Chronicling the counterculture http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090501.AHOTDOCSMANN01ART1537/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Movies/
LIAM LACEY May 1, 2009 Before anyone had heard of Michael Moore, reality television or the Hot Docs festival, Toronto filmmaker Ron Mann had already proved that the words "documentary" and "entertaining" went together surprisingly well. Though Mann, who turned 50 last year, had been making films since he was 12, his first real break came when he had a chance to shoot the Heatwave Rock Festival outside Toronto in 1980. When the deal collapsed, he seized the opportunity to make another film about the music he listened to while working at Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street. The result was Imagine the Sound (1981), a film that captured the mercurial intellects and performances of a generation of experimental free jazz musicians and became a model for the kind of countercultural archiving that has become Mann's specialty. In the years since then, Mann's films might be divided into those that bring an alternative perspective to subjects people think they understand (dancing, drugs, comic books) and those that push marginal subjects (free jazz, spoken poetry, small presses) into the mainstream. The seven films in the current Hot Docs retrospective, Focus on Ron Mann, include three features - Grass, Poetry in Motion and Twist - along with four shorter works. Flak (1976) Made when the director was 16, Flak is an improvised political drama about a group of young men living next door to a polluting factory, which they want to do something about. Influences include Michelangelo Antonioni's The Red Desert, John Cassavetes's Shadows and Robert Kramer's Ice. The film features four of Mann's older friends in a story about political talk and apathy. The Hot Docs screening is the film's first in 30 years. Dream Tower (1994) Dream Tower, the most Canadian of Mann's feature films (it was produced by the National Film Board and aired on CBC), is about Rochdale College, Toronto's famous experiment in co-operative living and self-directed education. The film concentrates on Rochdale's first two idealistic years, from the perspective of its first student, Paul Evitts, and his progress from idealism to disillusionment as the building became a centre for freeloaders and drug-dealing. At the same time, the film is a reminder that the community dubbed a "festering sore" made enduring contributions to Canada's cultural life, through institutions from Coach House Press to Theatre Passe Muraille. Flak and Dream Tower screen at Innis Town Hall, on May 3 at 7:15 p.m. Grass (1999) Grass, narrated by actor and pot advocate Woody Harrelson, is entertaining activism, showing the serious history of marijuana in the United States, starting from the turn of the century, when anti-marijuana laws were passed to control the Mexicans in Texas. The focus is on the legacy of the first Federal Bureau of Narcotics chief Harry J. Anslinger, who created the war on drugs to build a personal power base. May 1, 11:59 p.m., Bloor Cinema Poetry in Motion (1982) Mann's second major feature proved that his success with Imagine the Sound was no fluke. The film, through interviews and performances of 25 poet-performers, celebrates the power of the spoken word, and particularly the Beat legacy. Writers include Charles Bukowski, bp Nichol, Amiri Baraka, Michael Ondaatje and Allen Ginsberg. Echoes without Saying (1983) The film's title, which is a pun (say it aloud), served as the unofficial motto of pioneering printing and publishing company Coach House Press, founded by Stan Bevington. The film was originally commissioned for the CBC Canadian Reflections series, and features the collective members of the Coach House family, including Michael Ondaatje, Christopher Dewdney, bp Nichol, David Young, Victor Coleman and Sarah Sheard. Poetry in Motion and Echoes without Saying May 10, 6:30 p.m., Royal Cinema Twist (1989) Twist is an examination of the hip-swiveling late-fifties dance craze pioneered by Chubby Checker, which pushed American culture from squareness to awareness as the dance step became the physical expression of the do-your-own-thing philosophy. Marcia Resnick's Bad Boys (1985) This five-minute film captures New York art-punk photographer Marcia Resnick, as she shoots her mid-eighties photo series about the male of the species, both the famous and not-famous varieties. Twist and Marcia Resnick's Bad Boys screen on May 9, 9:45, Isabel Bader Theatre. . --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
