FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART: MAY 2013

FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART: MAY 2013

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FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART: MAY 2013
SELECTIONS FROM THE CHAPTER ‘EASTERN EUROPEAN LEFT & REVOLUTIONARY CINEMA’
WEDNESDAY MAY 15TH — PROGRAM 1 at 7:30PM & PROGRAM 2 at 10PM

The subversive and revolutionary cinema that emerged from Eastern Europe in the sixties and seventies is an incredibly original, bizarre, opaque, bodily and nihilistic cinema. Free of the Maoist and Internationalist errors that haunt much of the Western left in the period, and somewhat removed from the aesthetic battles typified by the Western “new waves”, many of the films of revolt against actually existing socialism, often created under conditions of censorship (direct and indirect), are surreal to the point of unintelligibility.

Among the most haunting and destabilizing works to emerge from the long sixties, these films are not dogmatic nor “political” so much as non- or anti-polemical. Meandering, frightening, and deeply experimental, these films sometimes feel as though they emerge directly out of desire itself, an explosion of mysterious flows and forces which attempt to smash the bureaucratic maintenance of survival that called itself life in a worker’s nation.

If capitalism pointed to the individual’s accumulation of things as proof of its success, state-socialism preferred to accumulate reports of collective achievement and productivity. Thus this Eastern European cinema opposes itself both to accumulation and political proclamation, preferring disoriented and ecstatic explorations of subjectivities that refuse official conceptions of the collective and bourgeois notions of the individual.

They also have the distinction of rebelling against a dead regime—while the spectacle transforms itself in order to consume its critics, from which you could argue that every regime which is fought against is “dead” if the subversion does not end in its overthrow, the end of state-socialism has been more thorough and total—throwing the question of their continuing power as revolutionary works into stark relief.

In our monthly series, Film as a Subversive Art, we’ve been looking at films from Amos Vogel’s book of the same name. This month we’ll look at films from the chapter “Eastern European Left and Revolutionary Cinema”. Join us for a night of upended totalities, destroyed symbols, naked desires and total tactical opacity.

DUCKTATORS

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ducktators

ICARUS FILMS PRESENTS:

DUCKTATORS
Dir: Wolter Braamhorst & Guus van Waveren, 1998.
USA. 46 min.

TUESDAY, MAY 7 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 24 – 10:00 PM

Ducktators is a unique look at the use of cartoons during World War II.

American propaganda during the war had to obey one golden rule: it had to be entertaining. Cartoons proved to be an excellent way to deliver propagandistic and educational ideas in a seemingly innocuous manner to the general public and armed forces alike. Ducktators not only offers a rare glimpse at forgotten cartoon material from this moment in history, but goes further to reveal insights about the psyche of the public at that time.

The film blends documentary war footage with animated material and music from the period. The attack on Pearl Harbor, for instance, is intertwined with a Japanese cartoon about the attack. As the 1940s was the period during which the American cinema was most heavily attended, the screening of these cartoons every week guaranteed that most Americans would be exposed to the messages.

Among those interviewed in the film are Sody and Bob Clampett, the wife and son of animator Bob Clampett, and Chuck Jones.

“Legendary animator Chuck Jones, together with the wife and son of cartoonist Bob Clampett, plus historians and scholars discuss these extensively excerpted works as seen in their proper context.” – Booklist

Description courtesy of Icarus Films.

KINETIC CINEMA: ELEANOR ANTIN’S BALLERINA FILMS

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THE BALLERINA AND THE BUM and THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL BALLET
Dir. Eleanor Antin, 1974/1975
USA, 80 minutes total
English

WEDNESDAY, MAY 8 – 8:00 PM

Eleanor Antin – performance artist, photographer, and filmmaker – often creates an alternate persona in her video work, and in The Ballerina and the Bum and The Little Match Girl Ballet, she recreates herself as a professional ballerina from the middle of nowhere, desperate to make it in the big city. In the first film, Antin’s ballerina plans to walk across the country in order to make it as a dancer in the Big City; she meets the titular bum, and dreams of success. In the thematic sequel The Little Match Girl Ballet, that dancer has finally made it! She describes her path to glory to a silent audience, and acts out a ballet to Stravinsky, playing all the parts. In these two films, Antin discusses ideas of identity, fame, and representation, all while tying it back to dance.

EPHEMERA: WHAT WAS NEW YORK?

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EPHEMERA: WHAT WAS NEW YORK?
1939-1969, TRT: 90m, Color/B&W, USA.
MONDAY, MAY 13 – 8:00 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 28 – 8:00 PM

As one of the most characteristically diverse places on the planet, New York City’s 20th-century history has produced sights and sounds of an astonishing breadth. May’s EPHEMERA program WHAT WAS NEW YORK? offers a curated selection of moments from the history of NYC as it has been captured on celluloid. From specific transit exposés to neighborhood profiles, this edit utilizes a variety of framing contexts interchangeably to present an appropriately-scattered portrait of a location in constant flux; its assembly chronological yet timeless.

Preceding the feature program is LIVE AND LET LIVE (1947, 10m, Color, USA), an innovative safety awareness film produced by the Aetna Casualty & Surety Company that utilizes brightly-colored model cars to demonstrate traffic scenarios via tabletop stop-motion animation.

Sources for WHAT WAS NEW YORK? include: Around The World In New York (1940), Arteries Of New York City (1941), Coney Island (1940), For The Living (1949), R.F.D. Greenwich Village (1969), Story Of A City (1947), Story Of Newspaper History In The Making (1945), The City (1939), Third Avenue El (1950) and Village Sunday (1960), as well as many private home movies.

Special thanks to the Internet Archive, Rick Prelinger and everyone at the Prelinger Archive.

Rick Prelinger began collecting “ephemeral films”—all those educational, industrial, amateur, advertising, or otherwise sponsored—in 1982, amassing over 60,000 (all on physical film) before his Prelinger Archive was acquired by the Library of Congress in 2002. Since then, the collection has grown and diversified: now it exists in library form in San Francisco and is also gradually being ported online to the Internet Archive (http://archive.org), where 3,801 of its films are currently hosted (as of this writing).

Of course, the content of the Prelinger Archive’s films varies in accord with the variety of mankind. Historic newsreels, mid-century automobile infomercials, psychological experiments, medical procedurals, big oil advertisements, military recruitment videos, political propagandas, personal home videos, celebrity exposes, amateur narratives, scientific studies, war bulletins, instructional films, special interest op-eds, safety lessons, hobby guides, travel destination profiles and private industry productions all sit comfortably together in one marginalized category.

FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART: APRIL 2013

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FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART: APRIL 2013
SELECTIONS FROM THE CHAPTER ‘WESTERN LEFT & REVOLUTIONARY CINEMA’
TUESDAY APRIL 30TH — 7:30 & 10PM

The revolutionary moment of the sixties is as dead as anything, and good riddance. Though we may yearn for that level of revolutionary fervor, we’re glad to see the backs of all those patriarchal Maoist puritans, misogynist homophobic “free love” partisans and statist non-violence ideologues (ok, maybe those fuckers are still around). But what of the films they left behind? What of the documents of their struggles? Do those have any power remaining to subvert, or are they merely that, documents?

In our monthly series, Film as a Subversive Art, we’ve been looking at films from Amos Vogel’s book of the same name. In February we looked at Third World revolutionary cinema, this month it’s revolutionary cinema from “The West”.

Increasingly, we’ve been confronted with the question of these films’ relevance, their subversive power, their meaning and their value 40-50 years after the fact. This month we’ll see dystopian statist political prisons, listen to manifestos from the lips of long-dead revolutionaries, witness insurrectionary violence, staged and actual, and a plethora of rebellious aesthetic upendings.

What good are old political statements? What is the difference between ‘subversive’ and ‘revolutionary’, and what are either worth? What, if anything, can these films do politically? And do they point toward a potential revolutionary use for cinema today?

We will definitely answer all of these questions entirely to your satisfaction. (And stoke the fires for that loveliest of days, the First of May.) With introductions by New Inquiry editor Willie Osterweil and members of the Anti-Banality Union, makers of Police Mortality.

MAY MIDNIGHTS

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Friday May 3: SPECTACLE MANDATORY MIDNIGHTS presents INTREPIDOS PUNKS
Saturday May 4: EQUINOX
Friday May 10: WEEKEND NERD-A-THON presents ASSAULT OF THE PARY NERDS
Saturday May 11: WEEKEND NERD-A-THON and TROMA ENTERTAINMENT present BRIDE OF KILLER NERD
Friday May 17: DEVILHELM
Saturday May 18: SPLATTERDAYS presents BLOOD FEAST 2: ALL YOU CAN EAT
Friday May 24: ACT OF VENGEANCE
Saturday May 25: SPECTACLE MIDNIGHTS presents SPECTACLE ROULETTE
Friday May 31: REFLECTIONS OF EVIL

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FRIDAY MAY 3
SPECTACLE MANDATORY MIDNIGHTS presents
INTREPIDOS PUNKS
Francisco Guerrero, 198?
92 min. Mexico. In Spanish with all-new subtitles.

Don’t miss our showings of the sequel LA VENGANZA DE LOS PUNKS all month!

ENCORE SCREENING added SATURDAY, MAY 18 at 7:30 PM! Catch the entire INTREPIDOS saga back-to-back!

“I found this VHS in a box of tapes someone left on the sidewalk.
I was surprised it was a cool movie.”
Anonymous, the internet

“It’s 99.9% certain that this is the most gleefully assaultive display of a misappropriated cultural movement in history, which is by no means a criticism. […] This film isn’t recommended… it’s MANDATORY.”
Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film

“It wouldn’t be entirely beyond the pale to say that my entire life has been leading up to the moment I first heard of, then tracked down and watched this overwhelmingly fantastic slice of punk rock exploitation. […] Intrepidos Punks is a colossal juggernaut, a true giant striding across the landscape of sleazy movies. If you have not seen it, you will notice there’s probably a little hole in your soul. A hole shaped exactly like a busty blonde in a chainmail bikini, sporting gigantic hair and a grenade launcher. Let Intrepidos Punks plug that hole and finally make you complete.”
Teleport City

Intrepidos Punks is about a sexy apocalyptic biker gang led by a ruthless luchadore pushing drugs, racing choppers and killing the police who are helpless to stop them. And partying. Featuring the song “Intrepidos Punks” along with an unabashed rip-off of “Sweet Emotion” that improves significantly upon the original.

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SATURDAY MAY 4
EQUINOX
Jack Woods, 1970.
80 min. USA.

In August of 2012, Spectacle played host for the New York premiere of a shot-on-video horror anthology called SLAUGHTER TALES. The film was helmed in nearly every department by a then 15 year old from Philadelphia who goes by Johnny Dickie. Dickie wrote, directed, starred in, and provided a veritable cornucopia of practical special effects. With only a few locations and a long shooting schedule, SLAUGHTER TALES was a homegrown labor of love from a young filmmaker with an obvious appreciation of that slice of horror. While certainly not perfect, the film had it’s heart and head in the right place…usually removed from the body and covered in stage blood.

Though SLAUGHTER TALES likely won’t be relegated to the classic status of a film as mighty as EQUINOX (Sorry, Johnny!), it’s comforting to know that the idea that if you love movies, you can still get together with your friends and make something that lies somewhere between pet project and a sleeper cult hit to be discovered years later.

In 1965 a young Dennis Muren had a choice to make. He was 17 and could use the money his grandfather had set aside for him to either go to college or do something sensible and make a feature length genre defining, effects pioneering film. Having made the right choice, Muren and friends David Allen and Mark McGee set about making their vision come to life and over the course of the next two and a half years THE EQUINOX…A JOURNEY INTO THE SUPERNATURAL was born. Among their support group was none other than Forrest J. Ackerman (famed/revered/beloved editor of FAMOUS MONSTERS – who would also lend his voice to the film in an uncredited cameo!) who helped the gang to snag Fritz Leiber in the role of Dr. Waterman. Muren and Allen headed up the technical side and dove headfirst into the special effects. Monsters abounded, winged demons poured out the ether, and giants stomped around the screen with terrifying voracity. And all reportedly to the tune of less than $7,000!

With the film completed, Muren set out to show it to the world but that proved to be difficult. Initially trying for a TV release, Muren ended up shopping it around Hollywood. The premise and eye popping special effects grabbed the attention of Jack H. Harris. Harris had been the man who picked up THE BLOB (and later DARK STAR, SCHLOCK, FEAR OF A BLOB PLANET, DINOSAURUS, 4D MAN, etc). He shortened the title to EQUINOX and hired Jack Woods to beef up the run-time. Rehiring the original actors and casting himself as in the role of Asmodeus, Woods (with Ed Begley Jr on ass’t camera duties) retooled the creature feature and soon 35mm prints were stuck! The film was unleashed on the world and in the coming years would help mold the very essence of the “cabin in the woods” subgenre. Without EQUINOX arguably, there would be no EVIL DEAD series.

In the wake of EQUINOX many of it’s creators would flourish. Dennis Muren continued down the path of effects work and would soon have a wheelbarrow full of Acdemy Awards for his efforts on films like the STAR WARS trilogy, ET, JURASSIC PARK, DRAGONSLAYER, CAPTAIN EO, and more recently SUPER 8. David Allen also pretty much changed the game in terms of effects while working on films like WILLOW, HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS and became responsible for all things good in the world of Full Moon features with work on DOLLS, OBLIVION, and the PUPPET MASTER films to name a few. While this is Jack Woods only directing credit, he would end up with a lengthy sound department resume with titles like PHANTASM II and the STAR TREK franchise.

Spectacle Midnights are humbled and honored to present this film (a favorite around the Goth Bodega) with the kind permission of Jack H. Harris and featuring a very special video intro from Mr. Dennis Muren himself (!!!) to cap off what will undoubtedly be an unforgettable evening.

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FRIDAY MAY 10

WEEKEND NERD-A-THON presents

In case you weren’t aware The Spectacle has its share of NERDS, but rather than try and rehabilitate ourselves into cool, well groomed, productive members of society, we’ve said “whatever, let’s party…Nerd Style!”

The Spectacle’s WEEKEND NERDATHON. Midnights May 10th and 11th!

BE THERE and BE SQUARE!

First up…

ASSAULT OF THE PARTY NERDS
Dir. Richard Gabai, 1989.
USA. 82 min.

Now, I don’t know a lot about mathematical beauty, but here’s an elegantly simple cinematic equation so perfect it might make your calculator cry:

NERDS + PARTY = AWESOME MOVIE.

It’s true, and here’s a perfect example:

1989’s bare bones masterpiece, ASSAULT OF THE PARTY NERDS.

Writer-director Richard Gabai (Nightmare Sisters)  stars as Richard Spencer, president of Lambda Alpha Eta,  a fraternity consisting of him and three other guys , all prime examples of the genus NERDUS EXTREMUS.  These Lamda brothers have spent the last 4 years on the couch in front of the tube, but now graduation time is around the corner and these full time geeks intend to RAGE against the dying of the light. How? By throwing the “greatest party in the history of the school, if not the world.”  Now it’s just a matter of finding a way to bankroll the apocalyptic blowout and keeping the jacked up jocks from wringing their pencil-necks long enough to make NERD HISTORY!

Executive produced by prolific schlockmeister David DeCoteau (Sorority Babes and the Slime Ball Bowl a Rama) and featuring unforgettably kooky performances by Michelle Bauer (Cafe Flesh) and Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead), Assault of the party nerds takes B movie minimalism to new heights and standards of good taste to a new low.

2 locations, 5 days of shooting,  a fast, funny script, nerds, jocks, tons of beer and one hell of a party! It all adds up to one essential NERDSTERPIECE!

With a killer soundtrack by Gabai’s own power pop outfit, The Checks, these nerds are  sure to get the party started!

Part of The Spectacle’s WEEKEND NERDATHON! Only at MIDNIGHT. MAY 10th!

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SATURDAY MAY 11
WEEKEND NERD-A-THON and TROMA ENTERTAINMENT present
BRIDE OF KILLER NERD
Dir. Mark Steven Bosko, Wayne Alan Harold, 1992
USA. 75 min.

The Spectacle’s WEEKEND NERDATHON continues with a view into the dark side of Nerdom!

Just when you thought nerd rage couldn’t get anymore twisted or revolting, The Spectacle and Troma Entertainment present BRIDE OF KILLER NERD, a seriously sick sequel that proves two nerds are better than one when it comes to revenge, especially when they’re in love.

Harold Kunkle is living a low key, quietly desperate existence in the wake of his revenge fueled killing spree (see Killer Nerd for more details). Angst ridden and contemplating suicide, Harold meets Thelma, another desperate nerd-soul who’s reached the end of her rope. These two love-nerds have finally found someone to live for, but will they live happily ever after? Come on,  what do you think?  After a nasty prank, this really odd couple does what nerds do best when pushed too far, they get revenge!

Toby Radloff, American’s Genuine Nerd is back in a powerfully understated performance this time around, but the film belongs to Heidi Lohr in an absolutely chilling performance as the BRIDE OF KILLER NERD.
This Ohio(bleaksville) shot sequel to the original cult SOV masterpiece has it all: pitch  black comedy, SPLATTER, dark glimpses into nerd psychology and SKA. Pretty scary, right?! A truly disturbing and vicious ride that gives the original a run for its money.

It’s shorter, it’s sicker, it’s only at MIDNIGHT!  Part of The Spectacle’s WEEKEND NERDATHON!

NERD! NERD! NERD! NERD!

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FRIDAY MAY 17
DEVILHELM
Dir. Craig Rahtz/Hibachi Chicken Films, 1999.
USA. 96 min.
English.

“When the Dark Elves, driven by hatred and greed, steal an evil relic known as the Devilhelm, chaos threatens the peaceful valley.  Only three ninja have the power and courage to stop this evil, and protect the earth from the ravaging powers of the Devilhelm.”

“Intense martial combat combines with supernatural wizardry to make Devilhelm an unforgettable adventure.”

Made over the course of three years in the woods of southwestern Ohio in the late 90s, Devilhelm is a virtually unknown exemplar of autodidactic backyard moviemaking.  Unconventional energy and invention is firmly on display, from the ambitious makeup and sets, to the primitive computer graphics and original soundtrack; most importantly, Devilhelm rides that right line of irreverence and sincerity that we all love when we hear the phrase “shot-on-video.”
‪Ninja stars are thrown, riddles are spoken, the re‬ ‪d stuff sprays freely, ‬ ‪and some pagan raver vomits up a ____.‬

Originally released on VHS mostly to family and friends, Spectacle Theater is excited to reintroduce Devilhelm into the audience and dialogue where it belongs.

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SATURDAY MAY 18
SPLATTERDAYS presents
BLOOD FEAST 2: ALL YOU CAN EAT
Dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis, 2002
USA, 92 min.

Fuad Ramses III is a caterer and is hoping to get a fresh start in Miami, by reopening the now defunct catering company once owned by his grandfather Fuad Ramses.

Things are going smoothly, and the residents of the neighborhood are impressed with his culinary aptitude, so much so, that he attracts the attention of the local socialite Mrs Lamply, who eventually hires Fuad to cater the wedding for her daughter, who is engaged to the town sheriff.

But, as he begins preparing for the big party, he discovers an ancient Egyptian statue of Ishtar which possesses Fuad, and commands him to use some pretty unconventional ingredients for the catering of the wedding; namely the wedding party!

As members of the brides attache continue to mysteriously disappear, the sheriff/groom grows suspicious of Fuad, but can’t seem to prove anything, and is considered just paranoid and jealous by his friends and coworkers who are all getting fat off of Fuad’s excellent cooking.

With the guests disappearing, and the wedding day fast approaching, can the sheriff stop Fuad’s possessed murder madness before the big day?!

NO, EVERYONE IS SLAUGHTERED, SERVED, AND EATEN!!

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FRIDAY MAY 24
ACT OF VENGEANCE (aka RAPE SQUAD)
Dir. Bob Kelljan
USA, 90 min.
English

Act of Vengeance is a 70s vengeance saga that sits alongside Coffy and Death Wish while delivering plenty of action and some grimy grindhouse moments. A man in an orange jumpsuit and a hockey mask has been stalking and tormenting women — you’ll never hear “Jingle Bells” the same way again. After Linda fails to find any help after her attack from useless yokels and the incompetent police, she vows vengeance, and collects a team of other victims to help hunt down attackers and other scum. Plenty of sticking it to the man, plenty of creepy POV voyeurism, Charlie’s Angels  style training montages, a pimp gets a serious beatdown in a scene Tarantino probably ripped off at some point, enough skin for the midnight crowd — this is pretty much a given.

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SATURDAY MAY 25
SPECTACLE MIDNIGHTS presents
SPECTACLE ROULETTE
Dir. ???, 19??/20??.
????. ??? min.
In any number of languages.

Once again it’s time to spin the chamber! What are we going to show?

Cooking shows hosted by puppets from Iceland? Italian dancefighting epics? Hologramsploitation? Hostage situation bloopers? Dog Wedding Massacre? Open heart surgery? Prison slime fights?

Well, that’s up to you.

The first 6 people to show up with a movie will be given the chance to lobby by showing 5 minutes of that film. After all 6 are shown, everyone votes and that’s what we watch!

If you want to participate, please do the following:

1. Show up at least 15 minutes BEFORE midnight with your proposed film. (Either a DVD or digital copy!)
2. Be prepared to introduce your 5 minute clip and lobby hard for your candidate.
3. COME CORRECT. Bring the craziest thing you can find, no half-steps!
4. Tell your friends!

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FRIDAY MAY 31
REFLECTIONS OF EVIL
Dir. Damon Packard, 2002
USA. 138 min

Obese, verging on diabetic, Bob (played by director Damon Packard) sells watches and over-consumes in a paranoid post 9/11 southern California landscape as the ghost of his sister, a victim of PCP overdose, desperately searches for him.
Beaming right into your third eye and sticking with you long after viewing like a bad acid nightmare, this tour de force by Packard makes a profound statement of American culture that no other director has dared show.

“It was shocking, intriguing, scary and subversive bad taste from beginning to end. But moments of humour and pathos shine through to keep you glued. Your “Mom” and the elderly couple in the cozy-bubble burb residence were just great. Seriously spot on!
— Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull)

“Nothing short of genius.”
— Henry Rollins

“This guy is really sick, no I mean he is really sick…I’ve got kids in the house!”
— Sylvester Stallone

ARTHUR LIPSETT

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“As science grows, religious belief seems to have diminished… The new machines are now invested with spiritual qualities.”
ARTHUR LIPSETT

May 1st marks the anniversary of Arthur Lipsett’s death, weeks shy of what would have been his 50th birthday. Who was Arthur Lipsett? A remarkable, yet unsung experimental filmmaker, he received praise from some of the great auteurs of his time and inspired generations of Canadian artists. Despite this, his obscurity continues to shadow his influence. One might attribute this to his reserved character– which would become more reclusive and idiosyncratic as he struggled to support himself amidst a deteriorating mental health. Arthur turned down an offer to work with Stanley Kubrick and gave an inscrutable response to a Harvard invitation for artist residency, “ I cannot come to Harvard at this time in history.”

Others have drawn attention to the lack of support from the National Film Board of Canada, which was evident even in the late eighties. In a conference regarding Canadian artists, Stan Brackhage recalled how he had been given a print of Very Nice, Very Nice, one of a few that had been rescued from the NFB’s garbage. But Lipsett’s distinct visual style lives on: dense, baroque and engaging many types of meaning concurrently, constructed with a focus and precision that demands the same from the viewer.

Spectacle is proud to present a near-complete retrospective of Lipsett’s work, from high-quality remasters generously provided by the National Film Board of Canada.

PROGRAM I: SHORTS, 1961-1970
FRIDAY, MAY 10TH – 7:30PM
TUESDAY, MAY 14TH – 10PM
MONDAY, MAY 27TH – 10PM

VERY NICE, VERY NICE
1961. 7min. Canada.

While a junior artist and engaging a variety of trades on NFB produced projects, Lipsett began gleaning from his colleague’s trim bins, pulling together pieces of audio tape creating what would later become the soundtrack for Very Nice, Very Nice. With the support of producer Colin Low, he took a Leica and film to London where he showed a marked proficiency as a stills photographer. The photographs, collage and archive materials were assembled according to the audio track with very little modification to the audio itself. Produced for five hundred dollars, Very Nice, Very Nice was nominated in 1962 for an Academy Award in the category of Best Live Action – Short Subject and catapulted Arthur forward as the NFB’s new ‘boy genius’.

21-87
1964. 10min. Canada.

21-87 reasserts Arthur Lipsett’s focus on the absurd relationships between humans and their environments. Referred to as “fragments of a prophecy” by Lipsett himself, if Very Nice, Very Nice qualifies Lipsett’s perception of the external world 21-87 is its inverse, revealing his internal turmoil and foreshadowing his later break with public life.

This was a favorite at the USC film school, with many filmmakers later claiming influence; one, George Lucas, would go on to recycle this title several times in later feature films.

FREE FALL
1964. 9min. Canada.

Animated frame by frame with footage shot solely by Arthur, his first work as such, and replete with many in camera tricks including dissolving superimpositions, pixellation effects and syncopated rhythms, this is the filmmakers most striking usage of vertical montage. Free Fall is “an attempt to express in filmic terms an intensive flow of life… the transformation of a physical phenomena into psychological ones – a visual bubbling of picture and sound operating to create a new continuity of experience” reads Arthur’s proposal to the NFB.

Free Fall was originally intended to be a collaboration with John Cage who after an exchange of letters withdrew his participation over creative differences.

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
1965. 13min. Canada.

Finished in 1965 as a ‘time capsule’, this is Arthur’s first film of purely re-appropriated footage, utilizing five decades worth of excavated NFB newsreels. “There are hundreds of items, once front-page stuff, but all wrly grotesque when seen in this reshuffle of the past” reads the NFB catalogue.

FLUXES
1968. 24min. Canada.

Produced during a time of waning institutional support and deteriorating emotional health, Fluxes evokes Lipsett’s search for the “balance between the primitive, ritualized world and the universe of science and logic”. Described as oppressive and revealing a “phantasmagoria of nothing”, this was Lipsett’s longest, most erratic, and diffuse work yet.

N-ZONE
1970. 45min. Canada.

A departure from his collage films, N-Zone is a personal work, a spiritual quest, precisely structured around leftover photographs and sound bits, interspersed with live-action footage of friends and family. Poorly received by the Board, Lipsett took his severance and promptly left Montreal on sabbatical. Invoking the ethos of the Beats, “these ‘characters’ enact an unspoken confrontation between unbridled individuality and a society of conformity.” (Brett Kashmere) Despite later attempts N-Zone would be the last film Arthur completed with the NFB.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM
1963. 28min. Canada.

Directed by Arthur in the year following Very Nice, Very Nice, this early attempt to explain his films and encourage dialogue about experimental filmmaking features a panel discussion including film historian and famed film translator Herman Weinberg, national film critics Clyde Gilmour and Fernand Cadieux and NFB producer Guy Glover ,who would later produce Arthur’s Fluxes.

The participants comment on various experimental filmmakers of the time including Robert Breer, George Dunning, Jay Lenica, Walerian Borowczyk, and Arthur Lipsett, while afterwards Norman McClaren (director of the seminal Neighbors) describes some of his working methods.

PROGRAM II: ON LIPSETT
TUESDAY, MAY 7 – 10:00 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 17 – 10:00 PM
MONDAY, MAY 27 – 7:30 PM
REMEMBERING ARTHUR
dir. Martin Lavut, 2006
89 min. Canada.

Close friend and filmmaker Martin Lavut documents the personal influences and public legacy of Arthur Lipsett. The film traces Lipsett’s life and brief career up to his untimely death. The film investigates both man and filmmaker, shaped by interviews with his sister Marian, then-girlfriend Judith Sandiford and colleagues Colin Low, Robert Verrall, Ryan Larkin and Henry Zemel, who would later help produce Strange Codes, Arthur’s last completed film. Remembering Arthur is both a eulogy and a celebration, as well as an important time capsule shedding light onto Lipsett’s contributions to the heyday of avant-garde filmmaking.

THE LIPSETT DIARIES
aka Les journax de Lipsett
dir. Theodore Ushev, 2010
14min. Canada.

Surprised to learn that Arthur Lipsett originally lived on his street, Theodore Ushev visits the filmmaker’s old building. After meeting the conceirge, who knew Arthur, he’s shown an old locker where they find a small blue notebook with ‘Lipsett’ written on the cover and notes by the late filmmaker on the inside. The result of this encounter is this hand painted tribute animation written by Chris Robinson and narrated by filmmaker Xavier Dolan. The Lipsett Diaries was listed as one of the top ten Canadian films at the 2010 Toronoto International Film Festival.

HIGHWAY

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HIGHWAY
Dir: Deepak Rauniyar, 2012.
Nepal. 80 min.
In Nepali with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, MAY 10 – 10:00 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 14 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 31 – 10:00 PM

Highway tells many stories at the same time: a man and his wife have been trying unsuccessfully to have a child.  The man travels to a healer who gives him a special drink and tells him he must make love to his wife within 36 hours for it to work. This seems simple enough, and then the bandh.  A bandh, or general strike, usually consists of a group of people in a particular region or village of Nepal stopping traffic and blocking roads as a form of protest, for many apparent and not so apparent reasons.  A woman wants to visit her family but can’t pass.  Every aspect of life can be shut down or affected by the bandhs and is emblematic of Nepal’s many problems.  Highway moves between stories past and present, all different stories, unrelated. The only thing in common is that everyone needs to desperately get to Kathmandu.

An Official Selection at the Berlin Film Festival (2012), Highway is the debut film by Nepalese filmmaker Deepak Rauniyar who MOMA calls ‘a filmmaker of great ability and visual imagination’ and is the first Nepalese film to ever screen at a major international film festival.

 “MUST SEE: HIGHWAY” | Nepali Times
“Love It or Hate It, Daring Nepali Film Makes Waves” | NY Daily News
“BBC Man Stars in Nepali Feature Film” | BBC News Asia

FRANK HEATH “GRAFFITI REPORT FORM” & OTHER WORKS

Posted on by spectacletheater

GRAFFITI REPORT FORM
Dir. Frank Heath, 2012.
52 min. USA.
INVASIVE SPECIES
Dir. Frank Heath, 2012.
11 min. USA.
ASYMPTOMATIC CARRIER
Dir. Frank Heath, 2013.
10 min. USA.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 29 – 8:00 PM

 

“& Other Works” is a series of screenings focusing on video and film from contemporary artists, organized by C. Spencer Yeh. “& Other Works” seeks out artists’ efforts which invite and evoke the cinematic experience, yet are typically looped on crowded walls or locked up in online isolation. “& Other Works” screens beginning to end, in an informal but focused communal viewing experience. In other words – “film, folks, fun.” The inaugural program features artist Frank Heath, who will be in attendance.

Invasive Species begins as a document of a peculiar request by phone, set against a beautiful day at Green-Wood Cemetery. The exchange meanders into multiple tangents, from parakeets to numerology, while the onscreen events turn bizarrely synchronous. Asymptomatic Carrier, created for this year’s Frieze Arts Fair NYC, flies over the abandoned North Brother Island in the East River. Wikipedia says “now a bird sanctuary, the island is currently abandoned and off-limits to the public… …from the 1980s through the early 2000s it supported one of the area’s largest nesting colonies of Black-crowned Night Heron. However as of 2011 this species has abandoned the island for unknown reasons.”

Graffiti Report Form is described a press release excerpt:

“Heath’s formally complex video Graffiti Report Form, which as the title suggests, was actually submitted to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. What begins as a first person account of a concerned citizen wishing to report an instance of graffiti in Morningside Park becomes a film within a film and a subtle meditation on history, place, and narrative structure. Shot over a period of five years, this expanse of time is both compressed and extended through a confluence of interventionist gesture, historical anecdote, and fictional narrative. Dystopian survival story in the guise of an urgent militaristic transmission, the film elicits issues of public and private space, the arbitrary nature of anniversary, and the peculiar history of this specific park as the starting place for the infamous 1968 student revolt at nearby Columbia University.”

Frank Heath, born in St. Joseph, MO in 1982, lives and works in New York. Last spring, he made his first solo exhibition in New York at Simone Subal Gallery. Two-person shows include Bcc:, with Brendan Meara at Roots and Culture, Chicago (2011), and Econoline 1, with JJ PEET at Videotage Gallery, Hong Kong (2007). Past group shows and screenings include Matter Out of Place at The Kitchen (2012), Someone Has Stolen Our Tent at Simon Preston Gallery, New York (2012), Single Channel at Soho House, Miami FL (2011); Forcemeat at Wallspace, New York (2011); and Suddenly: Where We Live Now at Cooley Gallery, Reed College, Portland, OR; and Pomona College Museum of Art (2008, 2009).

LA VENGANZA DE LOS PUNKS

Posted on by spectacletheater

LA VENGANZA DE LOS PUNKS
Dir: Damián Acosta Esparza, 1987
88 minutes. Mexico.
In Spanish with new English subtitles.
SATURDAY, MAY 11 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 18 – 10:00 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 26 – 7:30 PM

Please note the Saturday, May 18 screening time has changed from 7:30 PM to 10:00 PM to accommodate an encore screening of INTREPIDOS PUNKS. Catch the entire saga back-to-back!

FREE Venganza De Los Punks button with Admission!

Every cinema’s audience gets the film it deserves. Ladies and gentlemen, Spectacle is proud to present to you the sequel to Intrepidos Punks.

Like the mutant linebacker sibling of its literary-minded forebearer, La Venganza is bigger, louder, and naystee-er than it’s older brother—and dos veces más intrépido. As we wrote of the first, La Venganza is still about “a sexy apocalyptic biker gang led by a ruthless luchadore pushing drugs, racing choppers and killing the police who are helpless to stop them. And partying.”

Only this time, one police gets fed up, and goes sub-intrepidos to re-christen himself as the reigning angel of death and stamp out the punks with profane savagery. Snake torture, ritual satanic murder, live immolation, eye-gouging, mass-murder, acid disfiguration, and base depravity, La venganza de los punks is an almost surrealistic atrocity exhibition; it’s like an more vile cousin to Buñuel’s Land Without Bread, only it’s not a joke.

To defeat los punks, one must become los punks. #VERDAD

¿ES USTED INTREPID SUFICIENTE?
ESTE VERANO: #VDEVENGANZA

Get a FREE button of your choosing with admission, or nab all four designs for $5! Muchos gracias to Desiree Leary, la excelente fabricante de los botones!

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