Documentary

Quote:
Rarely is a making-of doc so perfectly matched in tone or storyline as the subject of its gaze, but The Idiots and The Humiliated are furiously intertwined, in a mindgame kind of way that seems quite — Von Trier-ian? Filmmaker Jesper Jargil accepted an assistant director post on The Idiots under the condition that he be allowed to make his own film about the film, and the result is as personal and scarring as Von Trier’s masterwork. Using the same DV cameras as Von Trier was using, Jargil covers the actors and director living in the same communal space (much as the film’s characters do), and as Lars pushes his actors to the brink of emotional endurance, he himself goes bonkers in a paranoid, hypochondriachal fit — and the viewer is left feeling as if the whole production is the brainchild of a semi-mad cult leader intent on instantly capturing on tape every neurosis he wishes to purge in the real world. Unprecedented and ultra-rare, The Humiliated is an intimate meta thrill ride.Read More »

Navajo Silversmith
This film is structured in almost the same fashion as the weaving film. The film starts with a series of shots showing the Navajo silversmith completing the filing on some little Yeibechai figures which have already been cast and are on his work bench. We then cut away from this (as in A Navajo Weaver) to what is apparently the beginning of the story. We see the silversmith walking and wandering across the Navajo landscape and finally arriving at what appears to be a silver mine.Read More »

A Navajo Weaver
Susie chose to depict her mother as she wove a rug. The film starts with a series of short shots showing a Navajo woman weaving at her loom. It then turns to the job of raising the sheep, shearing the wool, digging yucca roots for soap with which to wash the wool, carding and spinning, walking, digging and searching for roots with which to make dye, dying the wool, and putting the warp on the loom. Interspersed with these activities are large sections showing the mother walking and searching for the various materials necessary to make and to complete all these stages in the process of weaving. When towards the end of the film, after 15 minutes have gone by, the mother actually begins to weave the rug, we see interspersed shots of Susie’s little brother mounting his horse and taking care of the sheep, the sheep grazing, and various other activities around the hogan.Read More »

This very short film offers a brief consideration of the major works of Bertel Thorvaldsen (ca. 1770-1884), one of the most famous of all Danish artists and arguably the greatest sculptor between Bernini and Rodin. Resting squarely within the Neoclassical tradition, Thorvaldsen’s great talent was his ability to perfectly balance his sculptures, giving them a sense of weightlessness. (Of course, the sculptures are also extremely beautiful, but in our post-WWII era there’s something disquieting about admiring a northern European artist’s conception of ideal physical beauty. I suppose that’s unavoidable, but Thorvaldsen’s reputation has happily escaped associations with Nazi ideology.)Read More »

Synopsis:
This is Ogawa Productions’ first major film from their Yamagata period. They had already started photography on Magino Village-A Tale but they were drawn to this village deep in the high country above Magino when a particularly cold bout of weather threatened crops. Inevitably, their attention strayed from the impact of weather and geography on the harvest to the “life history” of Furuyashiki Village. On the one hand, Ogawa returns to his roots by playing with the conventions of the science film. At the same time, he discovers a local, peripheral space in which to think about the nation and the state of village Japan. From this “distant perspective” in the very heart of the Japanese mountains, Ogawa discovers a village still dealing with the trauma of global warfare and struggling for survival as their children flee for the cities.Read More »

A government funded documentary warning those about the danger of cancer.Read More »

Over a span of five years, a wing of the Kunstahlle Mannheim is torn down and rebuilt.Read More »

Governor George Wallace will not let two black students into an Alabama school, against the wishes of President Kennedy. Loud shouts come from both sides of the issue as JFK stands by his decisions.Read More »

Quote:
“I CALL FOR A THEATRE IN WHICH THE ACTORS ARE LIKE VICTIMS BURNING AT THE STAKE, SIGNALLING THROUGH THE FLAMES.” – Antonin Artaud

Julian Beck and Judith Malina picked up the torch from Artaud and carried it into the theaters and streets of the world for more than 40 years. Their Living Theatre inspired the off-Broadway movement in the 40’s and 50’s and the radical theatre in the 60’s and 70’s. This tale of social and esthetic breakthrough weaves excerpts from their most controversial productions with on-the-road interviews with Beck and Malina, who define their lifelong commitment to a revolutionary art in which politics and theatre are inseparable.Read More »