Eye and Ear Clinic at SAIC (112
S Michigan Ave, Rm 1307) - Monday, 6pm
One of the great accidents of Art History
is that Bruce Conner did not invent the found-footage film. Sure, Joseph
Cornell made ROSE HOBART in 1936 and Eisenstein et al were rumored to
have rearranged THE BIRTH OF A NATION while teaching themselves the
art of montage in the 1910s, but Conner did it better. In his first
major film, simply titled A MOVIE (1958, 12 min, 16mm) he displayed
a knack for gluing the scraps of civilization together to create both
a humorous and scathing visual commentary on society at large and Hollywood
idioms. As the title indicates, this was a generalized version of the
more mind-numbing fare that is arguably still the norm: sex, explosions,
racism, and sexy racist explosions. In REPORT (1967, 13 min, 16mm) he
used the news coverage surrounding the Kennedy assassination, shot off
his own TV set, to explore the media's obsession with violence and celebrity.
Again Conner uses a medium of mass communication as the message, but
shows more sensitivity as he explores his own feelings about an event
that defined a generation. Craig Baldwin's TRIBULATION 99 (1992, 48
min, 16mm) is a film that is epic in scope and archival in source material.
Taking a different approach to appropriation, Baldwin braids 99 different
conspiracy theories into a narrative. With footage mainly from B-movie
clips and educational films, he explains in half-whispered narration
not just who killed JFK, but what it had to do with the Mayans and aliens.
Baldwin shows a sensitivity to the societal fringes that incubated these
theories, and you get the sense that although he doesn't believe them,
he knows they're onto something. Also screening: Brian Boyce's SPECIAL
REPORT (1999, 3 min, video), Kent Lambert's SEPTEMBER SICK SEMPER TYRANNIS
(2008, 4 min, video), and Jesse McLean's ONLY WE KNOW (2009, 5 min,
video). Lambert and McLean person. JH - Cine-File.info
Friday, October 23, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Mike Judge’s OFFICE SPACE (Contemporary Revival)
Music Box – Friday and Saturday, Midnight
1999 was a banner year for movies that criticized pursuing the American Dream as a soul-sucking, monotonous, and crushing defeat. These films all told us that the only way to achieve happiness in your modern life is to get up out of your cubicle, give your boss an emphatic middle finger and drop the hell out! But while FIGHT CLUB wrapped itself up in CGI and a philosophy of violence, and AMERICAN BEAUTY sought to regain it's youth with a Lolita and some reefer, OFFICE SPACE gives us the chance to do nothing. And how sweet nothing can be. Introducing the world to the phrases "pieces of flair" and "O-face," and with a plot device shamelessly stolen from SUPERMAN III, the film attempts to deny that it's a sophisticated satire. However, in the hands of writer-director Mike Judge (who was best know for BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD before this film), astute social commentary always gets mixed up with fart jokes. Corporate underling Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) plays the straight man to a cadre of ridiculous co-workers, neighbors, and waiters. With ten years of history between now and the film's release, it's basic setup of a code-monkey working on the Y2K problem may seem dated, but the office stereotypes it creates are timeless. (1999, 89 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info
1999 was a banner year for movies that criticized pursuing the American Dream as a soul-sucking, monotonous, and crushing defeat. These films all told us that the only way to achieve happiness in your modern life is to get up out of your cubicle, give your boss an emphatic middle finger and drop the hell out! But while FIGHT CLUB wrapped itself up in CGI and a philosophy of violence, and AMERICAN BEAUTY sought to regain it's youth with a Lolita and some reefer, OFFICE SPACE gives us the chance to do nothing. And how sweet nothing can be. Introducing the world to the phrases "pieces of flair" and "O-face," and with a plot device shamelessly stolen from SUPERMAN III, the film attempts to deny that it's a sophisticated satire. However, in the hands of writer-director Mike Judge (who was best know for BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD before this film), astute social commentary always gets mixed up with fart jokes. Corporate underling Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) plays the straight man to a cadre of ridiculous co-workers, neighbors, and waiters. With ten years of history between now and the film's release, it's basic setup of a code-monkey working on the Y2K problem may seem dated, but the office stereotypes it creates are timeless. (1999, 89 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info
François Truffaut’s FAHRENHEIT 451 (Classic Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Wednesday, 7 and 9:30pm
What is it about French directors in the 60's that made them visualize the future as looking pretty much the same, but with a few fancy gadgets and streamlined clothing? And what was it about Ray Bradbury that makes his dystopian futures less frightening than Philip K. Dick's? François Truffaut can share credit for both of these phenomena. In his first color film, and only English language film, Bradbury's 1951 novel of the same name is adapted to become an anti-censorship, pro-intellectual statement. In a future where all books and written language are banned, Oskar Werner plays the book burning "fireman," an up-and-coming fascist about to get promoted who has a crisis of conscience. Julie Christie plays the dual roles of Linda, his sedative and TV addicted wife, and Clarisse, the young schoolteacher who seduces his mind. Beginning with the opening credits, which are spoken by a narrator while we see two-toned shots of antennae, Truffaut forefronts his visual acumen. Though the dialogue is sometimes lacking in terms of rhythm and delivery, the art direction is sublime. The reds, oranges, and yellows of burning paper dominate Christie's wardrobe and home, and only a handful of cool colors are dripped throughout the film. The film uses some quick zooms, which feel dated today, but sheds many of the cinematic flourishes that populate much of Truffaut's earlier work. Though technically sci-fi, it's light on the science, and heavy on the (literary) fiction. (1966, 112 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info
What is it about French directors in the 60's that made them visualize the future as looking pretty much the same, but with a few fancy gadgets and streamlined clothing? And what was it about Ray Bradbury that makes his dystopian futures less frightening than Philip K. Dick's? François Truffaut can share credit for both of these phenomena. In his first color film, and only English language film, Bradbury's 1951 novel of the same name is adapted to become an anti-censorship, pro-intellectual statement. In a future where all books and written language are banned, Oskar Werner plays the book burning "fireman," an up-and-coming fascist about to get promoted who has a crisis of conscience. Julie Christie plays the dual roles of Linda, his sedative and TV addicted wife, and Clarisse, the young schoolteacher who seduces his mind. Beginning with the opening credits, which are spoken by a narrator while we see two-toned shots of antennae, Truffaut forefronts his visual acumen. Though the dialogue is sometimes lacking in terms of rhythm and delivery, the art direction is sublime. The reds, oranges, and yellows of burning paper dominate Christie's wardrobe and home, and only a handful of cool colors are dripped throughout the film. The film uses some quick zooms, which feel dated today, but sheds many of the cinematic flourishes that populate much of Truffaut's earlier work. Though technically sci-fi, it's light on the science, and heavy on the (literary) fiction. (1966, 112 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info
Daniel Barrow’s WINNIPEG BABYSITTER (Live Performance/Special Event)
The Nightingale – Saturday, 8pm
When cable television came on the scene in the late 70s not only did it increase the number of channels available, but in many communities it also created Public Access TV. Funded and equipped by the corporations that reaped the profits, Public Access provided a platform for hobby enthusiasts, amateur actors, wannabe talk-show hosts, political junkies, and artists of all kinds to take over your boob tube each week. On the eastern edge of the Canadian prairies, the citizens of Winnipeg exploited this new format to it's fullest, with people such as performance artist Glen Meadmore and a young Guy Maddin creating masterworks of the medium. When SHAW cable took over the local system in the late 80's, rumors circulated that they had destroyed the archives, and Winnipeg illustrator, collector, animator, and overhead-projector performer Daniel Barrow took action. He began researching and collecting the programs that had been part of this creative explosion, many times needing to track down VHS copies of shows from the producers and viewers. In the Chicago edition of his ongoing project he will present a selection of his favorite finds, side by side with his handcrafted liner notes for each program. Part performance, part archival presentation, this show promises to be a funny and nostalgic look back at an era when technology and economics combined to give anyone with a little initiative a chance to be a star for 30 minutes—or just a larger platform to subvert the dominant paradigm. (1982-1999, approx. 90 min, video and overhead projection) JH - Cine-File.info
When cable television came on the scene in the late 70s not only did it increase the number of channels available, but in many communities it also created Public Access TV. Funded and equipped by the corporations that reaped the profits, Public Access provided a platform for hobby enthusiasts, amateur actors, wannabe talk-show hosts, political junkies, and artists of all kinds to take over your boob tube each week. On the eastern edge of the Canadian prairies, the citizens of Winnipeg exploited this new format to it's fullest, with people such as performance artist Glen Meadmore and a young Guy Maddin creating masterworks of the medium. When SHAW cable took over the local system in the late 80's, rumors circulated that they had destroyed the archives, and Winnipeg illustrator, collector, animator, and overhead-projector performer Daniel Barrow took action. He began researching and collecting the programs that had been part of this creative explosion, many times needing to track down VHS copies of shows from the producers and viewers. In the Chicago edition of his ongoing project he will present a selection of his favorite finds, side by side with his handcrafted liner notes for each program. Part performance, part archival presentation, this show promises to be a funny and nostalgic look back at an era when technology and economics combined to give anyone with a little initiative a chance to be a star for 30 minutes—or just a larger platform to subvert the dominant paradigm. (1982-1999, approx. 90 min, video and overhead projection) JH - Cine-File.info
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Kathryn Bigelow's NEAR DARK & POINT BREAK (Contemp. Revival)
Portage Theater - Thursday, 7:30pm (Dark) and 9:30pm (Break)
As a director Kathryn Bigelow exists in that strange place where she is respected by her peers and critics, enjoys a cult following of movie buffs, but has yet to gain mainstream name recognition. A woman who is best known for her work in the traditionally masculine genres of Action, Sci-Fi, and Horror, she consistently makes good films that don't earn quite enough at the box office. Her 2009 feature, THE HURT LOCKER, a story about the members of a US army bomb squad in Iraq that has won numerous awards at film festivals worldwide, has sparked a renewed interest in her earlier work and a chance to reassess her importance as a contemporary auteur. In NEAR DARK (1987, 94 min, 35mm), which Bigelow also co-scripted, tropes of the Western genre are combined with a Vampire story, set on the late 1980s Great Plains. From the opening scene of Caleb, our Oklahoma farm boy protagonist, driving to town in his beat-up truck for a night of beer and girls, to the final battle between humans and the undead, there is rarely a plot twist. Instead, Bigelow sets a scene and lets our expectations of the genre do the rest. Outside of Caleb and the Vamp who turns him, there is a minimum of character development and explanation. The word "Vampire" is never used in the film, and when our hero gets up on his horse for the first time, we know the good guys will win. At the core, Caleb's human family is pitted against the outcast Vampire family that takes him in, and Bigelow continues this theme in her 1991 studio debut, POINT BREAK (1991, 120 min, 35mm). Southern California has suffered a string of bank robberies, and a rookie FBI agent (Keanu Reeves) follows his veteran partner's hunch that the criminals are also surfers. Reeves goes undercover to infiltrate the gang, led by Patrick Swayze, and falls in love with their thrill-seeking lifestyle and Swayze's live for the moment philosophy. Reeves is finally accepted as one of the boys, and when his cover is blown he is forced to make a choice between the lost-boys family of surfers and his responsibility as a lawman. Featuring extended sequences of surfing and skydiving, POINT BREAK uses these narrative asides to increase the suspense of its crime genre core. Again, extended explanations of the two worlds are never provided, giving the story the economy of convention to explore itself. JH - Cine-File.info
As a director Kathryn Bigelow exists in that strange place where she is respected by her peers and critics, enjoys a cult following of movie buffs, but has yet to gain mainstream name recognition. A woman who is best known for her work in the traditionally masculine genres of Action, Sci-Fi, and Horror, she consistently makes good films that don't earn quite enough at the box office. Her 2009 feature, THE HURT LOCKER, a story about the members of a US army bomb squad in Iraq that has won numerous awards at film festivals worldwide, has sparked a renewed interest in her earlier work and a chance to reassess her importance as a contemporary auteur. In NEAR DARK (1987, 94 min, 35mm), which Bigelow also co-scripted, tropes of the Western genre are combined with a Vampire story, set on the late 1980s Great Plains. From the opening scene of Caleb, our Oklahoma farm boy protagonist, driving to town in his beat-up truck for a night of beer and girls, to the final battle between humans and the undead, there is rarely a plot twist. Instead, Bigelow sets a scene and lets our expectations of the genre do the rest. Outside of Caleb and the Vamp who turns him, there is a minimum of character development and explanation. The word "Vampire" is never used in the film, and when our hero gets up on his horse for the first time, we know the good guys will win. At the core, Caleb's human family is pitted against the outcast Vampire family that takes him in, and Bigelow continues this theme in her 1991 studio debut, POINT BREAK (1991, 120 min, 35mm). Southern California has suffered a string of bank robberies, and a rookie FBI agent (Keanu Reeves) follows his veteran partner's hunch that the criminals are also surfers. Reeves goes undercover to infiltrate the gang, led by Patrick Swayze, and falls in love with their thrill-seeking lifestyle and Swayze's live for the moment philosophy. Reeves is finally accepted as one of the boys, and when his cover is blown he is forced to make a choice between the lost-boys family of surfers and his responsibility as a lawman. Featuring extended sequences of surfing and skydiving, POINT BREAK uses these narrative asides to increase the suspense of its crime genre core. Again, extended explanations of the two worlds are never provided, giving the story the economy of convention to explore itself. JH - Cine-File.info
Films by Robert Todd (Documentary/Experimental)
The Nightingale - Friday, 10pm
Boston based filmmaker Robert Todd is one of the most prolific and precise celluloid artists working today. Many of his films begin as documents and, through careful manipulation of lens, light, and editorial timing, transcend their subject matter to become existential metaphors. Two such black and white films, ROSE (2008, 9 min, 16mm) and QUIVER (2008, 10 min, 16mm), utilize film grain to translate the physical texture of objects to the eyes. The camera's eye is more akin to a finger as extreme close-ups combine with rack-focus, gently brushing the surface to reveal the internal. Similar in approach is QUALITIES OF STONE (2006, 11 min, 16mm), a color film that combines imagery of the organic and inorganic to contemplate life and death, artificial and natural. Tactile poetry for the eyes. Also screening are FLOWERGIRLS (2004, 14 min, 16mm), HAPPY PEPPY SPARKY DOG (2002, 3 min, 16mm), BLISS (2006, 5 min, 16mm), and others TBA. JH - Cine-File.info
Boston based filmmaker Robert Todd is one of the most prolific and precise celluloid artists working today. Many of his films begin as documents and, through careful manipulation of lens, light, and editorial timing, transcend their subject matter to become existential metaphors. Two such black and white films, ROSE (2008, 9 min, 16mm) and QUIVER (2008, 10 min, 16mm), utilize film grain to translate the physical texture of objects to the eyes. The camera's eye is more akin to a finger as extreme close-ups combine with rack-focus, gently brushing the surface to reveal the internal. Similar in approach is QUALITIES OF STONE (2006, 11 min, 16mm), a color film that combines imagery of the organic and inorganic to contemplate life and death, artificial and natural. Tactile poetry for the eyes. Also screening are FLOWERGIRLS (2004, 14 min, 16mm), HAPPY PEPPY SPARKY DOG (2002, 3 min, 16mm), BLISS (2006, 5 min, 16mm), and others TBA. JH - Cine-File.info
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Owen Land's DIALOGUES (Experimental)
Chicago Filmmakers - Saturday, 8pm
Overarching and overreaching, DIALOGUES is autobiographic lying at its most sincere. Vignettes in various shapes and sizes populated by various japes and friars make the flimsiest of narrative plausibility possible. Legendary Structuralist filmmaker Owen Land's tongue is not much in check as he pretends to tell the story of his 1985 return to LA after a year spent living in Japan. Representing two halves of his persona--the Trickster-Literary Land and the Pure Fool-Visual--by using two different actors, Land take turns re-enacting significant encounters with the director's past. Seemingly every tale ends with a woman removing her clothing for reasons that would make a porno screenwriter blush and, for the first portion of the film, this misogyny and self-indulgence takes us hostage. Soon, however, the stories become less the embellished tales of an aging icon and more a lighthearted attempt to contemplate religion, language, audience's expectations of narrative structure, and hero-worship in the art world. Transforming itself from pathetic to introspective to reflective and then to sorrowful, Land's newest work makes you work for the reward, and then rewards you with mental work. (2008, 133 min, video) JH - Cine-File.info
Overarching and overreaching, DIALOGUES is autobiographic lying at its most sincere. Vignettes in various shapes and sizes populated by various japes and friars make the flimsiest of narrative plausibility possible. Legendary Structuralist filmmaker Owen Land's tongue is not much in check as he pretends to tell the story of his 1985 return to LA after a year spent living in Japan. Representing two halves of his persona--the Trickster-Literary Land and the Pure Fool-Visual--by using two different actors, Land take turns re-enacting significant encounters with the director's past. Seemingly every tale ends with a woman removing her clothing for reasons that would make a porno screenwriter blush and, for the first portion of the film, this misogyny and self-indulgence takes us hostage. Soon, however, the stories become less the embellished tales of an aging icon and more a lighthearted attempt to contemplate religion, language, audience's expectations of narrative structure, and hero-worship in the art world. Transforming itself from pathetic to introspective to reflective and then to sorrowful, Land's newest work makes you work for the reward, and then rewards you with mental work. (2008, 133 min, video) JH - Cine-File.info
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