FILM EXHIBITIONS

Call Her Savage 

1932. USA. John Francis Dillon. 88 min.

Wild Girl 

1932. USA. Raoul Walsh. 80 min.

Genghis Khan 

1950. Philippines. Manuel Conde, Lou Salvador. 91 min.

Lola 

1961. France. Jacques Demy. 85 min.

The Dumb Girl of Portici 

1916. USA. Lois Weber, Phillips Smalley. 112 min.

Justine 

1969. USA. George Cukor. 116 min.

Once Upon a Time in America 

1984. USA/Italy. Sergio Leone. 229 min.

Anarchist Movies of the Spanish Civil War

Edouard Waintrop, the Artistic Director of the Director’s Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival and a former film critic for Liberation, is also the author of The Spanish Anarchists, a history of anarcho-syndicalism in Spain. He presents two programs of anarchist films made during the Spanish Civil War.

Carne de fieras (Flesh of Beasts)

1936. Spain. Armand Guerra. 68 min.

Reportaje del movimiento revolucionario (Report on the Revolutionary Movement)

1936. Spain. Mateo Santos. 22 min.

Barrios Bajos 

1937. Spain. Pedro Puche. 94 min.

Tell Me Lies (A Film about London) 

1968. Great Britain. Peter Brook. 118 min.

Off-Site Event

Limited ticket availability through www.oscars.org. On Sale October 1, 2012.

Un homme et une femme (A Man and a Woman)

1966. France. Claude Lelouch. 102 min.

San Diego Surf 

1968/1996. USA. Andy Warhol. 90 min.

Sparrers Can’t Sing (aka Sparrows Can’t Sing) 

1963. Great Britain. Joan Littlewood. 94 min.

Japan Speaks! Early Japanese Talkies

Program 98 min.

Madamu To Nyobo (The Neighbor’s Wife and Mine)

1931. Japan. Heinosuke Gosho. 56 min.

Kyojin Seifuku (Why Worry?)

1923/1930s. USA/Japan. Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor. 29 min.

Tsukigata Hanpeita 

1925. Japan. Teinosuke Kinugasa. 13 min.

The Face behind the Mask 

1941. USA. Robert Florey. 69 min.

The Clock: or, 89 Minutes of "Free Time"

1/48"
2008. Mexico. Directed by Jorge Lorenzo Flores Garza. Approx. 1 min.

Meissen Porcelain! The Diodattis’ Living Sculptures at the Berlin Conservatory [fragment]
1912-1914 [?]. France/Germany. Produced by Gaumont. Approx. 2 min.

The Case of Lena Smith
1929. USA. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Surviving 5 min. fragment.

Mosaik Mécanique
2008. Austria. Directed by Norbert Pfaffenbichler. 9 min.

HA.WEI. March 14, 1938 [archival title]
1938. Austria. Anonymous. 13 min.

Spare Time
1939. Great Britain. Directed by Humphrey Jennings. 15 min.

Yours
1977. USA. Directed by Jeff Scher. 4 min.

Recreation [original French version]
1956–57. USA/France. Directed by Robert Breer. 2 min.

Schwechater
1958. Austria. Directed by Peter Kubelka. 1 min.

Anthem
2006. Thailand. Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. 5 min.

Roller Coaster Rabbit
1990. USA. Directed by Rob Minkoff. 8 min.

The Present
1996. USA/Switzerland. Directed by Robert Frank. 24 min.

“This program is a somewhat surreal-populist attempt at telling a story of the twentieth century. In a more serious vein, it relates to three different notions of cinematic temporality: it talks about leisure or ‘free time’ (a realm of life usually regarded as the province of movie-going); it addresses the ‘time of film’ (a passing era that also produced new concepts of history and memory, both of which are now becoming more tenuous by the nanosecond); and it celebrates our imprisonment in ‘film time’ when experiencing a theatrical projection (the distinct duration of a film, its irrevocable passing at a specific pace of ‘X’ frames per second). Another way of looking at this film selection is through the eyes of Amos Vogel, who was born in Vienna in 1921, and who died in New York this past April. I hope that the program can also serve as a tribute to Amos. Among his many achievements in film culture was a new approach toward placing films alongside each other in an evening’s program, freed from their traditional groupings by era, genre, aesthetic, etc. In addition, the Viennese amateur film shown here—HA.WEI. March 14, 1938—is a document of the historical moment that turned seventeen-year old Amos Vogelbaum into an exile” (Alexander Horwath, Director, Austrian Film Museum). All films from the collection of the Austrian Film Museum, Vienna.

Program 89 min.

Forough Farrokhzad, Dušan Makavejev, Ulrich Seidl: Ethnographic Experiments

Prokleti praznik (Damned Holiday)
1958. Yugoslavia. Directed by Dušan Makavejev. In Serbo-Croatian; English subtitles. 9 min.

Boje sanjaju (Dreaming Colors)
1958. Yugoslavia. Directed by Dušan Makavejev. In Serbo-Croatian; English subtitles. 7 min.

Slikovnica pčelara (Beekeper’s Scrapbook)
1958. Yugoslavia. Directed by Dušan Makavejev. In Serbo-Croatian; English subtitles. 9 min.

Der Ball (The Prom)
1982. Austria. Directed by Ulrich Seidl. In German; English subtitles. 50 min.

The House Is Black
1962. Iran. Directed by Forugh Farrokhzad. In Farsi; English and French subtitles. 22 min.

"This program represents a vastly underrated strand in the discipline of film curatorship: experimental ethnography. Three young filmmakers, united neither by their circumstances, nor the tone they apply to their subjects of research, but by a free spirit and determination to confront the dominant traditions of documentary in their respective nations. Dušan Makavejev, still bracketed as an ‘amateur’ (read: ‘experimental’) filmmaker in 1958 Yugoslavia, was commissioned to make a number of short Kultur films for Zagreb Film and turned them into fanciful color field studies. Ulrich Seidl’s The Prom, produced at Vienna’s Film Academy (and the main reason for his being expelled there), is a different kind of field study: a belated return to his hometown in Lower Austria, observing the local students and notables as they celebrate high-school graduation. The House Is Black, Persian poet Forugh Farrokhzad’s only completed film—she died in a road accident at age 32—is widely considered the first masterpiece of the Iranian New Wave. In contrast to Seidl’s film, Farrokhzad’s account of a leper colony in northern Iran has no place for irony, but her gaze is equally penetrating. This is how she begins: ‘There is no shortage of ugliness in the world. If man closed his eyes to it, there would be even more’” (Alexander Horwath, Director, Austrian Film Museum). All films preserved by the Austrian Film Museum. The restoration of The House Is Black derives from a first-generation print made (and subtitled in French) for the film’s expected world premiere in Cannes, 1963. Instead, the director and her producer Ebrahim Golestan premiered it a few weeks later, at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, where the original copy has been kept ever since.

Program 97 min.

American Dreams (Lost and Found) 

1984. USA. James Benning. 55 min.

The Lower East Side and Coney Island: Lost and Found

Orchard Street
1955. USA. Directed by Ken Jacobs. In 1955, fresh out of the Coast Guard, Ken Jacobs bought a 16mm Bell & Howell and began documenting his immediate environment, a Lower East Side shopping street that reminded him of his childhood in Depression-era Williamsburg. He purposefully avoided romanticism and satire: “I wanted to get Orchard Street, without commenting on it.” Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with support from the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation. 12 min.

The Seward Park Branch and the Neighborhood It Serves
1934-59. USA. “View and experience Seward Park as the portrait of the neighborhood changes from crisp black and white to vivid color, as streets once filled with pushcarts become lined with sharp-finned cars, and as children sled on snowy sidewalks before sitting down for ‘story time’ in a green park. The earliest footage, from 1934–5 and 1941, was captured and edited by Grace Hardie, a former Seward Park Branch staff member. In 1959, Bill Sloan, head of the Donnell Library Center’s Film Library, and his wife Gwen shot the color section using a 16mm Bolex. At this time, Donald W. Fowle, a clerk at the Seward Park Branch, created the script as part of the branch’s fiftieth anniversary celebration. His narration has been read aloud at screenings of the film ever since. Mr. Fowle and the Sloans were assisted by Jean E. McIntosh, assistant branch librarian at Seward Park. A detailed account of the action – a shot list – was prepared by Tara D. Kelley of the Reserve Film and Video Collection in 2012” (New York Public Library). 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. 36 min.

The Dancing Soul of the Walking People
1980. USA. Written and directed by Paula Gladstone. Gladstone, a true Coney Islander, wrote, directed, produced and edited this film, and arranged the soundtrack using music by Duke Ellington and the Drifters with a voiceover of her own poetry. Shot over two years, the film is an abstract meditation on life under the boardwalk and a poetic document of a vanished world that emulates "city symphonies" of the 1920s such as Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with partial funding from the Women’s Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film and Television, the New York City Council and Eastman Kodak. 67 min.

Program 115 min.

A Cinema of Industrial Noise

Gerald McBoing Boing 

1950. USA. Robert Cannon. 7 min.

NYC Street Scenes and Noises 

1929. USA. 12 min.

Punking Out 

1978. USA. Maggi Carson, Juliusz Kossakowski, Fredric A. Shore. 25 min.

Symphonie mécanique 

1955. France. Jean Mitry. 13 min.

Hell-Bent for Election

An eclectic assortment of presidential campaign films and cartoon spoofs, proving that when it comes to the hard sell for the Highest Office in the Land, some things never change. Particularly fascinating and historically important are the Truman, Dewey, and Wallace campaign films made during their bitterly fought 1948 race.

The Dewey Story 

1948. USA. 10 min.

A People’s Convention 

1948. USA. 15 min.

Hell-Bent for Election 

1944. USA. Chuck Jones. 13 min.

Betty Boop for President 

1932. USA. Dave Fleischer. 7 min.

RFK ’68 

1968. USA. John Frankenheimer. 25 min.

George Wallace in California: The Beginning 

1968. USA. Jim Guillott. 30 min.

The Truman Story 

1948. USA. 10 min.

Il Generale della Rovere (General della Rovere) [original director’s cut] 

1959. Italy/France. Roberto Rossellini. 138 min.

Sally Cruikshank: Underground Maestra of the Animated Musical Comedy Extravaganza

Heir to the crazy cartoons of the 1930s (and the head comix of the 1960s), animator Sally Cruikshank is a national treasure. Back in 1981, American Film praised her for all but singlehandedly resurrecting the Depression-era “funny animal” cartoon—“as authentic an American idiom as jug band music or situation comedy.” Since then she has soldiered on, creating acerbically hilarious, wonderfully detailed candy-colored cartoons about neurotic ducks and fashionista horses. This tribute, presented by Cruikshank herself, includes newly preserved prints of her cel-animation classics, Quasi at the Quackadero (1975, elected to the United States National Film Registry in 2009), Make Me Psychic (1978), and Face Like a Frog (1987, featuring an original soundtrack by Oingo Boingo), interspersed with a sampling of her commercial movie credits, including the trailer for Ruthless People (1986), beloved Sesame Street spots, and several of her wonderfully eccentric versions of the old Fleischer brothers’ Song Car-Tunes that eschew the hot jazz of the early 1930s for the mellow doo-wop of the 1950s. Program 90 min.

UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

In 2005, UNESCO established October 27 as World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. With the 2012 presidential election rapidly approaching, the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program at New York University has assembled a collection of archival audiovisual material from New York City institutions that centers on the belief that every citizen should have a say in his or her own government. From celebrations of the electoral process in the inspiring 1972 Tellin’ the World to memories of those who fought to have their voices recognized in never-before-heard interviews from StoryCorps, these recorded images of political history compel us to question our understandings of democracy, freedom and equality—ideas that are invoked and all-too often exploited by politicians. Campaigns, elections, and the process of democracy throughout the past century are examined on local, national, and international stages. The program culminates with raw footage captured by Human Rights Watch during the Arab Spring, edited into its award-winning 2012 piece Uprising. Program approx. 120 min.

Gabriel over the White House [American release version] 

1933. USA. Gregory La Cava. 94 min.

Rufus Jones for President 

1933. USA. Roy Mack. 21 min.

Abraham Lincoln 

1930. USA. D. W. Griffith. 93 min.

When Lincoln Paid 

1913. USA. Francis Ford. Approx. 25 min.

Gabriel over the White House [British release version] 

1933. USA/Great Britain. Gregory La Cava. 86 min.

Rufus Jones for President 

1933. USA. Roy Mack. 21 min.

The White House Home Movies: Richard Nixon on Super-8

Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas were not the only “amateur” filmmakers who embarked on open-ended home-movie epics during the 1960s. As President Richard Nixon tape-recorded his conversations for posterity, so his devoted aides—H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Dwight Chapin—shot hundreds of rolls of Super-8 film documenting the historic moments and everyday occurrences of the Nixon presidency. Official banquets, parades, ceremonial balls, campaign rallies, and world-historic state visits “become mere episodes in one man’s life, rather than political events.” This special—dare we say, historic?—program includes a selection of raw camera rolls, several restored sequences (among them Nixon’s 1972 trip to China), and excerpts from Brian Frye and Penny Lane’s work-in-progress Our Nixon, and features a conversation with the filmmakers and Nixon’s chronicler, Dwight Chapin, moderated by J. Hoberman. Program approx. 90 min.

The Spanish Dancer 

1923. USA. Herbert Brenon. Approx. 105 min.

Richard 

1972. USA. Harry Hurwitz, Loreen Yerby. 83 min.

Tricia’s Wedding 

1971. USA. Sebastian (Milton Miron). 33 min.

Der Leone Have Sept Cabeças 

1970. Italy/France/Congo-Brazzaville. Glauber Rocha. 95 min.

I giorni contati 

1962. Italy. Elio Petri. 99 min.

Anni difficili (Difficult Years)

1948. Italy. Luigi Zampa. 113 min.

Giovanni Pastrone and Pina Menichelli: The Italian Femme Fatale

Tigre Reale (Royal Tigress)

1916. Italy. Giovanni Pastrone (under the pseudonym Piero Fosco). Approx. 79 min.

Le Spectre rouge (The Red Spectre)

1907. France. Segundo de Chomón, Ferdinand Zecca. Approx. 9 min.

Il Fuoco (The Fire)

1915. Italy. Giovanni Pastrone (under the pseudonym Piero Fosco). Approx. 51 min.

La belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty)

1908. France. Albert Capellani, Lucien Nonguet. Approx. 15 min.

En avant la musique (Music, Forward!)

1907. France. Segundo de Chomón. Approx. 3 min.

Sekretar’ Rajkoma (The District Secretary)

1942. USSR. Ivan Pyr’ev. 91 min.

V Šest’ Časov Večera Posle Vojny (At Six O’Clock in the Evening After The War)

1944. USSR. Ivan Pyr’ev. 97 min.

A opção ou As Rosas da estrada (The Option)

1981. Brazil. Ozualdo Candeias. 88 min.

20 Years of Viennale Trailers: From Godard to Weerasethakul 

1995–2012. Austria. 20 min.

Johnny Cool 

1963. USA. William Asher. 103 min.

Right On! 

1970. USA. Herbert Danska.

Mirage 

1965. USA. Edward Dmytryk. 108 min.

Twilight’s Last Gleaming 

1977. USA. Robert Aldrich. 146 min.

Breathdeath 

1963. USA. Stan Vanderbeek. 14 min.