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<<back MONDAY, APRIL 26 Part 1 QCC Curated Programs 1930âs, 40âs, 50âs, 60âs Film Theatre Lower Level Regina Public Library 2311 12th Ave. These are some the films and artists most directly associated with breaking ground for the emergence of an identifiably Îqueerâ aesthetic and sensibility. As well, their impact and influence on avant-garde and experimental filmmaking, and on later generations of filmmakers ö queer, independent, commercial, or otherwise ö is immeasurable. 7 PM 1930âs and 1940âs Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau, France, 1930, 16mm, 58 min.) Considered one of the most influential avant-garde films of all time, Blood of a Poet explores the plight of the artist and the forces of creative thought. Constructed as a collage of dreamlike situations, autobiographical revelations and enigmatic images, the film is an odyssey into the poet's imagination. Freud described the film as being "like looking through a keyhole at a man undressing." Cocteau himself calls the work "anti-surrealist" as well as "a realistic documentary of unreal events." Maya Deren Maya Deren was a brilliant filmmaker and theorist whose films and writings have nevertheless paled beside the even larger legend surrounding her life and death. From the early 1940's until her sudden (and some would say supernaturally-caused) death in 1961, Maya Deren both evoked and exemplified the American avant-garde film movement virtually by herself ö as filmmaker, distributor, lecturer, theorist and promoter ö all in one fiery personality. She worked completely outside the commercial film industry and made her own inner experience the center of her films. Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, USA, 1943, 16mm, 14 min.) Deren's masterpiece, Meshes of The Afternoon is a narratively complex, psychological study of a woman ö played by the director herself. At Land (Maya Deren, USA, 1944, 16mm, 14 min.) Deren made and starred in At Land described by film critic P. Adams Sitney as "the earliest of pure American trance films." Geography of the Body (Willard Maas, USA, 1943, 16mm, 7 min.) Commentary by the British poet, George Barker. An analogical pilgrimage evokes the terrors and splendours of the human body as the undiscovered, mysterious continent. Extreme magnification increases the ambiguity of the visuals, tongue-in-cheek commentary counteracts or reinforces their sexual implications. The method is that used by the imagist-symbolist poet. Fragment of Seeking (Curtis Harrington, USA, 1946, 16mm, 14m.) ãAll of the short films were...it's so hard for me to describe them. The whole point of the films is they were entirely visual. They had no dialogue of any kind.ä From a recent interview with Curtis Harrington. 9 PM 1950âs Un Chant D'Amour (Jean Genet, France, 1950, 16mm, silent, 26.5 min.) ãGenet's film exhibits the obvious influence of his friend Jean Cocteau's filmmaking style as well as the influence of Kenneth Anger's film Fireworks, of which Cocteau was a great fan. Despite this influence, the tone and content is pure Genet. Prisoners, flowers, aggressive sex, unrequited love ö all of these are major themes in Genet's written works. It was the only film Genet, a master of the novel, play, and poem, ever made, but it stands as a perfect complement to his other works. He later denounced the film when its backer tried to release it to theaters. Whether Genet did this because he really believed that the film was no good or because it was too dear to his heart is unknown.ä öMatt Bailey Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (Kenneth Anger, USA, 1954-56, 16mm, 40 min.) A key work of American experimental film. It has been cited as an influence on Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe series and on certain shots in Martin Scorsese's Kundun. Anger's tribute presents a ÎDionysian revelâ. Includes appearances by erotica author and diarist Ana•s Nin and by avant-garde filmmaker Curtis Harrington. The title of the film comes from the poem Kublai Khan by the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge claimed that the poem came to him during an opium dream. The poem tells the story of the Mongol general and statesman who built a pleasure dome. The film, subtitled Lord Shiva's Dream, is a complex meditation of ideas that Anger absorbed from his interest in the occultist Aleister Crowley. Scorpio Rising (Kenneth Anger, USA, 1963, 16mm, 29 min.) A Îhighâ view of the Myth of the American Motorcyclist. The machine as totem, from toy to terror. Thanatos in chrome and black leather. Part I ö Boys & Bolts. Part II öI mage Maker. Part III ö Walpurgis Party. Part IVöRebel Rouser. "... a masterpiece in the specific sense that it is composed of clarities of the fire and water workings of your earlier films into a ritual of order, depth and complexity." öStan Brakhage <<back
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| Design: Vary Garro Design/Rio Saxon Design - Programming: Rio Saxon | ||||||||
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