Internal Systems: Films by Coleen Fitzgibbon (Experimental Revival)

Conversations at the Edge at the Gene Siskel Film Center - Thursday, 6pm
When structuralist filmmaking works, its like watching performance art. You are often intrigued and confused, unsure of whether or not you liked it, only able to intelligently speculate on the artists' intentions at a later date. The work of Coleen Fitzgibbon does that too, but in a warmer way. Where Vito Acconci's video work makes you anxious, Fitzgibbon's RESTORING APPEARANCES TO ORDER IN TWELVE MINUTES (1975, 12 min) delivers calm like a cup of chamomile. The camera holds a static close-up as she scrubs a well-used utility sink throughout, clearing up every drop of paint from the labor of art making. She also tries her hand at found image manipulation in FOUND FILM FLASHES (1974, 3 min), stuttering and blinking her way through what appears to be an interview. The subject never gets to blurt out his story, as the sound skips back and forth and the images slow down in the projector gate. The result is alternating squelch and mind's-eye view, and works to subvert any concrete meaning outside the film itself. The bulk of the program is taken up with INTERNAL SYSTEM (1974, 45 min), an ambitious work of abstract film. The entire frame is taken up with monochromatic color, subtly shifting in hue and saturation and brightness, breaking down the projected image into the barest components of light. Shape, line, texture, and depth are eliminated, leaving only shifts from red to green to blue, broken by clouds of black, and distinguishable only by the change in speed. ALSO SCREENING: FM/TRCS (1974, 11 min) Fitzgibbon in person. (1974-75, 71 min total, 16mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Super-8 Rides Again (Special Event)

Chicago Filmmakers - Friday, 8pm
In the vernacular of cinema nothing says nostalgia and family quite like Super-8mm. With its simple light-tight cartridge and auto-exposure cameras it really was the format that gave the everyman a chance to capture memories when it was introduced in 1965. By reducing the technical skill required for filmmaking down to simply pointing and shooting it exponentially increased the number of home-movie makers and foreshadowed the era of video and the widespread documentation of weddings, school plays, and the oh-so-common Christmas mornings. While the amateur aesthetic this would suggest is not to be ignored during the unique show at Chicago Filmmakers tonight, nostalgia takes a back seat to a celebration of community. Twenty local filmmakers have each been given a single roll of film to shoot and no one, not even the filmmakers, gets a chance to see the results before they screen.* The format inspires introspection and familiarity, and it is sure to be central to a number of the films. For my contribution I walked around the Damen blue line stop early on a weekday morning and took ten-second portraits of people in my neighborhood. Both an experiment and a chance to talk to strangers on the street (I probably asked 75 people before I had enough willing participants), to me the film was a fitting reflection of the show. Being a part of an artistic community like that in Chicago is much like the city we call home: friendly, under the radar, formally challenging, and happy to take a risk. Many of the filmmakers will be in person. (2010, approx. 70 min, Super-8mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Ilisa Barbash & Lucien Castaing-Taylor's SWEETGRASS (New Documentary)

Music Box - Check Venue website for showtimes
Rarely in cinema do we have the chance to witness both an elegy and a eulogy. A simultaneous lament for and celebration of a life that has recently passed on. Such is the power of the silver screen: to take footage of people doing their job, and in the process, encapsulate the death of an era, an occupation, and a national myth of identity. Or at least that's how the team behind SWEETGRASS chooses to use movie magic. Aside from being an excellent collection of Bierdstadtian landscape shots of the Montana Wilderness, the film tells the story of a band of sheep, horses, cowboys (sheep herders, actually), and their dogs during a summer spent grazing on the public lands in high mountain valleys. The film opens in late spring, with snow still on the ground. Quiet and stillness dominate our world, as wide shots of mountain peaks seem to get ever closer to an unseen destination, when finally we cut to a low angle shot of the commercial sheep herd. Hundreds of white sheep stand still, filling the screen and stretching into the distance. The texture of their wool resembles the melting snow we've seen in the preceding shots, and the lack of noise will stand in stark contrast to the rest of the film. Finally we move in to a close-up of a single sheep standing, chewing on grass. Slowly, he turns his head towards the camera, chewing constantly. At the very moment when he finally turns to look straight at the camera, he suddenly stops chewing. He stares straight ahead, blankly, silently, with a small hint of fear, and completely still. And after the title card, our audio endurance test begins. A "baah!" here, and a "baah!" there. Eventually the incessant and overbearing sound of the herd emerges, and a constant drone sustains throughout the entire film. "BAAH! BAAH! BAAH!" Constantly. The sound is deafening, but eventually you begin to pick out the differences in the noises, and almost hear them as voices, and understand the mood of the vocalist. When the Drive begins, we head out as one gigantic group of 1000 sheep, horses, dogs, and people. As we move through forests and over creeks, the skill of the sheep dogs becomes evident. The cowboys constantly call to them, and the dogs usher the herd towards safety. The cowboys split up on the way, and each take a few hundred sheep, a horse, and two or three dogs into a valley, where they stay for the summer. There's quite a bit more humor and drama than you might expect from these men of few words. They live a primitive life, harkening back to an earlier era. They sleep in canvas tents and cook with wood-burning stoves. But they also carry sophisticated cameras (for documenting a sheep killed by a bear) and cell phones. They exist in two worlds, and one of those worlds is coming to a close. However, this really is the story of the sheep, and when everyone comes back from the mountains for the very last time, the sheep are sent off to slaughter. The cowboys, knowing that an occupation that they personally had held for a lifetime was gone forever, drive home, saying nothing to one another. The sheep were gone, and in the typical Western economy of language, so were all the words. (2009, 101 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Joel Schumacher's THE LOST BOYS (Contemporary American Revival)

Music Box - Friday and Saturday, Midnight
In addition to being the first movie where Corey Feldman and Corey Haim (R.I.P.) appear together, THE LOST BOYS is also a darn good time. In a rarity for a horror film from the '80's, the comedic elements work to lighten the mood without bringing too much cheese. Much as with Schumacher's previous movie targeted towards teenagers, ST. ELMO'S FIRE, the production team doesn't cut corners. Recently pubescent vampires (Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and Jami Gertz) and soon-to-be pubescent comic store geeks (Haim and Feldman) get the adult treatment as realistic characters, without a comic foil in the bunch. Though the film was shot in and around Santa Cruz, the fictional location of San Carla, CA, is adeptly rendered as a dark and downtrodden small town, and feels like it could exist on the edge of the Salton Sea. With it's run-down boardwalk, gang problems, and mysterious disappearances, this is not the "Sunny California" that was (and is?) a staple of the movies. Though the film lags a bit during the third act, the night-time scenes of the amusement park and the vampires' lair are dead on, and the soundtrack features an excellent cover of "People are Strange" performed by Echo and the Bunnymen. (1987, 97 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Haskell Wexler's MEDIUM COOL (American Revival)

Film Studies Center (University of Chicago) - Thursday, 7pm
How many times have you gone somewhere expecting a massive riot? And if you did go, did you also expect to come away with cinematic gold? That's pretty much what Chicago native Haskell Wexler did in '68 when he decided to shoot footage of protesters outside the Democratic National Convention. Already an Oscar-winning cinematographer for his work on WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, he set a fictional film about the ethics of a TV news cameraman amongst the actual chaos in the city. In MEDIUM COOL he used what was essentially a documentary crew (operating the camera himself), and had the actors intermingle with real protesters and police as all hell broke loose in Chicago. Other documentary footage was repurposed and additional narrative scenes were shot to fill in the gaps of the superficial plot, and Wexler used these elements to walk the line between fact and fiction while addressing the political climate of the times. Perhaps more than any other filmmaker, Wexler is responsible for the shooting style used in films by directors like John Cassavetes, John Sayles, and Kelly Reichardt, who all seem to have taken his advice: "If your film can reflect areas of life where people feel passion, then it will have genuine drama." Wexler in person. (1969, 111 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Nicholas Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (American Revival) & John Hughes' THE BREAKFAST CLUB (Contemporary American Revival)

Nicholas Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Monday, 7pm
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John Hughes' THE BREAKFAST CLUB (Contemporary American Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) - Wednesday, 7 and 9pm
American in the '50s vs. America in the '80s. Eisenhower and hula-hoops vs. Reagan and the Rubik's Cube. Conformity reigns: go to school, get a job, get married, and move to the suburbs. Makes you want to drop out right now doesn't it? Cinematically, the two decades were also high points of the Teen Movie genre, and you can't have a stellar film about teens without a good looking rebel that makes the girls swoon. Is it careful planning that allows Doc Films to bring us the most iconic rebels of each decade in one week, or just serendipity? It really doesn't matter, because at the very least we get a chance to use them as the lens through which the two decades are contrasted. Let's get one thing straight; when REBEL was released in 1955 (one month after James Dean's death) it was daring, fresh, and hard-hitting. A critique of morally corrupt youth, lackadaisical parenting, and the decay of the American family, it still commands praise of the highest degree for its quality of acting and ability to capture teenage angst in an honest, believable, and frank manner. Hughes' skill as a movie maker cannot be compared to Ray's, but his young cast was every bit the equal of Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood, and Dean in their collective ability to connect with a teenage audience. For people of a certain age, Anthony Michael Hall's voiceover which bookends the film will forever define who everyone at their high school was: a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. And our criminal, played by a now shaggy Judd Nelson, defined cool rebellion for the better part of a decade. As John Bender he insults the principal to his face ("Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?"), hides dope in his locker, sees through everyone's bullshit and calls them out on it, and gets to make out with the prom queen. But since we're comparing the two films, what does each anti-hero tell us about each director's vision, and about the decades they inhabit? In the 50's, Jim Stark is misunderstood, a young man who feels out of place in society, too sensitive to relate to his peers, and set up by society to fail. But his parents are simply misguided: they love Jim; they just don't know how to take care of him. We know that if he just gets a chance he can be somebody good, he just needs a few years. He lives in an optimistic America, where tomorrow is a bright new day. In the '80's though, John Bender has some real malice, and the cigarette burns on his arm to show us why. He forces a bonding ritual on his fellow high school students, but we know that his triumphant fist in the air to close the movie will be the high point of his life. At best he is destined for a crappy job in a bleak suburb, stuck in a loveless marriage with kids he can't stand. At worst he's drunk and alone, recounting how he blew his last best chance with that pretty little rich girl. The American dream is on the ropes, the rich are gonna get richer, and human connection is a fleeting illusion. You've got two choices, get with the program, or suffer the consequences. (1955, 111 min, 16mm/1985, 97 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Kristina Buozyte’s THE COLLECTRESS (Lithuania)

Gene Siskel Film Center - Saturday, 5:30pm and Thursday, 8pm
The voyeuristic tendencies of humanity are spilling themselves all over the web as you read this. Cell phone footage of violence and misery are as instantly disseminated and have replaced the daily newspaper of the 20th Century. No longer do we wait for tomorrow, and no longer do we take time to process the events we hear about through the media. Or in our own lives. The immediacy of the mass recounting of history has lead to a numbing of our emotions and a disconnection from others. Or so the argument goes. In one of the smartest films about the continuing intrusion of technology in our lives, the ability to document experience is posited as the only means for reconnecting with emotion. After the death of her father renders speech therapist Gaille void of feeling, she stumbles upon a drunken auteur disguised as a low-grade video editor. Living amongst filth and bottles of vodka, he turns weddings into farces, where brides are ugly and guests gorge on reception food like pigs. He edits some footage of Gaille working for her to present at a conference, and she realizes that only through seeing herself on tape does she reconnect with her feelings. She begins to have herself taped as she engages in a variety of stunts. The pranks begin harmlessly enough, with the taping of Gaille crashing a wedding and kissing the unexpecting groom, but she needs to keep upping the ante. Of course this self-reflexive voyeurism has a price to pay, and Gaille systematically severs her connections to everyone around her. Although comparisons to VIDEODROME are not unfounded, where Cronenberg tried to shock us into agreeing with his thesis, Buozyte uses her video sequences to humanize her characters. This film shows a deft eye for visual style and a light touch in pacing, somewhat remarkable for an MFA thesis film. Expect more from Buozyte in the future. (2008, 84 min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info

Videos by Lynne Sachs (Experimental Documentary/Narrative)

Chicago Filmmakers - Friday, 8pm
Film Studies Center - Saturday, 7pm
For twenty-five years Lynne Sachs has been making work that seek to explain the universal elements of human experience that emerge from documenting first person perspectives. History, or at least the knowledge of historical events, shapes how each of us views life, and it is this connection between past and present that remains central in her newest works. Her films acknowledge the limitations inherent in the documentary genre, and perhaps no more so than in her decade-long five-film series I AM NOT A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER. This weekend she will present the most recent installment in the series, LAST HAPPY DAYS (2009, 37 min, DVD), at Chicago Filmmakers and the Film Studies Center at University of Chicago. Sachs paints a picture of a distant relative whose life story encompasses both the best and worst qualities of life in the twentieth century. Originally a doctor in his native Hungary, Sandor Lenard fled the Nazis in 1938, first to Rome where he worked for the US Army reconstructing the bones of dead soldiers. Eventually he settled in the Brazilian Amazon and gained brief fame after translating Winnie the Pooh into Latin. Reflecting on our collective obsession with genealogy, Sachs approaches her portraiture as an essay on the horrors of war as well as the motivation behind artistic practice. To complete each evening, Chicago Filmmakers pairs this film with Sachs first narrative film, WIND IN OUR HAIR (2009, 42 min, DVD), inspired by the writings of Julio Cortazar, and the FSC pairs it with a new piece about Iraqi burial rituals translated into Latin, COSMETIC SURGERY FOR CORPSES (2010, 10 min, DVD). Lynne Sachs in person at both screenings. JH - Cine-File.info

Hellmuth Costard's FOOTBALL AS NEVER BEFORE (Documentary Revival)

Hellmuth Costard's FOOTBALL AS NEVER BEFORE (Documentary Revival)
White Light Cinema at The Nightingale - Friday, 8pm
The most apparent truth conveyed in this film is that, for George Best, being a professional athlete was a serious, patient, isolating, and precise occupation. The more poignant truth is that the core of all rituals infused with mysticism is the interplay of rhythm and duration, syntax and meaning. Best is ostensibly the star of the film as he paces like a caged tiger while someone off screen sets up a free kick, jogs casually upfield as spectators yell insults, waits on the wing with his hands on his hips like a bored schoolboy, and sprints hard for a slide tackle while supporters chant sing-songy rhymes. All the while Costard's six cameras keep him in their sites, and use Best as a puppet in what is truly a remarkable attempt at making cinema that exists outside the language of narrative. Never do we get a cutaway, an insert shot, or a reaction. As the game unfolds in real time we are unaware of score or the flow, left alone with Best to ponder the action, save for the few moments when the ball comes to him and gets passed away. Despite the apparent voyeurism of the approach, this "actor" is not a star we get titillation from gazing upon, nor is the camera's eye that of the unseen "other." From our usual perch above the playing field we are alone with an image of Best and his shadow, surrounded by the field, and the constant sound of the crowd. All attempts to engage with the game are thwarted by the cameras' unrelenting focus on one individual, for a story needs characters, and characters need conflicts to keep us interested. Finally, with a few minutes left in the first half, there is a moment of tension. Best dribbles across the top of the box, and launches a missile across his body towards goal, only to summersault to the pitch. Emotion threatens to make an appearance as the crowd cheers Best's effort, but we are not allowed to share in it: we are not participants in this spectacle. We are participants in the ritual of cinema, but removed from the expected syntax of hero and exposition we cannot recognize the structure and rhythm. In a typical film we are presented with a plausible reality on the screen, and we can predict what will happen, or at least be surprised by it. In our lives we place these waking daydreams of narrative artwork into a category called illusion. But when a graphic appears to show the score still standing at 0-0, Costard reminds us that in cinema, reality is always an illusion. (1971, 105 min, 16mm on DVD) JH - Cine-File.info

Philipp Stölzl's NORTH FACE (New German)

Philipp Stölzl's NORTH FACE (New German)
Music Box - Check venue website for showtimes
Rarely on Cine-File do we cover a film that feels like a Clint Eastwood sports epic (unless it is a Clint Eastwood sports epic, viz. INVICTUS), but in this case the film is a 2008 German release that has received little to no attention in the States. Part adventure-epic, part journalist drama, and part love story, it's all wonderfully shot blowing snow and foreboding rock crags that echo the bergfilmes of the '30's. Set in 1936, when everyone wanted to be the first to summit the north face of Switzerland's "the Eiger"--the last great unsolved problem of the Alps. Teams from Germany, Austria, Italy, and France were all competing to prove their superiority as mountaineers and as a nation. And unlike other challenges of human endurance, this one had a hotel with a lookout balcony and a cog railway through the interior of the mountain (that still boasts the highest station in Europe) that made this dangerous game of bravado into a spectator sport. What makes this story of two unsuccessful German climbers and the journalist who covered them worthwhile is the attention to detail that captures the climbing experience in sight and sound. The camera dangles on a rope next to the climbers, and at times we can barely hear their dialogue over the howling wind. The story becomes secondary after the first hour, as we already suspect their deadly fate. We stay to watch while the landscape becomes all-consuming, and devours our "heroes" like an ogre. (2008, 121 min, 35mm) - Cine-File.info