quarterly pdf - Anthology Film Archives

18
EMPEROR TOMATO KETCHUP
A TRIBUTE TO AMOS VOGEL, CONT’D
DEATH
Donald Brittain & John Spotton
MEMORANDUM
1966, 58 min, 16mm. In English and German with English subtitles.
With NIGHT AND FOG, this is unquestionably the most sophisticated fi lm yet
made on the philosophical and moral problems posed by the concentration camp
universe. Twenty years after the liberation, a group of Canadian survivors return on
a pilgrimage to the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. A complex fi lmic
structure, combining cinéma vérité and a constant mingling of past and present,
records the result: a morass of paradox, irony, unanswerable questions; and a strong
implication that it may be impossible to go back or to ‘understand’. […] [T]he question
hovering over the entire fi lm – unspoken, yet implicit in every scene – is simply
how, or whether, one can learn from the past.
–Sat, March 9 at 5:30 and Mon, March 11 at 9:00.
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TRANCE AND WITCHCRAFT
EXCEEDINGLY RARE SCREENING!
Jean-Daniel Pollet
LE SANG
1970, 85 min, 35mm. In French with projected English subtitles.
An apocalyptic vision of man after a cosmic catastrophe, this fi lm is a terrifying metaphor
of a dehumanized future. The Brazilian Cinema Novo, German expressionism of
the twenties, and the ideologically motivated ‘cruelty’ of a Buñuel come together in
this ferocious work of a French theatre collective – an ambitious, almost completely
successful example of visual cinema at its best.
–Sat, March 9 at 7:00 and Wed, March 13 at 7:00.
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HOMOSEXUALITY AND OTHER VARIANTS: PROGRAM 2
Shûji Terayama
EMPEROR TOMATO KETCHUP / TOMATO KECCHAPPU KÔTEI
1970, 27 min, 16mm. In Japanese with English subtitles.
The use of children in (however simulated) sex acts with adults is always shocking; in
this ‘scandalous’ avant-garde fi lm, magical women act as their initiatory, yet protectively
maternal partners. The children, in revolt, have condemned their parents to
death for depriving them of self-expression and sexual freedom; they create a society
in which fairies and sex education are equally important and…literally combinable.
&
Kôji Wakamatsu
VIOLATED ANGELS / OKASARETA HAKUI
1967, 56 min, 35mm. In Japanese with projected English subtitles.
This fi lm is more symptomatic than signifi cant. Its director claims that his twenty
sadomasochist and erotic features project an anti-authoritarian message. The
‘angels’ in this fi lm are young nurses, methodically violated, shot, and/or cut into
ribbons to the accompaniment of moans, and croaking noises, by a young man with
a gun and a razor. In a lake of blood and beautiful young nude bodies, he is unable to
kill the last one, curling up, foetus-like, in her lap instead. ‘Why did you spill so much
blood?’ asks the girl-mother. ‘To ornament you’, he replies. While there is no doubt of
Wakamatsu’s ability as an artist, his anti-feminist sadism, unadorned by ideological
context, ultimately gives his work an anti-humanist fl avor.
–Sat, March 9 at 9:15, Mon, March 11 at 7:00, and
Thurs, March 14 at 8:45.
SERIES
VIOLATED ANGELS
EROTIC AND PORNOGRAPHIC CINEMA
Arthur Ginsberg
THE CONTINUING STORY OF CAREL AND FERD
1972, 59 min, video
This ‘underground video soap opera’ – presented in an astonishing eighttelevision-screen,
closed-circuit, live-performance format – begins where
commercial TV lets off. A ‘video-vérité’ study of a sometime homosexual junky
and his girl (both former porno fi lmmakers), it is accurately billed as a ‘videotape
novel about pornography, sexual identities, and the effect of living too
close to an electronic medium.’”
&
Karen Johnson ORANGE 1969, 3 min, 16mm
“[T]his close-up of the peeling, sectioning, licking, and eating of a naval orange
becomes a sensuous, sexual experience that disturbs and attracts by the
ambivalence of its images; erotic associations constantly impinge.”
–Sun, March 10 at 5:00.
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HOMOSEXUALITY AND OTHER VARIANTS: PROGRAM 3
Hellmuth Costard
THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN IS ESPECIALLY SEEN IN
THE ATTITUDE OF WOMEN THEMSELVES /
DIE UNTERDRÜCKUNG DER FRAU IST VOR ALLEM AN DEM VERHALTEN DER
FRAUEN SELBER ZU ERKENNEN
1969, 64 min, 16mm. In German with English subtitles.
One of the ideologically most aggressive fi lmmakers of the German avantgarde…has
us spy on the humdrum activities of a housewife during a typical
day of her life, much of it recorded in real time to reveal its boredom and stultifying
idiocy. She washes dishes, talks on the telephone, masturbates in front of
a mirror, cooks. With characteristic perversity, however, she is played by a male
in male dress: a brilliant and disturbing visual metaphor. Here the Warhol style
of ‘real time’ and minimal cinema is utilized for a radical political statement.
–Sun, March 10 at 6:45 and Thurs, March 14 at 7:00.
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AMOS VOGEL ON FILM, PROGRAM 2:
REEL PHILADELPHIA: EPISODE 5
1980, 90 min, video. Hosted by Amos Vogel.
From 1973 until his retirement in 1991, Vogel taught and lectured on fi lm at
the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1980 he hosted a television program broadcast on Philadelphia PBS
affi liate WHYY where he presented and discussed the best independent and
experimental fi lms being made in the Delaware Valley. The series ran for
fi ve episodes; episode 5, the fi nal installment, features work by Peter Rose,
Laurence Salzmann, and Maggi Carson whose fi lm PUNKING OUT inspires a
particularly brilliant introduction from Vogel.
PUNKING OUT will screen in its entirety from 16mm. It has been preserved by
the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the
Performing Arts, with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
–Sun, March 10 at 8:30.