Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSWe’re thrilled to introduce Notebook’s email newsletter, the Weekly Edit: a mix of our latest essays, interviews, and festival coverage, with a few archival gems to boot. Learn more and sign up here.REMEMBERINGThe Cow.This weekend brought devastating news that Dariush Mehrjui, the landmark Iranian filmmaker, and his wife and screenwriting partner Vahideh Mohammadifar were found murdered in their home. A lifelong enemy of state censorship, Mehrjui helped kick off the Iranian New Wave with his second feature, The Cow (1969), which was denied an export permit when it was originally completed. “Despite the fact that the film was funded by the Ministry of Culture and Arts, the Pahlavi regime preferred not to have the film’s portrayal of rural Iranian village life color the nation’s desired image of modernity on the world stage,...
- 10/18/2023
- MUBI
The Video Essay is a joint project of Mubi and Filmadrid International Film Festival. Film analysis and criticism found a completely new and innovative path with the arrival of the video essay, a relatively recent form that has already its own masters and is becoming increasingly popular. The limits of this discipline are constantly expanding; new essayists are finding innovative ways to study the history of cinema working with images. With this non-competitive section of the festival both Mubi and Filmadrid will offer the platform and visibility the video essay deserves. The seven selected works will be premiering online from June 7 - 13, 2021 on Mubi's Notebook. The selection was made by the programmers of Mubi and Filmadrid.From The Flicker to Gaspar Noé by Carlos Baixauli A journey into experimental cinema through the films of Gaspar Noé and his dialogue between the use of the flicker technique and the works of directors such as Paul Sharits,...
- 6/8/2021
- MUBI
No other New Yorker embodies the concept of a “living legend” more than Jonas Mekas. The avant garde filmmaker, poet, and former Village Voice film critic founded Anthology Film Archives nearly 40 years ago, and as he turns 95 on December 24, shows no signs of slowing down. A haven for experimental cinema and first-rate retrospectives, Anthology remains a fixture of the city’s underground arts scene even as much of the culture surrounding it has undergone constant evolution — or, in many cases, gone extinct. In an era of constant paranoia about the future of creativity, Mekas’ survival is a beacon of hope.
The Lithuanian immigrant continues to oversee Anthology as its artistic director and touts big ideas for its future — specifically, a long-dormant expansion plan to build a cafe, a rooftop terrance and a library to house decades of film materials gathered around the world. (To date, he has raise around $4.5 million...
The Lithuanian immigrant continues to oversee Anthology as its artistic director and touts big ideas for its future — specifically, a long-dormant expansion plan to build a cafe, a rooftop terrance and a library to house decades of film materials gathered around the world. (To date, he has raise around $4.5 million...
- 12/24/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
This is Part Two in a series about Chicago’s Experimental Film Coalition; and covers their screening series. You can read Part One here.
Formed in 1983, the Experimental Film Coalition started holding regular monthly screenings starting in 1984. The screenings brought to Chicago the work of independent, experimental filmmakers across the country, as well as screening local work.
Screenings were held at the Randolph Street Gallery, an alternative performance and exhibition space located at 756 N. Milwaukee Ave. The Gallery eventually closed down in 1998 and donated their archives to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; which exhibits some of the Coalition’s flyers on their website.
Below is a sample of screening information culled from those archives, listed in chronological order:
1984
March 23
2 Razor Blades, dir. Paul Sharits
Make Me Psychic, dir. Sally Cruikshank
Unsere Afrikareise, dir. Peter Kubelka
Roslyn Romance, dir. Bruce Baillie
Musical Poster #1, dir. Len Lye
April 27
Rainbow Dance,...
Formed in 1983, the Experimental Film Coalition started holding regular monthly screenings starting in 1984. The screenings brought to Chicago the work of independent, experimental filmmakers across the country, as well as screening local work.
Screenings were held at the Randolph Street Gallery, an alternative performance and exhibition space located at 756 N. Milwaukee Ave. The Gallery eventually closed down in 1998 and donated their archives to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; which exhibits some of the Coalition’s flyers on their website.
Below is a sample of screening information culled from those archives, listed in chronological order:
1984
March 23
2 Razor Blades, dir. Paul Sharits
Make Me Psychic, dir. Sally Cruikshank
Unsere Afrikareise, dir. Peter Kubelka
Roslyn Romance, dir. Bruce Baillie
Musical Poster #1, dir. Len Lye
April 27
Rainbow Dance,...
- 12/17/2017
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook)
The Handmaiden is pure cinema — a tender, moving, utterly believable love story. It’s also a tense, unsettling, erotic masterpiece. There’s a palpable exhilaration that comes from watching this latest film from Park Chan-wook. From its four central performances and twisty script to the cinematography of Chung Chung-hoon and feverish, haunting score by Cho Young-wuk, The Handmaiden is crafted to take your breath away.
The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook)
The Handmaiden is pure cinema — a tender, moving, utterly believable love story. It’s also a tense, unsettling, erotic masterpiece. There’s a palpable exhilaration that comes from watching this latest film from Park Chan-wook. From its four central performances and twisty script to the cinematography of Chung Chung-hoon and feverish, haunting score by Cho Young-wuk, The Handmaiden is crafted to take your breath away.
- 4/14/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Mubi is exclusively playing Tyler Hubby's Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present (2016) from April 8 - May 8, 2017 in the United Kingdom and United States.This month Mubi is screening Tyler Hubby’s documentary Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present, which focuses on the life of the musician, filmmaker and teacher who died in April 2016. The release coincides with a series of special memorial events to be held across the U.S., including musical performances. Tyler Hubby spoke to me by Skype about making the film and the many facets of Conrad’s innovative media and community activities, many of which are still being uncovered.Notebook: I was in contact with you last when I wrote a piece for the Notebook, just after Tony Conrad passed away. You helped out with an image for it, which was fantastic.Hubby: Oh good. Yeah, that was a really strange time. I just reread...
- 4/8/2017
- MUBI
When Tony Conrad passed away in April of 2016, I knew of him as an experimental filmmaker. It’s hard to be an art student at the University at Buffalo — despite his teaching in Media Studies rather than Fine Art — and not know his name. But that was all I knew: a name, reputation, and the plaudits of countless friends who knew so much more. Only when obituaries started being released in the likes of the New York Times did I realize how renowned a figure he was beyond local heroic status working alongside Paul Sharits and Hollis Frampton in my hometown. Then Rolling Stone posted. Pitchfork, Stereogum, NME, and other music publications quickly followed suit. Suddenly a whole world was opened by his sprawling legacy.
This is where documentarian Tyler Hubby arrives — with a film twenty years in the making that proves perfectly suited for a Conrad novice like myself.
This is where documentarian Tyler Hubby arrives — with a film twenty years in the making that proves perfectly suited for a Conrad novice like myself.
- 10/9/2016
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Tony Conrad, 1983. Photo by Joe Gibbons.Tony Conrad, who passed away on April 9 aged 76, was a vital figure in the fields of both filmmaking and music. His work in each is often characterized by its visceral power, its clear-eyed critique of Western art traditions, its interest in social questions and relations of control, its technical virtuosity and wit.Conrad was an indisputable innovator. His film works, beginning with The Flicker (1966) and continuing through, the Yellow Movies (1973), Film Feedback (1974), the ‘cooked film’ and ‘pickled film’ series, and many others, pushing the medium to its inner and outer limits: exploring the potential of long durations, stroboscopic effects, the physical properties of celluloid, the relation of filmmaker to spectator, the relation of film to other arts and to history. Conrad also created a vast number of video works, reflecting the same incisive energy. Too seldom referred to in contemporary writing about experimental film,...
- 4/19/2016
- by Yusef Sayed
- MUBI
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.NEWSFinally! New to the Criterion Collection is Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer's Day, one of the most important yet hard-to-see films of the 1990s. Also included in the recent announcement were Jacques Rivette's Paris Belongs to Us and Les Blank's A Poem Is a Naked Person.There's a new Kickstarter for "first publication on the films of Ola Balogun, the pioneer of Nigerian cinema, analysing/discovering his magical cinema."FESTIVALSThe Berlin International Film Festival Poster: The Golden Bear on the prowl! Meanwhile, more films for the Berlinale have been announced, as well as the theme—"Traversing the Phantasm"—for the essential Forum Expanded section.The 2016 Locarno Film Festival isn't until next August but we're already tantalized for their newly revealed retrospective, "Beloved and Rejected," dedicated to post-WW2 German...
- 12/23/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
In today's overview of new issues of film magazines and journals, we point to tributes to the late Chantal Akerman from Cinema Scope, Senses of Cinema and, in frieze, James Benning, Jem Cohen, Tacita Dean, Chris Dercon, Joanna Hogg, Sharon Lockhart and more. Among the dossiers in several issues: Pier Paolo Pasolini, William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives and Bruce Baillie and Paul Sharits. Quentin Tarantino is ushered into Senses' Great Directors Database. Adrian Martin writes about Maurice Pialat and Manny Farber. Kent Jones discusses "The Films in My Life" and his own documentary, Hitchcock/Truffaut. And much, much more. » - David Hudson...
- 12/22/2015
- Keyframe
In today's overview of new issues of film magazines and journals, we point to tributes to the late Chantal Akerman from Cinema Scope, Senses of Cinema and, in frieze, James Benning, Jem Cohen, Tacita Dean, Chris Dercon, Joanna Hogg, Sharon Lockhart and more. Among the dossiers in several issues: Pier Paolo Pasolini, William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives and Bruce Baillie and Paul Sharits. Quentin Tarantino is ushered into Senses' Great Directors Database. Adrian Martin writes about Maurice Pialat and Manny Farber. Kent Jones discusses "The Films in My Life" and his own documentary, Hitchcock/Truffaut. And much, much more. » - David Hudson...
- 12/22/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Film Society of Lincoln Center
“Lynch/Rivette” enters its final weekend, and some terrific things are in store. On Friday, Rivette‘s Paris Belongs to Us and Duelle will play at 3:30 and 9:15, respectively, while Lynch‘s Lost Highway screens at 6:30. The great, inevitable double feature is this Saturday, when Celine and Julie Go Boating...
Film Society of Lincoln Center
“Lynch/Rivette” enters its final weekend, and some terrific things are in store. On Friday, Rivette‘s Paris Belongs to Us and Duelle will play at 3:30 and 9:15, respectively, while Lynch‘s Lost Highway screens at 6:30. The great, inevitable double feature is this Saturday, when Celine and Julie Go Boating...
- 12/18/2015
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Last weekend, as the weather began to turn crisp and cold, the ninth iteration of the Buffalo International Film Festival went off, to bigger crowds and bigger acclaim than ever before.
The Film Stage’s first-produced short film Strange Bird was lucky enough to be included in the line-up, premiering at the newly-restored North Park Theatre on Hertel Avenue in front of writer/director Perry Blackshear’s Diy-thriller They Look Like People, which won a Special Jury Award at the Slamdance Film Festival along with a slew of other accolades at several impressive fests.
It was a bittersweet year for the festival following the passing of its founder, Edward Summer, in November of 2014. An accomplished artist, writer and filmmaker, Summer was celebrated throughout this year’s proceedings, including a touching memorial during the fest’s opening night gala.
In Summer’s hands, Biff emerged as an annual event for local cinephiles,...
The Film Stage’s first-produced short film Strange Bird was lucky enough to be included in the line-up, premiering at the newly-restored North Park Theatre on Hertel Avenue in front of writer/director Perry Blackshear’s Diy-thriller They Look Like People, which won a Special Jury Award at the Slamdance Film Festival along with a slew of other accolades at several impressive fests.
It was a bittersweet year for the festival following the passing of its founder, Edward Summer, in November of 2014. An accomplished artist, writer and filmmaker, Summer was celebrated throughout this year’s proceedings, including a touching memorial during the fest’s opening night gala.
In Summer’s hands, Biff emerged as an annual event for local cinephiles,...
- 10/23/2015
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
Fallen Objects. Image: Courtesy of the artistHey Fernando, are you at a film right now? Sneaking away from the festival always feels so wrong, doesn't it? We're here to grind through, to fill every empty moment in our day with yet another film or another few dashed words of writing, and so stepping out of the multiplex to grab a leisurely meal with a friend or to explore a new neighborhood inspires in me nothing but guilt. Luckily, the festival has thought of such things and has given me reasons to get away from the festival center...more films! The Wavelengths section, which curates a more radical type of cinema than the rest of the fest, has often featured video art pieces installed both near and far during the festival (you may recall last year I reported on a wonderful piece in Future Projections, the old name of the Wavelengths...
- 9/14/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Youth On The MARCHThere are 48 individual films screening in the Wavelengths section of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The relative importance of this section, amidst the vast array of offerings in this relatively huge festival, depends on your taste in movies, of course, to say nothing of your specific objectives. If you’re coming to Toronto to try to score a hot tip in this year’s Oscar race, well . . . I feel sorry for you on a number of levels. But Wavelengths is unlikely to be your jam. Originally conceived exclusively as a showcase for experimental and non-narrative films (hence the section’s title, a direct tribute to avant-garde master and Toronto native son Michael Snow), Wavelengths now encompasses the edgier, less commercial side of art cinema. This is the first of two preview essays, and my aim is to cover everything in the section. These are the...
- 9/12/2015
- by Michael Sicinski
- MUBI
Potential awards season contenders Truth from James Vanderbilt and Marc Abraham’s I Saw The Light starring Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams land world premiere slots, while Paco Cabezas’s Mr. Right will close the festival.
London is the subject of the seventh annual City To City programme that features world premieres of Tom Geens’ Couple In A Hole starring Paul Higgins and Kate Dickie and Michael Caton-Jones’ Urban Hymn with Letitia Wright and Shirley Henderson. Elaine Constantine’s Northern Soul gets a North American premiere.
The world premiere of Catherine Hardwicke’s Miss You Already is among five additions to the galas alongside Mr. Right, an action comedy starring Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick.
Matthew Cullen’s Martin Amis adaptation London Fields and David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis get first public screenings in the Special Presentations roster with I Saw The Light.
Tiff top brass also unveiled the Contemporary World Cinema section, featuring...
London is the subject of the seventh annual City To City programme that features world premieres of Tom Geens’ Couple In A Hole starring Paul Higgins and Kate Dickie and Michael Caton-Jones’ Urban Hymn with Letitia Wright and Shirley Henderson. Elaine Constantine’s Northern Soul gets a North American premiere.
The world premiere of Catherine Hardwicke’s Miss You Already is among five additions to the galas alongside Mr. Right, an action comedy starring Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick.
Matthew Cullen’s Martin Amis adaptation London Fields and David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis get first public screenings in the Special Presentations roster with I Saw The Light.
Tiff top brass also unveiled the Contemporary World Cinema section, featuring...
- 8/18/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Read More: Toronto International Film Festival Reveals First Slate of Titles: New Ridley Scott and Cary Fukunaga Films Top List, 'Demolition' to Open The Toronto International Film Festival has unveiled their picks for their inventive Wavelengths program, including 54 films, videos and installations by some of the world’s most influential auteurs and artists "who challenge conventional expression and seek to redefine the art of cinema." Tiff has also announced their new slate of City to City features. The 2015 edition of Wavelengths "features a seductive mix of master filmmakers, award-winning artists and emerging, new talent," including Miguel Gomes' three-part "Arabian Nights," new films from Nicolás Pereda and Mark Lewis, restored archival prints of films by Paul Sharits and by Philippe Garrel, along with a "major" new installation from Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The City...
- 8/18/2015
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
As an educator, I’m constantly cycling through the history of animation on a zoetrope hamster wheel, noting how each technical development re-investigates the same fundamental principles set forth by painting, literature, theatre, photography, or any method of communication and presentation. The constantly evolving modes of production in cinema foreshadowed our economy of planned obsolescence via a quest for re-perfection. As revealed by animation historians like Donald Crafton and Maureen Furniss, principles of Taylorism—standardized animation production methods spawning uniform products—governed industry practices. This model re-packages pre-existing modes/products with advances in technology. In this case: 3D is sound; 3D is color; 3D is analog/Sd/HD/2K/4K/6K/Xk video; 3D is IMAX; 3D is new media. I ask my students: have you ever noticed that life is actually in 3D? For me, an obscure and underground experimental animator, cinema is about learning or remembering how to see,...
- 5/11/2015
- by Jodie Mack
- MUBI
Aleksei German's Hard to Be a God is currently at Anthology Film Archives in New York and will screen from February 20 through 23 at Northwest Film Forum in Seattle. A few cities here and there follow, but for the rest of us, we'll get to see it eventually, so you must see James Kang's collection of reviews at Critics Round Up. Linking to 26 pieces by top-notch writers, James figures the overall score to be 97/100. More goings on: Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York, 1968-1986; Brooklyn Boheme; films starring Charles Laughton and Katharine Hepburn; Philippe Garrel's Le Révélateur (1968); and work by Eric Baudelaire and Paul Sharits. » - David Hudson...
- 2/4/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Aleksei German's Hard to Be a God is currently at Anthology Film Archives in New York and will screen from February 20 through 23 at Northwest Film Forum in Seattle. A few cities here and there follow, but for the rest of us, we'll get to see it eventually, so you must see James Kang's collection of reviews at Critics Round Up. Linking to 26 pieces by top-notch writers, James figures the overall score to be 97/100. More goings on: Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York, 1968-1986; Brooklyn Boheme; films starring Charles Laughton and Katharine Hepburn; Philippe Garrel's Le Révélateur (1968); and work by Eric Baudelaire and Paul Sharits. » - David Hudson...
- 2/4/2015
- Keyframe
Previewing events happening in the next few days: Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days (1995), new work by Péter Forgács and an exhibition curated by Paul Schrader featuring work by Sally Mann and David Salle in New York, Jesse McLean in Los Angeles, four films by Harun Farocki in Barcelona, work by Paul Sharits and Eric Baudelaire in Kassel and a symposium in Vienna on film in the museum with lectures by Nicole Brenez, Jacques Rancière and more. » - David Hudson...
- 11/22/2014
- Keyframe
Previewing events happening in the next few days: Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days (1995), new work by Péter Forgács and an exhibition curated by Paul Schrader featuring work by Sally Mann and David Salle in New York, Jesse McLean in Los Angeles, four films by Harun Farocki in Barcelona, work by Paul Sharits and Eric Baudelaire in Kassel and a symposium in Vienna on film in the museum with lectures by Nicole Brenez, Jacques Rancière and more. » - David Hudson...
- 11/22/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Above: Notes of an Early Fall Part 1
The Ann Arbor Film Festival makes for an ideal entry point for festival novices wanting to dive into the cinema referred to as avant-garde, experimental, or simply, artist’s. The Michigan Theater hosts all of the screenings for the fest (minus a straggler here and there), making it easy to catch as many films as your heart desires. After 52 years, the festival has created a community for itself in the city. On one end, you have the pros who’ve been there since the beginning and openly opine for the good old days when the smell of activism filled the theater. On the other, you have “the youth”; the University of Michigan providing an inexhaustible supply of the curious and the studious. And, of course, you have the typical film fans and socializers balancing out the mix. This sense of community is cemented...
The Ann Arbor Film Festival makes for an ideal entry point for festival novices wanting to dive into the cinema referred to as avant-garde, experimental, or simply, artist’s. The Michigan Theater hosts all of the screenings for the fest (minus a straggler here and there), making it easy to catch as many films as your heart desires. After 52 years, the festival has created a community for itself in the city. On one end, you have the pros who’ve been there since the beginning and openly opine for the good old days when the smell of activism filled the theater. On the other, you have “the youth”; the University of Michigan providing an inexhaustible supply of the curious and the studious. And, of course, you have the typical film fans and socializers balancing out the mix. This sense of community is cemented...
- 5/30/2014
- by Alex Hansen
- MUBI
Gaspar Noé fans were a bit unfairly dismissive when earlier this month the director's video for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' "We No Who U R" dropped. Many wanted more of the director's trademark kinetic camerawork and less wandering around the woods following a shadow, and so a few weeks later, Noé has pulled the strobe lights back out of the supply closet. Animal Collective continue to promote their latest album, Centipede Hz, and now comes the second official video, the Noé-directed "Applesauce." If you have epilepsy you may want to look away or make sure you've taken your meds. The video, "intended to be viewed in complete darkness," goes hard with strobing colors as a model provocatively eats some fruit, in a spot that borrows elements from visual artist Paul Sharits' 1968 short film “N:o:t:h:i:n:g,” which you can see excerpts from below. And yeah, you'll quickly get the.
- 1/29/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Part of the Tony Scott: A Moving Target critical project. Go here for the project's description, index and links to project's other movement.
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
- 11/27/2012
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
This article is part of the critical project Tony Scott: A Moving Target in which an analysis of a scene from a Tony Scott film is passed anonymously to the next participant in the project to respond to with an analysis of his or her own.
<- the previous analysis | movement index | the next analysis ->
In the vast majority of auteurist writing on Tony Scott, his hefty, multi-faceted body of work is split misleadingly into three phases: the early “art films” (One of the Missing, Living Memory, L’auteur de Beltraffio, The Hunger), the proficient, sometimes boneheaded spectacle films (Top Gun through to Enemy of the State), and the later, more abstract films (Spy Game onwards). Around about the time of Enemy of the State Scott’s work underwent a famed aesthetic transformation; taking the core ideas of all of his preceding blockbusters and blowing them up into dense, super-edited mutant hailstorms of sound and colour. Today, a...
<- the previous analysis | movement index | the next analysis ->
In the vast majority of auteurist writing on Tony Scott, his hefty, multi-faceted body of work is split misleadingly into three phases: the early “art films” (One of the Missing, Living Memory, L’auteur de Beltraffio, The Hunger), the proficient, sometimes boneheaded spectacle films (Top Gun through to Enemy of the State), and the later, more abstract films (Spy Game onwards). Around about the time of Enemy of the State Scott’s work underwent a famed aesthetic transformation; taking the core ideas of all of his preceding blockbusters and blowing them up into dense, super-edited mutant hailstorms of sound and colour. Today, a...
- 11/27/2012
- by Christopher Small
- MUBI
This week’s list is very short, but most of the articles are substantive and extremely filling, starting off with two Absolute Must Reads:
The first Absolute Must Read is David Bordwell’s essay on how to watch an “art film.” Initially, as a fan of “art” films, this sort of sounded like a strange topic and I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy the article, but — Bang, Zoom! — Bordwell’s analysis of the first 15 shots of the Spanish film Sueño y silencio by Jaime Rosales is an infinitely captivating and intriguing read that had my head swimming with ideas of how to write about films.The second Absolute Must Read is an absolutely fascinating Washington Post profile of Colorlab, the Washington, D.C. area film processing and restoration company. The best part of the article is that in recounting Colorlab’s 40-year history we get to learn how...
The first Absolute Must Read is David Bordwell’s essay on how to watch an “art film.” Initially, as a fan of “art” films, this sort of sounded like a strange topic and I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy the article, but — Bang, Zoom! — Bordwell’s analysis of the first 15 shots of the Spanish film Sueño y silencio by Jaime Rosales is an infinitely captivating and intriguing read that had my head swimming with ideas of how to write about films.The second Absolute Must Read is an absolutely fascinating Washington Post profile of Colorlab, the Washington, D.C. area film processing and restoration company. The best part of the article is that in recounting Colorlab’s 40-year history we get to learn how...
- 9/9/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
On the occasion of Anthology Film Archive's retrospective on Jean Epstein and the publishing of a new anthology on the filmmaker edited by Sarah Keller and Jason N. Paul, Jean Epstein: Critical Essays and New Translations, we are here reprinting the essay by Nicole Brenez, "Ultra-Modern: Jean Epstein, or Cinema 'Serving the Forces of Transgression and Revolt.'" The anthology is published by Amsterdam University Press and available in the Us and Canada from the University of Chicago Press. Many thanks to Amsterdam University Press, University of Chicago Press, Magdalena Hernas, Sarah Keller and Nicole Brenez.
Jean Epstein disappeared over half a century ago, in 1953. Yet, few filmmakers are still as alive today. At the time, a radio broadcast announced the following obituary: “Jean Epstein has just died. This name may not mean much to many of those who turn to the screens to provide them with the weekly dose of emotion they need.
Jean Epstein disappeared over half a century ago, in 1953. Yet, few filmmakers are still as alive today. At the time, a radio broadcast announced the following obituary: “Jean Epstein has just died. This name may not mean much to many of those who turn to the screens to provide them with the weekly dose of emotion they need.
- 5/30/2012
- MUBI
Via Criterion
"On March 8, 2012, Hollis Frampton went viral," begins Giampaolo Bianconi in Idiom. "The Criterion Collection, in preparation for the release of a long-anticipated Frampton box set [A Hollis Frampton Odyssey], posted a fragment from his 1968 film Surface Tension on Facebook; the clip was picked up by the New York Times blog City Room, and from there it spread. For a second, Frampton was everywhere."
Bianconi notes that some cinephiles objected to the Nyt's fascination with the film as a historical record of the City:
Frampton, though, was not only concerned with the materiality of film with regards to shape and texture, but also with materiality in terms of film being an historical artifact. To watch Surface Tension is to be fascinated by the images of New York, and illegitimizing that point of entry means that a facetious art-for-art's-sake conception of Frampton's work has foreclosed a more complete experience and understanding of the film.
"On March 8, 2012, Hollis Frampton went viral," begins Giampaolo Bianconi in Idiom. "The Criterion Collection, in preparation for the release of a long-anticipated Frampton box set [A Hollis Frampton Odyssey], posted a fragment from his 1968 film Surface Tension on Facebook; the clip was picked up by the New York Times blog City Room, and from there it spread. For a second, Frampton was everywhere."
Bianconi notes that some cinephiles objected to the Nyt's fascination with the film as a historical record of the City:
Frampton, though, was not only concerned with the materiality of film with regards to shape and texture, but also with materiality in terms of film being an historical artifact. To watch Surface Tension is to be fascinated by the images of New York, and illegitimizing that point of entry means that a facetious art-for-art's-sake conception of Frampton's work has foreclosed a more complete experience and understanding of the film.
- 4/27/2012
- MUBI
New York. In Gob Squad's Kitchen (You've Never Had It So Good), a show at the Public Theater through Sunday, the German/British collective Gob Squad reconstructs a batch of films by Andy Warhol, in particular, of course, Kitchen (1965). Amy Taubin files a terrific report at Artforum, recalling an early-ish assessment of the film by Norman Mailer and noting "the Warhol/Godard connection." At the outset of the performance, the audience is taken on a tour of the set and told "that the black-and-white video projections which comprise almost the entire performance (and which resemble the texture and tonalities of Warhol's black-and-white 16mm films) are a simulcast of the performance taking place in the colorful, three-dimensional space behind the screens — and not a prerecorded video. The strategy works. Paradoxically, the video, which is larger than life but also ghostly, is more convincing than seeing flesh-and-blood performers moving around a...
- 2/2/2012
- MUBI
Updated through 6/10.
Colin Beckett: "Whether by design or circumstance, this June has become Thai Cinema Month in New York, with an array of the city's art houses and museums boasting otherwise hard-to-see gems from the Thai film renaissance that began in the late 1990s. But the biggest cause for celebration is the belated arrival of two films by Uruphong Raksasad — Agrarian Utopia (2009), running at Anthology Film Archives June 10 - 15, and Stories from the North (2006), which plays Museum of the Moving Image on June 5 [this afternoon at 3] — whose formal ingenuity and geopolitical urgency make the familiar generalizations about national cinemas seem quaint, if not willfully narrow."
Updates, 6/10: For Michael Joshua Rowin, writing for Artforum, "here is an undeniably stunning work of visual art, a premiere example of the equal footing hi-def digital video now holds with celluloid filmmaking. Acting as his own cinematographer, Uruphong finds intimate wonder in lush, verdant hills; in twilights...
Colin Beckett: "Whether by design or circumstance, this June has become Thai Cinema Month in New York, with an array of the city's art houses and museums boasting otherwise hard-to-see gems from the Thai film renaissance that began in the late 1990s. But the biggest cause for celebration is the belated arrival of two films by Uruphong Raksasad — Agrarian Utopia (2009), running at Anthology Film Archives June 10 - 15, and Stories from the North (2006), which plays Museum of the Moving Image on June 5 [this afternoon at 3] — whose formal ingenuity and geopolitical urgency make the familiar generalizations about national cinemas seem quaint, if not willfully narrow."
Updates, 6/10: For Michael Joshua Rowin, writing for Artforum, "here is an undeniably stunning work of visual art, a premiere example of the equal footing hi-def digital video now holds with celluloid filmmaking. Acting as his own cinematographer, Uruphong finds intimate wonder in lush, verdant hills; in twilights...
- 6/10/2011
- MUBI
June 5
7:30 p.m.
Echo Park Film Center
1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA
Hosted by: L.A. Filmforum
Need a little flicker in your life? Then check out some classic films from one of the pioneers of the structuralist film movement, Paul Sharits (1943-1993).
Included in the lineup is Wintercourse, which was made in 1962, but not uncovered until 1985. The film is very different than what would become Sharits’ typical flickering style and was produced while the filmmaking was still studying painting at the University of Denver.
Also being screened is one of Sharits’ most famous films, N:o:t:h:i:n:g (1968), which avant-garde film historian P. Adams Sitney declared one of the three flicker films of any importance. Jonas Mekas described the film as such: “You are pulled into the world of color, your color senses are expanded, enriched. You become aware of changes, of tones around your own daily reality.
7:30 p.m.
Echo Park Film Center
1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA
Hosted by: L.A. Filmforum
Need a little flicker in your life? Then check out some classic films from one of the pioneers of the structuralist film movement, Paul Sharits (1943-1993).
Included in the lineup is Wintercourse, which was made in 1962, but not uncovered until 1985. The film is very different than what would become Sharits’ typical flickering style and was produced while the filmmaking was still studying painting at the University of Denver.
Also being screened is one of Sharits’ most famous films, N:o:t:h:i:n:g (1968), which avant-garde film historian P. Adams Sitney declared one of the three flicker films of any importance. Jonas Mekas described the film as such: “You are pulled into the world of color, your color senses are expanded, enriched. You become aware of changes, of tones around your own daily reality.
- 6/1/2011
- by screenings
- Underground Film Journal
Here’s the full Underground Film Links post for today, 22 links in total:
According to Cineflyer, filmmaker Deco Dawson has issued a Cease and Desist Order to the The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art for screening a film entitled The Lotus Eaters credited to artist Marcel Dzama, to which the museum has complied. At the heart of the matter is that Dzama’s film is really Dawson’s own Film(dzama), but with the proper credits cut off that attribute the film to Dawson. A strange and sad case.The Brooklyn Downtown Star newspaper profiled underground film couple Penny Lane and Brian Frye about their work-in-progress documentary Our Nixon, which is put together out of home movies made by the original Watergate gang.Rodney Perkins reprints his review of the return of Coffin Joe in José Marica Marins’ Embodiment of Evil, which will be released on DVD/Blu-Ray this week.
According to Cineflyer, filmmaker Deco Dawson has issued a Cease and Desist Order to the The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art for screening a film entitled The Lotus Eaters credited to artist Marcel Dzama, to which the museum has complied. At the heart of the matter is that Dzama’s film is really Dawson’s own Film(dzama), but with the proper credits cut off that attribute the film to Dawson. A strange and sad case.The Brooklyn Downtown Star newspaper profiled underground film couple Penny Lane and Brian Frye about their work-in-progress documentary Our Nixon, which is put together out of home movies made by the original Watergate gang.Rodney Perkins reprints his review of the return of Coffin Joe in José Marica Marins’ Embodiment of Evil, which will be released on DVD/Blu-Ray this week.
- 3/27/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The 49th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival is an epic celebration of experimental media that runs for six days on March 22-27. There’s so much great stuff screening this year, it makes one wonder what they’ll have left for their 50th anniversary next year!
A couple of the highlights include the highly anticipated feature-length documentary The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye by Marie Losier, which chronicles the pandrogynous love story between industrial music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge and his late wife. The film already made a big splash at the Berlinale earlier in the year and looks to be a major hit on the festival circuit this year.
Also not to be missed is a special retrospective of one of this year’s festival jury members, Vanessa Renwick, a longtime favorite on Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film. Renwick will screen 10 of her quirky and artistic documentary portraits,...
A couple of the highlights include the highly anticipated feature-length documentary The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye by Marie Losier, which chronicles the pandrogynous love story between industrial music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge and his late wife. The film already made a big splash at the Berlinale earlier in the year and looks to be a major hit on the festival circuit this year.
Also not to be missed is a special retrospective of one of this year’s festival jury members, Vanessa Renwick, a longtime favorite on Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film. Renwick will screen 10 of her quirky and artistic documentary portraits,...
- 3/7/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The Paul Sharits memorial website, run by his son Christopher, is looking for articles to post on art and music. Congrats to Stuart Simpson’s fantastic El Monstro Del Mar!, which has been picked up for distribution by IndieFilmNet. Careful, this one’s “dirty”: The great cartoonist/reviewer Rick Trembles covers Usama Alshaibi’s hilarious short film The Amateur. Then, Usama Alshaibi tackles the myth about Muslims not being able to render images of the prophets. J.J. Murphy tackles one of the most controversial movies of the last year or so, whether you knew it or not: Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers. Always a cause for rejoicing: Jonas Mekas announces a new film debuting in Feb.: Sleepless Nights Stories! A little background on the film from Jonas here. SXSW interviews fellow festival founder Lisa Vandever of Cinekink four questions about her upcoming interactive panel in Austin, TX. Professor...
- 1/23/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Before we get to the list this week, a special note: I got a very nice email this week from Jackie Keen, the wife of legendary British underground filmmaker Jeff Keen. I’ve written about Jeff a few times on Bad Lit, particularly about his troublesome situation. If you’re not familiar with Jeff’s incredible body of work, read that link and do yourself a favor and check out his official website.
This week’s Must Read is Craig Baldwin’s history and understanding of why San Francisco is such a mecca for found-footage filmmakers such as himself. The article, on the Moving Image Source website, is reprinted from the recent book Radical Light. Speaking of Radical Light, Reed Johnson of the L.A. Times previews the Los Angeles screening tour that’s accompanying the book. Also to celebrate Radical Light, Chuck Stephens of Blip Magazine reviews several films...
This week’s Must Read is Craig Baldwin’s history and understanding of why San Francisco is such a mecca for found-footage filmmakers such as himself. The article, on the Moving Image Source website, is reprinted from the recent book Radical Light. Speaking of Radical Light, Reed Johnson of the L.A. Times previews the Los Angeles screening tour that’s accompanying the book. Also to celebrate Radical Light, Chuck Stephens of Blip Magazine reviews several films...
- 1/16/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
It’s been awhile since I promoted Bad Lit’s Underground Film Timeline, but I finally finished inputting all the data culled from my secondary reference source, David Curtis’ book Experimental Cinema. Since it’s been so long between updates, I’ll provide some background info on what this project is again.
The Underground Film Timeline is a year-by-year list of every significant film and event in underground film history from 1909 to, currently, 1970. I’m pulling data to include in the timeline strictly from books, not from other websites. The first book I referenced was Sheldon Renan’s An Introduction to the American Underground Film and the second book, as I wrote above, is Curtis’ Experimental Cinema.
In certain instances, data from both books do not agree with each other. The books mostly contradict each other regarding the completion years for specific films, usually giving dates that are a year or two off.
The Underground Film Timeline is a year-by-year list of every significant film and event in underground film history from 1909 to, currently, 1970. I’m pulling data to include in the timeline strictly from books, not from other websites. The first book I referenced was Sheldon Renan’s An Introduction to the American Underground Film and the second book, as I wrote above, is Curtis’ Experimental Cinema.
In certain instances, data from both books do not agree with each other. The books mostly contradict each other regarding the completion years for specific films, usually giving dates that are a year or two off.
- 11/8/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Embedded above is the earliest surviving work by Paul Sharits, Wintercourse, which was produced in 1962. While Sharits would go on to become one of the pioneers of the structuralist movement, Wintercourse is a more playful, seemingly less structured film than the ones he would become most well-known for, such as T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G, (1968) and N.O.T.H.I.N.G. (1968). Wintercourse was shot in B&W in 16mm and is silent. Warning: There are brief flashes of non-sexual nudity in the film, so while it’s not quite Nsfw, be considerate if you are indeed at work planning to watch this.
I also can’t find any writing about the film online, but I’m thinking the film is possibly heavily inspired by Stan Brakhage’s Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959). According to Sharits’ biography, he began a mentorship and friendship with Brakhage around this...
I also can’t find any writing about the film online, but I’m thinking the film is possibly heavily inspired by Stan Brakhage’s Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959). According to Sharits’ biography, he began a mentorship and friendship with Brakhage around this...
- 10/20/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
This week’s Must Read is on the brief side, so now you have no excuse not to read it. Animation god Bill Plympton is self-distributing his latest feature Idiots & Angels and he’s keeping a diary about how that’s going. His second piece goes into the reasons of why he has to self-distribute in the first place. That Plympton — a god, I tell you, a god! — has so much trouble getting his films out there is a sad, sorry commentary on lots of things. The Melbourne Underground Film Festival has been going on this past week and The Age profiled Joseph Sims, the director of the closing night film Bad Behavior. Meanwhile, the Maroondah Leader profiled Matt Cleaves, director of the short film Radev. And an anonymous female blogger writes about seeing Road Train at Muff. Via Professor Tryon, there’s a piece on IndieWire by Anne Thompson...
- 8/29/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
First the history, then the list:
In 1969, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas decided to open the world’s first museum devoted to film. Of course, a typical museum hangs its collections of artwork on the wall for visitors to walk up to and study. However, a film museum needs special considerations on how — and what, of course — to present its collection to the public.
Thus, for this film museum, first a film selection committee was formed that included James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, plus, for a time, Stan Brakhage. This committee met over the course of several months to decide exactly what films would be collected and how they would be shown. The final selection of films would come to be called the The Essential Cinema Repertory.
The Essential Cinema Collection that the committee came up with consisted of about 330 films.
In 1969, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas decided to open the world’s first museum devoted to film. Of course, a typical museum hangs its collections of artwork on the wall for visitors to walk up to and study. However, a film museum needs special considerations on how — and what, of course — to present its collection to the public.
Thus, for this film museum, first a film selection committee was formed that included James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, plus, for a time, Stan Brakhage. This committee met over the course of several months to decide exactly what films would be collected and how they would be shown. The final selection of films would come to be called the The Essential Cinema Repertory.
The Essential Cinema Collection that the committee came up with consisted of about 330 films.
- 5/3/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
It’s a nature video! It’s an experimental video! It’s the official commissioned trailer for the 2010 Migrating Forms experimental media festival! That’s right, it’s all three!
The second annual Migrating Forms will run at the Anthology Film Archives in NYC on May 14-23 and, once again, the festival has asked a video artist to craft an official trailer. This year they chose Leslie Thornton, a filmmaker who has studied with the likes of Hollis Frampton, Stan Brakhage, Paul Sharits and Peter Kubelka. Her work has previously screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Biennial, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Pacific Film Archive, last year’s Migrating Forms and other prestigious locations around the world.
Migrating Forms hasn’t released their official schedule yet, but as soon as they do, I’ll put it up on Bad Lit.
Read More:2009 Migrating Forms: Official...
The second annual Migrating Forms will run at the Anthology Film Archives in NYC on May 14-23 and, once again, the festival has asked a video artist to craft an official trailer. This year they chose Leslie Thornton, a filmmaker who has studied with the likes of Hollis Frampton, Stan Brakhage, Paul Sharits and Peter Kubelka. Her work has previously screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Biennial, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Pacific Film Archive, last year’s Migrating Forms and other prestigious locations around the world.
Migrating Forms hasn’t released their official schedule yet, but as soon as they do, I’ll put it up on Bad Lit.
Read More:2009 Migrating Forms: Official...
- 4/22/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
First, I know I’m probably setting myself up for disaster by putting up an Underground Film Links post three Sundays in a row. There’s going to come a Sunday — I predict at some point — when I don’t have time to do this, people will come expecting a links post and … nothing. And they will be mad and disappointed. But, until that day, here’ some more links for you, including a few I forgot to post last week:
Mike Plante of Cinemad fame has created a Google map pinpointing all of the microcinemas and oddball screening locations he knows of from around the world. There’s a few on there I need to add to Bad Lit’s own theater, non-map list. And if you have a location that you want added, you can contact Plante at Cinemad. I meant to do a full post on this bit o’ news,...
Mike Plante of Cinemad fame has created a Google map pinpointing all of the microcinemas and oddball screening locations he knows of from around the world. There’s a few on there I need to add to Bad Lit’s own theater, non-map list. And if you have a location that you want added, you can contact Plante at Cinemad. I meant to do a full post on this bit o’ news,...
- 4/18/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
So, I’m currently working on a big research project, the results of which won’t be seen unless you happen to be poring through Bad Lit’s sister site the Underground Film Guide — and the way that site is woefully under-updated, why would you?
The Ufg, as I like to call it, is a database project of underground filmmakers and films. Recently I decided to halt adding new entries and to make the old filmmaker entries I previously uploaded more comprehensive. One way I’m doing that is going through books on underground film and, if a filmmaker is written up in each book, I’ll add that book’s info to the filmmaker’s profile. If you’re interested and want an idea of what I’m talking about, go look at John Waters’ entry and scroll down to the book section.
One book that is a tremendous...
The Ufg, as I like to call it, is a database project of underground filmmakers and films. Recently I decided to halt adding new entries and to make the old filmmaker entries I previously uploaded more comprehensive. One way I’m doing that is going through books on underground film and, if a filmmaker is written up in each book, I’ll add that book’s info to the filmmaker’s profile. If you’re interested and want an idea of what I’m talking about, go look at John Waters’ entry and scroll down to the book section.
One book that is a tremendous...
- 4/17/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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