A rare screening of Stan Brakhage’s legendary experimental feature film, Dog Star Man (1961-1964, 75 min.), in its original silent 16mm format, as the filmmaker intended.  A new print will be shown.

Screens with Legendary Epics Yarns and Fables, Part 2: Stan Brakhage (Stephen E. Gebhardt and Robert Fries, 1969, 9 min.), an interview film with no interlocutor.

“I wanted it to be as real from the very beginning as life happening.” — Stan Brakhage

Four years in the making, this influential and much-revered abstract work is widely regarded as the masterpiece of legendary filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who made more than 350 films over 50 years. A psychedelic freakout, mytho-poetic dissertation and aesthetic shot-across-the-bow all in one, Dog Star Man is an unforgettable work of high artistry, as challenging as it is rewarding.

Unlike Brakhage’s later and better-known painted films, Dog Star Man draws mainly on filmed actualities. Its components are all contained in the stunning Prelude. Over the next four parts these elements are fragmented, manipulated and recombined in a mosaic of increasing complexity.

On one level the film depicts an intensely mythic spiritual quest, a deeply personal farago informed by Brakhage’s lifelong study of poetry and symbolism. On another level it is a purely visual tour de force of editing and composition that can be experienced solely on its own (or your own) terms.

Dog Star Man was a landmark that proclaimed the vibrancy of the experimental cinema, both by its length and for its radical departure from (most) prior experimental film aesthetics.  It influenced (and often divided) the discussion, creation, and very conception of experimental cinema for decades to come. For Brakhage, Dog Star Man represented an aesthetic rebirth, moving past the psychodramas of his youth, which he was already respected for, into the visually tactile poetry of his mature years.

Time Magazine, 1967:
“Stan Brakhage, 37, a husky hypochondriac who lives with his wife and five children in a log cabin in Colorado, has radically rewritten movie grammar. By fragmenting his films into frames, Brakhage has established the frame in cinema as equivalent to the note in music; whereupon he proceeds to make films with frames the way a composer makes music with notes.”

Fred Camper:
“More than any other filmmaker, he defined the cinema as a visual being, liberating it from non-visual considerations, and as visually useful for expressing a totality of thought.”

Jake Euker, PopMatters.com:
“Dog Star Man [is] a 74-minute epic on what Brakhage calls ‘the big daddy’ theme, or man in his natural state as father, husband, lover, and provider, pitted against nature, and seen from the atomic to the astral levels. …Its very conception — a portrait of a man in all of life’s roles — recalls in part James Joyce’s depiction of Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. Dog Star Man is a work of realism into which abstraction intrudes. It was in this film that he first scratched and painted designs directly onto film, and his use of such devices as under- or over-exposing film or experimenting with focus, not only render much of Dog Star Man truly abstract, but signal the full acceptance by the filmmaker of those methods which bloom so magnificently in his later work.”

P. Adams Sitney, Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde 1943-1978:
“Dog Star Man develops in mythic and nearly systematic terms the universal vision inherent in lyric films. More than the entire body of the American avant-garde cinema, this work is situated in the rhetoric of romanticism, in its description of the emergence of conscience, the cycle of the seasons, the battle of man against nature and the sexual ambivalence in the visual evocation of an earthly titan bearing the comic name, Dog Star Man.”

August 4, 2010
Dog Star Man (1961-1964)
Northwest Film Forum (advance tickets available now)

Stan Brakhage’s landmark experimental feature film, shown in its original 16mm format and silently, as intended by the filmmaker.  Screens with Legendary Epics Yarns and Fables. Part 2: Stan Brakhage (1969), a short interview film by Stephen Gebhardt and Robert Fries.

September 23, 2010
First Words: The Birth of Sound Cinema, 1895-1929
Northwest Film Forum

A program of rare short films tracing the evolution of sound from its earliest experiments through its transformation of the entire industry.  Plus, period 78rpm records played on a real Victrola by collectors Robert Millis and Jeffrey Taylor of the bands Climax Golden Twins and AFCGT.

November 11, 2010
Breakaway: Films by Bruce Conner
Northwest Film Forum

A rare opportunity to see a selection of Conner’s outstanding film works in their original format, celebrating what would have been his 77th birthday.

Also: we’re hoping to have another Halloween Spook Show Spectacular — stayed tuned for updates!

Part of the year-long 69 series.

Northwest Film Forum
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
8:00 PM

16mm (original format) / 71 min.

A selection of landmarks in avant film from 1969, featuring classic short works by many of the year’s greatest pioneering artists. Featuring classic “analog” films and examples of the birth of digital cinema, with early video art and even some of the first digital computer animation ever made.

Watch streaming video and more info about the artists and films

Invocation of My Demon Brother
Kenneth Anger, with synthesizer soundtrack by Mick Jagger
His last film for 21 years.

Our Lady of the Sphere
Larry Jordan
Surreal cut-out animation by a master

Moon 1969
Scott Bartlett
Mesmerizing video/film art

Le Labyrinthe
Piotr Kamler, with electronic score by Bernard Parmegiani
created for Pierre Schaeffer’s ORTF in Paris

Binary Bit Patterns
Michael Whitney
Pioneering digital computer animation

Beatles Electronique
Electronic Moon no. 2
Jud Yalkut and Nam June Paik
Visionary video art

Hermann Nitsch: An Introduction to the O.M. Theatre
Stephen Gebhardt
A shocking documentary of the ground-breaking Aktionist performance artist and composer

Part of the year-long 69 Series.

Northwest Film Forum
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
8:00 PM

16mm (original format) / 88 min.

A schizoid sampling of the incredibly diverse underground documentary and newsreel film scenes in 1969. The Black Panthers meet Pentecostal Christians amidst the psychedelic ruins of Chicago’s Democratic Convention Riots. Plus, a rarely-shown early interview with the legendary Kuchar Brothers.

Just added: Fallout Shelter Analysis by Computer Graphics, a Dept. of Defense instructional film for what was then a cutting-edge computer interface using a “light pen” stylus.

Testimony
Brian Patrick
A group of Pentecostal Christians in Athens, Ohio

Mayday!
California Newsreel
A “Free Huey” rally held by the Black Panthers in San Francisco, on the May 1 international labor holiday. Crypto-commie perennial Bob Avakian makes an appearance at the microphone as well.

Legendary Epic Yarns and Fables, Part 4: The Kuchar Brothers
Stephen Gebhardt
A no-holds-barred interview with the legendary underground exploitation filmmakers

Leo Beuerman
Gene Boomer
An Oscar-nominated look at the life of a severely handicapped man in Lawrence, Kansas

Campaign
Tom Palazollo
The 1968 Democratic Convention and its aftermath as seen through a local experimental lens

Just added!
Fallout Shelter Analysis by Computer Graphics
University of Utah Computer Center, for ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), US Dept. of Defense

Grand Illusion Cinema
Friday, October 30, 2009

Carnivorous Cartoons, Shocking Shorts, Asphyxiating Animation, Terrifying Trailers, Putrescent Previews…and Real Live Mayhem!

Do you dare to witness the ultimate onslaught of MONSTER MAYHEM as the Grand Illusion Cinema is overrun with creeps, spooks, ghouls, and fiends? Join us on our journey into the strange, dark world of the SUPERNATURAL as we try to make contact with the other side and invite the diabolical denizens of the spectral realms into our theater. You will see a GHOST! But you may not SURVIVE! Be there on October 30th and behold as the phantoms take over the screen for a night of the most unbelievably SHOCKING, THRILLING, and AMAZING fright films ever to scream their way into your rapidly melting mind. Can you survive the GRAND ILLUSION SPOOK-SHOW SPECTACULAR? See if you have what it takes!!

They need to raise $70,000 by August 15, or face significant cuts to core programs and their small staff.

They are asking for donations of any size.  You can use this secure online donation form (there’s an “Other Amount” box at the bottom of the membership options), send in a check via snail mail, or drop by the place personally and hand them a 10-spot.

In a July 30 message sent to 10,000 email subscribers and posted online (here, here, and here), NWFF Executive Director Lyall Bush said that income for the year was down by 30%.  “While we remain scrappy and imaginative in tough spots, this time is different,” he wrote.  “We are looking at real changes…programs such as Soul Nite and ByDesign could go. It means fewer masterpieces such as “Silent Light” showing up on our screens. It means maybe no more camera rentals. Jobs and programs are on the line.”

Curator of special programs Peter Lucas was furloughed indefinitely earlier this summer.  Several other key positions are now said to be in immediate risk of furloughing or even elimination.

The Northwest Film Forum is an invaluable part of Seattle’s arts community, providing 2 theaters filled year-round with films and events, financing and production support for regional filmmakers, workshops and training, very inexpensive film and video equipment rentals, editing facilities, a collaborative space for artists of all disciplines, it sponsors the Seattle Children’s Film Festival, rents office space to filmmakers and festivals, does some film distribution, has a film vault and even a lending library.  They have working relationships with other local organizations, colleges and universities, embassies and consulates, PBS, and film institutions around the world.

Any city would be lucky to have an arts organization like that, and precious few do — especially one devoted to film arts.

The NWFF has been very supportive of the Sprocket Society, and many many others.  Please consider supporting them now, when they need it most.  All it’ll take is 3 minutes of your time and two clicks.

Among the pieces Lerman will be performing is Sections for Screen, Performers and Audience (1974), the score for which is on 16mm film projected so that both audience and performers can see it.  Joining Lerman in performing the composition are members of the Seattle-based ensemble Eye Music, which specializes in playing graphical scores.

The concert is being produced by Nonsequitur, a longtime supporter of avant garde and creative music.  The Sprocket Society will be helping out by projecting the 16mm film score.  We’re honored and excited to be participating in the program.

Other pieces being performed include:

• Sonic Journeys 2 — excerpts from Lerman’s Transducer Series: multi-channel field recordings made with self-made microphones played over dual video projections of footage from more than fifty Super 8 films made between 1982-1988
• Entrance Music — for home-made microphones and Walkman cassette tape delay
• Changing States 8 — for metal microphones, butane torches and computer
• Music for Plinky, Bicycle & Straw — for home-made instruments, bicycle, drinking straws, and Walkman cassette delay

Beginning the evening’s concert will be “a sonic celebration” for esteemed Seattle musician, sound collector, and instrument builder Susie Kozawa in honor of her 60th birthday. Everyone is encouraged to “Bring an object that makes a sound.”

Richard Lerman bio:

As a sound artist, performer and composer, Richard Lerman traverses worlds of sound and music.

For over forty years, he has been gathering, scanning, seeking sounds and creating works that weave through nature and draw upon living communities and memories in notable landscapes.

Lerman’s performances and recordings rely on everyday objects and traditional instruments as well as basic, self-invented equipment and state-of-the-art technologies, as they were available since the 1960s.  His scores and instructions are deceptively simple, yet produce extraordinary results.

As a filmmaker, sound documentarian, installation artist, and collaborator with other artists, he demonstrates that his conception of sonic reality and musical experience is interdependent with visuality, motion, actual sites and moments, theatricality, live audiences, and politics.

His art takes him from studios and concert halls to cities and the outdoors, worldwide.

It’s a good, basic but fairly thorough primer on how institutions (or individuals) with little or no funding for such things can undertake film preservation.  It includes the fundamentals (terminology, basic tech) as well as strategies and practices that should be followed.  It’s all very practical and realistic, easy to understand, and highly recommended.  There’s even sample forms like condition reports you can print out and use.  The “Resources and Bibliography” section is brief but well selected.

Preparation of the manual was funded by a grant several years ago from the Washington Preservation Initiative (WPI), which awarded $20,000 to the University of Washington Libraries to preserve films in their Special Collections (much it on 16mm) and create the manual for free distribution to other institutions.

This effort by Visual Materials Curator Nicolette Bromberg and her staff provided a springboard for the Washington Film Preservation Project in 2005-2006.  Funded by a $29,000 grant from the WPI, the Project brought together eight other museums, archives and libraries, as well as several institutions within the University of Washington, to learn film preservation techniques, and use the UW Libraries Special Collections’ facilities to inspect, clean, repair, and rehouse the films in their collections, as well as prepare digital masters and videotape viewing copies of selected holdings.

Also participating in the Washington Film Preservation Project were:

• The Burke Museum
• The Seattle Municipal Archives
• Everett Public Library
• The Highline Historical Society
• The Museum of History and Industry
• University of Washington Ethnomusicology Archives
• Weyerhaeuser Company Archives
• Providence Health System Archives
• The Museum of Flight
• The Yakama Nation

Among the member organizations, “there are approximately 6,000 films in collections ranging in size from 50 reels up to thousands, most of which are original and irreplaceable materials. The format of most of the films is 16mm, although there is some 35mm, Regular 8mm and Super 8mm among the holdings. The films come from every corner of our region and cover every conceivable genre from industrial and educational films, to documentation and research films, to films created by students and those produced by professionals.”

This was followed by public screenings of preserved films at the Northwest Film Forum, the Yakama Nation Native American Film Festival, and elsewhere.  Excerpts from 27  films in the UW collection are now available as Quicktime video on the Libraries’ Digital Collections web site.

Bromberg also made presentations about the Project to the Seattle Area Archivists, the Oregon State University Archives, and at the 2007 Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) annual conference in Rochester, NY.

Now a huge number of these program notes, along with a number of original press kits he collected, are available online at the William K. Everson Collection web site offered by New York University, where he taught for more than 20 years.  Included in the online collection are program notes for screenings by the 300 Film Club (1949-1950) and the Huff society (1953-1982), as well as for classes and series he led at the New School (1966-1990) and Marymount Manhattan College (1970-1972).

The program notes are in a variety of formats, usually (but not always) more than one:  HTML, PDF, and/or scanned Jpegs.  The HTML versions are all cross-linked with other related notes.  The entire collection is searchable, or you can browse by series (then year of screening), director, title, or country of origin.

New York University is to be praised for providing free global access to these wonderful documents that are so central to the history of film preservation and appreciation.

We’ll post details as it gets closer to the series, so stay tuned…

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Poster for 'Zorro's Fighting Legion', 12 chapter movie serial

It’s official — The Sprocket Society will be curating Secret Sunday Matinee II at the Northwest Film Forum this spring, March 1 – May 24, 2009!

Now at a later time — 3 PM (by popular demand).  Each show will be a full two hours of classic and rare movie entertainment.  Series passes will be available.

Our movie serial this time will be Zorro’s Fighting Legion (1939), one of the all-time classics from the legendary Republic Studios, packed with literally non-stop action and featuring legendary stunt work.

The Secret Features — dating from the 1920s through the 1950s or so — will lean toward westerns, adventure, and swashbucklers, but we’ve got some curveballs in mind to keep you on your toes.  There will be two all-silent film programs (except for the serial, of course), and the return of the 13th Episode Show, a series-finale cavalcade of extra-special surprises.

The shows will remain family-friendly (suggested for ages 10 and up), but we’ll be aiming for a slightly older audience this time — sort of a kiddie matinee for grown-ups.

No self-respecting weekend matinee would be caught in public without its shorts, and there are even more surprising and rare treasures in store this time around — silents and sound, cartoons, comedies, music, trick films, experimental animation, and the just plain odd.

Watch this site for more info soon…