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.