille has
created an informative, inspiring portrait of his seminal years as a Mexican filmmaker.
Nazarin (1958) by Luis Bunuel; 16mm print, b&w, sound, 85 minutes
I am very attached to Nazarin. He is a priest. He could be as well a hairdresser or a waiter. What interests me about
him is that he stands by his ideas, that these ideas are unacceptable to society at large, and that after his adventures
with prostitutes, thieves and so forth, they lead him to being irrevocably damned by the prevailing social order. (Luis
Bufiuel, in an interview by Georges Sadoul, "Les Lettres Fran9aises," June 1961)
Bufiuel's tale is of a Christ among sinners who, for all his selfless piety, gets nothing ... often less than nothing.
After being cast out of his village and the Church for hiding a prostitute convicted of murder, Father Nazario
(Francisco Rabal) takes to the road on a pilgrimage to do God's will, following Christ's example of living in poverty
and turning the other cheek. Yet like Sade's Justine, his good intentions are only met with misfortune. He attempts
an honest day's work in exchange for a meal and sparks off a workers' riot. Consoling a plague-stricken woman at
her deathbed with God's word, the priest only incenses her and her lover, who is intent on a more erotic good-bye.
In a brilliant scene, one of his followers confesses her love for him as he becomes fixated on a snail crawling up his
hand. In the nuances of Nazario's oblivious relation to the world, Bunuel comments on fanaticism at the price of true
compassion. It is Nazario, by the end of his journey, who must accept that his survival is less dependent on his faith
in God, than his faith in Man.
44
Program Notes 1998
Nazarin is adapted from a novel by Spanish writer Benito Perez Galdos (1843-1920), who also wrote Tristana and
who has been compared to Tolstoy, Balzac, or Dickens minus the sentimentality. Bufiuel, however, transfers the action
from Spain to Mexico at the turn of the century when tiie Porforio Diaz dictatorship was in power with the support of
the landowning class. According to Swiss film historian Freddy Buache, Nazarin may seem at first a faithful adaptation
of Galdos' novel, but in fact Bufiuel completely changes the overall meaning and integrates the film into his own
personal universe. "What is so striking about the poor, resourceless Nazarin is no longer his exemplary humility, his
devotion to Christ, or his practical experience of faith, nor even his redeeming taste of suffering, but his uselessness, his
masochism, and the harmful effects of his activity. The final sequence, which is open to any number of interpretations,
is both the most intensely disturbing and at the same time the most revealing if one takes the trouble to see it in the
context of the director's overall poetic terms of reference." (Freddy Buache, The Cinema of Luis Bunuel)
What is your life worth, Father? You are on the good path, I'm on the bad path ...we 're both useless, (from Nazarin)
Program Notes written and compiled by Christian Bruno
FILMSTORIES 3:
JONAS MEKAS' BIRTH OF A NATION
Thursday, May 28, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
My experience watching Jonas Mekas shoot film has been almost exclusively as a guest at his table. Dinner
is prepared; children and guests gather. When there is a gap in the work to be done, or in a moment of
sheer enthusiasm, Mekas will pick up his Bolex, ready right there, loaded with a film in the making, and
rattle off frames, a few or many. (Marjorie Keller)
Jonas Mekas, the "raving maniac of the cinema," was bom "just before sunrise" in Lithuania, 1922. He gained a
reputation as a great poet, but was captured by Nazis in 1944. After escaping from a work camp, his brother Adolfas and
he were to spend the next few years as displaced persons, moving fix>m various refiigee camps before finally making it to
New York City in 1949. Mekas went on to become an enthusiastic advocate of the New American Cinema as well as one
of its most seminal filmmakers. Mekas has spent his life as a staunch supporter and promoter of experimental film, first
as editor and co-creator of Film Culture in 1955, which went on to devote itself to experimental film, and then to the
Villiage Voice where he passionately praised the work of emerging artist in his "Movie Journal" column, starting in
1958, and continuing into the late '70s. From there Mekas went on to create Anthology Film Archives in 1970, one of
the first establishments to serve as a film archive as well as a center for experimental film exhibition. Mekas created tfie
Film-Makers' Cooperative in 1 962, set up to enable filmmakers to rent their films and receive rental fees.
/ really live only in my editing room. Or when I film. The rest of my life is slavery. But I am afraid that most
of my early material — and my early films too — are fading, going. It would take about forty thousand dollars
to preserve my films. That's a lot of money. Money — or dust. Money against the dust of time into which all
our works eventually disappear. (JM)
Mekas first began filmmaking with Guns of the Trees, an experimental narrative, before documenting the Living
Theatre's off-off-Broadway production of The Brig. He then began work on a series of diary films composed of
documents of his daily life including portraits of friends and artists called. Diaries, Notes & Sketches. His famous
words, "1 make home movies — therefore I live, I live — therefore I make home movies," evoke a love of film that
enables a profound and gentle love of life combined with a tremendous desire to capture the intersection of the two.
Mekas began to carry his camera everywhere and created in-camera films which became closer to his poetry from
Lithuania in their use of his idiosyncratic vision combined with the wonderful sounds he collects: everything from
boats to the sound of trees, children playing to performances of the Velvet Underground. The films are often
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San Francisco Cinematheque
portraits of people, or things that are important to him and have touched him in some way. Tonight San Francisco
Cinematheque is pleased to present Mei<as' latest film, a portrait of the true independent cinema before it fades and
as it reinvents itself.
Birth of a Nation (1997); 16mm, color, sound, 85 minutes
''Birth of a Nation is a sort of visual encyclopedia composed of 160 portraits of independent, avant-garde, and
militant directors, shot from 1955 to 1996. The film is structured impressionistically, filled with fleeting apparitions,
sketches, and stolen glances. It's centered on the directors, artists, actors, and their friends who contributed to their
development of independent cinema. A 'cinematic constellation' slowly emerges from the poetic collage which, as
in Mekas' other films, tries to resist the Hollywood-style cine-spectacle. Concerning the title of his film which refers
to the pioneer of American cinema, D.W. Griffith, Mekas declares: 'Why Birth of a Nation? Because the film
independents is a nation in itself. We are surrounded by the commercial cinema nation in the same way the
indigenous people of the United States or of any other country are surrounded by the Ruling Powers. We are the
invisible, but essential nation of cinema. We are the cinema.' Mekas also takes us on a journey across the memory of
the century, rewriting his own history of the cinema after the war. We meet personalities coming from the exiled
director's varied horizons: Henri Langlois, the founder of the Cinematheque Fran9aise; Robert Frank, friend of the
New American Cinema Group; Ana Karina of Godard fame; Andy Warhol, the bard of Pop-Art; Roberto Rosselini,
director of modernity; Allen Ginsberg, to whom Mekas has dedicated a video; Hans Richter, dada artist; Stan
Brakhage, experimental cine-poet; Nelly Kaplan, provocative feminist director, and many others ...." (Locarno Film
Festival Program Guide, 1997)
Program Notes written and compiled by Matthew Swiezynski
OUT OF THE TIME CLOSET 2:
JOYCE WIELAND
Introduced by Janis Crystal Lipzin
Sunday, May 31, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
The 1970s was a richly productive period for avant-garde filmmaking — yielding several major works of extraordinary
scope and complexity — ^yet most remain little-known to this day. Tonight Cinematheque presents the second in a series
of four programs including long films which represent mature and distinctive cinematic expressions from key figures of
those years. Tonight's program features two films by Canadian filmmaker Joyce Wieland.
Art writer Lucy Lippard has said: "Joyce Wieland is one of those wild cards that saves the contemporary art world
from its straight and narrow conformity to an institutionalized 'wildness.'"
Bom in 1931 in Toronto, her great grandfather was a clown; her father and uncles were in Pantomime and Music
Hall. In 1955 she joined Graphic Films, an animated film company directed by George Dunning who later made
Yellow Submarine. Her first job there was to animate Niagara Falls. Her early personal films were parodies of tea
commercials and her first painting exhibition was in 1959 at Isaacs Gallery in Toronto. When she and husband
Michael Snow moved to New York in 1962 they were more a part of the music and underground film scene than the
art scene. She began to make her own 8mm films after seeing work by George Kuchar and Jack Smith in 1963. She
said "People were revealing themselves — so much of it was autobiographical. There was a whole cinema language
that people were inventing — without money." By the late 1960s, Wieland says "I was made to feel in no uncertain
terms by a few male filmmakers that I had overstepped my place, that in New York my place was making little films
.... There was a tendency within the avant-garde in terms of writing and criticism to underrate my work because I
wasn't a theoretician. Many of the men were increasingly interested in films about visual theories. I feel there was a
46
Program Notes 1998
downgrading of my work. It didn't get its proper place, its proper consideration." When Wieland moved back to
Canada, in 1971, she became increasingly involved in cultural activism with issues of ecology, feminism, and
Canadian resistance to American imperialism. In 1984 Joyce Wieland was awarded the Order of Canada, the first
woman ever so honored. In 1987, she was honored with a retrospective of her work at the Art Gallery of
Ontario — the first afforded a living Canadian woman artist." (Janis Crystal Lipzin)
"Wieland's work became associated with the shift to the rigorous new way of seeing, the intense, almost philosophical
speculations on cinema itself that came to be described as 'structural' film. Playfiil wit and ironist that she is, Wieland in
particular gives the lie to the impression of austerity that radiates from the label. Her repetitive formats, loops, re-filming,
long takes, and static camera are first at the service of the irreverent, nose-thumbing, Dadaist side of her artistic
personality, strong on a sense of humour that can be ribald or teasingly ironic .... But a second side is simultaneously
present: a side that demands that we re-look at objects, animals, landscjqjes witfi fresh, un-prejudiced eyes, and that gives
us the rich colours and textures of so many of her images." (Simon Field)
Handtinting (1967); 16mm, color, silent, 6 minutes
"Handtinting is the apt title of a film made from outtakes from a Job Corps documentary which features hand-tinted
sections. The film is frill of small movements and actions, gestures begun and never completed. Repeated images,
sometimes in color, sometimes not. A beautifully realized type of chamber music film whose sum-total feeling is
ritualistic." (Robert Cowan, Take One)
La Raison Avant La Passion (1968-69); 16mm, color, sound, 80 minutes
"Trudeau is the only human being treated closely by the film; after him there is only more and more of the numbing
wonder of the extent of the land, but he is all you need. Joyce Wieland's movie, like Canada, is as pure and simple
as a public monument — too simple and direct to ignore, too complex in its approach to simplify for anyone to forget
too long." (Barry Hale, Toronto Star)
"This film is about the pain and joy of living in a very large space: in fact, in a continent. It is painfiil because such
an experience distends the mind, it seems too large for passionate reason to contain. It is joyous, because 'true
patriot love,' a reasonable passion, can contain it after all. But what is remarkable, for me, is that all its urgency is
lucidly caught, bound as it were chemically, in the substance of the film itself, requiring no exterior argument."
(Hollis Frampton)
Joyce Wieland Filmography:
Peggy's Blue Skylight (1965); Water Sark (1966); Handtinting (1967); 1933 (1967); Sailboat (1967); Cat Food
(1967-68); La Raison Avant la Passion (Reason Over Passion) (1968-69); Dripping Water (co-directed with
Michael Snow (1969); Pierre Vallieres (1972); Rat Life and Diet in North America (1973); Solidarity (1973); The
Far Shore (1 975); A and B in Ontario ( 1 984); Birds at Sunrise ( 1 972-85)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
FILMSTORIES 4:
CARL BROWN ON MICHAEL SNOW
BROWNSNOW + SEE YOU LATER
Thursday, June 4, 1998— Verba Buena Center for the Arts— 7:30pm
I am not a professional. My paintings are done by a filmmaker, sculpture by a musician, films by a painter,
music by a filmmaker, paintings by a sculptor, sculpture by a sculptor, films by a filmmaker, music by a
musician. There is a tendency toward purity in all of these media as separate endeavors. (Artist's statement
by Michael Snow, Brownsnow)
Brownsnow (1994) by Carl E. Brown; 16mm, color, sound, 129 minutes
Starring Michael Snow, Bruce Elder, Dennis Reid, Peggy Gale.
See You Later/Au Revoir (1990) by Michael Snow; 16mm, color, sound, 18 minutes
Starring Michael Snow and Peggy Gale.
Brownsnow is an apt title for Carl Brown's 1994 documentary on Michael Snow. Not because it's a crappy film, but
because, as a film. Brown's vision and vocabulary takes precedence over everything. When Brown trots the interviewed
artists and scholars out in front of the camera — Snow traversing a culvert, in and out, back and forth; Bruce Elder with
the gulls out on an icy Lake Ontario waterfront; a dapper Jonas Mekas up a tree — they end up not as talking heads, but as
raw, filmic material waiting to receive a coat of Brown's treatment, to become figures flipping from positive to negative
and back, being filled with or surrounded by lighming explosions of scratches and patches, super-saturated ochres and
mustards, cyans and ceruleans, forest greens and laser-like burgundies. Snow talks about the influence of Matisse, Klee,
Picasso, and Vermeer; perhaps Brown retreats to the lab with visions of Pollack, Frankenthaler, Kline.
The portrait painted by Brownsnow is almost certainly truer and more Canadian than the stereotype held by an
American experimental film audience. Yes, Snow is the maker of canonical experimental films such as Wavelength,
< — > , and La Region Centrale, and these and their historical context come up during Brownsnow. But the closest
we come to seeing Snow's filmwork is some brief footage of the camera pedestal from La Region Centrale doing
duty as a video installation in Ottawa's National Gallery.
The soundtrack alternates interviews witii passages of Snow playing piano and trumpet, solo and in ensemble, the
music fluctuating between raging free jazz and stride-y ragtime, shortwave radio blasts and quiet Partch-like
percussion, standards and amped-up Satie-isms. There's a lot of gallery footage, showing a wide range of installations
that integrate Snow's painting, sculpture, photography and holography, while the interviews help supplement the visuals.
All of this is enlightening when encountered for Ae first time, and a useful jog of the memory if it's been a while.
Most revealing are the meditations on Snow's public art: the dozens of graceful, larger-than-life Canadian geese
suspended in the atrium of the Eaton shopping mall in downtown Toronto and the enormous caricatures of sports fans
nestled into tihe end of a building a few blocks from the CN Tower. Imagine: for a Toronto resident, Michael Snow
would be an artist whose work might be encountered every day, not just experienced in the dark once or twice a year.
On the subject of sports fans and being in the dark: tonight's program concludes with See You Later/Au Revoir, a
1990 work made with a camera normally used for super slow motion replays. The action — thirty seconds in real
time — is extended with the soundtrack to nearly eighteen minutes of screen time. Snow has said that the set is just
supposed to be a regular office; to me, it's one of the more haunted spaces I can recall. With its harsh lighting and
deep shadow, the inexplicable planes of primary colors and checkerboard, the strange shimmering quality of the
high speed shoot, and the groaning soundtrack, my impression has always been that once he goes through that door,
we're never going to see that guy again.
Program Notes written and compiled by Eric Theise
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Program Notes 1998
CANYON CINEMA NIGHT!
A program of recently acquired films from the overflowing shelves of Canyon Cinema,
selected by Irina Leimbacher
Canyon Director Dominic Angerame In Person
Thursday, June 11, 1998 — Y e r b a B ue n a C enter for the Arts — 7:30pm
What do Bruce Conner, Barbara Hammer, Abigail Child, Jay Rosenblatt, Martin Arnold, Craig Baldwin, Su
Friedrich, Matthias Muller, Greta Snider, Kenneth Anger, Scott Stark, Chick Strand, Nicolas Humbert and Werner
Penzel, Peggy Ahwesh, Michael Wallin, Phil Solomon, Janie Geiser, Nathaniel Dorsky, Jennifer Gentile, Mark
LaPore, Ken Jacobs, Stan Brakhage and more than three hundred other filmmakers have in common? They all
distribute their films through Canyon Cinema, one of the oldest and largest distributors of independently-produced
personal and experimental film in the world. With more than 30 years experience, a collection of more than 3,500
films and videotapes spanning over five decades of filmmaking, and membership from most comers of the earth
where people make films. Canyon plays an essential role in promoting, distributing, and preserving independent
cinematic works of art.
Starting as an informal series of avant-garde films projected onto a sheet in filmmaker Bruce Baillie's backyard in
Canyon, California, Canyon Cinema ushered in a time of great hope for independent film art, providing a place
where artists and audiences found support, inspiration and above all, community. By 1961, Canyon Cinematheque
was formed and became the first organization to regularly screen avant-garde film on the west coast, produce a
newsletter, organize production workshops and serve as a nurturing and supportive influence for filmmakers. In the
late sixties the Canyon Cinema Coop was formed as an idealistic alternative to the existing film distribution
structure. Its aim was to serve the needs and visions of filmmakers rather than the whims of the commercial
marketplace, and to function as a truly democratic, non-discriminatory organization which would promote all types
of independently made films, regardless of the social, political, economic, ethnic, and aesthetic backgrounds of their
makers. The exhibition component split off for financial reasons and was renamed San Francisco Cinematheque.
A little over a year ago, when Canyon Cinema had been recommended for an NEA grant to fund their new
distribution catalogue, a comprehensive, archival volume used by potential renters as well as scholars, Republican
Representative Peter Hoekstra pointed to film stills (naked boys?!) and descriptions from the Canyon's previous
catalogue which he claimed were "indecent." Soon thereafter Canyon was notified that their NEA application was
being rejected on the grounds that, since membership in Canyon Cinema was open to all filmmakers, there was no
guiding curatorial vision, and its distribution catalogue was merely a "vanity publication." Although the catalogue's
publication was stalled, this spring the less phobic San Francisco Arts Commission awarded Canyon with a grant
which will allow for the catalogue to be published by the end of 1998. Congratulations Canyon!
After tonight's screening of eleven recently acquired films — including work by some of the "fathers" of American
avant-garde cinema, work by emerging young voices and two pieces in 35mm, Canyon Cinema Director Dominic
Angerame will be present to discuss the current state of experimental film distribution and Canyon's new directions
and strategies for the beginning of a new millenium of experimental filmmaking and film distribution.
Brookfield Recreation Center {1963) by Bruce Baillie; 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 minutes
Made for the Oakland Public Schools on an experimental series of classes in the arts ... (BB)
Bruce Baillie co-founded the Canyon Cinema in 1960. He now lives in rural Washington, works in video, and is on
the web at www.geocities.com/HoIlywood/ Theater/1809. His Castro Street was recently chosen for preservation by
the National Film Registry.
Camera Roll at 100 Degrees (1993) by Jim Seibert; 16mm color, sound, 3 minutes
... I came down with 100-degree fever. Forced to shoot indoors, I made five passes through my Bolex with five
subjects, treating them alternately as major and minor themes and closing with an all-encompassing
superimposition. The war against civilian population in Bosnia Herzegovina was heating up, too. (JS)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
Jim Seibert studied film at the SF Art Institute and was on their technical staff for several years. Other works
include the award-winning The Chill Ascends.
Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron) (1992) by Cauleen Smith; 16mm, color, sound, 6 minutes
Challenging structure, stereotype, and the typical tropes of the personal film. Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly
Gabron) explores truth and fiction in representation, racism, and social responsibility in a lively and spirited mock-
autobiographical fantasy.
Cauleen Smith studied filmmaking at San Francisco State (where she made Chronicles), went on to UCLA,
received a Rockefeller grant, and is reportedly completing a feature. She is interviewed in Scott MacDonald's
newest Critical Cinema 3.
Just Words (1991) by Louise Bourque; 16mm, color, sound, 10 minutes
Intercutting silent home-movie footage with a powerful performance — shot in extreme close-up — of Beckett's Not I
(by actress Patricia MacGeachy), Bourque evokes the violent collision between a woman's interior world and the
roles she is asked to play.
Louise Bourque is a Canadian filmmaker living and teaching in Chicago. Her latest piece. Imprint, screened as part of
"Pandora's Screens," Cinematheque's and the Pacific Film Archive's program at the SF International Film Festival.
Tiny Rubber Band {\99Z) by Al Alvarez; 16mm, color, sound, 4 minutes
A return to some cameraless filmmaking basics. Tiny Rubber Band is inspired by the things I found on the floor of
my classroom after my students had left for the day. (AA)
Al Alvarez recently returned to the East Bay from a two-year teaching stint in Singapore, where he launched an
experimental film movement and helped give birth to his new daughter, Marta. Earlier films include Quixote
Dreams and La Reina.
Under a Broad Gray Sky (Sous un grand cielgris) (1996) by Thad Povey; 16mm, color, sound, 5 minutes
A warm spring day, a subtle shift, and light and time seem to slow during the reading of a poem by Baudelaire. A
mundane moment in an ordinary day is briefly transformed, but the participants caught up in their tasks miss the
epiphany. (TP)
Thad Povey works in film, both "found" and "obtained" as a means to explore the peculiarities in the human
animal. This film, unusual in that he is not using found footage, was shot during his wedding trip to France. He
received a Phelan Award in 1996.
.^(1988) by Charlotte Pryce; 16mm, color, sound, 7 minutes
A dirge. Silence and stillness disturbed by the urgency of sadness (fragile yet fierce). (CP)
Charlotte Pryce is a London-trained filmmaker who until recently taught at the San Francisco Art Institute. She just
moved to Chicago with husband Ross and son Ishmael.
Time Flies (1997) by Robert Breer; 16mm, color, sound, 8 minutes
Blending live action, animated drawings and collage animation, Breer creates a whimsical reflection on aging and
the inevitable passage — and eternal return — of time.
An internationally recognized artist and filmmaker known for his innovative animation techniques, Robert Breer
has been making animated films since the 1950s. His filmmaking emerged fi-om painting via flipbooks.
Self Song/Death Song (1997) by Stan Brakhage; 16mm, color, silent, 5 minutes
"Imagine a world before 'the beginning was the word'" (SB, in Metaphors on Vision) — or after all words have been
deemed irrelevant, broken and buried. In Self Song and Death Song (meant to be shown together) Brakhage explores
the self-as-flesh, his own body besieged by cancer, mysterious surfaces of skin, light and darkness. This is followed
by a reflection on death, unidentifiable patterns leading always to an empty whiteness, to a (bleak?, comforting?)
nothingness held by the film fi^me, to the unnameable.
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Program Notes 1998
With well over 250 films and 5 books to his name, Stan Brakhage is the seminal figure in American experimental
cinema. The poet Robert Kelly has called his art "mind at the mercy of eye, at last."
Joy Street (1995) by Suzan Pitt; 35mm, color, sound, 24 minutes
A depressed woman and her imagined counterpart, a tiny cartoon mouse, create metaphorical opposites in a luscious
animated tale of despair and rescue. Two states of mind swing dangerously up and down .... These opposing forces
which play against each other in a series of scenes set in a moody apartment in the middle of the night conclude in a
primordial rain forest. (SP)
One of the country's premiere animators, Suzan Pitt traveled through the rainforests of Guatemala and Mexico to
paint studies for this film which was 5 years in the making. It won major awards at the Black Maria and San
Francisco International Film Festivals.
Triptych (1996) by Robert Schaller; 35mm, b&w, silent, 3 minutes
An excursion into the world of hand-made, non-silver film emulsion and an exposition of some formal possibilities
of using three images side by side. ... Originally a work for three projectors, it is here composed onto a single strand
of film. (RS)
Robert Schaller is an interdisciplinary artist who creates performance and installation works with film, dance,
chamber music, theater, and electronics. He currently teaches at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
OUT OF THE TIME CLOSET 4:
MALCOLM LE GRICE
Sunday, June 14, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
The 1970s was a richly productive period for avant-garde filmmaking — yielding several major works of
extraordinary scope and complexity — yet most remain little-known to this day. Tonight Cinematheque presents the
last in a series of four programs including long films which represent mature and distinctive cinematic expressions
from key figures of those years.
British filmmaker and theoretician Malcolm Le Grice remains one of the figureheads of the structuralist-materialist
film movement. His book. Abstract Film and Beyond (191%), is one of the major theoretical investigations into the
impulses underlying abstract film both in terms of non-representation and manipulations of time. Le Grice was a
member of the Filmmakers' Coop in London, a group geared towards a cinematic discourse rooted in materialism as
opposed to illusionism in order to challenge both audience expectations and reactions as well as modes of film
production and screening. A frequent visitor to San Francisco Cinematheque in the 1970s, Le Grice's multi-
projector screenings and lively personal presence challenged the boundaries of presentation as well as
representation. As Jonas Mekas pointed out in 1974, "Whatever the form, all his work seems to focus on the self-
referential aspects of cinema, on the tools, the materials, and the processes of cinema."
There is no inevitablility in cinema's history; it's the result of needs, priorities, social and economic
pressures. (ML)
After Lumiere — L'Arroseur arrose (1974); 16mm, color, sound, 14 minutes
Like all the works I have done which refer directly to anotiier artist. After Lumiere is not directly "about" the Lumiere
original. It is the starting point for an investigation. In this case it is an investigation into consequentiality, or at least the
significance of sequentiality in the construction of meaning and concept. As such, the film encroaches on "narrative"
cinema, but in a way which treats narrativization as problematic, not transparent. (ML)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
"The Lumiere film is especially interesting .... It is not simply a series of optical recombinations like cinematic
anagrams, but an investigation into narration itself, which by counterpointing different narrative tones, so to speak,
neither dissolves nor repeats Lumiere's simple story, L 'arroseur arrose, but foregrounds the process of narration
itself." (Peter Wollen)
Blackbird Descending (Tense Alignment) (1977); 16mm, color, sound, 110 minutes
"Malcolm Le Grice, one of the leading avant-garde filmmakers in Britain, has made a feature-length work which is
... one of the most accessible films to come out of the experimental area of cinematic exploration in many years. The
secret of its appeal is that it engages the viewer's curiosity and then challenges him to remember, really remember,
exactly what he has seen and heard. It assumes that people can have fiin at the same time as they are absorbing an
analysis of how time and space are constructed in the cinema. What we see is a simple domestic scene: a woman
typing. Through the window a man prunes a tree and a woman hangs out different colored sheets. A phone rings.
This scene is repeated again and again from different viewpoints and time points but always slightly altered .... The
film is not about a Pirandelloesque but film reality, so Le Grice finally shows us the camera filming some of the
scenes we have seen, even utilizing split screens to unmask the unreality (and of course thereby creating yet
another). Like poet Wallace Stevens, Le Grice gives us thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird with fresh eyes."
(Ken Waschin, London Film Festival, 1977)
BIG AS LIFE:
AN AMERICAN HISTORY OF 8MM FILMS
PROGRAM 1
Tuesday, September 22, 1998 — Pacific Film Archive — 7:30pm
Beginning Tuesday, September 22nd, and continuing in alternating months through June 1999, the Pacific Film
Archive and San Francisco Cinematheque will present highlights from the Museum of Modem Art's (New York City)
60-program retrospective of American-made 8mm films and videos co-curated by myself and MoMA Associate
Curator Jytte Jensen, "Big As Life: An American History of 8mm Films." Continuing through the Spring of 2000, this
retrospective spans personal (and emphatically private) filmmaking fi-om the 1940s through the present, focusing
primarily on films made by self-avowed artists but also including a rich sampling of "found" home movies and
industrial films especially made for "small-gauge" home formats. (Steve Anker)
Sfie/Va (1973) by Marjorie Keller; 8mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
Note to Pati (\969)hy Saul Levine; 8mm, color, silent, 8 minutes
#3 (1979) by Ellen Gaine; Super 8mm, b&w, silent, 5 minutes
The Annunciation (1974) by Diana Barrie; Super 8mm, color, silent, 9 minutes
kenua (1994) by silt; 8mm and Super 8mm; color, silent, 14 minutes
The Exquisite //our (1989) by Phil Solomon; Super 8mm, color, sound, 14 minutes
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Program Notes 1998
LIQUID IMAGES: MOVING WITH/IN
FILM'S SURFACE
Sunday, October 4 , 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Fluttering (1998) by Steve Polta; 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
A film of quiet breaths, expanding and contracting, hovering over the screen in fields of possibility.
(SP, September 29, 1998)
Concrescence (1996) by Phil Solomon and Stan Brakhage; 16mm, color, silent, 2.5 minutes
This is a hand-painted, step-printed collaboration between Phil Solomon and Stan Brakhage.
''concrescence, principle of A. term from A.N. Whitehead's metaphysics refers to the drive things possess that impel
them to actualization, the creative urge towards concrescence, for producing novel advances through the generation
of greater interrelatedness. Many thinkers would deem this urge divine, so the principle of concrescence may be
considered one of Whitehead's terms for God." (Bruce Elder)
"..." (Seasons) (work in progress) by Phil Solomon and Stan Brakhage; 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
A brief sketch of a forthcoming collaboration between Phil Solomon and Stan Brakhage. Brakhage's hand-carvings
and etchings into the film emulsion are illuminated by Solomon's optical printing and editing into an evocation of
the seasons, inspired by the woodcuts of Hiroshige.
Iced ideograms falling through space, lit by the heavens above ... (PS)
Glass (1998) by Leighton Pierce; 16mm, color, sound, 7 minutes
A not-so-still-life in the backyard with children, water, fire, and a few other basic elements. This is another
contemplative, painterly piece in my ongoing "Memories of Water" series. While the ultimate effect is intended to
be poetic (and maybe even transformative), it is simultaneously a study in the laws of optics — an exploration of
refraction, defraction, difSision, reflection, and absorption. (LP)
Silvercup (1998) by Jim Jennings; 16mm, b&w, silent, 16 minutes
Silvercup celebrates the way in which being in love imbues every sight with tenderness. This film documents the
sensuous movements of the trains of Queensborough Plaza in Long Island City, New York. (JJ)
Floating by Eagle Rock/She Is Asleep (work in progress) by Konrad Steiner; 16mm, color, sound, 1 1 minutes
The music is a performance of John Cage's She Is Asleep. (KS)
— 1 0 - m in ut e intermission —
We are going home (1998) by Jennifer Reeves; 16mm, b&w and color, sound, 10.5 minutes
Rhythmic color and tonal shifts in the film emulsion give life to the physical landscape which comes to represent an
internal terrain of the subconscious. Three main characters act in parallel universes, attempting to but never able to
intersect. Characters are ever equally conscious at the same time. When one finds another, she is either buried in the
sand or asleep under a tree. Consciousness is always singular. (JR)
Stop (1993-97) by Joan Nidzyn; 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 minutes
Stop is a portrait of the cycle of obsessive compulsiveness. (JN)
Sweep (1998) by Mark Street; 16mm, color, sound, 7 minutes
A day like any other: Brooklyn beckons so they dart out into it. Daughter and father traipse from playground to
subway and back home again. The 18-month-old cackles and the 32-year-old tries his best to keep up. They stumble
upon a fruit vendor, a street preacher, and a wall of city sound. Negative and positive hand-manipulated images
collide and shimmer as they walk and talk their way through spring in the city. Maya babbles, but her father is
mostly silent: he can't believe that he'll never meander quite this way again. (MS)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
...or lost (1997) by Leslie Thornton; 16nim, color, sound, 6 minutes
...or lost is the first installation in the episodic release of The Great Invisible.
"Edison snatched the noise of time from an audible chasm, widening the fissures between duplication and
extinction. With the invention of the cylinder phonograph in 1878 he succeeded in creating an artificial larynx, a
prattling wind-up toy, and a resurrection machine. Thornton's cinematic miniature orbits around the Wizard of
Menlo Park and his notion of crossing and annihilating time and space. New Jersey, late 1870s: Bemhardt's voice
escapes from the phonograph reciting Phedre, and takes possession of a precocious oblivion-seeker with her parents
as captive onlookers. New Jersey, 1931: A caretaker and assistant to Edison stages his own performance, a historical
gloss and imitation of his master's voice." (Mark McElhatten, 1997)
A wine reception will follow the screening.
O NIGHT WITHOUT OBJECTS: A TRILOGY
Co-produced, directed, and edited by Jeanne C. Finley and John H. Muse
John H. Muse In Person
Thursday, October 8, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
O Night Without Objects: A Trilogy explores the relationship of conversion experiences — therapeutic, political, and
religious — ^to technology, fear, and family. The segments are stylistically diverse employing theatrical, documentary,
and narrative means. When viewed as a trilogy each segment informs and reinforces the common thematic concerns
of the others; however, any segment may be distributed or viewed independently. This film was produced during an
artists' residency at Xerox Pare designed to bring artists and new technology research scientists together.
The Adventures of Blacky (1998) by Jeanne C. Finley and John H. Muse; video, color, sound, 9 minutes
The Adventures of Blacky narrates the administration of a psychological test to a young girl. She views a series of
cartoon drawings of a family of dogs and listens to questions concerning each of the cards. This film meditates on
the childhood experiences the drawings seem to presuppose and on the prescriptive force of these presuppositions.
Based on a Story (1998) by Jeanne C. Finley and John H. Muse; video, color, sound, 43 minutes
Based on a Story explores the widely-publicized encounter between Jewish Cantor, Michael Weisser and Grand
Dragon of the Nebraska Ku Klux Klan, Larry Trapp. After months of harassment from Trapp by mail, phone and
cable TV, the Weisser family befriended Trapp, who then renounced the Klan, moved into the Weisser family's
home and converted to Judaism. Trapp, who was a double amputee and blind from childhood diabetes, died in the
Weissers' home six months after he moved in. The Weisser/Trapp story is presented as an intimate tale of family
and childhood that evolves into a media event, built around the seductions of fear, the cliches of redemption and the
shifting terrain of public and private life . The story belongs to the Weissers and yet exceeds their grasp; in fact, the
story literally belongs to the Disney Corporation to whom the Weissers sold the rights. The film examines
contradictory narratives of family friends, congregation members, the media, and Hollywood to explore the wide
range of responses this story evoked.
Based on a Story interweaves interview footage with evocative visual imagery and a suspenseful voice-over
narration. Imagery of the Nebraska plains is layered with artifacts from Trapp's life, casual moments of the
Weissers' home life, amateur video of his funeral and sensational news footage of his Klan activities. The film
gathers evidence to suggest that there is no clearly definable source for hatred or racism and the motivations of
Trapp and the Weissers remain contested and ultimately unknowable.
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Program Notes 1998
Time Bomb (1998) by Jeanne C. Finley and John H. Muse; video, color, sound, 7 minutes
Time Bomb tells the story of a young girl's experience at a Baptist retreat where a game called "time bomb"
becomes the measure of her desire to accept Jesus into her life. This piece explores memory, the power of crowds,
rituals of conversion, and the isolation arena for coercion and the possibility for self-assertion. Visually, Time Bomb
proceeds through sequence of images that figure the "light" of memory as simultaneously revelatory and obscuring,
constructive and destructive.
Total running time: c. 60 minutes. Created, Shot, and Edited by Jeanne C. Finley and John H. Muse.
Narration by Pamela Z. Original Music by Pamela Z &Michael Becker.
Sound Design by Jim McKee @ Earwax.
LANDSCAPE SUICIDE
James Benning In Person
Sunday, October II, I 9 9 8 — S a n Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
In the mid 1970s, James Benning was crafting films which integrated highly formalized imagery with elements of
conventional narrative. From 1974 to 1976, his collaboration with Bette Gordon involved meditations on the seam
between stillness and motion in Michigan Avenue and the creation of a thaumatrope-in-motion in 1-94, and turned
their windshield into a movie screen for a trip across The United States of America. His next two works {8 1/2 x 11,
11 X 14,) addressed Benning's interest in utilizing character and plot as the means for concentrating on the formal
elements, while One Way Boogie Woogie explored his formal approach to composition and perspective in the
absence of narrative continuity. As he moved into the 1980s, his films Grand Opera, Him and Me, and American
Dreams found Benning attempting to add human content while avoiding conventional approaches to character. His
most recent films {Landscape Suicide, Used Innocence, Deserei) seek out a relationship between his unconventional
structure and formalist approach, while addressing narrative concerns.
Time and a Half {1972); 16mm, b&w, sound, 17 minutes
Benning's first film chronicles the routine of the everyday Joe who awakens, heads to work, and upon returning
home eats and falls asleep. His monotonous work running a drill press is interrupted by brief daydreams: erotic
snippets involving the voluptuous girl he espies while on the bus to work. This working man's Walter Mitty cleverly
portrays those split-second flights of fancy we all indulge in as we go about our day.
Landscape Suicide (1986); 16mm, color, sound, 95 minutes
I discovered a matching form of isolation in both the cold, landlocked landscape of Wisconsin and the suburban car-
dominated non-communication of California. (JB)
Landscape Suicide offers portraits of two murderers whose motivations (or lack thereof) appear to have links in each
person's home environment: Wisconsin farmer Ed Gein, who murdered and taxidermized his victims in the 1950s,
and Bemadette Protti, a 15-year-old California teenager who stabbed a classmate to death in 1984.
"Still" imagery of the hometowns of Gein and Protti reflect the spiritless and vast emptiness which encapsulated
them; Gein, the despair of poverty-stricken Plainville; Protti, affluence without import in suburban Orinda, CA. This
is contrasted by long takes that guide the viewer through each mundane community. What could they have offered
Gein and Protti? And why do these communities ultimately fail them?
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San Francisco Cinematheque
Yet the chills in Landscape Suicide come not from the shots of cold isolation, but during the talking-head sequences.
One cannot help but feel utter discomfort when watching the young Bemadette Protti describe her rather elaborate,
yet quite simply executed murder of a popular cheerleader/classmate. What becomes even more disturbing is the
realization that Protti is being played (with unemotional, matter-of-fact detail) by a young actress recruited to
portray this cold-blooded killer. Rhonda Bell as Protti plays it so blase and stolid that it is difficult to believe we are
watching an actress, and wonder if this "honest" performance could be elicited from a subject aware of the camera.
Elion Sucher's Gein provides an articulate while hazy delivery of the courtroom testimony, which encourages us to
look past the madness and recognize an ultimate indifference to human life.
Benning's long, framed static shots are intercut exclusively with blackouts, distorting the viewer's sense of
continuum. Often the only sound we hear is the high-tonal buzz of Orinda's power lines, or the wind sweeping over
Plainville — sounds of nothingness which quickly become one with Benning's landscapes. Musical interludes add
ironic commentary to the grisly narrative provided by Gein and Protti. Ultimately, it is the dialectical symbiosis of
the formal qualities of Benning's cinematic compositions with the construction of a narrative that engages the
viewer in a rigorous reflection on the traditional discourse of film.
James Benning Filihography:
did you ever hear that cricket sound? (1971); Time and a Half (1972); Art Hist. 101 (1972); Ode to Musak (1972);
57 (1973); Michigan Avenue (co-made with Bette Gordon, 1973); Honeyland Road (1973); 8 1/2 x 11 (1974);
Gleem (1974); 1-94 (co-made with Bette Gordon, 1974); The United States of America (1975); Saturday Night
(1975); An Erotic Film (1975); 3 minutes on the dangers of film recording (1975); 9-1-75 (1975); Chicago Loop
(1976); AtoB (1976); 11 x 14 (1976); One Way Boogie Woogie (1977); Grand Opera (1978); Him & Me (1982);
American Dreams (1984); O Panama (1985); Landscape Suicide (1986); Used Innocence (1988); North on Evers
(1991); Deseret (1995); Four Corners (1997); UTOPIA (1998)
Four Comers will be screened at the Pacific Film Archive on Tuesday, October 13, 1998 at 7:30 pm.
BRECHT AND CINEMA!
A CELEBRATION OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S
lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 1: SLATAN DUDOW AND BERTOLT BRECHT'S
KUHLE WAMPE
Thursday , October 15, 1 99 8—Yerba Buena Center for the Arts— 7 : 3 0pm
[0]ur representations must take second place to what is represented, men 's life together in society, and the
pleasure felt in their perfection must be converted into the higher pleasure felt when the rules emerging
from this life in society are treated as imperfect and provisional In this way the theatre leaves its
spectators productively disposed even after the spectacle is over. Let us hope that their theatre may allow
them to enjoy as entertainment that terrible and never-ending labor which should ensure their
maintenance, together with the terror of their unceasing transformation. (Bertolt Brecht, "A Short
Organum for the Theatre")
We now come to the concept of "Realism. ' It is an old concept which has been much used by many men and
for many purposes, and before it can be applied we must spring-clean it too. ... Literary works cannot be
taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which
history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for
what class it is made use of: conditioned down to the last small detail ...
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Program Notes 1998
For time flows on, and if it did not it would be a poor look-out for those who have no golden tables to sit at.
Methods wear out, stimuli fail. New problems loom up and demand new techniques. Reality alters; to
represent it the means of representation must alter too. Nothing arises from nothing; the new springs from
the old. but that is just what makes it new. (BB, "The Popular and the Realistic")
An old tradition leads people to treat a critical attitude as a predominantly negative one. ... People cannot
conceive of contradiction and detachment as being part of artistic appreciation.
To introduce this critical attitude into art, the negative element which it doubtless includes must be shown
from its positive side: this criticism of the world is active, practical, positive. Criticizing the course of a
river means improving it, correcting it. Criticism of society is ultimately revolution; there you have
criticism taken to its logical conclusion and playing an active part. A critical attitude of this type is an
operative factor of productivity; it is deeply enjoyable as such, and if we commonly use the term "arts" for
enterprises that improve peoples lives why should art proper remain aloof from arts of this sort? (BB,
"Short Description of a New Technique of Acting")
Bertolt Brecht — poet, playwright, songwriter, theoretician — was bom in Augsburg, Germany in 1898 and died in
Berlin in 1956. The rebel son of a bourgeois family, Brecht studied medicine, worked as a medical orderly during
World War I, and began writing pacifist poetry and revolutionary plays before the age of twenty. His most well-
known works were written in the '20s and early '30s in Germany {A Man 's a Man, The Threepenny Opera, The Rise
and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Mother) and in the late '30s and '40s during his exile in Denmark, Sweden,
Finland, and the U.S. {Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Person of Sezuan, The
Caucasian Chalk Circle). In 1947, after being called to testify before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee,
he returned to Europe, ultimately settling in East Berlin where he directed the Berliner Ensemble with his wife
Helene Weigel until his death.
The occasion of his centennial offers us an opportunity to take a fi-esh look at Brecht's contribution to the history of
cinema. His notion of art as a transformative process, as a process which arouses the spectators' critical faculties
with regard to their social world and with regard to their own place in it, has had a profound impact on radical
approaches to cinematic storytelling. Brecht's ideas of epic theatre, of the "apparatus," of "Verfremdun^' (translated
alternately as distanciation, alienation, or making strange), of the social "gestus," and of the "separation of
elements" so that contradictions, gaps and collisions are highlighted rather than hidden, have been taken up by many
filmmakers from the '60s onwards. What much of Brecht's theoretical writing seems to be calling for is a new type
of spectator — a spectator who is no longer merely passive, no longer merely involved and empathizing with the
actor's feelings; but rather a spectator who stands outside the spectacle, examining and questioning himself and the
social world with a heightened awareness of the contingency of all that he sees. In much of Brecht's work, social
and artistic conventions are denaturalized, and the hidden ideolgical codes of political power and realist art are
revealed. As he writes in his "A Short Organum for the Theatre," we the spectators are faced with the terror — and
the potential — of our, and the world's, unceasing transformation.
How do I become such a spectator? By constantly being made aware that what I am seeing and hearing is a text, a
play, a film — speech about the world from a specific historical and political place; that the actors are, in fact, acting;
that the spectacle itself is a commodified construction; that the narrative is just narrative and its gaps and
contradictions highlight its tenuous but ideologically pointed relation to the world. Such a spectator will not merely
submit uncritically to vague and wishful sentiments; instead she will step back, aware of her shifting self, the world
she inhabits, and her meaning-making in process.
In the early 1960s there was a resurgence of interest in Brecht's ideas and the growth of a theoretical debate on how
his theories of theatre could be transferred to cinema. Radical filmmakers like Godard and Gorin in France, and
Kluge, Straub, and Fassbinder in Germany actively and explicitly referred to and borrowed from Brecht's work. Due
to constraints of time and money. Cinematheque's "Brecht and Cinema" series will not include the most commonly
labeled "Brechtian" works of Godard and Gorin or of Fassbinder, but rather focus on works which are rarely
screened, not well known, unavailable on video, and which (aside from Program 2) extend beyond the Franco-
German sphere of influence.
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San Francisco Cinematheque
Of course, Brecht's ideas are not only Brecht's. He drew his theoretical concepts and theatrical ideas from a
multitude of sources including Soviet agit-prop, Piscator's political theatre, medieval mystery plays, Japanese and
Chinese dramaturgy, fairground side-shows, and the many women he lived and worked with. Many of his plays
include free adaptations of or quotations from other writers' plays, poems, novels, and he was often accused of (and
he acknowledged) plagiarism. Just as he is not the exclusive author of many of his works, he is also not the
exclusive or even primary influence in the films in this series. And yet it seems timely to honor Brecht's
contributions to this seventh art which is just a bit older than he is, and to examine these works by masters of world
cinema in light of the radical ideas he brought together.
Kuhle Wampe, or Who Owns the World? (1932) by Slatan Dudow; 16mm, b&w, sound, 88 minutes
Script by Bertolt Brecht and Ernst Ottwalt; music by Hanns Eisler.
Made in Berlin with the young Bulgarian director Slatan Dudow, Kuhle Wampe is the only film which Brecht
acknowledged as the expression of his own ideas, and it is the only one in which he made decisions at every level
and every stage of the production. The title refers to an area in the working-class outskirts of Berlin where the
unemployed lived in shacks. Focusing on the rampant unemployment in Germany in the early '30s, the film uses
both fictionalized and documentary footage to explore its causes, consequences, and a possible response; it also
emphasizes some of the particular difficulties faced by working-class women. In the HUAC hearings Brecht calls
this film (ironically?) a "documentary picture."
Kuhle Wampe was made in the same period that Brecht wrote and directed several didactic political plays including
The Measures Taken and his adaptation of Gorky's novel. Mother. (Sections of both of these were cited at length in
the HUAC hearings as evidence of his Communist tendencies.) In part, Kuhle Wampe seems to have been a response
to Brecht's anger and frustration with Pabst's 1931 film version of his Threepenny Opera which he felt betrayed his
political and formal intentions and which he took (unsuccessfiilly) to court. Made independently by the collaborative
team of Brecht, Dudow, Ottwalt and Eisler, Kuhle Wampe was backed by various Communist organizations.
Kuhle Wampe was censored the moment it was finished on the grounds that it jeopardized public security and the
vital interests of the state. Although two members of the board appealed the censorship, it was only after an
immense uproar in liberal and leftist newpapers and several public protest rallies that the film was finally released,
with cuts, in April 1932. Brecht himself claims that one astute censor's objections centered on the fact that no
individualized emotional empathy is elicited for a character before he commits suicide; for the censor's sake Brecht
argued — sticking "strictly to the untruth" — that this was not the case, and that the fact that he had taken off his
watch before the jump made him a unique individual with whom the audience could identify and emotionally bond!
The Berlin premiere in May was an enormous success, with 14,000 spectators clamoring to see it in its first week of
showing. In March 1933, just weeks after Brecht fled Germany and went into exile in Denmark, Kuhle Wampe was
definitively prohibited by the Nazis.
Screening preceded by 15 minutes of excerpts from Brecht's appearance in front of the
House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.
Program Notes -written and compiled by Irina Leimbacher. Sources: Brecht, Brecht on Theatre; Roswitha Miiller,
Brecht and the Theory of Media; Martin Esslin, Brecht: A Choice of Evils
DON'T FORGET: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRECHT AT THEATRE ARTAUD NOV 3-8, 1998—
SEE FLYER FOR DETAILS
58
Program Notes 1998
MESSTERPIECE THEATER:
TILTING THE LUCK-PLANE
tENTATIVELY, a CONVENIENCE In Person
Sunday, October 18, 1 9 9 8 — S a n Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
"Performance provocateur tENTATIVELY, a CONVENIENCE returns to San Francisco for a program of psychic
slippages, conceptual ponderings, neo-cosmic blatherings and a full battery of bad puns. tENT, who claims to have
made over 188 movies in 24 years, most of them for little or no money, will present three films this evening.
tENTATIVELY forms art matter out of naked chaos; or perhaps he forms much needed chaos out of the naked
pretensions of art matter." (Scott Stark)
Diszey Spots (1993); 16mm, color, sound on VHS, 1 1 minutes
Everyone's heard of Walt Diszey being cryogenically preserved but few have heard that he directs his films from "beyond
the grave" thru the wonders of technology. Alas, all is not well in the subtly rotting brain. Witness here the results.
Bob Cobbing {\99\-94); 16mm, b&w, sound on VHS, 28 minutes
Is it possible to make a '60s(?) early morning TV educational show of a man in a suit behind a desk talking about
teen sexuality in a monotonous voice even more boring than it already is by performing conceptual vandalism on it
& turning it into one of those difficult dense films? One of the most laborious films I'm ever likely to make. Learn
more here. Ideally presented as early morning TV w/ no explanation.
The "Official" John Lennon's Erection as Blocking Our View Homage & Cheese Sandwich (1990-95); 16mm,
color, sound on VHS, 84 minutes
A featureless-length 16mm film MESSTERPIECE made for around $3,000 (U.S.) that's proof both that a mere 84
minutes can seem like an eternity & that you don't have to give up your flick-off lifestyle to make such a thing.
It's about making something w/o worrying too much about whether someone else has "already done it." It's about
the construction of a parking lot obstructing my view. It has a short cheesy homage to Michael Snow's Wavelength.
It's an homage to my own films. It's an homage to just-about-anybody 's films. It's about the "Official" Project. It's
about relationships between its visuals & its sounds. It's about attempting to accomplish expensive things w/ almost
no money. It's anarchistic. It's dedicated to the mammaries of Spike Jones & John Cage. It's about navigating thru
the obstacles of FUCKED-UPEDNESS to just get the damned thing made in some shape or form.
hasty program notes: tENTATIVELY, a CONVENIENCE— Sprocket Scientist
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San Francisco Cinematheque
BRECHT AND CINEMA!
A CELEBRATION OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S
lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 2: ALEXANDER KLUGE'S YESTERDAY GIRL
AND JEAN-MARIE STRAUB'S
THE BRIDEGROOM, THE COMEDIENNE, AND THE PIMP
Thursday, October 22, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
[0]ur representations must take second place to what is represented, men's life together in society, and the
pleasure felt in their perfection must be converted into the higher pleasure felt when the rules emerging from
this life in society are treated as imperfect and provisional In this way the theatre leaves its spectators
productively disposed even after the spectacle is over. Let us hope that their theatre may allow them to enjoy
as entertainment that terrible and never-ending labor which should ensure their maintenance, together with
the terror of their unceasing transformation. (Bertolt Brecht, "A Short Organum for the Theatre")
Formally Brecht is ubiquitous in New German Cinema. When asked about Brecht 's influence, Rainer Werner
Fassbinder once stated that all filmmakers had to confront him at one point or another. The question arising
in each case, then, is the extent to which Brecht is foregrounded and in what other aesthetic and political
contexts he is presented— in other words, once again a question of differences. Straub ... is opting for an
ascetic aesthetics. Kluge, in contrast, stresses Brechtian multilayered montage, not sparseness but density, in
an overwhelming compilation of material of the most diverse kind. This bombardment of images, words, and
music, a bewildering jungle of quotations and observations, literartation with a vengeance, has
emancipatory intent. It is designed to stimulate in the spectator experiences and qualities not normally
encouraged, such as curiosity, memory, and the hunger for seeing and hearing. Kluge 's own definition of
montage is crucially concerned with the expression of subjective experience. This concern also underlies his
attempt at blurring the borderline between documentation and fiction. "Documentation alone cuts off context:
there is nothing objective without feelings, actions, wishes, that is, the eyes and sense of people who act" and
conversely, "no narration is successful without a certain measure of authentic material, that is,
documentation. " (Roswitha Miiller, Bertolt Brecht and the Theory of Media)
Alexander Kluge, bom in 1932 in then-East Germany, is, together with Jean-Marie Straub, one of the major figures in
the renaissance of the New German Cinema. Since signing the Oberhausen Manifesto proclaiming the demise of
conventional German cinema in 1962, Kluge has been a tireless and effective exponent of the interests of Germany's
independent film producers. A lawyer by profession and a participant in the intellectual debates spearheaded by the
Frankfurt Institute, Kluge was also its legal advisor, handling, among other things, the personal reparations cases of
Adomo and Horkheimer. He is also a writer of semi-documentary fiction and of theoretical works that cross the borders
of politics, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and aesthetics. Kluge has made over a dozen feature films, numerous
shorts, and participated in several collective works. Yesterday Girl was his first feature.
Jean-Marie Straub has also been making films (most often with Danielle Huill^) since the early '60s. Many of their films
are "adaptations" and studies of preexisting texts, ranging fi-om musical scores, poems, and plays to Brecht's novel-
fragment The Business Affairs of Mr Julius Caesar (History Lessons, 1972). Within tiie Brechtian framework of trying to
eng^e the audience to think and co-produce the filmic text, their films systematically subvert conventional cinematic codes,
especially narrative continuity and spectator identification by breaking "rules" of camera placement and composition, and
reftising to follow character movement, insisting on noninterpretative monotonous reading of texts and using direct sound.
Straub and Huillet have made over a dozen films, the most recent being shown at last year's SF International Film Festival.
Yesterday Girl (Abschied von Gestern) (1966) by Alexander Kluge; 16mm, b&w, sound, 88 minutes
The naiVe playfulness emanating from Anita's youthfully light appearance could easily take us into the turbulence of the
sixties' denial of any kind of authority, attempting the re-invention of values allowing one to stride through the banality of
day-to-day existence. A story of a twenty-something girl trying to find her raison d'etre in a world of incomprehensibly
rigid patriarchal rules. But Yesterday Girl is not Anita's story. It is a story of Anita G. — a juridical case.
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Program Notes 1998
Alexander Kluge based the film on his own short story "Attendance List for a Funeral," based on an actual account
of a girl of Jewish descent who left then-communist GDR to find a different life in West Germany. Instead of
building herself a new life, she finds herself recycled in the maze of a socio-political system trying, as she is, to
erase the layer of the recent past and concentrate on the new, still undefined values of the present. Once this
insecure, overly rational system defines her as not-fitting its requirements, she is robbed of any real chance to
survive within its steel-like boundaries.
How does this Kafkaesque reality function? As a System. A System infinitely perpetuating itself through the State
Institutions of Justice, Education and Family, consistently filtering its content by dismissing anything simply human.
Accused of the theft of her working colleague's cardigan, Anita G. (played by Alexandra Kluge) is confronted with the
court official denying any possibility tiiat her lack of concept of private property might have been connected to the
history of her family being persecuted under Nazism for being Jewish, and later on, having their property repossessed
by the Soviet communist regime while considering her family capitalist. The director here exposes the gap between the
bureaucratic nature of the System incapable of accounting for the particularity of an individual story, and the
individual, paradoxically stuck in the machinery of systems' definitions of herself, disempowered to the degree that she
is unable to adopt an original view of herself and consequently a position vij-a-v/5 the system itself This paradoxical
reversal is the source of the individual's frustration and stagnation; not only Anita's but also of the men she encounters
during her wandering. All her lovers (her boss at the company selling language-course records, a student, a senior
official at the education ministry) are disowned of their individual will but have the advantage of being recognized by
the system because they follow its pattern. Each of them tries to somehow fit her into the mechanism of the System, but
fails to do so. In order for these men to create a space in the System for Anita, they would have to submit themselves to
the troubling experience of self-reflection, a process requiring confrontation with their own programmed subject
position within the System. The latter phase of recognition would inevitably be followed by the need for a radical
change, resulting in a destruction of the fiinctioning of the whole system's machinery. They embrace her as a ray of
hope for something different, yet unfailingly reject her as a symptom/sickness, at the point they might lose their own
piece of authority within the System.
Anita G. ends up in prison, a state institution designed for those living on its margins. Her only way to survive is to
accept the place society designed for her. She has to accept it. By giving herself up to the Law of the System she
adopts its point of view of herself as a misfit and a criminal and helps to gather evidence of her "criminal" activity,
evidence against Anita and for Anita G., another case belonging to the System.
Alexander Kluge, the theoretician and spokesman of New German Cinema, whose films — along with Straub's — first
brought international admiration to new West German Cinema in the 1960s, ends this story of Abschied von Gestern
(literally translated as 'Taking Leave of Yesterday") with a Utopian quote from Dostoevsky: "Everyone bears the guilt
for everything, but if everyone knew it, we would have paradise on earth." This closing note carries on the atmosphere
created by the visual style of the scene where Anita (as an individual, private being) is on the brink of her
transformation into Anita G. (public case); she is sitting alone on her suitcase, on a tiny piece of grass in the middle of
the great central intersection of the West German Autobahn network, while the cars silently speed by and the airplanes
slide through the sky above her. The camera's circular movements around her give us an impression of Anita being
trapped witihin the empty space of the institutionalized, blind obsession with progress, trying to break away from the
weight of the Nazi past At the very beginning, the guilt ridden System denied her the possibility to view herself as a
historical being precisely because of its own pathological state of denying its own ties to the past Thus Anita is pushed
into a conflisod, weightless living in the present, simultaneously creating herself a delinquent, problematic past that
eventually catches up with her (in the prison and most probably once she finishes her sentence).
To return to the closing citation — where is its Utopian point? It balances on the fact that the Dostoevsky's statement
assumes a non-authoritarian society, where every individual is provided with the space to take the responsibility for
her/his own actions.
The Bridegroom, the Comedienne, and the Pimp (1968) by Jean Marie Straub; 16mm, b&w, sound, 23 minutes
"In his early years with the 'antitheater,' Fassbinder had worked with Straub. He had acted in Straub's production of
Ferdinand Bruckner's Krankheit der Jugend (Sickness of Youth), which eventually found its way into the former's
film Der Brdutigam, die Komodiantin und der Zuhdlter {The Bridegroom, the Comedienne, and the Pimp [1968]).
That Fassbinder had learned from Straub and through Straub from Brecht is evident in his first original play,
Katzelmacher, filmed in 1969. Straub had explained his reduction of Bruckner's play to a ten-minute performance
41
San Francisco Cinematheque
by pointing out his intent to leave out all psychology and show people's relations with each other as constellations
that dissolve and regroup. A more 'gestural' Brechtian exercise is hard to imagine ...." (Roswitha Miiller, Bertolt
Brecht and the Theory of Media)
"Virtually every Straub/Huiilet film is an adaptation of a preexisting text. [This] suggests that every representational
film is a re-presentation, that all subject matter is borrowed, that each film is to be studied for its lapses and
infidelities, that nothing can ever be translated. Straub's and Huillet's subject, at least in part, is precisely the
disjunction between the original text and its cinematic adaptation. Far from offering a substitute for the original,
their films document that disjunction, document the attempt to make a movie out of a text." (J. Hoberman, "Once
Upon a Time in Amerika: Straub/Huillet/Kafka")
Program Notes written and compiled by Maja Manojlovic
DON'T FORGET: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRECHT AT THEATRE ARTAUD NOV 3-8, 1998—
SEE FLYER FOR DETAILS
SILT: FIELD STUDIES
Friday, October 23, 1 9 9 8 — Head lands Center for the Arts — 8:00pm
"Field Studies" premieres new work developed during silt's residency in the Headlands, as well as their ongoing
metamorphosis of films. This performance illuminates multi-planar perspectives of the California landscape,
exploring the intersection and immanence of poetic fact and imagination. These paranaturalist studies include
inquiries into optics, magnetic fields, plant morphology, bacteriology, and kymatics.
silt is a three-member cinema collaborative (Keith Evans, Christian Farrell, Jeff Warrin) that has been working in
the Bay Area since 1990. silt's recent works are partially-choreographed multiple projection performances exploring
the diverse bioregions and geography of California. The dynamism of the landscape is mirrored in the varied
perspectives and improvised cinematic techniques they employ, silt's process-oriented approach to filmmaking
results in performances that are uniquely organic — reflecting their collaborative and intimate relationship with the
film material and the intimate landscapes they investigate.
Nematoda; opening sound piece
Sbyrinchium Californicum; 35 mm pinhole with hand-crank
Landsend; Super 8mm & 1 6mm, silent
Rodeo Creek Survey; sound collaboration with Maya Khosla
Urphanomen; Super 8mm, 16mm, sound
Calypte anna; sound collaboration by Maya Khosla and Beth Custer
For the Unaided Eye and Handlens; Super 8mm, sound
fVe would like to thank: Melinda Stone, Maya Khosla, Beth Custer, Jim Mason, Geoff Evans, Ken Paul
Rosenthal III, Eduardo Morrell, Jessica Prentiss, Leslie Tran, Mike Jarman, Headlands Staff and Residents,
GGNRA, Steve Anker, Irina Leimbacher and everyone at Cinematheque, Charles Kremenak, Oldriska
Balouskova, Don Warrin, the Farrells, FAF, Leslie Shows, Lucien Reed, and Steve Polta.
62
Program Notes 1998
silt: Field Studies
Field Studies ^Tcvolcies new work <ieveloped during silt's
residency in tbe Headlands, as -well as their ongoing
metamorphosis of films. This performance illuminates
multi-planar perspectives of the California landscape,
exploring the intersection and immanece of poetic (act
and imagination. These paranaturalist studies include
inquiries into optics, magnetic fields, plant
morphology, bacteriology and kymatics.
silt is a three-member cinema collaborative (Keith Evans,
Christian Farrell, Je£F Warrin) that has been working
in the Bay Area since 1990. silt's recent works
are partially-choreographed multiple projection
performances exploring the diverse bioregions and
geography of California. The dynamism of the
landscape is mirrored in the varied perspectives and
improvised cinematic techniques they employ, silt's
process-oriented approach to filmmaking results in
performances that are uniquely organic — reflecting their
collaborative and intimate relationship with the film
material and the intimate landscapes they investigate.
THE PROGRAM
Nematoda, opening sound piece '
Sisymhium Oihmkm, 35 mm pinhole/with handcrank
//zwke/Mt super 8 & 1 6mm, silent
Rodeo Creek Survey, sound colloixxotion with Mayo Khosio *-
Urphmomen, super 8 & 16mm, sound
Calypte onno,by Mayo Khosio and Beth Custer *
For tfie UnakJedEye oivlHandens, super 8, sound
We would like to thanic
Melinda Stone, Maya Khosla, Beth Custer, Jim Mason,
Geoff Evans, Ken Paul Rosenthal III, Eduardo Morrell,
Jessica Prentice, Leslie Tran, Mike Jamian, Headlands Staff
and Residents, GGNRA, Steve Ankar, Irina Lcimbacher
and everyone at Cinematheque, Charles Krcmenak,
Oldriska Balouskova, Don Warrin, The Farrclls, FAE.
Leslie Shows, Lucien Reed, and Steve Polta.
«
San Francisco Cinematheque
BIG AS LIFE:
AN AMERICAN HISTORY OF 8MM FILMS
PROGRAM 2: PERFORMING DISCLOSURES
Presented in Association with the SFAI Faculty Show, John Killacky, Curator
Curated by Steve Anker, SFAI Filmmaking Department and Director, San Francisco Cinematheque
Sunday, October 25, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Beginning Tuesday, September 22nd, and continuing monthly through June 1999, the Pacific Film Archive and San
Francisco Cinematheque will alternately present highlights from the Museum of Modem Art's (New York City) 60-
program retrospective of American-made 8mm films and videos co-curated by myself and MoMA Associate
Curator Jytte Jensen, "Big As Life: An American History of 8mm Films." At last estimate likely to continue through
the Spring of 2000, this retrospective spans personal (and often private) filmmaking from the 1940s through the
present, focusing primarily on films made by self-avowed artists but also including a rich sampling of "found" home
movies and industrial films especially made for "small-gauge" home formats. Created with low-end equipment and
tiny budgets, these films convey an intimacy, spontaneity, and sense of place rarely encountered with public cinema.
(Steve Anker)
Tonight's "Big As Life" program is presented as part of the San Francisco Art Institute's Faculty Show and will be
preceded by two pieces by composer and San Francisco Art Institute faculty member Charles Boone.
Two pieces by Charles Boone:
Last Gleaming and Twenty-Seven Lines
Text by Lyn Hejinian; Peter Valsamis, drummer.
My catalogue of musical compositions includes a large number of percussion works that focus primarily on those
instruments' familiar rhythmic role. The two brief pieces on tonight's program, however, mark my more recent
interest in percussion's infinite color possibilities. But rather than highlighting the more obvious, flamboyant aspects
of this chromatic spectrum (cymbals, bells, rattles, keyboards, and so on), I concentrate here on the micro color
gradations of one instrument, tiie snare drum, an instrument that might seem on first listening to be severely limited
in its coloristic and expressive possibilities. Last Gleaming features almost imperceptible color shifts between
various types of rolls achieved through differing ways of striking the drum head. Twenty-Seven Lines explores these
same concerns plus the color changes caused by the position on the head where the rolls are played. These are more
the grays of Mark Rothko's dark, late works than the primary colors of say, Bamett Newman's Who's Afraid of
Red, Yellow, and Blue. Twenty-Seven Lines is dedicated to my friends Nancy and James Grant. (CB)
Films and Videos from "Big As Life":
Tonight's program includes films and videos by six makers whose work achieves un-mediated relationships with the
camera/viewer, creating intimate situations rarely encountered in public settings, especially with moving picture
shows.
Night Movie #1 (Self-Portrait) (1974) by Diana Barrie; Super 8mm, b&w, silent, 3.5 minutes
In 1975 I was told by someone at the Museum of Modem Art that when I had an hour of 16mm they would be glad
to give me a show — they didn't even have a projector to look at my Super-8 films. (DB, quoted in Home Made
Movies, 1981)
I agree with you about the sense of space that's involved in the films .... I would attribute it partly to my
unconscious, personal way of handling the camera as an object. Super-8 cameras are small; they have automatic
light meters. You don't have to think a lot about technique. Super-8 is about the closest you can get to having a
camera built into your body. (DB, quoted in A Critical Cinema, 1987)
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Program Notes 1998
Open-Close (1970) by Vito Acconci; Super 8mm, color, silent, 6 minutes
''Open-Close is a two-part film. The first part. Open, shows Acconci's prick and balls with a tomato placed next to
them and functioning visually as a third testicle .... Close, the second part, is descriptive in an equally specific way.
Acconci selects an obvious opening in his body and closes it with plaster." {Castelli-Sonnabend Catalogue, 1974)
Apologies (1983-90) by Anne Charlotte Robertson; Super 8mm, color, sound, 17 minutes
Anne Charlotte Robertson was bom in Columbus, Ohio, on March 27, 1949, at 3:27 p.m., after a 24-hour labor. She
has been making films since 1976. She has been diagnosed as a manic-depressive, a conclusion she denies,
preferring to think instead of herself as a typical anxiety neurotic of the obsessive-compulsive sort, with marked
tendencies for fantasy, joy, and panic. (AR, 1994)
Clown, Part 7(1 992) by Luther Price; Super 8mm, color, sound, 13 minutes
The currently Mr. Luther Price has been writing poetry and making films under different names and guises since
1987.
I just watched our Halloween costumes hanging on the wall until they started to move. Then I woke up and all I
wanted to do was trick or treat. (LP)
Pretty Boy (1994) by Joe Gibbons; Pixelvision on VHS, b&w, sound, 3 minutes
Ken meets his match.
Elegy (1991) by Joe Gibbons; Pixelvision on VHS, b&w, sound, 1 1 minutes
It is now the first day of autumn and Gibbons can already smell death in the air. Leading us and his dog. Woody, on
a walk through a cemetery. Gibbons voices his obsessive thoughts on death and destruction.
Me and Rubyfruit {\9i9) by Sadie Benning; Pixelvision on VHS, b&w, sound, 4 minutes
Based on a novel by Rita Mae Brown, this tape chronicles the enchantment of teenage lesbian love.
A Place Called Lovely (1991) by Sadie Benning; Pixelvision on VHS, b&w, sound, 14 minutes
"Nicky is seven. His parents are older and meaner."
A Place Called Lovely references the types of violence individuals find in life, from explicit beatings, accidents, and
murders to the more insidious violence of lies, social expectations, and betrayed faith.
PREMONITIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS
NEW FILMS BY ABRAHAM RAVETT
Abraham Ravett In Person
Thursday, October 29, 1 998— Verba Buena Center for the Arts — 7 : 3 0pm
Abraham Ravett's work lends itself to introspective meditation, and this evening's program provides nothing short of tiiaL
In his newest works, Ravett continues his ruminations on time and place, the aging process, personal memory, and Jewish
history. With Forgefeel and The Boardwalk, the evanescence of life is contrasted between the fixed structure of the day
and the cyclic passage of time through the years, returning to a theme he has addressed in The Balcony and Zeger's Note.
Ravett's personal exploration of his family's history began with 1978's Thirty Years Later, in which the filmmaker
utilized a diary format to record the impact of the Holocaust on his parents. This work had led to subsequent films
(including After the Unveiling, Toncia, In Memory) dealing with the emotional and psychological after-effects of Nazi
brutality on both subject and investigator. Tonight Half-Sister and The March both address the painftil recollections and
revelations Ravett has uncovered in his family history. In doing so it becomes apparent that Ravett is trying to establish a
dialogue between his own identities as a Jew, and as an experimental filmmaker.
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As he questions these concerns for himself, the viewer is likewise impressed upon to remember. Perhaps the act of
remembering serves as a bridge between our present and a past we need to understand, or as a means of interpreting
where we are going. If the past is merely a construction of our fragile memories, what influence or foresight do we
have on our future?
The Boardwalk (1998); 16mm, b&w, silent, 28 minutes
The Brighton Beach-Coney Island boardwalk is a long, winding ocean-front walkway adjacent to the Atlantic
Ocean. Photographed over a three-year period, the landscape rendered reflects the seasonal changes, daily activities,
and the filmmaker's projected future. (AR)
Forgefeel (1997); 16mm, b&w and color, sound, 13 minutes
The landscape rendered is a playground at a San Francisco public school. The vantage point is from above, filmed
early in the morning from a second-story window across the street. The children's seemingly random and often
chaotic play is intercut with the regimentation imposed by the iron gates, morning bells, line-ups, and a repetitive,
daily routine. The combination of activities reminds the maker of his childhood and awakens a series of
premonitions about the aging process. Forgefeel is the Yiddish word for premonition. (AR)
Half-Slster (1985); 16mm, color, sound, 22 minutes
A recently discovered photograph of my half-sister who was killed in the German concentration camp of Auschwitz
inspires the imagination to conceive a life that would have been. (AR)
The March (work-in-progress); 16mm, color, sound, 15 minutes
Utilizing a series of conversations conducted over a thirteen-year period between the filmmaker and his mother. The
March details one woman's recollections of the 1945 "Death March" from Auschwitz. (AR)
Bom in Poland in 1947 and raised in Israel, Abraham Ravett moved to the U.S. in 1955. He holds a BFA and MFA
in filmmaking and photography and has been an independent filmmaker for the past twenty years. Ravett has
received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities,
the Japan Foundation, and the John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His films have been screened
internationally, including the Museum of Modem Art; Anthology Film Archives; Collective for Living Cinema;
Pacific Film Archive; San Francisco Cinematheque; LA Filmforum; Innis Film Society, Toronto, Canada; and
Image Forum, Tokyo, Japan. At present Abraham Ravett teaches filmmaking and photography at Hampshire
College, in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Abraham Ravett Fiiinography:
Quelle Heure (1975); The North End (1977); Thirty Years Later (1978); Haverhill High (1979); After the
Unveiling (1981); Sara (1983); A Calming Breeze (1984); Zeger's Note (1984); Half-Slster (1985); Toncia (1986);
Jack Haber (1987); The Balcony (1988); Everything's For You (1989); An Abu's Warning (1992); In Memory
(1993); Forgotten Tenor {1994); Horse/Kappa/House (1995); Forgefeel {1997); The Boardwalk (1998); The
March (in-progress).
Program Notes written and compiled by John Mrozik
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Program Notes 1998
FILM UNDER FIRE:
AN EVENING OF OBJECTIONABLE ART
A program of films challenging the tolerance of right-wing demagogues; curated by Steve Anker
Sunday, November 1 , 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Tonight's selection of films were made in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling against Karen Finley and the
NEA-Four. By upholding a decency test for Federal arts grants, the Court has essentially given State and local
oflficials license to limit the freedoms of expression that all forms of art thrive upon. Cinematheque has chosen seven
films, all distributed by NEA-rejected Canyon Cinema, that challenge the boundaries of expression while remaining
impressive works of art. (Steve Anker)
NEA watchdogs take note: Not one government dollar was spent on tonight's program.
Noema (1998) by Scott Stark; video, color, sound, 10 minutes
Stark takes the most repetitive of film genres, the porno, and loops selected moments that call attention to those
fleeting in-between positions. As one actor flips his partner over for a rear entry, again and again and again, Noema
distracts the viewer from any eroticism inherent in pornography and emphasizes the mechanics, and mundane
repetitiveness, in the blue movie. Within this. Stark has reassembled and realized a grace of movement which might
not have been the pomographer's intent. Add to this the minimal soundtrack, and the momentous money shot is
prolonged to what could possibly be infinity (but Stark allows a payoff: heralds of applause and fireworks).
Scott Stark has produced more than fifty films and videos in the last fifteen years. He consistently uses film to
challenge traditional viewing experiences. In addition to teaching classes at the San Francisco Art Institute, Stark
served for seven years on the board of San Francisco Cinematheque, during which time he co-founded
Cinematheque's journal of film and media art. Cinematograph.
Near the Big Chakra (1971) by Anne Severson (aka Alice Anne Parker); 16mm, silent, 17 minutes
Made in 1971, the end of the first great wave of feminism, which certainly opened the door to a lot of forbidden
thoughts and issues. I think as a film it created a certain space. (AS, interviewed by Scott McDonald in A Critical
Cinema 2)
Joseph Campbell explained chakras as "circles or spheres of consciousness." In yogic terms, the first chakra one
gains control of is located between the genitals and anus. Severson explores this while at the same time removing all
etymology of the vagina. By bombarding the viewer in continuous, repetitious shots, Severson succeeds in
demystifying, de-sexualizing, and de-clinicalizing these "vaginas at rest," and paves the way for future, more
dangerous filmic subjects.
Anne Severson (Alice Anne Parker) had a brief filmmaking career in the late 1960s to the mid-1970s while living in
San Francisco. Parker's work focused on the human body, especially as it relates to gender and sexuality. She
continues to be active as an artist and Shaman living in Hawaii.
The Color of Love (1994) by Peggy Ahwesh; 16mm, color, sound, 12 minutes
"[A] desolate, poignant artifact, playfully subversive, somehow evoking the possibility for passion, desire, and
reverie absent fi-om the empty, emptying transaction of the skin flick." (Gavin Smith)
There could be no way of knowing that the editing and reassembling of a discarded porno flick found deteriorating
in a garbage can could produce such a colorful dance of flesh and blood. The anonymous actresses as vampiresses
who (poorly) perform sanguinary acts of necrophilia become re-envisioned by Ahwesh as she cuts it against a
wonderful tango. All of this is constantly framed, and more often taken over by, the kaleidoscopic colors (courtesy
of Father Time's heavy influence on neglected stock) which invade, pervade, and ultimately outshine the
uninteresting human actors. A treat for the eyes and mind, if not the loins.
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Peggy Ahwesh has been making films for fifteen years and stands as one of the most highly regarded
film/videomakers of her generation. Her films combine a textured feel for the material of the mediums she uses with
a concern about the body and female sexuality. A retrospective of her films was recently presented at the Whitney
Museum of American Art, and she will be the artist-in-residence at Verba Buena Center for the Arts in April 1999.
Downs Are Feminine {1993) by Lewis Klahr; 16mm, color, sound, 9 minutes
In this foray into "collage filmmaking," Klahr creates a dreamlike fantasy world grounded in the Eisenhower
suburban home. Using animated cutouts and images from pop culture (one wonders if the filmmaker scoured the
flea markets for back issues oi Life magazine), a homoerotic playfulness is created. Orifices spring forth flowers and
asses are tickled with garden weeders. The thumb becomes a phallus, but Klahr's creations will suck it all the same.
Fun, shocking, but never uninteresting, Klahr's surreal and multi-layered world reminds us that appearances can
often conceal.
Lewis Klahr has been immersed in "collage filmmaking" since the early 1980s, creating exploratory £ind diaristic
films using surreal cutouts and mass media images. The effect is a haunting and dreamlike juxtaposition of images.
Man+Woman+Animal (1972) by Valie Export; 16mm, b&w and color, sound, 12 minutes
As an aspect of Export's early work, this film tackles the external ization of an internal state. Taboo images of female
orgasm, male ejaculate, and menstruation are candidly displayed. Questions of female pleasure are posed as the trio
of images is placed against a soundtrack switching from female moaning, to male grunting, to the cries of the
humpback whale.
Valie Export is a Viennese performance artist and video and filmmaker who found her voice in the expanded
cinema movement of the 1960s. In the following decade, she turned her experimental interests towards the
burgeoning feminist movement.
16/67: September 20th — Gunther Brus (aka Eating, Drinking, Pissing, Shitting) (1967) by Kurt Kren; 16mm,
b&w, silent, 7 minutes
A scatological study in the purest sense, Kren reduces life relations to biological functions: we eat, therefore we shit;
we drink, therefore we piss. Not exactly the most profound idea, yet Kren's construction of man's most public (food
consumption) and private (food waste excretion) traditions is a visual symphony through his precision montage of
structure and rhythm.
The late Kurt Kren emerged as a filmmaker in the late 1950s as part of the modem Viennese art movement, and
soon propelled to the forefront of the Austrian avant-garde film world. His films are marked by an economy of
means, drawing attention to time relations and limitations and, in a larger sense, to the measure of existence. On
December 17th, Cinematheque will be presenting "In Memoriam: Kurt Kren," featuring films inspired and loved by
Kren.
Sodom (1989-94) by Luther Price; Super 8mm, color, sound, 15 minutes
"[Ujncomfortably, we don't know where we stand in relation to what we are experiencing." (Michael Wallin)
A seriously provocative film, Sodom is as technically stunning as it is visually oppressive. No comfort zone is
offered as filmmaker Price creates a complex, unsettling collage, assaulting the viewer with dichotomies of pain and
pleasure, dominance and submission, desire and fulfillment. Clips from violent gay sex flicks cut against acts of
auto-fellatio, cut against horrifying scenes from Biblical epics; add to that manipulated and queasy Gregorian chants,
and Sodom is at once dangerous and tempting.
Luther Price is transgressive in the truest sense. With his trademark punch-hole construction of images within
images, rapid-fire cutting, and obsessive repetition, his films are always fresh, surprising, and perversely his own.
Program Notes written and compiled by John K. Mrozik
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Program Notes 1998
BRECHT AND CINEMA!
A CELEBRATION OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S
lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 3: NAGISA OSHIMA'S DEATH BY HANGING
Thursday, November 5, 1998 — Verba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
[0]ur representations must take second place to what is represented, men 's life together in society, and the
pleasure felt in their perfection must be converted into the higher pleasure felt when the rules emerging fi-om
this life in society are treated as imperfect and provisional. In this way the theatre leaves its spectators
productively disposed even after the spectacle is over. Let us hope that their theatre may allow them to enjoy
as entertainment that terrible and never-ending labor which should ensure their maintenance, together with
the terror of their unceasing transformation. (Bertolt Brecht, "A Short Organum for the Theatre")
To introduce this critical attitude into art, the negative element which it doubtless includes must be shown
from its positive side: this criticism of the world is active, practical, positive. Criticizing the course of a
river means improving it, correcting it. Criticism of society is ultimately revolution; there you have
criticism taken to its logical conclusion and playing an active part. A critical attitude of this type is an
operative factor of productivity; it is deeply enjoyable as such, and if we commonly use the term "arts" for
enterprises that improve peoples lives why should art proper remain aloof from arts of this sort?
(BB, "Short Description of a New Technique of Acting")
Death by Hanging (1968) by Nagisa Oshima; 16mm, b&w, sound, 1 14 minutes
Nagisa Oshima's film career spans from 1959 to the present. Coinciding with Japan's reemergence after its World
War II defeat and the Occupation as a major global economic power, Oshima's films represent a running
commentary, direct and indirect, on the intellectual and political life in post-war Japan. His two early films Cruel
Story of Youth (1960) and Night and Fog in Japan (1960) are considered as paradigmatic of the New Wave
movement in Japan. From our perspective (although Oshima might contest it) his role and legend in the history of
contemporary Japanese film are large.
When we think about Nagisa Oshima's films, we need to point out at least four mythic biographical elements that
draw reference to situating his works of art within his self-conscious investigation of boundaries between self and
history. One important element is his family background. He is said to be from an aristocratic background as well as
a descendant of a Samurai family. These two terms together connote a tradition of education, privilege and self-
esteem, which found its most likely equivalent in government services, the military, or a university professorship. In
this view, Oshima becomes the rebellious son (his father being a government official) whose rebellion is nonetheless
informed by his sense of power and will to action.
Another important event in Oshima's biography is his father's death when he was only six years old. The filmmaker
himself defines his father's absence as the most significant factor in his childhood. But the reason for this fact's
importance is not what a Eurocentric mind might expect. He considers his father's absence an advantage, giving him
"true discipline and education." However, this statement should be considered within a context of his rebellion
against conformity, for what he praises in his own formation is acceptance and even a desire to be out of the
ordinary. The most radical works in his thirst for difference and digging into social and psychological taboos, are
probably In the Realm of the Senses (1976) and Empire of Passion (1978).
For better insight into the intellectual motivations of his films, we should consider the historical circumstances in
which he was growing up. From an autobiographical essay entitled "My Adolescence Began with Defeat," we find
out that, bom in 1932, the year before the invasion of Manchuria, his life and schooling was unfolding within the
context of his nation's militarism and imperialist expansion. The realization apres-coup of the Japanese propaganda
machine having been a false foundation of childhood truth is what coming of age meant for much of his generation.
His sensibility as an artist definitely reflects the schism of a nation, culturally caught between nostalgic longing and
rejection of the past; longing for privileges and belief in the Japanese nation. Although more commercial in its
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value, featuring two popular rock stars David Bowie and Ruichi Sakamoto, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1982)
can be also understood along these lines.
Another touchstone for interpretation of his films is Oshima's involvement in left-wing student movements and
drama groups (since high school, up to his student years at the Law Faculty of Kyoto University). He was a vice
president of the student association and a president of the Kyoto prefecture student alliance. One of the films most
directly reflecting his political engagement in student demonstrations in the fifties is the already mentioned Night
and Fog in Japan or Yunbogi 's Diary ( 1 965).
Oshima's work reflects his political engagement and disenchantment with Japanese false politics. It calls for the
revelation of ideological mechanisms, and hence the use of what may be seen as Brechtian strategies. Death by
Hanging, one of his most highly regarded works, is also considered his most "Brechtian."
Based on an actual criminal case. Death by Hanging tells the story of the execution of a Korean worker found guilty
of rape and the authorities' bizarre reenactments of his crimes. A man, sentenced to death, identified only by the
letter "R," is rendered amnesiac through a failed hanging and thus unconscious of his crime. The simple remedy for
the Japanese officials would be to rehang the condemned man, but, according to at least some interpretations of the
Japanese law presented in the film, a man who has no memory can not be legally punished, being neither cognizant
of his crime nor able to understand his punishment. This creates a situation in which the officials must reawaken the
conscious knowledge of identity, and thus the past and guilt. Both formally and politically trenchant, the film
explores the oppression of Koreans in Japan, capital punishment as political control and sexual murder as an
outcome of social repression.
According to Maureen Turim in her recent Nagisa Oshima: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast, Brecht should be seen
as only one of many sources of Oshima's strategies of reshaping cinematic representation. One should also consider
the influence of the Soviet agit-prop theater of Meyerhold, itself an influence on Brecht, which had a strong
presence in modem Japanese theatre history. Also, some components of a Brechtian strategy are difficult to
distinguish from a specifically Japanese theatricality (such as kabuki). One of the significant differences she sees in
Oshima is that he does not embrace Brecht's dictum of depriving a scene of its sensationalism, but rather uses sex
and violence sensationally, giving such depictions a critical edge.
Program Notes written and compiled by Maja Manojlovic
DONT FORGET: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRECHT AT THEATRE ARTAUD NOV 3-8, 1998—
SEE FLYER FOR DETAILS
BRECHT AND CINEMA CONTINUES AT CINEMATHEQUE ON DECEMBER 3 AND 5, 1998
ARTISTS AND FILMS: CROSSOVER FIX
Sunday, November 8 , 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Works ofCalder (1950) by Herbert Matter; 16mm, color, sound, 20 minutes
Swiss-bom graphic designer and photographer Herbert Matter made Works ofCalder in 1950. His designs ranged
from a logo for the New Hampshire Railroad in 1955 to work for the New Yorker and Fortune magazines. For many
years he was director of graphics and photography for the Knoll furniture group.
In Works of Calder, Matter joyfully links nature — water, reeds, leaves, grasses — and Calder's freely moving
mobiles, all this seen through the eyes of an enchanted child. The film's music is by John Cage, whose prepared
piano masterwork Sonatas and Interludes was completed just two years before the film. In this composition, as well
as in the film's score. Cage explored new sound resources for the piano by placing among the strings a variety of
soft and hard objects which dramatically altered the instrument's sound. The resulting sound, which has a strongly
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Program Notes 1998
Asian tinge to it, perhaps reflects the metallic clinking Calder's mobiles would make if they were somehow
transformed into musical instruments. This film provides a timely glimpse of Calder's studio as it looked in the early
fifties. If you have not seen the Calder show at the San Francisco Museum of Modem Art, see it soon; it closes
December l".
Berlin Still Life {1926) by Laszlo MohiDJy-Nagy; 16mm, b&w, 8 minutes
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was one of the great multi-disciplinarians and experimenters in twentieth-century art. His
work and theoretical writing ranged from painting, sculpture, and photography to film and graphics, exhibition,
theater, and industrial design. His teaching began at the German Bauhaus and extended to the Institute of Design in
Chicago following his immigration to the U.S. in 1937. From the very beginning, Moholy showed compelling
interest in light as an artistic medium; his first photograms (camera-less photography) date from 1920. By 1923 at
the Bauhaus, he had begun experiments with light and color as well as with sculptural objects that integrated
movement and reflected light — his Light-Space Modulators — and photography. Thus, it was only logical that his
attentions should turn to film as the ideal medium for integrating all his radical work; that, as he said, things that
move should replace static works of art.
While Moholy's more radical films include use of his Light-Space Modulators, a film like Berlin Still Life might
seem, at first glance, to be more of a documentary. A closer look, however, reveals the eye and hand of a confirmed
experimenter. The rakish angles, diagonals and vertiginous shots, all coupled with refined formalist sensibility, are
immediately striking. It is as if one sees Moholy's own photographs — or those of his contemporary Alexander
Rodchenko — stunningly set in motion. Here too, is a view of and commentary on the grittier aspects of Weimar-
Republic Berlin — the same Berlin commented on by artists like George Grosz, Bertolt Brecht, and Kurt Weill. For
anyone who knows contemporary, post-wall Berlin, it is particularly fascinating to recognize these familiar
characteristics of that city so clearly in this marvelous look back of more than seventy years.
Bells of Atlantis (1952) by Ian Hugo; 16mm, sound, color, 9 minutes
Bells of Atlantis is a collaborative work. AnaTs Nin wrote the text and is both seen and heard in the film. Ian Hugo
directed the production and collaborated with sculptor/filmmaker Len Lye on the haunting color and montage
effects. Louis and Bebe Baron, who are credited with creating the first electronic music film score for Forbidden
Planet in 1956, preceded that media milestone by four years with the electronic music in Bells of Atlantis. It is
interesting to note the date of this film. Although Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry had made their first musique
concrete in the late forties, John Cage did not create his first tape music, Williams Mix, until 1952, and Karlheinz
Stockhausen's Study I for electronic sounds was made only in 1953. About this film, Abel Gance wrote, "Upon
viewing Ian Hugo's Bells of Atlantis, I had just as powerful an impression as I had received reading 'Une Saison en
Enfer' or 'Le Bateau Ivre' of Rimbaud. The fiision of image, text, and sound is so magical that it is impossible to
disassociate them in order to explain the favorable reactions of the unconscious, which are at once disoriented and
delighted. ... [I]t is very close to being a masterpiece."
Blue Studio: Five Segments (1976) by Merce Cunningham and Charles Atlas; video, color, silent, 15 minutes
Pioneering choreographer/dancer Merce Cunningham created his first dance specifically for television in 1961.
Since then, he has created a number of such works, most notable among them. Points in Space, which had its first
public screening in San Francisco in 1986. More recently, Cunningham has availed himself of computer-video
technology as a tool in the creation of his work.
"In October 1975, Cunningham and filmmaker Charles Atlas were invited to make a work at the WNET/TV Lab in
New York City; Blue Studio: Five Segments was the result. Cunningham has reported that the studio was an
extremely small space. 'If I raised my arms I touched the lights, there was a cement floor, and we had two days in
which to do it. Everything we had planned there didn't work. I originally wanted two dancers, but when I saw the
studio and the conditions, I decided to do it myself While it might seem surprising to learn that Blue Studio: Five
Segments is without sound, in fact, it makes sense: Cunningham's dances are conceived without any pre-existing
musical score. They are rehearsed and perfected in silence, the dancers coordinating their actions simply by
counting. It is only when the curtain rises at the first performance that dance and music are integrated.
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"Cunningham and Atlas experimented with the Chroma-key process, which enables a figure to be seen against a
changing background, an effect reminiscent of the dream sequence in Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. The final section
of Blue Studio: Five Segments eventually included five Merce Cunningham's, all moving simultaneously. As
Cunningham has described it, the section had to be shot five times, during which he tried to remember what he had
been doing and where in the space he had been doing it so that he would not occupy the same space more than
once." (David Vaughan, Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years)
Pause! (1977) by Peter Kubelka; 16mm, color, sound, 12 minutes
It is clear that Peter Kubelka feels a close affinity for the work of his Austrian artist colleague Amulf Rainer; two
out of his six completed works use the artist as a launching point. Rainer is noted for his "paintovers" in which he
paints out existing images, generally with black paint. Kubelka's Amulf Rainer (1958-60) closely reflects his
reproductive approach through its intense, tightly structured scoring solely of black and white film frames. Rainer is
also recognized as one of the fathers of body and performance art, and it is this aspect of his work that is featured in
Pause!. Although this film provides an intimate view of Rainer in action, being by Kubelka, it is far from any sort of
straightforward documentary. The power of the film lies not only in Rainer's actions but, even more profoundly, in
Kubelka's characteristically tough editing and framing.
TROIKA
Jennifer Montgomery In Person
Thursday, November 12, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
Troika (1998); 16mm, color, sound, 96 minutes
Tonight Jennifer Montgomery returns to Cinematheque with her latest feature film Troika, which had its premiere at
last spring's New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Troika detachedly tracks Jennifer, a journalist, as she
contends with aggressive chauvinism on a job interviewing the Russian ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky,
while at home suffering constant put-downs and insults from her lover. The film is concerned with empowerment,
humiliation, and the egoism in professional and personal relations. A pervading theme is the need for Jennifer to
communicate with, to understand, and interpret both Zhirinovsky and her lesbian lover (identified only as "Z"). The
physical and sexual danger of being trapped on Zhirinovsky's yacht on the Volga is deftly juxtaposed with the
emotional cat-and-mouse play Z aggressively pursues with Jennifer. The result is an exploration of the ways the
political and the personal tend to become inseparable when dealing with issues of power. Troika was made possible
in large part by a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. Jennifer Montgomery currently teaches at
Hampshire College.
Jennifer Montgomery began making films in 1986 while studying at the San Francisco Art Institute. Drawing on
her own past and memories, Montgomery has worked to create a film body which addresses the inherent conflict
between objectivity and turning the camera'a gaze onto the self The results have always been both compelling and
provocative. She first came into prominence with her 1 989 Super-8 short Home Avenue, a highly personal account
of a sexual trauma. In re-telling the experience of being raped, Montgomery appears as both subject and filmmaker,
allowing her to externalize an experience for which there was "no physical evidence." Montgomery utilizes the
limited range of the Super-8 medium to create an intimacy with the viewer. By juxtaposing personal accounts with
flat shots of suburbia, the viewer is suggested to look beyond this tame veneer for the hidden terrors beneath.
Blurring the boundaries between factual account and subjective memory, Montgomery's Age 12: Love -with a Little
L suggests an autobiography viewed as though a dream. In /, a Lamb, the symbol of the lamb is placed under intense
scrutiny. The lamb has been an icon for many political, religious, and psychological associations which are all
investigated in Montgomery's film essay.
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Her 16mm feature Art for Teachers of Children is a fascinating study of desire, seduction, and the politics of power
which develop between artists and models. Based on the intimate relationship between Montgomery and her
boarding school counselor, a professional photographer, she shows with a dispassionate but reflective eye the
complexities of abuse and consent. Again, Montgomery is interested in examining her responsibilities without the
trappings of being a victim in the affair.
Jennifer Montgomery Filmography:
Home Avenue (1989); Age 12: Love With a Little L (1990); /, a Lamb (1992); Art For Teachers of Children
(1995); Tro/Aa (1998)
Program Notes written and compiled by John K. Mrozik
TWO NIGHTS WITH CHICK
1998 Phelan Award Winner Chick Strand In Person
Sunday, November 15, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
The secret that had been kept from us ... was that we are left with ourselves, and it's only ourselves who
make the visions and fulfill them. It is the image of the elasticity, tenacity, and majesty of the human spirit
that is the true romance for me. (Chick Strand, Notes on Romance, 1977)
Our beloved Chick Strand, co-founder (with Bruce Bailiie) of Canyon Cinema and Cinematheque in 1961, painter
and maker of almost 20 films, is the recipient of the 1998 James D. Phelan Art Award in Filmmaking. This award,
which is sponsored by San Francisco Foundation and administered by Film Arts Foundation, has been presented
biennially since 1982 to a California-bom artist. Chick, whose work journeys between a quest for seemingly
unmediated sensuous images and a critical reflective stance which challenges and explores the representational
process, is with us to present several films and receive her much merited award.
Kristallnacht (1979); 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 minutes
Dedicated to Anne Frank and the tenacity of the human spirit. (CS, Canyon Cinema: Film/Video Catalogue #7)
Soft Fiction (1979); 16mm, b&w, sound, 54 minutes
It's that tenacity, that kind of spirit that I'm really enamored of. ... To turn it around and not to have been victimized.
I mean it doesn't erase the thing but if you come out whole, if you come out no longer the victim in your own mind,
then that's great. ... I see Amy, the woman with the suitcase [in Soft Fiction], the woman on the train and the woman
behind the waterfall at the end, as the traveler, the woman on a journey, the woman completing it all, the woman
coming out the other end whole ... and more than whole, with the addition of coping with the experience and making
it constructive (CS, speaking at Cinematheque, 1980)
"Chick Strand's Soft Fiction is a personal documentary that brilliantly portrays the survival power of female
sensuality. ... The title Soft Fiction works on several levels. It evokes the soft line between truth and fiction that
characterizes Strand's own approach to documentary, and suggests the idea of softcore fiction, which is appropriate
to the film's erotic content and style. It's rare to find an erotic film with a female perspective dominating both the
narrative discourse and the visual and audio rhythms with which the film is structured. ... The title also evokes
softness as a female characteristic that can be interpreted both negatively and positively. In a pejorative sense,
softness implies weakness and victimization .... On the other hand, softness also implies flexibility and thereby
fimctions as a positive mode of survival and creative transformation. ... The monologues play with the positive and
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San Francisco Cinematheque
negative meanings of softness as if they were light and shade. The women flirt with danger and victimization, yet
take pride in their malleability and survival. ... Strand continues to celebrate in her brilliant, innovative personal
documentaries her theme, the reaffirmation of the tough resilience of the human spirit." (Marsha Kinder, Film
Quarterly, 1980)
"Strand's films ... insinuate a value system antipathetic to Western white, male rationality, and the chaos it has wrought
on human history. ... Soft Fiction is an extremely personal film, as if by an ironic reversal of terms it existed as a fiction
'softened' into a documentary. As always in Strand's films the photography is exquisitely lyrical, as if beauty were
itself the location of a value system alternative to that of the male-dominant society in which these women have been
obliged to live. This beauty is reciprocated by a fictional frame around the stories .... [The film] can be seen as a map
of the various alternatives or components with a single psyche. This appropriation of the documentary to the expressive
or self-investigative is characteristic of Strand's work as a whole, and is in fact implicit in the values it projects. The
tension between the 'objective' documentary and the 'subjective' personal account is but one element in a
combinattoire of binary oppositions [in Strand's work as a whole] which also includes, on the one hand, material,
scientific, rational, capitalist. North American, and male; and on the other, intuitive, sensual, pre-capitalist. Central
American, and female." (David James, Southern California Art Magazine, 1981)
Coming Up for Air (19S6); 16mm, color, sound, 26 minutes
A "new narrative" film based on the visions of magic realism in an Anglo context. This is a gothic mystery that
explores a reckless pursuit of interchangeable personalities and experiences. Whether experience is first hand, read,
remembered from a conversation during a chance encounter, heard of from all possible sources of information,
whether fact or fiction the "experiences" become ours; reinterpreted, reconstructed and restructured, finally
becoming our personal myths, and the source of our poetry and dreams. The sources for this film include night
dreams, the idea of holocaust, the exoticness of the Mid-East, the sensuality of animals, tfie explorations of Scott in
Antarctica, and a film I once saw, entitled The Son of Amir Is Dead (CS, Canyon Cinema: Film/Video Catalogue #7)
Chick Strand Filmography:
Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966); Anselmo (1967); Waterfall (1967); Mosori Monika (1970); Cosas de Mi Vida
(1976); Elasticity (1976); Guacamole (1976); Mujer de Milfuegos (1976); Cartoon le Mousse (1979); Fever
Dream (1979); Kristallnacht (1979); Loose Ends (1979); Soft Fiction (1979); Anselmo and the Women (1986);
Artificial Paradise (\9%6); By the Lake (\9%6); Coming Up for Air (\9%6); Fake Fruit (\9S6)
Chick Strand: You know we really are still beginners ... that's the urgency. Realizing that we have twenty
pieces, twenty films together, all together, big deal! We are still just beginning ...just learning.
Gunvor Nelson: But think how marry frames!
For more on Chick Strand, see the latest issues of Release Print, Wide Angle, and Discourse.
The latter two include lengthy interviews with her.
74
Program Notes 1998
GUNVOR NELSON: THE LONG FILMS
Sunday, November 22, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Gunvor Nelson's work as a filmmaker and as a teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute has influenced the Bay
Area's film community for more than twenty years. Gunvor grew up in Kristinehamn, Sweden. After living in
England and Holland, she returned to Sweden and attended Stockholm's Konstfakskolan. She moved to the U.S. in
1953 and obtained a BA from Humboldt State College, and in 1960, received an MFA degree in Painting and Art
History from Mills College in Oakland. After a brief return trip to Sweden, she moved back to the Bay Area and
married Robert Nelson, a fellow art student (and maker of celebrated "underground" films such as Oh Dem
Watermelons and The Great Blondino). She moved from painting to filmmaking in 1965 with the release of
Schmeerguntz (made with Dorothy Wiley). Her films have had an inestimable impact upon the development of
experimental filmmaking in the U.S. — particularly on the West Coast — and have influenced a generation of film
artists using cinema as a vehicle for the expression of personal concerns. After living in the USA for 32 years, she
returned to Sweden in 1992.
"A central theme in Nelson's work is her meditation on the nature of female beauty. She contrasts the contemporary
American definition of female attractiveness with the more universal principle of feminine beauty perceived in
nature. She sees these two definitions as irreconcilable because the cultural model is based on repression of
instinctual and natural female behavior and appearance. Although the woman today is trained to purchase all of her
natural functions (embodied in cosmetics), the natural woman remains beneath all the artificial surface, and Gunvor
Nelson's filmmaking helps us rediscover her and redefine her beauty on a human scale.
"Yet, in dealing with childhood, birth, sexuality and self-hood, her films have universal appeal. Like Doris Lessing,
Nelson believes that what is most deeply personal often connects mysteriously with what is most widely shared in
human experience. 'I want,' says Nelson, 'to go into myself as much as possible and hopefully it will be universal.'"
(June M. Gill, "The Films of Gunvor Nelson," Film Quarterly, Spring 1977)
Field Study #2 (1988); I6mm, color, sound, 8 minutes
"Another collage film. Part of the on-going series of Field Studies (which includes Frame Line, Light Years, and
Light Years Expanding) combining live action with animation.
Superimpositions of dark pourings are perceived through the film. Suddenly a bright color runs across the picture
and delicate drawings flutter past. Grunts from animals are heard." (GN, Canyon Cinema: Film/Video Catalogue #7)
Red Shift (1984); 16mm, b&w, sound, 50 minutes
Red Shift is a film about relationships, generations, and time. The subtitle is All Expectation. The movement of a
luminous body toward and away from us can be found in its spectral lines. A shift toward red occurs with anybody
that is self-luminous and receding. There is uncertainty about how much observable material exists. (GN)
"It involves Gunvor Nelson, her mother, and her daughter. Carefully and with great tenderness, it focuses on these
three women, trying to show us their relationship, succeeding with an emotional impact that is hardly ever found in
such a subject. It is not the social context which is exploited but the little gestures, everyday events. Red Shift is a
radical film; it sets new measures for avant-garde filmmaking dealing with personal problems." (Alf Bold, The
Arsenal, Berlin)
Light Years (1987); 16mm, color, sound, 28 minutes
"Not only is Light Years one of Gunvor Nelson's greatest achievements, it's also one of the most beautiful films
ever made. That covers a lot of time and distance, as 'ever' does." (Albert Kilchesty, LA Filmforum)
Light Years is a collage film and a journey through the Swedish landscape, traversing stellar distances in units of 5,878
trillion miles. It is a film acutely in the present reflecting our temporal existence ... continuous and imperfect (GN)
75
San Francisco Cinematheque
^' Light Years continues to develop the concerns and techniques begun in her earlier film Frame Line (1983). In Light
Years Nelson blends collage animation with highly textured live-action material to create a haunting evocation of
her displacement from native Swedish culture. Particularly striking is her use of wet ink to create a constantly
shifting image of a path leading to a house. With these passages of the house and moving images of the Swedish
landscape as threads. Light Years becomes a tapestry of change as experienced through constant motion. It is a
personal reflection on the filmmaker's memories of her past. The film is so filled with visual ideas that Gunvor
Nelson has extended the film's themes and techniques in her subsequent effort Light Years Expanding (1987). All
her recent films suggest that while the distance of time makes home further, the intensity of memory makes it
richer." (Parabola Arts Foundation Brochure #3)
BIG AS LIFE:
AN AMERICAN HISTORY OF 8MM FILMS
PROGRAM 3
Tuesday, November 24, 1998 — Pacific Film Archive — 7:30pm
Beginning Tuesday, September 22nd, and continuing in alternating months through June 1999, the Pacific Film
Archive and San Francisco Cinematheque will present highlights from the Museum of Modem Art's (New York
City) 60-program retrospective of American-made 8mm films and videos co-curated by myself and MoMA
Associate Curator Jytte Jensen, "Big As Life: An American History of 8mm Films." Continuing through the Spring
of 2000, this retrospective spans personal (and emphatically private) filmmaking from the 1940s through the present,
focusing primarily on films made by self-avowed artists but also including a rich sampling of "found" home movies
and industrial films especially made for "small-gauge" home formats. (Steve Anker)
In Mother's Way (1981) by Jacalyn White; Super 8mm, color, sound, 32 minutes
Martina's Playhouse (1989) by Peggy Ahwesh; Super 8mm, color, sound, 20 minutes
Mary Smith (1980) by Gail Vachon; Super 8mm, color, sound, 16 minutes
BRECHT AND CINEMA!
A CELEBRATION OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S
lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 3: GLAUBER ROCHA'S
DER LEONE HAVE SEPT CABE^AS
Thursday, December 3, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
From Cinema Novo it should be learned that an aesthetic of violence, before being primitive, is
revolutionary. It is the initial moment when the colonizer becomes aware of the colonized. Only when
confronted with violence does the colonizer understand, through horror, the strength of the culture he
exploits. As long as they do not take up arms, the colonized remain slaves.... (Glauber Rocha from "An
Aesthetic of Hunger," 1965)
76
Program Notes 1998
Rejecting the expensive and highly technical studio production model, and heavily influenced by the French New
Wave and Italian neorealism rose the "Cinema Novo" in the early 1960s. The movement grew out of a concern by
several Brazilian filmmakers (including Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Ruy Guerra, Carlos Diegues) with their nation's
socioeconomic problems, its history, and its culture. Leading Brazil's influential movement was filmmaker,
theoretician, and critic Glauber Rocha. Rocha realized how the Brazilian public was "enslaved by the language of
foreign films — particularly North American movies," and that the effects of such cultural imperialism fostered an
inferiority complex on the part of Brazilian cinema. The result was a failure to confront the social realities of a
country whose unemployment and illiteracy had by then reached fifty percent.
Occurring over three movements, or phases. Cinema Novo recognized the need to deglamorize the filmic medium,
to forego technical polish and strive to depict the hunger and misery of the Brazilian people. From 1960 through
1 964, Cinema Novo filmmakers pointed their lenses at the problems confronting the poorest sectors of society:
economic exploitation, hunger, and oppression. In Deus E O Diablo Na Terra Do Sol (Black God, White Devil)
(1964) Rocha undertook a critical examination of the cangago (banditry) and of messianic cults. In the second phase
of Novo (1964-68), Rocha attacked the failures of Brazil's developmentalist policies and the democratic populism
with the antirealist and self-reflexive Terra Em Transe (Land in Anguish) (1967). During Cinema Novo's final phase
(1968-72), filmmakers sought to avoid censorship and political repression by using allegorical, literary, and
historical approaches. Rocha demonstrated a touch of a Wellesian influence in his operatic epic Antonio das Mortes.
Political repression ultimately ended Cinema Novo, with some of the filmmakers (including Rocha) going into exile.
In the case ofTricontinental cinema, aesthetics have more to do with ideology than with technique, and the
technical myths of the zoom, of direct cinema, of the hand-held camera and of the uses of color are nothing
more than tools for expression. The operative word is ideology, and it knows no geographic boundaries.
When I speak ofTricontinental cinema and include Godard in this grouping, it is because his work opens a
guerrilla-like operation in the cinema; he attacks suddenly and unexpectedly, with pitiless films. His
cinema becomes political because it proposes a strategy, a valuable set of tactics, usable in any part of the
world. I insist on a "guerrilla cinema" as the only form of combat: the cinema one improvises outside the
conventional production structure against formal conventions imposed on the general public and on the
elite. (Glauber Rocha, "The Tricontinental Filmmaker: That Is Called the Dawn," 1967)
In 1968, the Brazilian military regime, under its Fifth Institutional Act, suspended civil rights, prompting Glauber
Rocha into exile in Europe. It was in the Congo in 1970 that Rocha created Der Leone Have Sept Cabegas (The Lion
Has Se-ien Heads). With Der Leone, Rocha's European influences (Godard, Eisenstein, and Brecht) become
apparent as he contributes to his Third World project, while retaining his own personal perspective in his vision.
Der Leone Have Sept Cabegas is a highly rhetorical hymn to the Tricontinental revolution. It utilizes a blend of
broad political caricature with a vision derived from the Revelation of St. John in depicting the cruelties of white
colonialism over the ages. Non-narrative and symbolic, Rocha's Brechtian fable animates emblematic figures
representing Africa's diverse colonizing nations, suggesting imperial homologies among them. Der Leone Have Sept
Cabegas, whose very title subverts the linguistic positioning of the spectator by mingling five of the languages of
Afiica's colonizers.
Rocha returned to Brazil in 1976 (while it was moving towards more democratic liberties) to direct his ambitious
effort La Made Da Terra/The Age of the Earth (1980), an allegorical history of colonialism and liberation conveyed
in a chaotic blend of styles, histories, myths, and ideologies. Unfavorable reception prompted Rocha back into exile,
where he remained until his death in 1981 at the age of 43.
Der Leone Have Sept Cabegas (1970); 16mm, color, sound, 97 minutes
The Lion is my fifth full-length film. In my opinion, it is a Brazilian picture, because Gianni Barcelonni and Claude
Antoine speak Portuguese and love Brazil, and this is why they produced the film: They knew that even in Europe I
could only have done a Brazilian picture. In addition, this film was written by me and by Gianni Amico, who is
more Brazilian than Pele.
As everyone knows, Africa is the mother of Brazil. For a long time I have wanted to make this journey back to the
origins. Therefore, my first European film is also an African film to the extent that I think I have made the most
Brazilian of my movies ....
77
San Francisco Cinematheque
The Lion is also a political picture. Today, every film tries to be political. But the political cinema means nothing if
it is produced by moralism, anarchy, or opportunism. Only a wretch like me could say that art has a meaning for the
wretched ....
Like my other films, The Lion is a popular film produced by a popular culture. It is anti-imperialist. It is
revolutionary. It cries and screams openly because intimacy is not the language of revolutions. Pure reason is a
privilege of oppression, but it is through the dialectics of violence one can reach lyricism.
With my palm trees, my birds, my policemen torturers, my black slaves, my murdered peasants, my rivers, my
forests, my carnival — the ever-spilt blood, the tears, reason, reason — myself The Lion is a film made for the Third
World. (GR, New Yorker Films)
Glauber Rocha Filmography:
Barravento (The Turning Wind) (1962); Deus E O Diablo Na Terra Do Sol (Black God, White Devil) (1964);
Terra Em Transe (Land in Anguish) (1967); Antonio das Mortes (1969); O Dragao Da Maldade Contra O Santo
Guerriero (1969); Der Leone Have Sept Cabegas (The Lion Has Seven Heads) (1970); Cabegas Cortadas (1971);
La Idade Da Terra (The Age of the Earth) ( 1 980)
Program Notes written and compiled by John K. Mrozik
BRECHT AND CINEMA CONCLUDES AT CINEMATHEQUE ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1998
WITH THEO ANGELOPOULOS' THE TRA YELLING PLA YERS
BRECHT AND CINEMA!
A CELEBRATION OF BERTOLT BRECHT'S
lOOTH BIRTHDAY
PROGRAM 4: THEO ANGELOPOULOS'
THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS
78
Program Notes 1998
FEBRUARY 16 ^- MARCH 4 , 1990
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
79
San Francisco Cinematheque
A M^dersi Greek Musferpiece
Susan Tarr and Hans Proppe
n THIASSOS even though we refer to the past, we are talking about the
I present. The approach is not mythical but dialectical. This comes through
' in the structure of the film where often "two historical times" are dialecti-
I cally juxtaposed in the same shot creating associations leading directly to
hislorical conclusions.... Those links do not level events but bypass the
notions of past/present and instead provide a linear developmental inter-
pretation which exists only in the present.
Theodoros Angelopoulos
THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS (O THIASSOS) is the fourth and latest workof
Creek filmmaker Theodoros Angelopoulos. The film won the International Crit-
ics award at Cannes after the current Creek regime refused to sponsor it on the
grounds that it was "too leftist." Subsequently the film was voted Best Picture of
the Year by the British Film Institute, won Special Jury Prize at Taorimo, TAge
d'or at Brussetls ind was Crand Prize Winner at Thessaloniki. The film and the
events surrounding it were a cause celebre last year throughout Creece, and it
has become the second top-grossing feature in Athens. In European film )ourruls
the film has been hailed as *r\ innovative breakthrough in political filmmaking
and has been compared to prior jchievcmenls of POTEMKIN, OPEN CITY and
the films of Codard. Hopefully its recent screening at Los Angeles FILMEX, San
Francisco Pacific Archive and New York's New Directors Series will give TRA-
VELLING PLAYERS the American visibility and acclaim it deserves.
THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS represents a major breakthrough in both con-
ception and eKCCUtion. The players represent characters of the past and present
and portray historical forces. There are no "actors" or "stars" but rather repres-
entations of individuals and ideas which reflect and create history. The film uses
no close-ups, no intercutting and no simplictfication in four hours. Angelopoulos
assiduously avoids the trap of caricature nor does he attempt lo distill characters
into "essential" Nazis, British Imperialists or Communists. Throughout the film
we are engaged with the forces and facets of history rather than with characters,
players or individuals.
Angelopoulos hjs Intentionally reclaimed the hislorical Issue of the Civil War
in Creece from the distortions of right wing propaganda and mysti^cation, break-
ing a thirty-year silence on the subject, a struggle referred to until now by the
succeeding dictatorships only as the 'war of bandits." Combining three key
aspects or levels, a play (the popular folk tale of "Colfo and the Shepherdess"),
the ancient myth of the family of Agamemnon and recent Creek political history,
Angelopoulos has accomplished the task he set himself in TRAVELLING PLAY-
ERS: a "voyage in time and space" documenting the "terrible years' in Greece
from 1939-1952.
"Colfo and the Shepherdess" has been popular entertainment in Creece for
decades. Angelopoulos deliberately chose it because, in his words, it is a tale that
is as common as "daily bread" to the Creek people. Based on a folk tale about a
shepherd who abandons his sweetheart for the daughter of a wealthy landlord,
the travelling pbyers perform it as a play. In the course of the film the perfor-
mance of the play is several times interrupted by Greek history. The travelling
;^ayers bear the rvames of the characters in the ancient Creek myth-
Agamemnon, Orestes, Clytemneslra, Electra, Pyladcs, Aegisthos and Chryso-
thaeme. The complex family relationships and the events surrounding them
unfold as they do in the original myth. The myth of the family of Agamemnon is
reproduced in TRAVELLING PLAYERS with a very significant difference. The
myth is reproduced as a function of the intervention of history and the historical
events of the period 1939-19S2 rather than as the workings of fate. Aeschylus, in
the origirul Orntria utilizes the dynamic contradition betweeen phiUt (love) and
Mfhitoi (hate). In TRAVELLINC) PLAYERS, Angelopoulos transposes the central
contradiction to that between revolutionary and reactionary political -tendencies
in Creek political history.
e Tf»nlllngFlty$n[Wi-7i\
^^y^
80
Program Notes 1998
brief summiry of ihe mjjor hi»loric»l event* of this period «nd t descrip-
tion of the players will be useful for audiences unfamiliar with them.'
> 1. Greece had been under the Metsxas dictatorship for four years when
i Mussolini attacked in 1940. Metaxas was dependent on England econom-
cally and was therefore unable to align himself with the Axis. The Italian advance
MM stopped in 1940 but the German occupation began on April 27, 1941.
2. Under the leadership of the Communist Party the resistance was organized
.nlo the National Liberation Front {EA?vO which formed the People's Liberation
Army (ELAS). The exiled royalistgovernment and the British supported rightw-
ing groups. As Liberation approached in 1944, all factions agreed to form a
Government of National Unity. Later EAM agreed not to occupy Athens or
initiate a civil war, which allowed the British to land —"to save the country from
anarchy."
3. As the Germans withdrew in October, 1944, General Scobie, the British
officer in charge of the occupation, demanded the disarmament of ELAS despite
earlier'agreements. EAM resigned from the government. A massdemonstration
on December 3 resulted in bloodshed when police fired into the crowd. T>iis
began the Battle of Athens which eventually culminated in the Varlcira Agree-
ment on February 12. 1945. EAM was promised p*rliamentary representation
and amnesty for ELAS provided they disbanded within 15 days. The amnesty did
not include violations of the "Common Penal Code' which gave the right wing
the legal excuse to persecute tens of thousands of rcsistence fighters.
4. Realizing the bluff, some ELAS groups refused to obey and instead returned
to the mouhntains. British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin insisted that elections
be held immediately, despite thechaotic situation. The government was forced to
resign, all democratic parties withdrew from the elections and the royalists won
an easy victory in March 1946. By October the guerillas hasd formed the Demo-
cratic Army and Gvil War raged more bloodily than before. In February 1947 the
British informed the United States that they vrished to withdraw. On March 12,
1947, Truman announced U.S. intentions to "aid Greece," marking the beginning
of an imperalist intervention in the internal affairs of Greece that continues to
this day.
5. Military operations ceased by 1949, the right wing fortified by continuing
U.S. presence and aid. The 1952 elections brought Field Marshal Papagos to
power heading the extreme right wing of the Greek Mobilization Party. By
winning 49.2«of the popular vote he was given 82.3% of the Seats in Parliament
as a result of an election law imposed by the intervention of the American
Embassy.
This is historical background in which the^ravelling troupe pursues their work
and their lives. Agamemnon returns to Greece from the bitter 1922 defeat of the
Greeks by the Turks in Asia Minor, goes to war against the Italians in 1940, joins
the resistance against the Germans, and is executed by them after being betrayed
by Ctytemnestra and Aegisthos. Aegisthos. Clytemnestra's lover, is an informer
and collaborator working with the German occupiers. Orestes, son of Agemem-
non and Clytemnestra, fights on the side of the Communists, avenges his father's
death by killing his mother and Aegisthos. He is arrested in 1949 for his guerilla
activities and is executed in prison in 1951. Electra, his sister, helps the Commu-
nists and aids her brother in avenging the treachery of their mother and Aegis-
thos. After the death of Orestes she continues the work of the troupe and her
relationship with PyladeS; Chrysothaeme, Electra's younger sister, collaborates
with the Germans, prostitutes herself during the occupation, sides with the
British during liberation, and later marries an American. Pylades, close friend of
Orestes, is a Communist who is exiled by the Metaxas regime, joins the guerillas
and is arrested and exiled again. Finally he is forced to sign a written denunciation
of communism after torture by the right wing and he is released from prison in
1953.
Angelopoulos describes himself as having a "passion for history."
He characterizes TRAVELLING PLAYERS as the enactment of a "series
of occupations' of Greece continuing to this day. Most of the film, which
was almost finished at the time that the military dictatorship fell in July
1974, was shot during the period of extreme right wing dictatorship. For this
reason Angelopoulot deliberately obscured most of the political implications of
the film. In order to protect actors and crew, Angelopoutos alone had a complete
script. He used the alibi that he was producing a modern version of Aeschylus'
ancient trilogy when questioned by the government, local military and civil
officials. The style of TRAVELLING PLAYERS is nevertheless more an inten-
tional departure from traditional cinematic convention for the purpose of estab-
lishing a new relationship with the film audience than an attempt to obscure
explicit political analyses and statements. Several key scenes, however, those
most explicitly political, were added only after the fall of the military junta and
revolutionary and forbidden songs were dubbed in later »* well.
In the above quote, Angetopoulos refers to his approach as "dialecticaL" The
dialectic of historical continuity is maintained by the utilization of three primary
structural devices:
1. Time shifts within one sequence (i.e.. the players enter a town during the
1952 election campaign and arrive at the central square in 1939). In one brillant
scene, a group of fascist collaborators leave a New Year's Eve celebration dance in
1946. As the camera tracks them for some 300 yaods down the street they
gradually undergo a transformation from a group of singing, drunk, staggering
and seemingly "harmless" right wingers to a full-fledged fascist group marching
in lock-step to martial music. As the uncut seven-minute shot ends the camera
continues to track this group as it merges with the crowd at a vtctorius Papagos
rally in 1952.
2. The interruption of thf players* performance by history. Several limes in the
course of the film, performances of 'Golfo and the Shepherdness' are inter-
rupted by historical events. During a performance taking place at the time of the
Metaxas dictatorship, Pylades is arrested. A gunshot from the guerillas inter-
rupts the troupe's "command performance" before the British occupiers.
Orestes' revenge against his mother and Aegisthos takes place during a perfor-
mance. The performance of "Golfo and the Shepherdess" is a "normal" event and
yet "unreal" in the sense that such performances often disguise what is transpir-
ing historically. Angelopoutos, through the mechanism of interrupting the per-
"^
S5»^
^^i^«»ff^
,.,7 TV. : - 1 „ — -TnrTKT T j PiTTf " T, T .TiTTA- ~r' rV ■
Tha TrtYtlUng Fttytn (1974-751 ■»,
formance v/iih history, subsumes the unreal performance to the real historica
events.
3. The use of soliloquies spoken to the camera with the simultaneous use o:
time shifts within one sequence. Agamemnon, on the eve of the 1940 war agains
the Italians, describes the events of 1922 in Asia Minor (the defeat of the Creek
by the Turks) while addressing the camera directly present). Electra, after bein
brutally raped in 1945. described events of December 1944 regarding the betray;
of the'Government of National Unity." Pylades describes his experiences in exit
and prison when he returns in 1950. again addressing the camera (present).
■■ s the camera moves within scenes or remains stationary from the per-
^M pective of the 'audience' (both the play's audience and the film
^^M audience) the spectator draws connections between events and therel
dial becomes a participant rather than only a passive consumer of ideas ar
sensations. Angelopoulos uses time and structure to create distance and 'spac
in which a critical consciousness in the viewer candevelop. He does not emotto.
ally manipulate the audience or prescribe corKlusions. He intentionally atte
traditional structure to encourage reflection, perception and synthesis by I'
audience. This dialectical task of creating critical distance for the audiertce wh
engaging them as participants on the cognitive level has been tackled befo
BrechtandPiscatorin theatre and Vertov and Godard (most notably) in film ha
struggled with this task with more or less success. This pursuit is more difficult
film as the real being filmed l>y the camera mitigates against distantiation
constantly intruding into the distance that the filmmaker is attempting to crea
In Godard's films, a certain self-consciousness in regard to this task results i
highlevelofaudienceconsciousnessof the techniques utilized. Content becor
subservient to technique. Angetopoulos's technique is neither self-conscious
gratuitious.allowing critical audience consciousness about theiJ^iiM*. not the f
to develop. In most Hollywood films, camera and editing techniques servi
manipulate the audience to a place within the action, to a persona) vantage p-
and emotional identification with the individual character and his activii
Angelopoutos brillantly transcends this fictional "here and now" and reptac-
with a historical continuity to which both action and acting are subordinated
utilizingthe transposition of time and events within one continuous uncut sc
presented visually as across a procenium, the relationship between past, pre
and future is dialecticatly maintained. Through the use of long takes wi
which time shifts l>oth backwards and forv^ards occur, the relationship betv
past and present and the implied future potential of history is presented
dialectic manner to the film audience. The structure prods the audienc
synthesize what it is witnessing and filmic time is manipulated to provide r
for this participation.
TRAVELLING PLAYERS is a brilliant film on many levels, artistically, sen
rally, contentually. While American audiences may miss some of the finer p.
due to their lack of familiarity with Greek history and mythology, the
constitutes a recognizable breakthrough in political filmmaking.
'This summary is based on a four-page tabloid special edition of Tfrnri^-
out by the Youth Organization of the Greek Communist Party (Interior), I
Feraois. This paper was widely distributed and available to film audiences ^
TRAVELLING PLAYERS opened in Athens.
^JZ^
81
-^ San Francisco Cinematheque
INTIMATE LIGHT: TRISTE & VARIATIONS
NEW FILMS BY NATHANIEL DORSKY
Nathaniel Dorsky In Person
Sunday, December 6 , 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Silence in cinema is undoubtedly an acquired taste, but the freedom it unveils has many rich rewards. The
major part of my work is both silent and paced to be projected at 18 fps. To project my silent speed films
fPneuma through Variations) at 24 fps, or sound speed, is to strip them of their ability to open the heart
and speak properly to their audience. Not only is the specific use of time violated, but the flickering
threshold of cinema's illusion, a major player in these works, is obscured.
It is the direct connection of light and audience that interests me. The screen continually shifts its
dimensionality from being an image-window, to a floating energy field, to simply light on a wall. (In a film
like Pneuma the aura surrounding the screen is as significant as the square itself.) Silence allows these
articulations, which are both poetic and sculptural at the same time, to be revealed and appreciated.
(Nathaniel Dorsky)
When commenting on Nathaniel Dorsky' s recent projection of his three films Variations, Pneuma, and Triste at
Scratch Projection in Paris, Scott Hammen reminisced on the filmmaker's introductory words to the audience,
expressing hope that "these silent films would give everyone a chance to be alone with yourself and the light on the
screen." This invitation into a different kind of perceptive attitude as an exercise of mind and spirit reveals the
creator's quest for a unique kind of film language — a film language that cannot simply be reduced to the linguistic
patterns of thought, with the "messages" pertaining to the verbal connections we make while and after seeing it.
Dorsky 's film language, rather, operates in the realm of the purely visual or sensual-intuitive level, where there is "a
flow between the viewer and the screen," creating an effect of massage, rather than message. In his interview with
Thomas Powers for the October 1996 Release Print, Nathaniel Dorsky mentioned that his (then) latest film, Triste,
was his "most mature work and has inspired him to create a second part to the film. Variations." The filmmaker
recently called them "sister films, alike in many ways but intolerant of each other, so they need to be kept apart on
the program" (quoted by Scott Hammen in Paris). As in Dorsky's Paris show, they will be separated by Pneuma "a
middle brother, harder to deal with but clearly sharing the same family traits: intricate, seductive movement
punctuated by spectacular changes of color."
Triste (1974-96); 16mm, color, silent, 18.5 minutes (@ 18fps)
Triste is an indication of the level of cinema language that 1 have been working towards. By delicately shifting the
weight and solidity of the images, and bringing together subject matter not ordinarily associated, a deeper sense of
impermanence and mystery can open. The images are as much pure-energy objects as representation of verbal
understanding and the screen itself is transformed into a "speaking" character. The "sadness" referred to in the title
is more the struggle of the film itself to become a film as such, rather than some pervasive mood. (ND)
Pneuma ( 1 976-83); 1 6mm, color, silent, 29 minutes (@ 1 8fps)
In Stoic philosophy "pneuma" is the "soul" or fiery wind permeating the body, and at death survives the body but as
impersonal energy. Similarly the "world pneuma" permeates the details of the world. The images in this film came
ft'om an extensive collection of out-dated raw stock that has been processed without being exposed, and sometimes
re-photographed in closer format. Each pattern of grain takes on its own emotional life, an evocation of different
aspects of our own being. A world is revealed that is alive with the organic deterioration of film itself, the essence of
cinema in its before-image, pre-conceptual purity. With the twilight of reversal reality this collection has become a
fond farewell to those short-lived but hardy emulsions. (ND)
Variations (1992-98); 16mm, silent, color, 24 minutes (@ 18fps)
Variations blossomed forth while shooting additional material for Triste. What tender chaos, what current of
luminous rhymes might cinema reveal unbridled from the daytime world? During the Bronze Age a variety of
sanctuaries were built for curative purposes. One of the principal activities was transformative sleep. This montage
speaks to that tradition. (ND)
82
Program Notes 1998
Nathanial Dorsky Filmography:
This filmography is limited to personal films made since 1963 and publicly exhibited or distributed. It excludes
earlier works and commercial productions.
Jngreen (1964); A Fall Trip Home (1965); Summerwind (1965); Hours for Jerome (1966-82); Pneuma (1976-83);
Ariel {\9Z3); 1 7 Reasons Why (1 985-87); /Itoja (1976-87); Triste (1974-96); Variations {\992-9Z)
RECENT ABSTRACTIONS:
NEW FILMS BY BRAKHAGE
Thursday, December 10, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
-i : ■. .'
With over 260 films completed throughout five decades, Colorado filmmaker Stan Brakhage is one of the most
prolific artists of the American avant-garde. Tonight San Francisco Cinematheque presents a selection of luminous
new works — all just released and West Coast premieres — stunning abstract films created primarily through direct
physical involvement with the actual filmstrip material.
Beautiful Funerals (1996); 16mm, color, silent, 2.25 minutes
Beautiful Funerals is a hand-painted double step-printed film composed of (1) dense blackness variously punctuated
by brilliantly colored jewel/flower-like shapes AND (2) interruptive white sections which are fuzzily dotted with
blurred whites and criss-crossed by black "brushstrokes" and hard-edge straight black & white lines.
Finally there is a brilliant pinkish flare veined with curled blue lines which engenders a resolution between these
(above described) alternating modes — colors in the straight-line sections, lines among the artifice of "flowers," a
kind of dark lattice-form which knits the two modes, gray and colored "clouds" which correlate them. (SB)
The Fur of Home (1996); 16mm, color, silent, 2.25 minutes
A hand-painted double-fi-ame printed film which begins with textures reminiscent of a gray shag rug that is fretted
by green and golden flashes-of-shape deepening into darker solid purples and even black solidities at brief intervals:
this evolves into black hair-like lines which curl and trace circularities midst all earlier textures, forms and colors
until, finally, tanned flesh and blood tones predominate. Suddenly a sweep of thin black verticals generate a
recapitulation of the beginning which, then, ends on a glob of black. (SB)
Blue Value {\996)\ 16mm, color, silent, 2.5 minutes
This is a hand-painted elaborately step-printed film of a crystalline world of flashing color wherein (in time) the
value of everything depends upon threads of tonal form. (SB)
Polite Madness (1996); 16mm, color, silent, 2.5 minutes
A hand-painted elaborately step-printed film which begins in blues and greens with golden geographic-beseeming
continents which evolve into symmetricals and dark passages (including a whirling tunnel) whitening to create many
bas-relief (photographic solarization) fragments of these previous forms that then flicker vibrantly in a field of ever
whitening light. (SB)
Commingled Containers (1997); 16mm, color, silent, 5 minutes
This "return to photography" (after several years of only painting film) was made on the eve of cancer surgery — a
kind of "last testament," if you will ... an envisionment of the fleeting complexity of worldly phenomenon. (SB)
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San Francisco Cinematheque
"..."/'art 5 (1998); 16mm, color, silent, 15 minutes
"it appeared to me as memory ... that crystal ice palace which you've scratched onto leader so succinctly and
powerfully, some polar recess earned through labours of illness, if you can call lying in bed work, a thousand shades
of icy white distilling, crystallizing understandings, a hard pitiless world where there is only impeccability and
knowledge, no longer couched or framed in the proprieties of the everyday which i worried, as i entered, and entered
again seeing your film, that only the dead may visit here, shorn of the echo of personality or even flesh, a valley of
dry bones and mine amongst them, where the origins of idea and understanding might find a place with their own
kind." (Mike Hoolboom, 1998)
— s h o r t intermission —
...Preludes 19-24 (1996); 16mm, color, silent, 9 minutes
Prelude 19 begins with hand-painted swatches of variable colors encompassed eventually by vertical strokes of reds
and blues, followed by sudden clearings which are counterpointed by sections of multiple blobs of color, these
effects alternating again and again to then become contrasted with pale washes of color deepening to end on blacks.
Prelude 20 begins with pale washes of hand-painted tones overlaid eventually by sharp forms, a kind of sliced color
becoming more and more smeared.
The first two Preludes of this series were double-printed, so that Prelude 21 is most characterized by the double-
time of single-frame printing of extremely thick swatches of multiple colors as if in a furiously boiling cauldron.
Prelude 22 is a singly-printed hand-painted thick black and gold swatches of color which evolve into forms that are
horizontally and vertically sliced, smeared, cut-off until color "runs" sensuously in snake-like shapes, coils, soforth.
Prelude 23 is doubly-printed hand-painted frames causing an effect almost as if wisps of tone were tinting the film
intercut with sharp then lines which "fatten," then, into thick crowded layers of paint, senses of great visual depth.
This Prelude is almost a catalogue of the effects in all previous Preludes.
Prelude 24 returns to the tempo of single-frame printing. Its shapes and forms are composed of nearly black torques
of ink, flickering with white and only faintly, now and again, tinged with color. (SB)
Cat of the Worm's Green Realm (1997); 16mm, color, silent, 18 minutes
Flares of color break into streams of light, leaves, wood grain, and prism-etched vegetation.
A moon lifts out of this dark weave to be replaced by autumn leaves against a grainy sky, a fiery sky.
The moon, again, caught in clouds. The movements, moonlit, of a cat. Vegetation and toned flares (a kind of "ghost
light" midst microscopic photography of leaves and twigs).
A gray cat licks itself, its name-tag reflected in lens refractions midst microscopic visions of ice and snow, autumn
leaves, green leaves, a distant snow-laden green scene.
A black cat sits quickly down on a green lawn. A night of shards of forms in darkness passes into a day again ...
again an octagonal light shape "echoing" the cat's name-tag midst, now, colored leaves in extreme close-up and at
some distance mixed with sun. Again a "night" of showering dark, a "dawn" of pinks and yellows of plant growth in
close-up.
A kind of gentle yellow "high noon" prevails into which the orange worm appears and reappears, twisting, arching,
turning. A phosphorescent orange of leaves explodes midst greens and black holes appropriate to the image of the
worm.
Flares of suns, imprismed midst yellows and greens and vibrant sky blues ... always the forms of many varieties of
leafage mix with a veritable rain or clash of overall tones, a fire of forms, a glowing color photo-negative of worm,
and the final canopies of autumn tone and sky tone permeated by sun, sun streaks, and octagonal prism shapes ad
infinitum. (SB)
84
Program Notes 1998
TEENS MAKE MOVIES: TWO NIGHTS OF
TEEN-PRODUCED WORK
PROGRAM 1: REEL GIRLS/REAL GIRLS
Curated and Presented by Kathleen Sweeney
Friday, December 11, 1998 — Verba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
"Reel Girls/Real Girls" is an evening of audacious short films and videos by outspoken, happening teenage girls from
across the USA. Beyond technophobia, these girls take us into the alternative landscapes of American adolescence.
Photo-booth buddies, jammin' girlbands, wild pixelations, and rearview mirrors on unexpected heroines from New
York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco will fill Cinematheque's screen this evening.
Tonight's screening begins with several short experimental films produced by teenage girls from San Francisco, Los
Angeles, and Chicago. Anthem, a short film about girl skateboarders will begin the program followed by April Word
and Leticia Rossi's foot fetish extravaganza, Shoes, a grainy 16mm film produced at the San Francisco School of the
Arts and then three shorts produced at the California State Summer School.
Part I: Visual Experiments
Films and videos by teenage girls from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. 23 minutes.
Anthem by Lori Damiano; 16mm, b&w, sound, 2 minutes
Made at UC San Diego.
Strongman by Lori Damiano; 16mm, b&w, sound, 1 minute
Made at California State Summer School for the Arts.
Shoes by April Word and Leticia Rossi; 16mm, color, sound, 3 minutes
Made at San Francisco School of the Arts.
Paybox by Ginny Haberer; Super 8mm on VHS, b&w, sound, 5 minutes
Made at San Francisco School of the Arts.
Drum by Cecy Urbina; Super 8mm on VHS, color, sound, 8 minutes
Made at California State Summer School for the Arts.
Rape of a Mother by Griselda Nunez; video, b&w, sound, 2 minutes
Made at Street Level Youth Media, Chicago.
Low Mentality by Kirsha Brown; video, b&w, sound, 2 minutes
Made at Street Level Youth Media, Chicago.
Part II: Mirror Mirror
Two videos produced by tfie Mirror Project of Somerville Massachusetts. The brainchild of Director Roberto Arevalo, "The
Mirror Project" is an alternative media project that provides skills to inner-city teenagers in video scripting, production, and
editing. Twelve girls per year participate in the program, creating video "mirrors" of their everyday experiences. 34 minutes.
Freestyle by Zakia Doltin-Carter and Katrina Jordan; video, color, sound, 14 minutes
Winner of Best of Public Access Award of the 1997 New England Film and Video Festival.
Here I Am by Louise Bernard; video, color, sound, 20 minutes
Winner of a Bronze Apple, 1996 National Educational Media Network.
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San Francisco Cinematheque
Part III: House of Girls
A half-hour ITVS-funded documentary completed in collaboration with five fifteen-year-olds. Paired with a
professional female media mentor, each of the five multicultural girls created a segment to include in the
documentary. The result is a rare window into the daring opinions and wild dreams of girls that defies the cultural
dictates of boy-craziness and fashion obsessions, leaving the viewer with a rich new vision of girl culture.
House of Girls by Karen Cooper; video, color, sound, 30 minutes
With Angela Garbes, Maya Hayes, Lisa Huening, Zoe Tobier, and Marisa Vural.
TEENS MAKE MOVIES:
TWO NIGHTS OF TEEN-PRODUCED WORK
PROGRAM 2: TEEN RIOT 4 — THE LEGEND CONTINUES
Curated and Presented by Valerie See and Danny Plotnick
Saturday, December 12, 1998 — Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — 7:30pm
Tonight's screening is the fourth annual screening of teen-produced films and videos from the California State
Summer School for the Arts. In four weeks students produce some of the wildest, wooliest, and most invigorating
movies this side of 18 years old. See blue M & Ms, pho-fii, pizza noir, and space babes from Planet 69 in this eye-
popping, mile-a-minute show from the smart girls and b-boys of CSSSA 1998.
The Pitch (1998) by Brandon Lopez; video, color, sound, 7 minutes
The Dangers of Co-Ed Laundry Rooms (1998) by Jonathan Chen*; Super 8mm, b&w, sound, 5 minutes
What's On the Barbie? (1998) by Karen Velas*; Super 8mm, color, sound, 2 minutes
Where Do All the Stars Go? (1998) by Rebecca Jannol*; Super 8mm, color, sound, 3 minutes
A Party (1998) by Kim Po*; video, color, sound, 12 minutes
On Religious Indecisiveness (1998) by Kat Grant*; Super 8mm on VHS, color, sound, 7 minutes
Untitled {\99Z) by Amy Hale*; Super 8mm, color, sound, 4 minutes
The Vile Society (1998) by Jonathan Parker; video, color, sound, 8 minutes
Space Babes from Planet 69 (1998) by Erica Manrique; video, color, sound, 5 minutes
KidSkratch Fever (1998) by Samantha Gulp*; 16mm, color, sound, 1 minute
Untitled (1998) by Debbie Heimowitz*; video, color, sound, 8 minutes
You Can't Talk to a Psycho (1998) by Erin Johnson; Super 8mm, color, sound, 4 minutes
When Bees Attack: The Susan Dolgen Story ( 1 998) group project; Super 8mm, color, sound, 4 minutes
Flutter (1998) by Jessica Godlin; 16mm on video, color, sound, 1 minute
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Program Notes 1998
Untitled {]99S) by Imani Caradonna*; Super 8mm, color, sound, 3 minutes
Memories (1998) by Logan Weinsieder; video, color, sound, 3 minutes
Drawing Happiness (1998) by Helen Davidson*; Super 8mm, color, sound, 5 minutes
Smoke (1998) by Aaron Bachman*; video, color, sound, 12 minutes
Adam (1998) by Patrick Tsai*; video, color, sound, 3 minutes
(laughter) (1998) by Jessica Moss; video, color, sound, 7 minutes
(* Designates Filmmakers In Person!)
CHICK FLICKS WITH B. RUBY RICH
B. Ruby Rich In Person
Sunday, December 13, 1998 — San Francisco Art Insitute — 7:30pm
For Rich, -whose career inside and outside of the academy has put her at the center of a number of post-
New Left artistic and social movements— feminist cinema and the feminist movement, Latin American
Cinema and liberation movements, and New Queer Cinema and the gay and lesbian movement — cultural
criticism can 'tjust comment on political change; it must be an integral part of it "I needed to demonstrate
that it was possible to think creatively and rigorously outside of the university, " she writes about her state
of mind in 1978. "Why settle for communicating in the classroom when everyone needed to be re-
educated?" (Josh Kun, SF Bay Guardian, "Speaking and Writing," December 9, 1998)
Autobiography has an intrinsic connection to history, just as an anecdote does to analysis. All of our lives
count: it's all history, if only we remember. (B. Ruby Rich, Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the
Feminist Film Movement)
Living at this time — when the pulse of life seems to have been sped up beyond the cognitive capacities of those
humans still defining themselves as beings with body and mind compounded together into one package, when new
communication technologies pretend to be erasing the boundaries of time and space, when mass-communication is
flattening our perception of the filmic experience into a sterile, domesticated one-man show, and when academic
theorizing is encouraging an incredible expansion of insular, artistically removed dialogue (faithfully obeying the
paradigm of patriarchal Law of the Word, as if it was produced by a non-material entity named Brain), in the midst
of all this postmodern lethargy of the "subject" sucked of its potency for action resulting in real change — here comes
B. Ruby Rich's Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement. Chick Flicks brings with it a
punching energy from the sixties, reminding us of the power cinema can have as a transformative experience, as
well as the revolutionary drive of feminism before it was trapped within the frame of academicism.
What a pleasure to throw oneself into a book of embodied knowledge, using the word "sex" as a source of pleasure,
energy and body-juices exchange, and not as some dried-out psychoanalytical category. What an inspiration to
experience the writing of a person thinking for herself historically, without relegating her memories to idealized
epistemological concepts. What an educating demonstration of an alternative approach to thinking cinema — both
theory and history as interactive bodies, actually having something to openly offer each other, not just existing at the
service of power games. And last, but not least, what an opportunity to re-think one's own position and experience
as a film spectator.
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San Francisco Cinematheque
To begin with, we can follow the path paved by B. Ruby Rich's thoughts on her film-going passion: ' -*
Film spectator ship for me y^as a state of life before it \\>as ever a theoretical category. It's that continuum
between film as object and film as experience that I seek to keep alive. {Chick Flicks, "Prologue," p. 11 )
B. Ruby Rich will introduce and show:
Fuses (1964-67) by Carolee Schneemann; 16mm, color, silent, 22 minutes
That night, the sex cops were out in force and were outraged by what was, after all, a "hippie" movie, celebrating
sex as Dionysian elixir, a luxurious connection back to nature and the pantheism of sensuality. I still remember the
attack on poor Carolee for giving head to her by-then ex-boyfriend up there on the screen. The practice was ruled
subservient and anti-feminist. A woman, any woman, performing a blowjob, bigger than life, on film yet, was not
acceptable .... The fact that Carolee was simultaneously "actor" and director was lost on the crowd not notable for
its grasp of issues of representation — a crowd still, to this day, not noted for any ability to distinguish between filmic
acts of representation and the enactment of practices off screen. Never mind that the film has been shot with an old
hand-wound Bolex, which meant that she'd had to jump up every thirty seconds to wind the damn thing, in between
stage managing of sex and enacting it! (Chick Flicks, "Prologue. Hippie Chick in the Art World")
Pornography is an anti-emotional medium, in content and intent, and its lack of emotion renders it ineffective for
women. Its absence of sensuality is so contrary to the female eroticism that pornography becomes, in fact, anti-
sexual. Schneemann's film, by contrast, is devastatingly erotic, transcending the surfaces of sex to communicate its
true spirit, its meaning as an activity for herself and, quite accurately, for women in general. (Chick Flicks, "Carolee
Schneemann's Fuses")
Misconception (1977) by Marjorie Keller; Super 8mm on 16mm film, color, sound, 43 minutes
I still believe that Misconception is a significant film, one that's been under-recognized precisely because of
Margie's reluctance, typical within the avant-garde at that time, to situate herself within any feminist lineage.
Rereading the piece today, I still agree with its points. But I can't help but read it, retrospectively, as a poignant
effort at reconciling on the page the contradictions that were experienced without any such reconciliation in our
lives. (Chick Flicks, "Prologue. Love's Labor Lost")
Thankfiilly, Keller sidesteps the sentimentality that has repeatedly plagued the birth process on film — there is no
earth mother giving birth like an over ripe fhiit popping out of an Agnes Varda movie. Likewise absent is the over
clinical approach, which has often worked to the disadvantage or debasement of the subject on the film, much as
women can feel debased by male doctors' emphases on antisepticizing the female body. Instead, Keller's film places
priority on the individual women's subjective experience, even to that white-hot, ice-cold physical trauma that goes
by the name of pain. (Chick Flicks, "Misconception: Laboring Under No Illusions")
Program Notes written and compiled by Maja Manojlovic
Please Join us for a reception and book-signing with B. Ruby Rich following the program.
IN MEMORIUM: KURT KREN
FILMS INSPIRED AND LOVED BY KURT KREN
Thursday, December 17, 1 998 — Verba Buena Center for the Arts— 7 : 3 0pm
We sadly note the recent deaths of two great filmmakers, Kurt Kren and Joyce Wieland, whose films and presences
enlivened many evenings at Cinematheque over the years. Austrian Kurt Kren, who will be honored tonight, appeared in
person with us in 1978 (twice), 1980, 1984, 1994, and finally, in March of 1998. Deceptively unassuming, Kren was
easily one of Europe's most influential and revered avant-garde filmmakers, whose body of work includes 50 short films
88
Program Notes 1998
beginning in 1957 and continuing through 1998. Kurt's films create a unique blend of formal rigor and playflil
spontaneity. Tonight's program extends a tribute to Kren organized by Ralph McKay and Mark McElhatten for the
Anthology Film Archives, and includes many surprise films by Kurt's friends and colleagues from North America and
Europe as well as thirty minutes of his lesser known gems. "In the disputed histories which build the house of film, he was
momentarily, but unforgivably denied. Now he haunts the house with rude and playful shadows." (Mark McElhatten)
Tonight's program was co-curated by Steve Anker (Kren's films), Mark McElhatten, and Ralph McKay.
2/60: 48 Kopfe aus demSzondi Test (48 Heads from the Zondi Test) (1960); 16mm, b&w, silent, 5 minutes
"[I]n this concentrationary universe, no one's his own self, everyone's everyone and nothing. Ruthlessly executed,
the formal idea becomes a gruesome philosophical jest." (Raymond Durgnat, International Times, 1966)
3/60: Baume im Herbst (Trees in Autumn) (1960); 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 minutes
"The first embodiment of [a] concept of structural activity in cinema comes in Kren's Baume im Herbst, where the
camera as subjective observer is constrained within a systematic or structural procedure, incidentally the precursors
of the most structuralist aspect of Michael Snow's later work. In this film, perception of material relationships in the
world is seen to be no more than a product of the structural activity in the work. Art forms experience." (Malcolm
Le Grice, Abstract Film and Beyond, 1977)
4/61: Mauern-Positiv-Negativ (Walls-Positive-Negative) (1961); 16mm, b&w, silent, 6 minutes
"In a flickering symbol shattering image shattering, total collage technique, he energizes the cinema frame with a
unique thing-ness that energizes the viewer." (Al Hansen, Ecce Homo, 1967)
9/64: O Tannenbaum (Materialaktion: Otto Muehl) (O Christmas Tree: An Otto Muehl Happening) (1964);
16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
"In 9/64: O Christmas Tree, Kren offers a more visually descriptive development of a Muehl 'action.' The images
have been chosen to follow a more dramatic sequence, probably because the action itself contained a wide range of
images and materials . . . ." (Stephen Dwoskin, Film Is)
10/65: Selbstverstummelung (Self-Mutilation) (1965); 16mm, b&w, silent, 6 minutes
"Kren's 10/65: Self-Mutilation is developed from a Gunter Brus 'action.' What the film emphasizes is the
surrealistic drama of symbolic self-destruction that Kren drew out of Brus' action, pacing out each gesture so that
one gets a tense, iconoclastic revelation of a man covered in white plaster lying surrounded by razor blades and a
range of instruments looking as if they have been taken from em operating theater. The blades, scissors, and scalpels
are gradually inserted into him in a ritualistic self-operation." (Stephen Dwoskin, Film Is)
15/67: TV{\961); 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 minutes
"... Kren's next important systematic film is 71^(1967). In TV, the system is different in kind and pace from that
which exists in much of his other work. Instead of operating primarily at the kinetic level, or with rapid perceptual
rhythm, this film involves the audience in a conceptual and reflexive process. Five short sequences, each about eight
frames long, are all shot from the same viewpoint in a quay-side cafe. They show a window, broken by the
silhouettes of objects and people within the cafe and by the passage of people and a ship outside. Each shot
containing some small movement is repeated in the film 21 times, in mathematically determined order. They are
separated by short, equal sequencing of black spacing except that longer black sequences separate larger phrases of
repeats from each other rather like punctuation. The significance does not lie in the mathematical sequences as such,
but in how the viewer attempts to decipher the structure." (Malcolm Le Grice, Abstract Film and Beyond)
26/71: Zeichenfllm — Balzac und das Auge Gottes (\97\); 16mm, b&w, silent, 1 minute
"In crude, hand-drawn animation, Zeichenfllm evokes the scatological, sadomasochistic actions and performances of
Otto Muehl and Gunter Brus which Kren filmed during his second period. In Zeichenfllm, a male figure hangs
himself, achieves a monstrous erection and ejaculates into a woman's mouth. She, in turn, hangs herself, he enters
her vaginally, then anally. Finally, she defecates on the left side of the frame wherein appears an eye of God, while
on the right, in a cartoon box, the words "Aber Otto" ("But Otto") materialize, a comic reference to Otto Muehl."
(Regina Comwell, The Other Side: European Avant-Garde Cinema 1960-1980)
36/78: Rischart (1978); 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
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San Francisco Cinematheque
31/75: Asyl (Asylum) (1975); 16mm, color, silent, 9 minutes
"Between 1975 and the present, Kren has continued working in a formalist vein, all the while incorporating elements
of his older systems and themes. " (Regina Comwell, The Other Side: European Avant-Garde Cinema 1960-1980)
37/78: Tree Again (1978); 16mm, color, silent, 4 minutes
— 1 0 - m i n u t e intermission —
Pietd (1998) by Bruce Baillie; video, color, sound, 83 seconds
Untitled camera roll (year unknown) by Larry Gottheim; 16mm, color, silent, 3 minutes
Homage to Kurt Kren (1997) by Eva Bruner-Szabo; video, color, sound, 2 minutes
Opening Sequence from a Film (1988) by Hans Scheugl; video, color, sound, 3 minutes
Featuring Kurt Kren as a museum guard at the Houston Museum of Fine Art.
"Falter" Commercial Spot (1990) by Kurt Kren; video
Documentation of the Making of "Falter" Comm. Spot (1990) by Hubert Sielecki; video, 9 minutes
Project F(1983) by Marian Wallace; 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 minutes
Featuring a short cameo appearance by Kurt Kren.
Excerpts and Out Takes from the Unfinished Film: "Search for Sleep, Fear of Truth" by Mel Chin; video, b&w, silent
BIG AS LIFE: AN AMERICAN HISTORY
OF 8MM FILMS
PROGRAM 4: DAILY LANDSCAPES
Sunday, December 20, 1998 — San Francisco Art Institute — 7:30pm
Beginning Tuesday, September 22nd, and continuing in alternating months through June 1999, the Pacific Film
Archive and San Francisco Cinematheque will present highlights from the Museum of Modem Art's (New York City)
60-program retrospective of American-made 8mm films and videos co-curated by myself and MoMA Associate
Curator Jytte Jensen, "Big As Life: An American History of 8mm Films." Continuing through the Spring of 2000, this
retrospective spans personal (and emphatically private) filmmaking from the 1940s through the present, focusing
primarily on films made by self-avowed artists but also including a rich sampling of "found" home movies and
industrial films especially made for "small-gauge" home formats. (Steve Anker)
Land and Sea (1975) by Lee Krugman; 8mm, color, silent, 1 1 minutes
Aristotle (1973) by Storm De Hirsch; Super 8mm, color, silent, 4 minutes
Windows (1984-85) by Anne Robertson; Super 8mm, color, silent, 37 minutes
Farm Diary, Reel 2 (1970) by Gordon Ball; 8mm, color, silent, 30 minutes
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Early Evening Experimental Program: Appendix a
Sunday, February 22, 1998
Prelude: Dog Star Man ( 1 96 1 ) by Stan Brakhage
Window Water Baby Moving (1 959) by Stan Brakhage
Eaux d' Artifice (1953) by Kenneth Anger
Sunday, March 15, 1998
Common Loss (1979) by Doug Haynes
A Colour Box (1935) by Len Lye
Trade Tattoo (1937) by Len Lye
Recreation (1956) by Robert Breer
A Man and His Dog Out for Air (1957) by Robert Breer
Gulls & Buoys (1972) by Robert Breer
Fist Fight (1964) by Robert Breer
Necromancy (1990) by Steven Dye
The Subtle Flight of Birds (1991) by Steven Dye
Lun (1990) by Steven Dye
SUTVDAY, APRIL 5, 1998
Vampyr (1931-32) by Carl Th. Dreyer
Sunday, April 19, 1998
Ariel (1983) by Nathaniel Dorsky
17 Reasons Why (1985-87) by Nathaniel Dorsky
Devil's Canyon (1972-77) by Michael Mideke
Filmmakers In Person: Appendix b
Adlestein, Gary
Bachman, Aaron
Benning, James
Caradonna, Imani
Chen, Jonathan
Gulp, Samantha
Davidson, Helen
de Ocampo, Pablo
Dorsky, Nathaniel
Fagin, Steve
Frank, Robert
Grant, Kat
Hale, Amy
Heimowitz, Debbie
Hernandez, Al
international front of supercapitalist youths©, the
(Council of the French section of)
Jannol, Rebecca
3.19.98
Kren, Kurt
3.1.98
12.12.98
Laitala, Kerry
5.3.98
10.11.98
Lin, Lana
3.12.98
12.12.98
Montgomery, Jennifer
11.12.98
12.12.98
Orr, Jerry
3.19.98
12.12.98
Po,Kim
12.12.98
12.12.98
Ravett, Abraham
10.29.98
5.3.98
Rosenthal, Ken Paul
4.19.98
12.6.98
Sachs, Lynn
3.12.98
3.8.98
Saks, Eric
4.2.98
5.1.98
silt
10.23.98
12.12.98
Stanley, Anie S8
4.9.98
12.12.98
Strand, Chick
11.15.98
12.12.98
Subrin, Elisabeth
2.26.98
4.19.98
Sugar, Janos
4.5.98
t),the
tENTATIVELY, a CONVENIENCE
10.18.98
1.20.98
Tsai, Patrick
12.12.98
12.12.98
Velas, Karen
12.12.98
Film/Video Index
' (Seasons) Brakhage & Solomon
' Part 3 Brakhsioe
53
84
1/57: Versuch nut synthestischem Ton (Test)
(Experiment with Synthetic Sound [TestJ) Kren 10
2/60: 48 Kopfe aus dent Szondi Test (48 Heads from
the Standi Test) Kren 10,89
#3 Gaine 52
3/60: Baume im Herbst (Trees in Autumn) Kren
10,89
4/61: Mauern-Positiv-Negativ (Walls-Positive-
Negative) Kren 10, 89
5/62: Fenstergucker, Abfall, etc. (People Looking out
of the Window, Trash, etc.) Kren 10
6/64: Mama und Papa (Materialaktion: Otto Muehl)
(Mom and Dad) Kren 9
7/64: Leda und der Schwan (Materialaktion: Otto
Muehl) (Leda and the Swan) Kren 9
8/64: Ana (Aktion: GUnter Brus) Kren 9
9/64: O Tannenbaum (Materialaktion: Otto Muehl)
(O Christmas Tree: An Otto Muehl Happening)
Kren 9, 89
10/65: SelbstverstQmmelung (Action: GUnter Brus)
(Selfmutilation) Kren 9, 89
1 Ob/65: Silber (Action: Gunter Brus) (Silver) Kren 9
11/65: Bild Helga Philipp (Helga Philipp Painting)
Kren 10
12/66: Cosinus Alpha (Materialaktion: Otto Muehl)
Kren 9
13/67: Sinus Beta Kren 9
75/67; TV Kren 10, 89
16/67: September 2ff^ — Gunther Brus (aka Eating,
Drinking, Pissing, Shitting) Kren 68
17 Reasons Why DoTsky 32,83
17/68: Grun— Rot (Green— Red) Kren 10
18/68: Venecia kaputt Ksen 10
20/68: Schatu Kren 10
22/69: Happy End Kren 10
23/69: Undergroud Explosion Kren 10
24/70: Western Kren 10
26/71: ZeichenfUm — Balzac und das Auge Gottes
(Cartoon — Balzac and the Eye of God) Kren 10,89
27/71: Auf der Pfaueninsel Kren 10
28/73: Zeitaufnahme(n) (Time Exposure) Kren 10
30/73: Coop Cinema Amsterdam Kren 10
31/75: Asyl (Asylum) Kren 10,90
32/76: An W+B (To W+B) Kren 10
33/77: Keine Donau Kren 1 0
34/76: Tschibo Kren 10
36/78: Rischart Kren 9, 89
37/78: Tree Again Kren 9, 90
38/79: Sentimental Punk Kren 9
39/81: Which Way to CA? Kren 9
40/81: Breakfast im Grauen Kren
41/82: Getting Warm Kren
42/83: No Film Kren
43/84: 1984 Kren
44/85: Foot'-age Shoot'-out Kren
46/90: Falter 2 Kren
47/91: Ein Fest (A Celebration) Kren
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
49/95: tausendjarhekino (thousandyearsofcinema)
Kren 9
50/96: Snapspots (For Bruce) Kren 9
iPPJ Orr 21
/I and Bin Ontario Wieiand & Frampton 3, 4, 47
About Me: A Musical Frank 35, 36, 39, 41
Adam Tsai 87
Addressing the Current Arts Emergency Tamblyn
11
Adventures of Blacky, The Finley & Muse 54
After Lumiere — L'Arroseur Arrose Le Grice 51
Almost the Cocktail Hour Lin 17-18
Ambiguous Window Sugar 27, 28
Annunciation, The Barrie 52
Ant City Schnee 22
Anthem Damiano 85
Apologies Robertson 65
Archival Quality Tamblyn 10-12
Ariel Dorsky 32, 83
Aristotle De Hirsch 90
B
Bam Rushes Gottheim
Based on a Story Finley & Muse
Beautiful Funerals Brakhage
Bells of Atlantis Hugo
Berlin Still Life Moholy-Nagy
Biography ofLilith, A Sachs
Birds at Sunrise Wieiand
Birth of a Nation Mekas
43
54-55
83
71
71
17
4,47
45^6
Blackbird Descending (Tense Alignment) Le Grice
52
Blackbirds Rosenthal 33
Blue Studio: Five Segments Atlas & Cunningham
71-72
Blue Value Brakhage 83
Boardwalk, The Ravett 65-66
Bob Cobbing tENTATIVELY a CONVENIENCE 59
Bridegroom, the Comedienne, and the Pimp, The
Straub 61
Brookfield Recreation Center Baillie 49
Brownsnow Brown 48
Film/Video Index
Calypte anna Custer & Khosla 62
Camera in Trouble Sugar 28
Camera Roll at 100 Degrees Seibert 49
Cat of the Worm's Green Realm Brakhage 84
Catfood Wieland 3,4
Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron)
Smith 50
Clown, Part I Price 65
Color of Love, The Ahwesh 67
Colour Box, A Lye 18
Coming Up for Air Strand 74
Commingled Containers Brakhage 83
Common Loss Haynes 1 8
Concrescence Brakhage 53
Consuming Passions Latham & Tamblyn 11,12
Contribution to the Radical Critique of Political
Economy and Civilization in General (pseudo-
subfuturist plagiarism)® the French section of the
international front of supercapitalist youths© 1
Conversations in Vermont Frank 34—36, 38-41
Crazy Stark 5-6
Creosote Saks 25-26
D
Dangers of Co-Ed Laundry Rooms, The Chen
86
69-70
76-78
20
Death by Hanging Oshima
Der Leone Have Sept Cabegas Rocha
Der Tod und das Madchen Adelstein
Desounen — Dialogue with Death Peck 32
Devil's Canyon Mideke 32
Disco Sabatier 1
Diszey Spots tENTATIVELY a CONVENIENCE 59
Documentation of the Making of "Falter" Comm.
Spot Sielecki 90
Don't Hang Up, I'm Freezing Sherman 5-6
Downs Are Feminine Klahr 68
Drawing Happiness Davidson 87
Dripping Water Snow & Wieland 3, 4, 47
Drum Urbina 85
Eaux d'Artifice Anger
Eclipse Orr
Elegy Gibbons
Elephant Electrocution Edison
Every Man for Himself Godard
Evidence, The Sabatier
4
21
65
22
23
1
Excerpts and Out Takes from the Unfinished Film:
"Search for Sleep, Fear, or Truth" Chin 90
Exquisite Hour, The Solomon 52
"Falter" Commercial Spot Kren 90
Farm Diary, Reel 2 Ball 90
Field Study #2 Nelson 75
Film to Be Made Lemaitre 1
Film to Take Home, A Lemaitre 1
Fist Fight Breer 18
Five Bad Elements, The La Pore 37
Floating by Eagle Rock/She Is Asleep Steiner 53
Flow (for James Broughton) Rosenthal 33
Flutter Godlin 86
Fluttering Polta 53
For the Unaided Eye and Handlens silt 62-63
Forgefeel Ravett 65-66
Fragment Gaine 5-6
Freestyle Doltin-Carter & Jordan 85
Furof Home, The Brakhage 83
Fuses Schneemann 88
G
Ghost in the Machine Orr
Girls in the Band Candy
Given Leave to Enter Law
Glass Pierce
Good Medicine Hernandez
Great Adventure Orr
Gulls & Buoys Breer
21
28
17
25,53
33
21
18
Gustus — Slices of Life (Archival Quality) Tamblyn
12
H
Half-Sister Ravett
Handtinting Wieland
Here I Am Bernard
here, there, somewhere Jirisuradej
Homage to Kurt Kren Bruner-Szabo
Hours of the Idolate Stanley
House of Girls Cooper, Gerbes, Hayes, Huening
Tobier & Vural
Hub Cap Chang & Stanley
65-66
4,47
85
16
90
29
86
29
Hunter Frank
36,39,41
Film/Video Index
/ Was Raped by a Swan or God Made Me Pregnant
Tamblyn 1 1
if you stand with your back to the slowing of the
speed of light in water Murray 36
Imagine Dupont 1,48,50
ImmerZu Geiser 37
Immortal Culprits Sugar 28
Imprint Bourque 37, 50
In Mother's Way White 76
In the Land of Cinema Veterans: A Film
Expedition Around Dziga Vertov Mufioz & Tode
Infinite Cinematographic Innovation, The Isou
42
1
Joy Street Pitt
Jump Fence Hernandez
Just Words Bourque
51
33
50
K
Keep Busy Frank 34,36,38-41
kemia silt 5-6, 52
Khalil, Shaun, A Woman Under the Influence
Lockhart 24
Kid Skratch Fever Gulp 86
Kristallnacht Strand 73,74
Kuhle Wampe, or Who Owns the World? Dudow 58
L
La Raison Avant La Passion Wieland
47
Land and Sea Krugman
90
Landscape Suicide Benning
55-56
Landsend silt
62-63
Last Gleaming Boone
64
(laughter); Moss
87
Le Sang des Betes Franju
22
Le Vampire Painleve
22
Letters to a Stranger Wang
17
Life Dances On. . . Frank
34-36, 38^1
Liferaft Earth Frank
36, 39-41
Light Years Nelson
75-76
Like a Silent River: The Happy Deaf and Blind
Man's Film Lemaitre
1
Look Harder Gaffney
16
Looking for Wendy Tomes
17
Loose Change Gang
29
Lotus Sketches Adlestein
Low Mentality Brown
Lumumba: Death of a Prophet Peck
Lun Dye
20
85
31
18
M
68
18
65-66
76
76
65
29
12
87
44
Man+Woman+Animal Export
Man arut His Dog Out for Air, A Breer
March, The Ravett
Martina's Playhouse Ahwesh
Mary Smith Vachon
Me and Rubyfruit Benning
Meddle Rice
Memorativa (Archival Quality) Tamblyn
Memories Weinsieder
Mexican Bunuel, A Maille
Microcultural Incidents in Ten Zoos Birdwhistel &
Van Vlack 22
Middle of the World, The Tanner 19, 20
Misconception Keller 88
Mommy, What's Wrong? Chang 17
Mongreloid Kuchar 23
Mothers Day Orr 21
Mouches Volantes (Elective Affinities II) Gottheim
43
Myself. Portrait Lee 17
A^
Nazarin Bunuel
44
Near the Big Chakra Severson (aka Parker)
67
Near Windows Rosenthal
5-6,33
Necromancy Dye
18
Nematoda silt
62-63
Night Movie #1 (Self-Portrait) Barrie
64
Noema Stark
7, 23, 67
Note to Pad Levine
52
Nymphomania Adams & Hughes-Freeland
29
o
O Night Without Objects: A Trilogy Finley & Muse
54
"Official" John Lennon's Erection as Blocking Our
View Homage & Cheese Sandwich, The
tENTATIVELY a CONVENIENCE 59
OK End Here Frank 34,36,38^1
Oley Adlestein 20
On Religious Indecisiveness Grant 86
Open-Close Acconci 65
Film/Video Index
Opening Sequence from a Film Scheugl 90
...or lost Thornton 54
Other Families Jones 24
Our Cinema Lemaitre 1
Our Us We Bone One So Naked Known Stanley 29
p
Paradice Chang & Stanley
29
Party, A Po
86
Pathetic Fallacy, The Homer &. Tamblyn
11
Pause! Kubelka
72
Paybox Haberer
85
Pengo/Tweedle Sugar
27,28
Personal History of the Female Body, A Tamblyn
1 1
Pietd Baillie
1 1
90
Pillow Talk Plotnick
5-6
Pitch, The Lopez
86
Place Called Lovely, A Benning
65
Pneuma Dorsky
82,83
Polite Madness Brakhage
83
... Preludes 19-24 Brakhage
84
Prelude: Dog Star Man Brakhage
4
Pre-Menstrual Spotting Saito
17
Presencefs) Devaux
1
Pretty Boy Gibbons
65
Project Y Wallace
90
Pull My Daisy Frank 34,36
,38-41
R
Rape of a Mother Nunez
85
Rat Life and Diet in North America Wieland
3,4,47
Recreation Breer
18
Red Shift Nelson
75
Restaurant Warhol
29-31
Retrospectroscope Laitala
36
Right Eye/Left Eye Lipzin
5-6
Rodeo Creek Survey Khosla & silt
62-63
5
Sacred Hearts Hernandez
33
Screen Test #2 Warhol
29-31
See You Later/Au Revoir Snow
48
Self Song/Death Song Brakhage
50
Sentimental Film, A Lemaitre
1
Seven Scenes Suzuki
16
Sewn deOcampo
37
Shadows of the Son silt
5-6
She Loves It, She Loves It Not: Women and
Technology Franklin, Tamblyn & Tomkins 11-12
She/Va Keller 52
Shoes Rossi & Word 85
Shrines Orr 21
Shulie Subrin 7-8
Silvercup Jennings 53
Sisyrinchium Califomicum silt 62-63
Small Domain, A Sjogren 25
Smoke Bachman 87
Sodom Price 68
Soft Fiction Strand 73-74
Solidarity Wieland 3,4,47
Space Babes from Planet 69 Manrique 86
Spring Flavor Rosenthal 33
Stop Nidzyn 53
Strongman Damiano 85
Subtle Flight of Birds, The Dye 18
Summer Saga, A Sucksdorff 22
Super-Commercial Film, A Sabatier 1
Supertemporal Film, The (The Auditorium of
Idiots) Isou 1
Swallow Subrin 7-8
Sweep Street 53
T
Taormina/Etna Adlestein
20
Tensile Wilson
19
That Mission Rising! Hernandez
33
This Song for Jack Frank
36,39-41
Three Songs of Lenin Vertov
42
Time and a Half Benning
55,56
Time Bomb Finley & Muse
55
Tiny Rubber Band Alvarez
50
To Make a Film Lemaitre
1
Tootsies in Autumn Kuchar
6
Touch Tone Saks
26
Trade Tattoo Lye
18
Travelling Players, The Angelopoulos
78-81
Triptych Schaller
51
Triste Dorsky
82,83
Troika Montgomery
72,73
TropiCola Fagin
12-16
Twenty-Seven Lines Boone
64
u
Uncle Evil Kuchar 5-6
Under a Broad Gray Sky (Sous un grand del gris)
Povey 50
Uneasy Portrait Orr 21
Untitled Caradonna 87
Film/Video Index
Untitled Hale
Untitled Heimowitz
Untitled camera roll Gottheim
Urphanomen silt
86
86
90
62-63
Vampyr Dreyer 27
Variations Dorsky 82, 83
Vermio (Archival Quality) Tamblyn 12
Vervielfaltigung Otis 36
Vile Society, The Parker 86
Voice of the Nightingale, The Stare vich 22
Vomit Cinema, Spit Cinema, Snot Cinema, Excrement
Cinema, Excretion Cinema LemaTtre 1
w
Waiting for X to Happen White 6
Water Sark Wieland 2,4,47
Watts Super Sista Girl Gary 24
We are going home Reeves 53
What's On the Barbie? Velas 86
When Bees Attack: The Susan Dolgen Story 86
When It Rains Burnett 25
Where Do All the Stars Go ? Jannol 86
Window Water Baby Moving Brakhage 4
Windows Robertson 90
Witchway Adlestein 20
Wizard of Oz, The: A Metaphysical Dream Orr 2 1
Works of Colder Matter 70
X
X Piyce 50
Yesterday Girl (Abschied von Gestern) Kluge 60
You Can't Talk to a Psycho Johnson 86
You Talk/I Buy Saks 26
Your Film LemaTtre 1
FiLM/VlDEOMAKER INDEX
A
D (cont'd)
de Ocampo, Pablo
36-37
Acconci, Vito
65
Devaux, Frederique
1
Adams, Holly
29
Doltin-Carter, Zakla
85
Adiestein, Gary
20
Dorsky, Nathaniel
32, 49, 82-83
Ahwesh, Peggy 49, 67, (
58,76
Dreyer, Carl Th.
27
Alvarez, Al
50
Dudow, Slatan
56-58
Angelopoulos, Theo
78-81
Dupont, Albert
1
Anger, Kenneth
4,49
Dye, Steven
18
Atlas, Charles
71
E
B
Edison, Thomas
22
Bachman, Aaron
87
Export, Valie
68
BaUlie, Bruce 49, 73, 90
Ball, Gordon
90
52,64
Barrie, Diana
F
Benning, James
55,56
A
Benning, Sadie
Bernard, Louise
65
85
Fagin, Steve
10, 12, 16
BirdwhisteU, Ray L.
Boone, Charles
22
64
Finley, Jeanne C.
Franju, Georges
54-55
22
Bourque, Louise
37,50
Frank, Robert
34-^1,46
Brakhage, Stan 2. 4. 9, 46, 49-5 1 ,
53,83
Breer, Robert
18,50
G
Brown, Carl E.
48
Brown, Kirsha
85
Gaffney, Stuart
16
Bruner-Szabo, Eva
90
Gaine, Ellen
5-7, 52
Bunuel, Luis
44-45
Gang, Jane
29
Burnett, Charles
25
Gary, John
24
Geiser, Janie
37,49
Gibbons, Joe
Godard, Jean-Luc
65
c
13, 23-24
Godlin, Jessica
86
Candy
Caradonna, Imani
Chang, Anita
28
87
17
Gottheim, Larry
Grant, Kat
7,42,90
86
Chang, Patty
29
H
Chen, Jonathan
86
Chin, Mel
90
Haberer, Ginny
85
Colbum, Martha
29
Hale, Amy
86
Cooper, Karen
86
Haynes, Doug
18
Culp, Samantha
86
Heimowitz, Debbie
86
Cunningham, Merce
71-72
Hernandez, Al
32-33
Hughes-Freeland, Tessa
29
Hugo, Ian
71
D
/
Damiano, Lori
85
Davidson, Helen
87
international front of super capitalist youths©, the 1
De Hirsch, Storm
90
Isou, Isidore
1
FiLM/VlDEOMAKER INDEX
/
A^
Jannol, Rebecca
86
Nelson, Gunvor
74-76
Jennings, Jim
53
Nidzyn, Joan
53
Jirasuradej, Lawan
16
Nunez, Griselda
85
Jolinson, Erin
86
Jones, William E.
24
85
Jordan, Katrina
o
Orr, Jerry
20-21
K
Oshima, Nagisa
69-70
Otis, James
36
Keller, Marjorie
45, 52, 88
Klahr, Lewis
68
60,61
Kluge, Alexander
P
Kren, Kurt
9, 68, 88-90
JL
Krugman, Lee
Kubelka, Peter
90
9, 43, 72
Painleve, Jean
22
Kuchar, George
2, 5-7, 23, 46
Parker, Jonathan
86
Kuchar, Mike
5-7,21
Peck, Raoul
Pierce, Leighton
31-32
53
Pitt, Suzan
Plotnick, Danny
51
X
5-7, 86
L
Po,Kim
86
Polta, Steve
53,62
Laitala, Kerry
36
Povey, Thad
50
LaPore, Mark
37,49
Price, Luther
65,68
Law, Jo
17
Pryce, Charlotte
50
Le Grice, Malcolm
51-52, 89
Lee, Christine
17
1
Lemaitre, Maurice
R
Levine, Saul
52
Lin, Lana
17,18
Lipzin, Janis Crystal
Lockhart, Sharon
2-7, 46
24
Ravett, Abraham
Reeves, Jennifer
65-66
53
Lopez, Brandon
86
Rice, Teri
29
Lye, Len
18,21,71
Robertson, Anne
65,90
J '
Rocha, Glauber
76-78
Rosenthal, Ken Paul
Rosow, Laura
5-7, 32-33, 62
5-6
M
Rossi, Leticia
85
Manrique, Erica
86
70
Matter, Herbert
s
Mekas, Jonas
3,30,45,48,51
Mideke, Michael
32
Moholy-Nagy, Laszio
71
Sabatier, Roland
1
Montgomery, Jennifer
Moss, Jessica
72-73
87
Sachs, Lynne
Saito, Machiko
17-18
17
Munoz, Ale
42
Saks, Eric
25-26
Murray, Julie
36
Schaller, Robert
51
Muse, John H.
54-55
Scheugl, Hans
90
Schnee, Moss & Thelma
22
Schneemann, Carolee
88
Seibert, Jim
49-50
Severson, Anne
67
FiLM/VlDEOMAKER INDEX
S (cont'd)
Sherman, Stuart
5-7
Sielecki, Hubert
90
silt
5-7
52
62-63
Sjogren, Britta
25
Smith, Cauleen
50
Snow, Michael
2-4, 46-48
59,89
Solomon, Phil
49
52-53
Stanley, Anie S8
28-29
Starevich, Ladislas
22
Stark, Scott
5-7, 23
49
59,67
Steiner, Konrad
53
Strand, Chick
49
73-74
Straub, Jean Marie
61
Street, Mark
53
Subrin, Elisabeth
7-8
Sucksdorff, Ame
22
Sugdr, Janos
27-28
Suzuki, Miya
16
T
Tamblyn, Christine
10-12
Tanner, Alain
19-20
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENffiNCE
59
Thornton, Leslie
54
Tode, Thomas
42
Tomes, Kimberly SaRee
17
Tsai, Patrick
87
u
Urbina, Cecy
85
V
Vachon, Gail
76
Velas, Karen
86
Vertov, Dziga
41^2
w
Wallace, Marian
90
Wang, Ray
17
Warhol, Andy
30,46
Weinsieder, Logan
87
White, Jacalyn
5-7, 76
Wieland, Joyce
2, 4, 46^7, 88
Wilson, Mark
19
Word, April
85
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