Behind in postings, so sending this to the list, for those of you in Southern California tomorrow:
Sunday July 26, 2015, 7:30 pm Los Angeles Filmforum presents Reclamation Works: New and recent films by William E. Jones and Thom Andersen At the Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90028 William E. Jones and Thom Andersen in person! One U.S and five Los Angeles premieres! William E. Jones and Thom Andersen each return to Filmforum to present recent works that look deep into past films to find and revitalize their meanings. Whether social investigation, political commentary, or a now-forgotten filmmaker¹s documentation of an era largely forgotten, these two artists again show why they are two of the finest cinema makers of today. Five works by William E. Jones include one U.S. and four Los Angeles premieres, and Thom Andersen¹s Juke is its local premiere. For more event information: www.lafilmforum.org <http://www.lafilmforum.org> , or 323-377-7238 Tickets: $10 general, $6 students/seniors; free for Filmforum members. Available by credit card in advance from Brown Paper Tickets at http://bpt.me/2005522 or at the door. Screening: Midcentury (William E. Jones, 2012, video, color, sound, 30:00) *U.S. premiere Midcentury is a compilation originally commissioned for the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009), reworked once for the 57th Oberhausen Film Festival (2011), then again for an exhibition at White Cube in London (2012). Its form mimics that of a network¹s broadcast day, condensed to a half hour. Although Midcentury contains no first person narration, it can be considered an autobiography of sortsthe work of a hyperactive child who grew up in an industrial wasteland during the Cold War and watched far too much television. Juke: Passages from the Films of Spencer Williams (Thom Andersen, 2015, 29 min.) *Los Angeles premiere! ³During the 1940s, Spencer Williams directed nine race films for Sack Entertainment in central Texas, and he acted in eight of these films. Six of these films exist today. ³In Juke, I attempt to reclaim his work, to demonstrate its originality and beauty as well as its documentary value. Williams returns always to the same theme: the struggle between the sacred and the profane, the church and the juke joint, gospel and blues. He portrays both with equal conviction. The church always prevails, but he gives the devil his due. That¹s what makes The Blood of Jesus a masterpiece: it takes a miracle to bring her back from the allure of the city and its night clubs. ³The drama in his other films is more banal, but I began to notice a remarkable documentary record of black life in the 1940s in these films. There are the nightclub scenes, of course, but there is also a precious recording of residential spaces, from the shack in The Blood of Jesus to the comfortable middle class home in Juke Joint. ³I bring out these documentary qualities by looping shots of empty interiors and showing actions freed from the plot. I am not trying to make some new meaning from these films; I am striving to bring out the meanings that are there but obscured by the plot lines: the dignity of black life and the creation of a dynamic culture in the segregated society of 1940s Texas. I regard my movie as a kin to Walker Evans¹ photographs of sharecroppers¹ homes in the 1930s and George Orwell¹s essays on English working class interiors. ³Juke was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art to open its film series ³A Road Three Hundred Years Long: Cinema and the Great Migration,² running in conjunction with a show on Jacob Lawrence¹s ³Great Migration² paintings.² --Thom Andersen Shoot Don¹t Shoot (William E. Jones, 2012, video, color, sound, 4:30) *Los Angeles premiere Shoot Don¹t Shoot adapts a 1970s law enforcement instructional film that trains officers to decide by instinct whether or not to fire their guns. The suspect in this sequence fits the following description: ³a black man wearing a pinkish shirt and yellow pants.² Bay of Pigs (William E. Jones, 2012, video, black and white, sound, 3:55) *Los Angeles premiere Bay of Pigs makes use of a ³captured² film from the CIA Film Library, Girón, a production of El Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematographicos documenting the aerial bombardment of la Batalla de la Playa Girón, or as it is known in the United States, the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The soundtrack comes from a numbers station called ³Atención² after the first word announcing the shortwave radio broadcast. All governments have denied the existence of numbers stations, as well as their purpose, espionage. An FBI arrest in 1998 of suspects involved in broadcasting coded messages from Florida to Cuba led to the only public acknowledgment of this phenomenon. Actual TV Picture (William E. Jones, 2013, video, color, sound, 7:09) *Los Angeles premiere Actual T. V. Picture juxtaposes footage of a jungle in Viet Nam being bombed by an American war plane with a late-1960s television commercial showing recent advancements in miniature transistors. This technology made possible improvements in consumer goods like television sets, but its origin was in military weaponry, as the advertisement shows. The color of the original films has not been altered. Images of the former material are predominantly green; the latter, faded to red, as virtually all Eastmancolor film stock manufactured in the 1960s and 70s has or will. The soundtrack comes from shortwave radio broadcasts that the government of Viet Nam interrupted with harsh, discordant frequencies. They have been carefully edited in an elaborate mix that sounds a bit like techno music. The film was finished on the 40th anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords, the treaty that officially ended the United States¹s direct military involvement in the Viet Nam War. Model Workers (William E. Jones, 2014, high definition video, color, silent, 12:16) *Los Angeles premiere Model Workers presents a collection of paper money bearing images of workers. Intricately engraved details are arranged in chronological order; full views of the banknotes are in reverse chronological order, ending at the beginning: Mexico, 1914. The montage includes colonies and the independent countries they became, as well as former and present socialist states. Workers from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe are represented. Only the world¹s biggest capitalist powersUnited States, Japan, United Kingdom, and the recently unified Eurozoneare missing. They do not acknowledge the source of their wealth on their currency. William E. Jones is an artist and filmmaker born in Canton, Ohio. His works include Massillon (1991) and Finished (1997), The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography (1998), Is It Really So Strange? (2004), and many other films and videos that have been shown internationally. In recent years he has turned to writing; his books include ³Killed²: Rejected Images of the Farm Security Administration (2010), Halsted Plays Himself (2011), Imitation of Christ (2013), Flesh and the Cosmos (2014), and the forthcoming True Homosexual Experiences: Boyd McDonald and Straight to Hell. He lives in Los Angeles. http://www.williamejones.com/ Thom Andersen has lived in Los Angeles for most of his life. In the 1960s, he made short films, including Melting (1965), Olivia¹s Place (1966), and --- ------- (1967, with Malcolm Brodwick). In 1974 he completed Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer, an hour-long documentary film about Muybridge¹s photographic work. It was restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive in 2013. In 1995, with Noël Burch, he completed Red Hollywood, a critical video essay about the film works created by the victims of the Hollywood Blacklist. Their work on the history of the Blacklist also produced a book, Les Communistes de Hollywood: Autre chose que des martyrs, published in 1994. In 2003 he completed Los Angeles Plays Itself, a three hour-long movie about the representation of Los Angeles in movies. It was voted one of the 50 best documentaries ever made in a Sight&Sound critics¹ poll. In 2010, he completed Get Out of the Car, a short 16mm portrait of Los Angeles. In 2012, he directed Reconversão, an HD video about the work of Portuguese architect Eduard Souto Moura, the winner of Pritzker Prize in 2011. He has taught at the California Institute of the Arts since 1987. He screened his latest feature film, The Thoughts That Once They Had, at Filmforum in April 2015. --------------- This program is supported by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; Bloomberg Philanthropies; and the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Additional support generously provided by American Cinematheque. We also depend on our members, ticket buyers, and individual donors. Los Angeles Filmforum is the city's longest-running organization screening experimental and avant-garde film and video art, documentaries, and experimental animation. 2015 is our 40th year. Coming Soon to Los Angeles Filmforum: July 26 - Reclamation Works: New and recent films by William E. Jones and Thom Andersen Aug 2 - The Royal Road, by Jenni Olson Aug 15 - Mush to the Movies: ESKIMO (1933) (at the Velaslavasay Panorama) Memberships available, $70 single, $115 dual, or $50 single student Contact us at [email protected]. Find us online at http://lafilmforum.org. Become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LosAngFilmforum!
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