Radical Sex Education Films from San Francisco's Multi-Media Resource Center

Eyetoon, dir. Jerry Abrams, 1968, US, 16mm

I'm overjoyed to have the opportunity to present the screening Radical Sex Education Films from San Francisco's Multi-Media Resource Center at the esteemed Brooklyn microcinema Light Industry this coming Tuesday, August 12. This is a program that I researched and developed as part of the series Free to Love: The Cinema of the Sexual Revolution which took place January-February 2014 at International House Philadelphia. The subject, content and context of these films is a beautiful confluence of three major interests of mine: psychedelia, sex and experimental film. This upcoming screening will have a different lineup than the previous screening at IHP. There are so many films that were produced and distributed by the MMRC that each subsequent screening on this topic can and naturally should reflect the breadth of films that the company repped. 

The program is as follows:

• Eyetoon, Jerry Abrams, 1968, 16mm, 8 mins
• Unfolding, Constance Beeson, 1969, 16mm, 17 mins
• The Now, Constance Beeson, 1972, 16mm, 16 mins
• Desire Pie, Lisa Crafts, 1976, 16mm, 5 mins
• Near the Big Chakra, Alice Anne Parker (aka Anne Severson), 1972, 16mm, 17 mins

I'll set the stage for the screening of these titles and also give some new information about these films I've learned subsequent to the publication of my article of the same name in the book/DVD catalog Free to Love: The Cinema of the Sexual Revolution. The catalog also features essays by J Hoberman, Whitney Strub, Elena Gorfinkel and Eric Schaefer, a conversation between A.K. Burns, A.L. Steiner, Barbara Hammer and M.M. Serra, as well as an introduction by series curator Jesse Pires. The DVD contains three films which were distributed by the MMRC: Desire Pie, A Quickie (Dirk Kortz, 1970) and Norien Ten (John Knoop, 1972). 

François Truffaut by Lillian Ross

A nice surprise in the mail from The Film Desk: their first book, François Truffaut by Lillian Ross, from The New Yorker 1960-1970. Up until now, The Film Desk has been known for reissuing mainly classic films on 35mm, like Philippe Garrel's J'entends plus la guitare, Robert Bresson's The Devil, Probably, Jacques Rivette's Le Pont du Nord and many more, including four Truffaut titles (Small Change, The Bride Wore Black, Mississippi Mermaid and L'enfant sauvage). The Film Desk is run by Jake Perlin, who has amassed a small treasure of a library, making these films available to repertory theaters in their original theatrical format. This new publication clearly fits well with his catalog. 

The 40-page book contains five short profiles written by Lillian Ross from 1960-1976. She shares that The New Yorker has asked her to chat with Truffaut every five years or so, starting with their first meeting in 1960. It's Truffaut's first time in the United States where he is accepting an award for The 400 Blows. Each encounter follows the blossoming progression of not only Truffaut's career (with ideas about what films he wants to make next, some of which are realized and some not) but also his personal life, from updates about his daughters Laura and Eva, to his problems with finding properly-fitting footwear. 

You can purchase the book for $10 ppd in the US from The Film Desk. I'm told this is the first in what will hopefully be a series. The Film Desk's current release is Alain Resnais's 1968 science fiction-tinged mindbender Je t'aime, je t'aime, screening this Saturday 5/31 at International House Philadelphia and touring the country. Jake Perlin also runs Cinema Conservancy, who have put together a program of restored shorts by animators John and Faith Hubley, touring in celebration of the John Hubley Centennial. 

What I watched: week of January 20, 2014

Impressions of Expo 67, dir. William Brind, 1967, Canada

Her	Spike Jonze	2013	US	DCP	4
The Camera: Je or Le Camera: I	Babette Mangolte	1977	US	16mm	2
Escape From Tomorrow	Randy Moore	2013	US	File	1
Phantom of the Paradise	Brian De Palma	1974	US	File	3
Angst	Gerald Kargl	1983	Austria	File	5
Women's Hands	Janos Xantus	1981	Hungary	File	4
Lethe	Lewis Klahr	2009	US	VDrome	3
The Set	Frank Brittain	1970	Australia	35mm	4
Score	Radley Metzger	1972	US/Yugoslavia	Blu-ray	4
Hot Times	Jim McBride	1974	US	35mm	3
Mario Banana (No. 2)	Andy Warhol	1964	US	16mm	3
I, A Man	Andy Warhol	1967	US	16mm	3
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice	Paul Mazursky	1969	US	35mm	3
Hunger	Peter Foldes	1974	Canada	NFB	5
Alouette	Norman McLaren, Rene Jodoin	1944	Canada	NFB	3
V for Victory	Norman McLaren	1941	Canada	NFB	3
Five for Four	Norman McLaren	1942	Canada	NFB	3
Les Raquetteurs	Michel Brault, Gilles Groulx	1958	Canada	NFB	4
The Big Swim	Gilles Carle	1964	Canada	NFB	4
The Rink	Gilles Carle	1962	Canada	NFB	5
Opening Speech: McLaren	Norman McLaren	1961	Canada	NFB	3
Pen Point Percussion	Norman McLaren	1951	Canada	NFB	4
Dots	Norman McLaren	1940	Canada	YouTube	3
Loops	Norman McLaren	1940	Canada	YouTube	3
Universe	Colin Low, Roman Kroitor	1960	Canada	NFB	4
Impressions of Expo 67	William Brind	1967	Canada	NFB	5
The Canadian Pavillion, Expo 67	Marc Beaudet	1967	Canada	NFB	4
In the Labyrinth	Colin Low, Roman Kroitor, Hugh O'Connell	1967/1979	Canada	NFB	4
The City (Osaka)	Kaj Pindal	1970	Canada	NFB	5

Another huge week, as usual. This week was also full of snowstorms and cold weather which made for plenty of marathon viewing. As for new films, Her did well by me, mostly because of the production design which was fantastic. I was highly anticipating Escape From Tomorrow since the controversy sparked by its premiere at Sundance 2013 but I apparently thought it was going to be a much different film than it turned out to be (which was schlocky, poorly acted and visually unimpressive with a clunky, out of place orchestral score to boot). 

The Camera: Je or Le Camera: I, dir. Babette Mangolte, 1977, US, 16mm

I went to Anthology Film Archives with some colleagues to see Babette Mangolte's rare 1977 feature film The Camera: Je or Le Camera: I which screened in conjunction with The Whitney's exhibition Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama—Manhattan, 1970–1980. It was a challenging film for me, and one that I didn't connect with very well. But I did enjoy Mangolte's street cinematography, rushing along a bombed-out 1970s Lower East Side with the camera at peripheral angles, giving the viewer oblique views of the street, architecture and passers-by.  

The Set, dir. Frank Brittain, 1970, Australia, 35mm

Once again, Free to Love: The Cinema of the Sexual Revolution ruled my week. The Set was a rare, somewhat soap opera-ish erotic drama from Australia with a killer soundtrack by Sven Libaek. The 35mm print from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia was wonderful. Radley Metzger attended a screening of his 1972 film Score and explained his motivations for making his artistic erotic films and why it was necessary to go into hardcore pornography following the porn chic movement. Jim McBride's Hot Times (aka My Erotic Fantasies, aka A Hard Day for Archie) was a pretty fun teen sex romp before that genre became ubiquitous the following decade with Porky's. 

Norman McLaren in Pen Point Percussion

The NFB website and Roku channel keep me busy with all the wonderful films from their vast library. There's plenty Norman McLaren, whose innovative films I know I should be watching systematically, but I always seem to pick random ones here and there. Pen Point Percussion was an informative primer on McLaren's direct sound technique (used on Dots and Loops, which is perhaps the inspiration for the name of this album) which I'd like to try myself on some 35mm. I liked Peter Foldes' Hunger a little bit more than Metadata, which I loved when I watched it the previous week. I'm going to need to track down the rest of his films. 

Les Raquetteurs, dir. Michel Brault & Gilles Groulx, 1958, Canada

One filmmaking scene that I'm extremely interested in is Quebecois cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. The NFB has produced plenty of films by amazing filmmakers like Michel Brault, Gilles Groulx, Gilles Carle, Claude Jutra and others, though many of these films sadly don't have English subtitles. Neither are they indexed in the English version of the NFB Film Guide. I don't really understand the motivation of not making all films accessible in both languages for the Canadian population, and indeed making Quebecois films (not just those on NFB, but it's the same case for films by other producers in this time period as well) accessible to the English-speaking world. It's especially frustrating because many of these films are exciting, creative masterpieces that are going unseen or underseen. 

Labyrinth, dir. Colin Low, Roman Kroitor & Hugh O'Connell, 1967, five-screen 35mm projection

There are also a few films relating to Expo 67, the World's Fair held in Montreal in that year. Cinema (and media in general) played a huge part in that expo, the theme of which was "Man and His World". William Brind's Impressions of Expo 67 is a sort of introduction to the fair and is visually stunning especially in the 1080p encode on the NFB website. In the Labyrinth is a composite version of the five-35mm projection Labyrinth which must have been stunning to view. Kaj Pindal's The City was shown during Expo 70 in Osaka and I like how sound is perhaps more important than image in this short film. 

ICA Open Video Call 2013/14

Easter 1962, dir. Meredith Sellers, 2012, US

I was honored to be asked to jury the Open Video Call at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania along with my colleagues Erica Levin, Kelsey Halliday Johnson and ICA Assistant Curator Kate Kraczon. The eight selected videos are all by Philadelphia-area artists and will be on view at the ICA from February 12-April 20, 2014. 

What I watched: week of January 13, 2014

The Telephone Book, dir. Nelson Lyon, 1971, US

Peripeteia	John Akomfrah	2012	UK	VDrome	3
Metadata	Peter Foldes	1971	Canada	YouTube	4
Electronics in the World of Tomorrow	Erkki Kurenniemi	1964	Finland	File	4
I Used to Be Darker	Matt Porterfield	2013	US	DCP	5
Schmeerguntz	Gunvor Nelson	1965	US	16mm	5
Lovemaking	Scott Bartlett	1970	US	16mm	3
Flaming Creatures	Jack Smith	1963	US	16mm	4
2nd Hand Cinema	Dirk De Bruyn	2007	Australia	File	3
A Quickie	Dirk Kortz	1969	US	DVD	4
Norien Ten	John Knoop	1971	US	DVD	4
Sean	Ralph Arlyck	1970	US	YouTube	4
Freedom to Love	Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen	1969	Germany/US	35mm	5
La Cotta	Ermanno Olmi	1967	Italy	File	5
Rita and Dundi	Albie Thoms	1966	Australia	File	4
Man and His World	Albie Thoms	1966	Australia	File	3
Moon Virility	Albie Thoms	1967	Australia	File	3
Bluto	Albie Thoms	1967	Australia	File	3
Gift (aka Venom)	Knud Leif Thomsen	1966	Denmark	35mm	4
Desire Pie	Lisa Crafts	1976	US	16mm	4
The Telephone Book	Nelson Lyon	1971	US	DCP	5
Fritz the Cat	Ralph Bakshi	1972	US	35mm	2

VDrome continues to be an essential resource and the only website that I know of that is dedicated to streaming new works of artist film and video for free. They've featured extremely interesting works in the past by Beatrice Gibson, Ben Rivers, Gabriel Abrantes, Matt Wolf, Jennifer West and Deimantas Narkevicius, to name a few. While I was lukewarm on John Akomfrah's conceptually interesting and beautifully photographed Peripeteia, I'm looking forward to viewing Lewis Klahr's Lethe which is on view through January 23.

Metadata, dir. Peter Foldes, 1971, Canada

Metadata is another NFB title that doesn't appear on their website. Luckily it's up on YouTube to view. I haven't seen much of Foldes' work up to this point, but I did like Metadata, which is a computer synthesis of his somewhat crude, simple drawing style. The funky soundtrack by Alain Clavier (whose soundtrack music probably deserves its own post as well, see here) and, according to IMDB, Maurice Blackburn, is a huge plus as well. 

I Used to Be Darker, Matt Porterfield, 2013, US

I Used to Be Darker was a very powerful film about confusion, despair and love. Filmmaker Matt Porterfield came to Philadelphia to present the film though the audience was breathless following the screening. Personally, I needed a few minutes to take in and wrap up the film for myself. Matt Porterfield's filmmaking is a class apart from other contemporary American independent narrative filmmakers. I'm not even sure what to say really but this film cut deep. 

Freedom to Love, dir. Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen, 1969, Germany/US, 35mm

A large amount of this week's viewing again was dedicated to series Free to Love: The Cinema of the Sexual Revolution. Lovemaking is a Scott Bartlett title I hadn't managed to see before and despite the red-fading of the print's color, it was, to me at least, a psychedelic exploration of the physical dimension of sex. Freedom to Love is a film that I had wanted to see since reading about it in Film as a Subversive Art years ago and it was a huge treat to see it not only on 35mm but also with an introduction on the career of Phyllis and Ebarhard Kronhausen and the history of sex documentaries by Eric Schaefer. Through all the searching I've done on the Kronhausens I hadn't even come across anything that said they had died (in 2009 and 2012). Freedom to Love didn't disappoint. It was a wacky, mondo-style survey of sexual philosophies and predilections circa 1969. I had predicted that it might be the most controversial film in the entire series and so far that has been correct. 

The Telephone Book has been cited by Free to Love curator Jesse Pires as his favorite film in the series. Seeing it for the first time, I can see why. The newly-rediscovered underground masterpiece is a perfect synthesis of New American Cinema (of the Robert Downey, Jim McBride, Peter Bogdanovich circa 1970 variety), twisted comedy and X-films. Sarah Kennedy steals the show as Alice, the squeaky-voiced, perverted heroine who falls for the man who makes the best dirty phonecalls. "It was only a phone call... but it was a work of art!" The film was shown on a 2K DCP from Vinegar Syndrome who have released a Blu-ray/DVD set of the film with commentary by producer Merv Bloch, who was in attendance at the screening. Not only is The Telephone Book an amazing film but it has quite a back-story (for example: Raoul Coutard was on board as cinematographer until visa issues prevented him from entering the US, Warhol was filmed but his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor and director Nelson Lyon's career ended as a result of his three-day drug binge that resulted in the death of John Belushi). Very highly recommended, a twisted, wonderful creation!

After viewing his psychedelic diary-film feature Marinetti a few weeks ago, I decided to check out a few shorts by Albie Thoms, a central figure of the Australian avant-garde. (I'm trying to find a cheap copy of his book Polemics for a New Cinema as well.) Rita and Dundi was my favorite of the bunch and I put it up on YouTube. It has this Down Under pastoral feeling reminiscent of Daisies (which was made the same year). It also plays with time/space and music/picture the same ways that Vera Chytilova does. Rita and Dundi is one of the films from the wonderful collection UBU: Sydney Underground Movies 1965-70, a collection of the handmade celluloid works by the Ubu Films collective.

La Cotta, dir. Ermanno Olmi, 1967, Italy

I love the two Janus Films-released Ermanno Olmi films (Il Posto and I Fidanzati) and loved the featurette La Cotta as well. Maybe it's because of the wonderful humanism he depicts, or the way his stories cut to the core of the painful and remarkable experiences that are probably universal among people who have fallen in and out (and sideways) of love.