Chicago Filmmakers (at the Second Unitarian Church of Chicago, 656 W. Barry Ave.) - Friday, 8:30pm
Any screening of Pat O'Neill's work is work checking out, but
placing his beautiful, repetitive, and glowing images inside the walls
of a church makes the experience extra special. Working with a
combination of animation, optical printing, fragments of found footage,
and his own precise cinematography, O'Neill delights in the absurd
juxtapositions of life. His films have a wit that is often lacking in an
artist of such technical mastery, and invite the viewer to be both
absorbed into the psychedelic glow of matted outlines on the screen and
delight in the skewering of consumerism and the construct of
urban/suburban sprawl for which his hometown of Los Angeles is known.
Covering much of his filmic output during the 1970s, this collection of
shorts marries his imagery to the familiar sounds of movie soundtrack
explosions, fragments of seemingly random speech ("they injected a
bubble into my brain at that time...") and pop music from a banjo
rendition of "Dixie" to the needle drop of T-Rex's IS IT LOVE. This
audio-visual combination not only provides fluidity and contrast, it
adds to the sardonic nature of his work. Films screening: DOWN WIND
(1973), LAST OF THE PERSIMMONS (1972), SAUGUS SERIES (1974), SIDEWINDERS
DELTA (1976), and RUNS GOOD (1971). (1971-76, 74 min total, 16mm) JH
