Hi Albert, all, First, I've seen Agnes Martin's Gabriel only once, but fairly recently (2020), and I remember it being set in high desert & seaside. (Hi Arindam.)
Canyon distributes Richard Myers' Jungle Girl and it was probably the first film that popped up in your search there. Their blurb ( https://canyoncinema.com/catalog/film/?i=1729) isn't so helpful so I've OCRed and appended John Schofill's notes from a 1988 Experimental Film Coalition screening at Chicago's Randolph St Gallery. It's pretty tangential to your interest, it's a long film (100 minutes), and it's been 36 years since I've seen it, but I believe one continual thread has Myers' actors re-enacting scenes from the Jungle Girl serial, but obviously far removed from any jungle, in Ohio. I remember it as being sweet, not campy or B-movie-esque, with a tinge of what Schofill below calls "Midwest surrealism". I'd like to see it (and others of Myers' films) again. Eric " Richard Myers began filmmaking with the 20-minute short, THE PATH (1960), followed by two more works of that length, the highly-acclaimed classics FIRST TIME HERE (1964) and CORONATION (1965). Though he has continued to make shorts and personal documentaries from time to time, his course was set in the late Sixties with the production of his first black-and-white feature, AKRAN, an extremely personal, two-hour dream-scape shot in and about the city of Akron, completed in 1969. Since then, he has shot four more features, ranging from 60-100 minutes in length, each taking two to four years to complete: DEATHSTYLES (1971); 37-73 (1974); FLOORSHOW (1978); and JUNGLE GIRL (1984). But for DEATHSTYLES, his sole extended venture into color, all are filmed in Myers's characteristic black and white, as is his newest work-in-progress, MOVING PICTURES (1985- ), which he describes as a "dream scroll film." JUNGLE GIRL (1978-84) was last seen in Chicago in its premiere at the 1984 Chicago Film Festival. Like all of Myers's longer works, JUNGLE GIRL is based on dreams, memories, and "active imagination" (to borrow a term from C.G. Jung, one of Myers's influences) rendered on film in a style that might be identified as "Midwest surrealism". The specific inspiration for JUNGLE GIRL arose from memories awakened when Myers, during the filming of his previous feature, FLOORSHOW, witnessed the demolition of the favorite movie theater of his childhood in Akron. Later, a chance viewing of a sequence from the 1940's Republic serial, JUNGLE GIRL, that he had seen at the theater as a boy set him on the course of creative fantasy, toward the rediscovery and re-creation of a lost love of his youth. The beautiful and athletic Frances Gifford, star of the JUNGLE GIRL serial, was that lost love. The career of Frances Gifford, a rising starlet after the success of the popular serial in 1941, came to an abrupt and tragic end when her face was scarred in an automobile accident in 1948. Taking a rare journey outside the Midwest, Myers sought out Gifford, whom he found living in seclusion in a small apartment in southern California. She agreed to meet with the filmmaker for a taped interview, which is heard on the soundtrack, but would not consent to [be] filmed. Myers turned to Mary Leed, friend and long-time collaborator who has appeared in all of Myers's longer films, to take the part of his childhood heroine. Her husband, Jake Leed, was cast as the serial's male lead. (Arriving in town for this screening, Myers noted that Frances Gifford's birthday is December 7, three days from now.) Myers writes on JUNGLE GIRL: "If it is true about losing part of your soul...every time you have your photo taken... then I must own the souls of Jake and Mary Leed. They have worked in films with me for almost 20 years. The Leeds are my friends and I thank them for their time, energy and encouragement. I also thank my family for their help...my wife Pat, my children Mike, Kelly, and Kerry (Mike helped with the sets for JUNGLE GIRL and Kelly helped organize a lot of the 'actors' for the film. I want to thank my mother and father for being in the film and to the many Kent State students and faculty for being in the film. "BLOOD OF A POET by Jean Cocteau was once described as a celebration of the Mysteries... the mysteries of New York, the mysteries of Paris...and even the mysteries of China... It was the perils of Pauline, the adventures of Zorro: masks and revolvers, bloody battles, bandits and lawmen, kidnappings, disappearances, mistaken identities, "Whodunits", child rearing, executions and suicides, keyholes, non-reflecting mirrors...marvels of all sorts. "The serial JUNGLE GIRL was like this to me as a child. I was fascinated with it...especially with the leading lady, Frances Gifford. In her I found a sense of great beauty and strength... and in the serial there was an unbearable exhilaration for nature and 'objects'...animals and masks, witch-doctors, trap-doors, torture chambers, and secret rooms.. marvels of all sorts. "The young actress Frances Gifford appeared in JUNGLE GIRL, a Republic serial, in 1941. Later...a tragic accident halted her rising career. My film is a blend of Gifford's story, along with my own dreams and memories of Gifford and the serial that I saw and loved as a child. The film is a PERSONAL-EXPERIMENTAL-PORTRAIT of Gifford... along with my own AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL related images..." - notes written and edited by John Luther Schofill " On Mon, Apr 29, 2024 at 4:01 AM Albert Alcoz <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I am writing this email to ask if you know of experimental films or video > creation pieces in which the jungle is the main setting. I have been > searching on the websites of the main distributors but the term "jungle" > does not give as many results as I expected. > > Apart from these five titles, do you have leftover titles of other pieces? > > *Timber *(Coldcut & Hextatic, 2000) > *Travelling Amazonia* (Marine Hugonnier, 2006) > *16 mm* (Daniel Steegman Mangrané, 2008-2011) > *Curupira, bicho do mato* (Curupira, Creature of the Woods, Félix Blume, > 2019) > *Murmurs of the Jungle *(Sohil Vaidya, 2021) > > Any reference will be appreciated. > > All the best, > Albert Alcoz > -- > http://albertalcoz.com/ <http://www.albertalcoz.com/> > -- > Frameworks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org >
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