quarterly pdf - Anthology Film Archives

MIDNIGHT CARNIVAL
SANDY REDUX, CONT’D.
GO STARBOUND
WITH MIKE KUCHAR
An icon whose renown reverberates well outside
the small world of experimental cinema, Mike
Kuchar has been in constant pursuit of his muse
since his earliest days drawing and shooting 8mm
films in the Bronx. Bold hues illuminate artificial
atmospheres in his glamorously gleaming films
and videos, all of which were made for pennies
on the dollar. Ambience in a Mike Kuchar film is as
much of a character as his lovelorn protagonists.
Kuchar’s attention to color is similarly expressive,
especially in the way he uses light to invest his
already ethereal images with deeper emotional
and comical resonance.
This program brings together three new
works with Anthology’s recent preservation of
GREEN DESIRE, the filmmaker’s second 16mm
production following his revered SINS OF THE
FLESHAPOIDS. Two of the videos are stunning
pieces made with the students in his class at the
San Francisco Art Institute. They are without a
doubt among the strongest works of his lengthy
career and should by no means be missed by
Kuchar fans and thrill-seekers alike.
MELTDOWN
2012, 12 min, digital video
“Waiting to live” and “Waiting to die” are the
same thing…or is he just plain “Mad”?
STARBOUND
2012, 47 min, digital video
Dizzy “way out”, “new age” widescreen mayhem
seethes within the walls of the Institute for Metaphysical
Research and Spiritual Wellness.
GREEN DESIRE
1966, 20 min, 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film
Archives through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded
by The Film Foundation and administered by the National
Film Preservation Foundation.
A youth wanders the landscape of grass and sky
in search of puzzling impulses. GREEN DESIRE is
an exquisite and rarely seen example of Kuchar’s
masterful use of color, texture, and tone.
MIDNIGHT CARNIVAL
2011, 34 min, video
A color-splashed mystery play about revelers at a
masquerade ball produced by Kuchar and his San
Francisco Art Institute students.
Total running time: ca. 120 min.
12
–Tues, January 15 at 7:30.
THE CLIMATE OF NEW YORK
SERIES
AVANT-GARDE
MASTERS:
A DECADE OF PRESERVATION
The Avant-Garde Masters grant was created in 2003
by the National Film Preservation Foundation and The
Film Foundation to preserve American Avant-Garde
cinema. Funded by The Film Foundation, the program
has helped save more than 100 films in its first
decade, making many works available to audiences
for the first time since their creation. Works preserved
thus far run the gamut from canonical classics to
handmade efforts by artists deserving a second look.
All films were preserved through the National Film Preservation
Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program funded
by The Film Foundation. Special thanks to Jeff Lambert (NFPF),
Christa Grauer, Chicago Filmmakers, Patrick Friel, Mona Nagai
& Jon Shibata (Pacific Film Archive), and Silver Bow Art.
Frank Stauffacher
NOTES ON THE PORT OF ST. FRANCIS
1951, 21 min, 16mm. Preserved by Pacific Film Archive.
A poetic portrait of San Francisco narrated by Vincent
Price.
Rudy Burckhardt
THE CLIMATE OF NEW YORK
1948, 21 min, 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives.
Mid-1940s New York City preserved in luminous
black-and-white and saturated color.
“Shows the relation of New Yorkers to their monumental
environment, their nervous movement
against the solid calm of their architecture, and the
almost impossible difference in scale between the
two. From crowded midtown it takes you to a quiet
suburb, to Times Square at night, and down into the
subway.” –R.B.
Beryl Sokoloff
GAUDI
1962, 14 min, 16mm. Preserved by Silver Bow Art.
Sokoloff’s cinematic homage to the architect, Antonio
Gaudi. The filmmaker intertwines Gaudi’s fantastic
forms with the vital streets of Barcelona creating a
poetic tension and visual excitement.
Tom Palazzolo
HE
1966, 8 min, 16mm. Preserved by Chicago Filmmakers.
Men are strange creatures. This film follows a few
of them, including an Abe Lincoln look-alike, and a
nudist swimmer in January.
Total running time: ca. 70 min.
–Wed, January 16 at 7:30.
W.R.: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM
A TRIBUTE TO
AMOS VOGEL AND ‘FILM
AS A SUBVERSIVE ART’
February 6-19, March 7-14
Published in 1973, FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART is an oft-referenced,
hugely influential, landmark text in the history of film literature. A book
with no discernible beginning, middle, or end, it’s as energizing, entertaining,
and important a work of film criticism as any that has ever
been written – a labyrinthine trek through world cinema via one man’s
visionary cosmology. That man was Cinema 16 and New York Film
Festival founder Amos Vogel (1922-2012), who dedicated his life to
supporting the pioneering efforts of independent artists and aesthetic
rebels. In its radical, impassioned polemics and dialectically-placed
film frames, FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART is the fulcrum of Vogel’s
years as a film programmer, festival juror, lecturer, and critic. Citing
numerous films that have become increasingly difficult to see due
to the vagaries of distribution, his book remains a Pandora’s box of
cinematic treasures and an astute elucidation of the artist’s role in
contemporary society.
To honor Amos and this singular work, Anthology is pleased to
present an extensive film series featuring more than two dozen
works discussed in FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART. Organized to reflect
the structure of the book, with films chosen to represent particular
chapters, this program brings together a hugely varied and eclectic
collection of works, the majority of them unscreened in NYC for many
years. Taken together, they demonstrate not only the riches that lie
within Vogel’s book, but the extraordinary potential of the cinema,
especially in the hands of truly visionary, vanguard artists.
Co-curated by Michael Chaiken; special thanks to Steven & Loring Vogel, Brian
Belovarac & Sarah Finklea (Janus), Cassie Blake (Academy Film Archive), Chris
Chouinard (Park Circus), Rebecca Cleman (Electronic Arts Intermix), Christophe
Deverdun (Blaq Out), Sam Di Iorio, Jane Gutteridge (National Film Board of Canada),
Henrikku, Go Hirasawa, Tanja Horstmann (Arsenal), Jonathan Howell (New Yorker),
Jyette Jensen, Gabe Klinger & Kitty Cleary (MoMA), Mark Johnson (Harvard Film
Archive), Joel Kozberg, Gérard Leblanc, Kate Millett, Stephen Parr, Boris Pollet,
Julian Ross, Elena Rossi-Snook (NYPL), MM Serra (Film-Makers’ Coop), Gaël
Teicher (P.O.M. Films), and Zelimir Zilnik & Sarita Matijevic (Playground produkcija).
Except where noted, all film descriptions are from Amos Vogel’s FILM
AS A SUBVERSIVE ART.
Anthology’s series has been organized in collaboration with the Museum of the
Moving Image in Queens, which will present its own Amos Vogel tribute in March;
for more details visit: www.movingimage.us/films/