Chicago Filmmakers – Saturday, 8pm
Following in the tradition
of Western authors such as Wallace Stegner and Gretel Ehrlich,
filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt is obsessed with the landscape of possibility
that led the first industrialists to California, and the legacy they
left behind. Mining, logging, farming, oil and steel towns that were
established as a means to keep workers on a short leash have now been
all but abandoned by their original owners. Some are entirely vacant,
while others have lived on, but all are reminders of the environmental
impact that industry and then the military has left on the landscape.
Using voice-over narration, clips from contemporary radio—of the
religious and political variety—and found footage, Schmitt gives us a
history of and comment on 14 such places, and their demise. A timely
lesson in the current economic climate. Filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt in
person. (2008, 77 min, 16mm) JH - Cine-File.info
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Pat O'Neill's THE DECAY OF FICTION (Experimental)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Friday, 7pm
When someone becomes a master in a commercial craft that becomes technologically obsolete, what is there left to do? For one thing, they can make films about places that have also outlived their original purpose, as Pat O'Neill does in this 2002 feature film. An optical printer by practice and occupation, O'Neill casts L.A.'s now demolished Ambassador Hotel as the protagonist and explores the corridors and cavities that were once the playground of Hollywood elites. Black and white ghosts float through the Cocoanut Grove nightclub providing snippets of dialogue of classic Noir films, and attempt to breathe life into the now empty opulence. Chants of "we want Bobby" are heard as we track through the kitchen that was the site of RFK's assassination, and a woman hypnotizes countless men in one of the upstairs suites. In the end, only devils and angels remain as the sun sets on our star, and perhaps on the glory of O'Neill's seamless camera and metaphor, holding on to the golden era of machination. Pat O’Neill in person. (2002, 74 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info
When someone becomes a master in a commercial craft that becomes technologically obsolete, what is there left to do? For one thing, they can make films about places that have also outlived their original purpose, as Pat O'Neill does in this 2002 feature film. An optical printer by practice and occupation, O'Neill casts L.A.'s now demolished Ambassador Hotel as the protagonist and explores the corridors and cavities that were once the playground of Hollywood elites. Black and white ghosts float through the Cocoanut Grove nightclub providing snippets of dialogue of classic Noir films, and attempt to breathe life into the now empty opulence. Chants of "we want Bobby" are heard as we track through the kitchen that was the site of RFK's assassination, and a woman hypnotizes countless men in one of the upstairs suites. In the end, only devils and angels remain as the sun sets on our star, and perhaps on the glory of O'Neill's seamless camera and metaphor, holding on to the golden era of machination. Pat O’Neill in person. (2002, 74 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Jean-Luc Godard’s VIVRE SA VIE (Classic Revival
Music Box – Check Reader Movies for showtimes
If you think Godard's political, allegorical, theoretical approach to filmmaking always outshines his ability to produce believable and emotional portraiture, then check out VIVRE SA VIE, showing in a new print. His fourth feature tells the tale of a working class young woman, Nana (Anna Karina), as life goes from bad to worse. Despite the breakdown into chapters (complete with title cards) the film is at first an unstructured manifesto intended to persuade the audience that capitalism can only leads to the commoditization of all things, including our flesh. But this is merely a single thread in the complex nature of the film. Communication is flawed, character and cinema are experienced and molded, and there are more than thirteen ways to look at ones wife through a viewfinder. At times Godard is mimicking the tropes of documentary, at others he is relying on overt reference (Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, for example), and at others he is doing what he does best (using framing and composition to make sure that no one present misunderstands the emotional distance a character feels). One would he hard pressed to find another film with such an abrupt and sad ending that still makes one leave the theater with a smile. Poetic, beautiful, and concise. (1962, 85 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info
If you think Godard's political, allegorical, theoretical approach to filmmaking always outshines his ability to produce believable and emotional portraiture, then check out VIVRE SA VIE, showing in a new print. His fourth feature tells the tale of a working class young woman, Nana (Anna Karina), as life goes from bad to worse. Despite the breakdown into chapters (complete with title cards) the film is at first an unstructured manifesto intended to persuade the audience that capitalism can only leads to the commoditization of all things, including our flesh. But this is merely a single thread in the complex nature of the film. Communication is flawed, character and cinema are experienced and molded, and there are more than thirteen ways to look at ones wife through a viewfinder. At times Godard is mimicking the tropes of documentary, at others he is relying on overt reference (Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, for example), and at others he is doing what he does best (using framing and composition to make sure that no one present misunderstands the emotional distance a character feels). One would he hard pressed to find another film with such an abrupt and sad ending that still makes one leave the theater with a smile. Poetic, beautiful, and concise. (1962, 85 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info
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