The Voyagers: Part One - Video Inquiry: Work by Penny Lane
The Nightingale - Saturday, 7pm
There are some auteurs that use a distinctive camera style or work
with the same themes over and over. And then there are those like Penny
Lane who jump around visually and thematically, but whose work is united
through a distinctive voice. In pieces such as WE ARE THE LITTLETONS
(2004) this voice is literal, as Lane narrates. It is in an investigation
into the whereabouts of an adopted child cast out of the family, but
it may as well be about any black sheep. As the camera wanders throughout
the now empty home, drawers are opened revealing memories both happy
and sad, but as correspondence between the filmmaker and the matron
unfold on the soundtrack Lane suggests that black sheep, like the rest
of us, are shaped by their environment. The way digital environments
shape their users is explored in both MEN SEEKING WOMEN (2007) and SOMETIMES
I GET LOSSY (2008), as Lane checks in on both the personals section
of Craigslist and her own screen induced boredom/psychedelic daydream.
Time is the place that defines THE VOYAGERS (2010). Using the Golden
Record that was placed aboard the Voyager spacecraft as a jumping off
point, Lane frames this particular NASA project as a love-letter to
the chance happening that is the existence of the human race. A launching
into the unknown, a wonderment at the beauty of existence, and a touching
piece involving both Carl Sagan and Coney Island, it is her wedding
present to her husband, Brian Frye. ALSO SCREENING: HOW TO MAKE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
(2010), FAMOUS LUNCH 03.25.05 (2009), SHE USED TO SEE HIM MOST WEEKENDS
(2007), and THE COMMONERS (2009). Penny Lane in person. (2004-10,
approx. 53 min total, video)
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The Voyagers: Part Two - The Anatomy
of Cinema: Films by Brian Frye
White Light Cinema at The Nightingale- Saturday, 9pm
It is hard to describe the work of Brian Frye as anything other
than distant. Distant serendipity (THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, 1999).
Distant sublime (THE LETTER, 2001). Distant absurdity (ACROSS THE RAPPANHANNOCK,
2002). Time and again Frye's camera (or that of the original shooter)
finds the poetry in a situation by keeping away from the human subjects.
This contextualization lends an air of analysis to what are quite lyrical
films of memory, history, sorrow, and Civil War reenactment. All the
while, as these ghosts haunt the screen, one gets the impression that
it is not the misery of the human experience that excites the filmmaker,
but rather the hope and joy of those who lives are imperfect. When they
are projected through that mystic machine, stiff actors become icons,
archetypes for all that is important. The reels contain not stories,
but messages from the creator, ciphered by the artist into almost understandable
visions that seem to come from the early part of the industrial age.
Frye gives these important ideas the space to resonate with the viewer,
but also doesn't smother our minds with structure and order. There is
not chaos, but a gentle observation of the profound, taken from a safe
spot across the river from the real battle. Also Screening: 6.95 STRIPTEASE
(1995), 9.95: THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENT IN MY LIFE (INFINITE SET) (1995),
MEETING WITH KHRUSCHEV (1997), and KADDISH (2002). (1995-2002, approx.
85 min, 16mm) JH - Cine-File.info
