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Spring 2005 at a Glance: |
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EXCAVATIONS IN TIME :: February 22 + March 6 |
ESSENTIAL CINEMA 1964-1972 :: May 10 + 11 |
PAUL SHARITS :: March 15 + 16 |
ROBERT FRANK :: May 24, 25 + 26 |
SHARON LOCKHART :: MARCH 30 + 31 |
MARGUERITE DURAS :: June 7, 8 + 9 |
WITHIN/WITHOUT :: April 21 |
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EXCAVATIONS IN TIMEDrawing from uncovered political documents, scientific films, home movies and recordings, the six films in our annual collaboration with the Portland International Film Festival shed light on their aged and forgotten subjects to tell new stories. Rabih Mroue's Face A/Face B is constructed around a 1978 sound recording by Mroue and his brother; using virtually no images, this short piece is an intimate record of a family's life affected by loss and the political ideals of the Lebanese Civil War. It's Not My Memory Of It by The Speculative Archive (Julia Meltzer & David Thorne) is an intricately woven visual essay which combines text, sound, found footage, and animation to question the perception of secrecy and memory in the US governmentís handling of sensitive information. Abigail Child's newest work, The Future Is Behind You creates a fictional narrative out of an anonymous family archive from 1930s Austria that focuses on two sisters coming of age; it bridges the private and public in a multi-layered story touching on history, gender, and family psychology. Charlotte Pryce's beautiful and poetic film Concerning Flight: Five Illuminations in Miniature explores the mystery of insect flight: its various rhythms, movements and sounds. Julie Murray's I Began To Wish re-envisions a found film to create a haunting world where fruits grow pale and shrink back into buds, flowers speak, and sons wish for their father to kill them. T.S.H. is Jesse Lernerís ode to a 1924 experimental poem by Mexican author Kyn Taniya. February 22 Guild Theatre, 829 SW Park Avenue; 8:30pm
SECOND SCREENING: March 6 at 4:00pm
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INESCAPABLE ANXIETIES–Films by Paul Sharits
March 15 + 16 [New American Art Union] A noteworthy participant in the American avant-garde cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, Paul Sharits (1943-1993) was also a teacher, painter, and proponent of "structural film." Intrigued by the physical properties of the filmstrip, its development and projection, Sharits created a series of films that examined the boundaries of physical perception. Driven by what he descibed as an "inescapable anxiety," Sharits unleashed his painterly explosions of light, color and rhythm in a distinct style, forever altering the history of cinema. N:O:T:H:I:N:G is a "journey toward the center of pure consciousness" while Epileptic Seizure Comparison is a study of two patients entering the convulsion stage of seizures and finally Razor Blades is a dual projection "location" that revolves around cutouts, objects, and rhythmic flickering of color.
N:O:T:H:I:N:G [1968, 16mm, color, sound, 36 min]
New American Art Union, 922 SE Ankeny; 7:30pm
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STRUCTURAL ETHNOGRAPHIES—Sharon LockhartMarch 30 + 31 [New American Art Union] Acclaimed artist Sharon Lockhart creates both moving and still images that exquisitely capture the minutiae of everyday life. Drawing from dance, structuralist cinema, anthropology, and visual art Lockhartıs work explores issues of representation, culture, and the role of the observer. Lockhart will be on hand from Los Angeles to introduce two of her films shot in Japan. In Goshogaoka, Lockhart documents a girls junior high basketball team in Japan. Using fixed camera angles and long shots, the film creates a mesmerizing sense of action and movement that is at once choreographed and free. The title of Lockhartıs most recent piece NO is a reference to traditional Japanese theatre and to a Japanese style of agriculture; using virtually no cuts, this landscape film of the Japanese country side captures two figures at work as they spread hay across a field. Sharon will also present a slide lecture on her photographic works at Reed College on April 1st at 4:00pm in the Psychology Auditorium. This program was made possible through the support of Reed College and Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York. NO and Goshogaoka film stills Copyright 1997 by Sharon Lockhart Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York
–artist in attendance–
Goshogaoka [1997, 16mm, color, sound, 63 min] New American Art Union, 922 SE Ankeny; 7:30pm |
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WITHIN/WITHOUT—New Films by Gatten and HuttonApril 21 [NWFC's Guild Theatre] As a special program for the PDX Film Festival, weıre excited to present two new works by some of our old favoritesDavid Gatten and Peter Hutton. David Gattenıs recent work has been focused on The Byrd Project, a cycle of nine films about the Byrd family of Virginia during the early 18th century. Focusing on the familyıs library, their private histories, and public life, Gatten explores the intersection of the written word and moving image to bring together a narrative: poetic, philosophical, and personal. The Great Art of Knowing, the fourth part of the cycle, combines Athanasius Kircherıs 17th century encyclopedia, with images and words from Leonardo da Vinci as well as 19th century scientist, photographer, and early cinema pioneer Jules-Etienne Marey. Peter Huttonıs large body of work from the past 35 years is made up of stunningly photographed portraits of cities and natural landscapes. Using long, silent, meditative shots that reveal the subtle rhythms of each particular scene and giving the audience the gift of time to explore that landscape, Hutton has an eye for painterly composition and exquisite natural light. Huttonıs newest film Skagafjordur documents the stark, desolate, and stunning geography of Icelandıs Northern region.
The Great Art of Knowing by David Gatten [2004, 16mm, b&w, silent, 37 min]
Guild Theatre, 829 SW Park Avenue; 9:30pm |
ESSENTIAL CINEMA!—Avant-Garde Shorts 1964-72May 10 + 11 [New American Art Union] This program presents an unlikely mix of shorts from the sixties and early seventies. Fuses is a highly erotic document of lovemaking between Carolee Schneeman and her partner, the film of which Schneeman painted on, baked, left in the rain, and scratched. New York Eye and Ear Control is a part of the "Walking Woman" cutout series by filmmaker Michael Snow, the film is composed of cutout silhouette's of the "Walking Woman" set loose upon the streets of New York to a group score led by jazz great Albert Ayler. Necrology by Standish Lowder consists of one long take of faces from the endless procession of exhausted employees leaving work at Pan Am. Yellow Springs (Magellan: Vanishing Point #1) is Hollis Frampton's portrait of energy released during an afternoon visit to filmmaker Paul Sharits. Straight and Narrow by Beverly and Tony Conrad is a study in subjective color in visual rhythm ala the flicker.
Fuses by Carolee Schneemann [1964/67, 16mm, color, silent, 23 min] New American Art Union, 922 SE Ankeny; 7:30pm
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A PLACE IN THE WORLD—Robert FrankMay 24 [NWFC's Guild Theatre] May 25 + 26 [New American Art Union-922 SE Ankeny] Robert Frank's films represent an intensely personal negotiation of private and public spaces, and the real and imagined worlds he inhabits in his daily life. Randomly unfolding scenes, chance encounters with people in homes and on streets, and shots that include Frank himself articulate the fiction and reality that play off and define one another in each film. In Frankıs hands, the camera becomes a powerful means to reflect on his own place in the world. John Hanhardt Robert Frank established himself as one of the most important figures in photography with the 1958 publication of his book The Americans, after which he turned his focus to cinema, giving up still images all together. Combining fiction, autobiography, and documentation, Frankıs work in film and video explores the complexities of life, at once telling stories about the world around him while wholly exposing himself. Frank has been constantly redefining his own sense of moving image: from the early film collaborations with Jack Kerouac and the Beat poets to his increasingly intimate videos of the past couple of decades. Eventually returning to photography, his work in these mediums has become intertwined, the still and the moving constantly informing each other. Each work is like a diaristic puzzle piece, strung together to form a life. Cinema Project is honored to present nine works, including his first feature Me and My Brother, portraits of his children in Conversations in Vermont, and culminating in the west coast premiere of Frankıs newest video True Story.
May 24
May 25 Conversations in Vermont is about Robert Frank's relationship with his children Pablo and Andrea. It is his first overtly autobiographical film, set at his children's school in Vermont, Frank interviews them about their feelings, their upbringing in a world where art is valued above all else. In this film we see Frank in search of answers, but ending up questioning his own world. Life Dances On is Robert Frank's most personal and emotional work because it deals directly with his family and close friends. The film is dedicated to his daughter Andrea and to his friend and collaborator Danny Seymour, both deceased. Life Dances On is composed of delicately balanced, intuitive moments that merge Frank's own sense of loss for two people close to him with several filmed portraits of those who share his life, including his family and people on the street in New York City. Home Improvements, Robert Frank's first video project, is a simple and poignant diary of consequential events. It is about the relationship between Frank's life as an artist and his personal life, and how the two are inevitably intertwined. It was made cheaply with a half-inch video porta-pak. Home Improvements takes place in New York and Nova Scotia and in the mental space between these two opposing worlds.
May 26 Weaving between photography, found footage, projected footage, and filmed reality, Moving Pictures reflects Frankıs interest in the temporal and spatial transitions between photography and film. Silence and emptiness prevail as the fragmentary nature of memory is reordered in an associative sequence parallel to the fragmentary nature of the photographic image. In The Present simple objects, photographs, and events prompt Frank to self-conscious rumination. From his homes in New York and Nova Scotia and on visits to friends, the artist contemplates his relationships, the anniversary of his daughter's death, his son's mental illness, and his work. Flamingo is a fragment of Frank's poetic diary (with voiceover narration) recording the construction of a new foundation for his house in a remote area of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; it silently describes the need to keep working in the face of nature and time. Paper Route features Robert MacMillan on a wintry, pre-dawn morning and accompanies him on his daily route delivering newspapers to towns in the rural Nova Scotia community where Frank has had a second home for many years. Chatting amiably in voiceover as his camera observes the landscape and MacMillan's encounters with his customers, Frank conducts a rambling interview inspired by his own desire to better understand how people live their lives. True Story, Frank's most recent film, had its world premiere in October at the exhibition ROBERT FRANK STORY LINES at the Tate Modern, London. Speaking in voiceover, the artist narrates scenes shot in his homes in New York and Nova Scotia. His rambling commentary returns to familiar themes of memory, and the loss of friends and family members. Brief excerpts from earlier films are shown, along with Frank's photographs, the art of his wife, June Leaf, and extraordinarily detailed letters written by his son, Pablo (1951-1994). Alternately poignant, reflective, self-mocking and angry, this candid autobiography reveals Frank's late career preoccupations.
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TO MURDER THE CINEMA—Visions of Marguerite DurasI approach cinema with the intention to murder it.Marguerite Duras Best known for her autobiographical novel The Lover and her cinematic collaboration with Alain Resnais Hiroshima Mon Amour, Marguerite Duras was one of the most prolific and controversial figures in post-war France. Between 1943 and 1995, Duras penned more than 70 literary works and directed 19 films. These lesser known works in cinema make up a body of daring experimental narratives that address feminism, class, and politics. In cooperation with the San Francisco Cinematheque and the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Cinema Project is pleased to present three of Duras' wonderfully complex films (including a new print of Duras' masterwork India Song) along with Dominique Auvrayıs recent documentary on Duras.
JUNE 7
JUNE 8
JUNE 9
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