Lessons of The Videomaster by Skip Blumberg

Just watched Skip Blumberg's Hommage to Nam June Paik, a nice document focusing on the wake. Nam June's Wake... run riverun. Uptown to where the black clad artists comb their hair before paying respects to such a man, open casket, who single-handedly wielded the porta-pak that invented video art. Wielding his own modern-day porta-pak on the streets of NYC, Blumberg asks the people he meets at Paik's wake what they learned from Nam June, inserting little graphics and inset frames of clips from historical Paik video like "Global Groove" or 1984's international satellite telecast "Good Morning, Mr. Orwell". In the gallery-like setting of the wake, students rub shoulders with dignified art stars and come away equals in Paik's democratic kingdom of video. The disc includes documentation of the event held at the Guggenheim Museum to honor Paik, a beautiful performance by Yoko Ono that is the crown jewel of this dvd.

A blow-by-blow description of the Paik wake and Guggenheim event can be found at Yoko's website:
http://www.a-i-u.net/paik_rev.html

Miranda July 1: Me and You and Everyone We Know; Learning To Love You More

I was on a Film Arts Foundation panel with Miranda July about 7 years ago in San Francisco. I don't recall exactly the subject, perhaps distribution of film in the future or alternate forms of film presentation, but we 3 Wet Gate members were there along with Miranda and several other artistes. I do recall that Ms. July directly contradicted something I said and I felt that the way she did it was authoritarian, it pissed me off and I lost some respect for her then. I'd heard of her work distributing women's film and video on VHS tape collections and bought 1 years ago at Amoeba records for its inclusion of Naomi Uman's "Removed", an old porn film reworked with nail-polish remover to erase the female image. She has since directed a major independent feature (Me and You and Everyone We Know) which won a number of major awards and now has a group of printed page publications coming out, including the "arts education" book Learning To Love You More. Clearly, July is an energetic and innovative person, and she is moving fluidly from the margins of the art world into a vocal role in the culture at large. I respect her for it and wish her the best.

I liked Me and You and Everyone a lot and recommended it to everyone I know, but was disappointed that July made some story decisions that made the film unviewable for older and perhaps slightly more socially conservative persons. There is sexual language in the film that is simply too crude for most older audiences and I'm sure there were lots of walk-outs at the theater. At the same time I realize the film is largely/partly about children having sexual lives or that there is no definite time at which children should or shouldn't be exposed to the truth of the sexual world. There is a current of film using extreme sexual situations I think for gratuitous effect or in a kind of cold cool that demands that the viewer push themselves through new ways of thinking about sexuality, or be offended and leave the room. While I'm not too easily offended by frank sexual material I am turned off by smug tough guy use of it, and I felt that from this film, some of the same things I feel from Todd Solondz films and other current young directors. I simply believe there are ways of saying things that don't alienate a whole portion of the viewing public. There are so many good sequences in July's film that I felt it was a failure to have to make a small section of it lurid in a Pink Flamingos kind of way. I wonder if July's decision to co-write the film with visitors to her website, collecting comments written there and shaping them into a script, allowed her subjects to get out of hand. The idea of co-writing a script with many semi-anonymous others is certainly innovative and pushes the usually auteurial film-making towards the more collectively creative. But something in the way of soul, or accountability perhaps, can be lost.

Miranda does translate previous video art pieces of her own very nicely in Me And You, showcasing her personal vignette style of video-making as a recurring motif in the film and depicting her character as one trying to connect to a museum or gallery curator with varied success. It's a nice autobiographical storyline and perhaps the best depiction of "what is a performance artist" in recent film.

I saw 2 new books by July at Vroman's Books in Pasadena recently, a book of short stories and this art book, "Learning To Love You More". It looks like an intriguing collection of assignments for art school students and the products of such assignments and I think this could be very useful for teachers and students of creative process. Again, July has opened her authorial access into a show of works and ideas by a lot of the young and unknown people and students she interacts with. She has taken some ideas basic to Fluxus, particularly the idea that a work of "art" can be a score or instructions open to interpretation by a multitude of other people. The creative act is not so much a lonely studio creation, but is the social nexus or network created through ideas and communication itself. Like a new telephone. Could be good, could cause unwanted long distance charges. Could ask us to review the work of Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys or Linda Montano. I also can't get my head around the Learning To Love You title. Smarmy. I like the proposition that art can be psychologically healing, but July comes across a bit like an inflatable doll with such a title, willing to be bent into any position to please. Or appear that way, Bambi-eyed, only to slam you down later in a dark alley. The provocation is good PR but presses the Oh No button. What, you? Love me? You didn't at the Film Arts round table. I guess my reaction is par for the course, to barter in cliches.

The world has become a big magazine rack and everything on it is instantaneous and disposable. Ironic? Well, nice in a mean kind of way.

Amazing Documentaries: The Take

We crossed paths with Avi Lewis in Perth, Australia when Wet Gate was there for some concerts as part of the Revelations Film Festival, July of '05. Lewis was showing his recently completed The Take, a documentary of worker takeovers of factories abandoned by bankrupt owners in Argentina. I didn't have a chance to see The Take back then nor speak much with Lewis, but finally saw this impressive piece of independent documentary work and must recommend it to anyone interested in social change and true progress. Indymedia activists Lewis and Naomi Klein went to Buenos Aires during the chaotic period after 2001, when the country saw 5 different presidents fail to right a series of financial collapses in the country. Carlos Menem was the last and worst of these, actively selling out the country's resources to foreign interests and allowing a huge flight of existing capital from the country. This is summarized in The Take as background to a series of worker take-overs of factories in the country, whereby working people sought to take control of their labor. A great team of activist filmmakers worked under exceedingly difficult conditions in a country under financial seige by its moneyed class and haunted by living specters of dictatorship when activists were disappeared. A tremendous testament to the seemingly endless abuse of power in another country forced to its knees by the "loans" of the International Monetary Fund. Required viewing.

Amazing Documentaries: Henri Langlois, Phantom of The Cinematheque

Another wonderful history lesson in a can: this portrait of the life of Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinematheque Francais in Paris. Contains wonderful historic footage of Langlois through periods of his life: during the German Occupation, how films were acquired, stored and preserved(?), building a huge national treasure of a film library and providing screenings of essential cinema which taught generations of young filmmakers where to start. Great footage of turbulent 1968 Paris, when Langlois was under seige by more conservative social forces and demonstrations mounted in support of him featuring Godard, Truffaut and academic-revolutionary Daniel Cohn-Bendit. A great slice of French cultural history and necessary viewing for film collectors and preservationists.

Amazing Documentaries: The Agronomist

Finally had the chance to view this tremendous piece of history by Jonathan Demme, who I don't tend to think of as a political filmmaker, but this is great work. The heart breaking life story of radio activist Jean Dominique, who played a large role in the democratic uprising in Haiti through his radio commentaries at Radio Haiti, the station he founded and which acted as a voice for the people. The film serves as a succinct history of Haiti in the 20th century, with summaries of the years under dictators Papa Doc Duvalier and son, Baby Doc, and how the US has meddled in the affairs of this poor country for so long. Also chronicles the rise and fall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country priest who became Haiti's first democratically elected president. But the center of the film remains Dominique, a uniquely firey personality who you'd expect might be an actor or theate director, just so much life in his eyes and his speech. A beautiful portrait of a life stopped short by the thuggish repression that has paralyzed Haitian society for too long.

Brand Upon The Brain!

Thanks to the local papers we were reminded of the appearance of this traveling minstrel show of a film at the LA Cinemateque's Egyptian Theater and we saw the blessed performance of Sunday night, June 10. It turned out to be one of the cinematic events of the year; so many people were involved in pulling off the live soundscore that accompanied this silent film by Guy Maddin. From the lost city of Winnipeg, Canada, Maddin has carved a unique spot for himself in the film festival circuit, making antique-style B-movies using super8 film equipment, a major accomplishment in the digital era. And of the several I have seen Brand Upon The Brain is certainly the most coherent and conceptually solid, though this could be a product of the beautiful live presentation.

A chamber ensemble of piano, strings and winds and 2 percussionists play a beautiful score by Jason Staczek and this ensemble is augmented by a live foley crew of 3 persons making all of the sound effects live. The film was full of little sonic nuances and shadings; every action was sonically performed in some way by the foleyists on every sort of noise device: wooden steps and doors, spring and wind devices, cheap toy megaphone. The detailing given to the sound was tremendous and all of the elements worked together. The piano playing was particularly intricate.

The film was composed in 12 parts, "A Remebrance In 12 Chapters", and was further divided by silent film style title cards. But the crowning touch to this evening's show was the presence of German film legend Udo Kier, a dashing man with a beautiful voice which added another layer of text as spoken narration. "The Past, the past...", Kier intoned dreamily as the hi-con black and white imagery flowed past. We saw a super8 transer to video projection of very high quality that night, but there is also a 35mm film print, probably transfered from that video copy, which i hope to get to see, with Isabella Rosellini as narrator. The film has toured to many festivals and had many guest narrators.

Brand Upon The Brain tells the story of a man returning to the lighthouse orphanage run by his crazed mother and the many deviant specifics of his childhood there. Strange love triangles and midnight trysts are complicated by Maddin's usual over-the-top circular story-telling style. It is simply marvelous to see super8 film being used to such great ends. The full throttle climax ending of the film was thrilling.

There was excellent publicity done for this weekend of screenings; it was evident by Sunday that buzz had spread about this event. The 600 seat theater was packed to the rafters and the room was excited. (I saw Tati's Playtime re-release in this theater on their giant 70mm screen.) I may have been a bit fatigued this Sunday night because I reacted a bit negatively to Maddin's hectic editing style. He constantly messes with the flow of the film, presenting a jumbled, chaotic nightmare which in some ways is saved by the beautiful live score. (I was reminded of Darren Ornofsky's "Requiem For A Dream" which I think descended into a editing bloodbath towards the end.) But I do look forward to seeing Branded Upon The Brain again and changing my first impression which was, after all, bombarded by the whole live sound cinema of this unforgettable event. The excitement and involvement of so many people in the performance of this film tells me I may have been seeing through tired eyes.

The Lion Still Has Wings

In 2004, my friend and film collaborator Jeff Plansker was invited to make a short film using Sony's new HD Cine Alta video camera, in recognition of his work as a director of commercials. A strange honor, in that Sony provides the camera and a technician, but the director/production co. must pay for the production; a clever way to promote the use of HD video with users and I guess a good opportunity to work on an open project for the director. For several years, Sony organized a series of short films made this way as their "Dreams" project, screening the results in LA, NY and Cannes. I believe 2005 was the last year of Dreams.

Jeff told me in the fall of 04 that he was trying to work with a writer-collaborator on a short story for the project, and perhaps I would be called on to make music for it, but come 2005 they hadn't come up with a clear story, and the project was due by the end of February. I was called in as clean-up crew, invited by Jeff to develop the alternate project idea. We consumed a few bottles of RGW (really good wine) and put some ideas on paper. We wrote the piece in 2 days, pre-produced for 2 days, shot for 2 days, and edited the film in 2 days. It was instant filmmaking, a pretty exciting way to work.

The theme of that year's Dreams project was "Flight". And we retained one idea from the initial story Jeff had been working on: that of filming in a actual airplane interior, which exists as a set in West Hollywood i think. We removed all language from our film vocabulary and decided to make a music piece. Of course we started kicking around ideas inspired by Fluxus events but then wound up narrowing in towards something closer to Stockhausen. Jeff had heard of a choir that was willing to work on film projects and I came up with an editing scheme that could collage the actual singing of the chorus into an experimental audio piece.

The Truncated Turbo-Pascal Editing System is a new method for randomizing the edit process. About 10 years ago I had some ideas about creating random templates for video-film editing after being first introduced to the Avid system. I believed that company might have been interested in developing a series of plots or patterns that could be applied to any digitized film footage to come up with interesting sequences which human intervention would pass by or just miss in the almost infinite combinations of possible edits. I met with an editor in LA (Bobby Briggs, if i remember correctly) who heard about my idea and was interested, but nothing ever came back to me about my proposal (to create templates for a digital editing system). I may have written once to Avid also, with no response. Anyway, this new project allowed me to make a breakthrough with the same idea. I quickly developed a new way to apply random numbers to a film bin with the help of editor Noah Herzog, whose nimble mind quickly understood what I was trying to do and we applied the System to this project.

So, the shoot days went well; it was a nice, relaxed project. Unfortunately, the one area I didn't think through or get enough info in advance on was the fact that this fancy HD camera has 8 or 9 tracks of audio built into the tape. So, we had stupidly hired the usual DAT recorder boom and tape op guys ("sound speed"), who did get us a decent stereo recording of everything we shot, however: 2 stereo mics could have tapped directly into the video recorder and made the audio compositing (finishing, putting together) so much easier. We also could have used a multi-mic surround recording approach but didn't think of it. really, Sony dropped the balls by not educating us about the sound properties of their system; and we were making a SOUND piece! I think the mic built into the camera captured a mono audio track.

The film we made: THE LION STILL HAS WINGS, consists of 3 sections, each of which directly derives from the experience of airplane flight. In the edit room, we applied the TTPES (Truncated Turbo-Pascal editing System) to the main segment, the 2nd section, of the film, in which the choir sings inside an airplane. I brought Jeff's brother's old casio into the plane set and played the octave of notes beginning with a low e-flat and going up from there. With each note, the choir would collectively repeat the note after hearing it until we had recorded 2 octaves I believe. Some variations and chords were built with the help of the choir director. The Turbo-Pascal system neatly divided the choir shoot into 91 shots. We used a random number generator to determine the sequence in which these shots were placed and their length in frames (up to 91 frames). The result had some tremendous collisions and, with some massaging of the material by Mr. Herzog, became a beautiful audio piece. Matt Dunlop did an amazing job of converting the stereo tracks from DAT to the camera-mic edit version we first created. A lot of very good people helped make this film, which I consider an instant film. It wasn't free, in fact it was quite costly to produce. But I think it's a nice indicator of what is possible.

Nods to Carl Swanberg for the gorgeous reel-to-reel machines.

Please view THE LION STILL HAS WINGS at www.lionstillhaswings.com