Magnificat: Films by Pat O'Neill (Experimental)

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

Pat O'Neill's WATER AND POWER (Experimental Revival)

Experimental Film Society (SAIC, 112 S Michigan Ave, Rm. 1307)  - Tuesday, 4:30pm
In early films like 1967's 7362 or 1971's RUNS GOOD Pat O'Neill used an Optical Printer and sophisticated matting effects to play, as if he was crafting short sonnet-films. By 1989 he outgrew the trickster's humor of special effects and gave us his first bit of epic poetry with WATER AND POWER. An ode to the city of Los Angeles, layered images juxtapose facets the multi-ethnic metropolis that sprouted from the desert in Southern California to become a Mecca for the American Dream, and a synonym for traffic jams and capitalist excess. Found footage is mixed with time-lapse shots and staged sequences. We move from city to desert, and back again along the pipelines that bring water to the thirsty machine. He wants to show us the energy of his city and how the parts contribute to the whole, but as the New York Times said when the film was released, "Mr. O'Neill's major concern is the power of film to redefine and control all images, even natural ones." Reductionism would never befit an artistic exploration of any urban area, and O'Neill's complexity as a filmmaker seeks to touch on the range of surprises that make LA unique, as a story and an experiment. (1989, 54 min, 16mm) JH - Cine-File.info

John Cassavetes’ A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (Classic Revival)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Wednesday, 7:30pm (repeats next week)
For the uninitiated, the films of John Cassavetes are at best unknown and at worst unappreciated. Marked by intimacy, chaos, and frequent awkwardness, they are populated by characters who are not from the same town as Jake LaMotta or even Harry Caul. The experience of a Cassavetes film can often hit too close to home—as when someone's mood suddenly shifts from jolly to angry, or when someone else blurts out an unprovoked insult, followed by an extended uncomfortable silence. He has a knack for allowing an actor to so fully inhabit the skin of their character that even Peter Falk somehow ceases to be Columbo. One of his finest achievements is A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE. Utilizing a crew of both professionals and students from AFI—where he was serving as "filmmaker in residence"—Cassavetes draws us into the marriage of blue collar Nick Longhetti (Peter Falk) and his wife Mabel (Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes’ real-life spouse) as she struggles with an unnamed mental illness and raising their three children. If Mabel is unstable, Nick is insecure and prone to violent outbursts. Neither of them is wired quite right, but what makes Cassavetes' approach to the story remarkable is his compassion for each of these deeply flawed, but not broken, people. Moments of real love emerge from a caress or exchanged glance; Mabel's social faux-pas are seen as simply quirks of her condition; and Nick's violence towards a co-worker is dismissed as part of a bad day. These actions are not justified; they are simply accepted by the filmmaker as part of the human condition. The main setting is a small home in Los Angeles, and the camera is often a silent child in the room, watching as the parents overreact. Close-ups dominate the mise-en-scene, with skillful hand-held shots sometimes approaching a documentary look—where the focus struggles to keep up with the action. WOMAN is a film of raw emotion laid bare; perhaps it is this intensity that continues to limit a wider appreciation of his work. (1974, 155 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

SOUTH MAIN (Documentary)

Chicago Filmmakers – Saturday, 8pm
When a public housing project in South Central Los Angeles is shuttered due to gang violence, the law-abiding residents find themselves displaced. Director Kelly Parker shows the story of three such families and their struggles with the transition to life in Section 8 housing in 2005. A fiancé who is killed in a drive-by-shooting the night before the move and increased bills that leave the family closer to poverty are the content of the stories told here, but the style is what makes this film original. In a departure from cinéma vérité, the camera remains mostly static—save for the handheld shots taken by the family members—and the filmmaker is content to let the matriarch of each family directly address the camera for extended monologues. Although this strategy is not always successful, sometimes drawing more attention to the presence of the camera than is necessary, Parker ultimately benefits from her minimal production scale and the familiarity with her subjects that it allows. Additionally, the intentional stylistic choice of allowing the camera to be a presence rather than an extension of the filmmaker works to keep the film from becoming a sweeping statement about poverty, and privileges the individual stories that it tells. (2008, 77 min, DVD) JH - Cine-File.info

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