Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.63.0509112134350.7785@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: LESLIE THORNTON RETROSPECTIVE
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 21:35:01 -0400 (EDT)
Please note - this should be absolutely excellent! - Alan LESLIE THORNTON RETROSPECTIVE Anthology Film Archives www.anthologyfilmarchives.org PROGRAM 1: The Archive Thursday, September 15 at 8:00 PROGRAM 2: Early Works and Collaborations Friday, September 16 at 8:00 PROGRAM 3: A Quest Saturday, September 17 at 6:00 PROGRAM 4: PEGGY AND FRED IN HELL: End in New World Sunday, September 18 at 6:00 Program Summaries: <I started watching experimental films at the Unitarian Church in Schenectady, New York when I was fifteen. Then I went to college and had the extreme good fortune of taking classes with, well not really classes, but I got to listen to a lot of the great filmmakers boast and argue about their work -- Frampton, Brakhage, Sharits, Kubelka, Godard, Leacock. By the time I started making films (I was painting) I figured those guys had opened up a lot of space, but that I wanted to go someplace completely different, to deal more with the surprising world. I was drawn to the filmmakers who could dig into emotional states and tell stories differently, or tell different kinds of stories, such as the Kuchars, Warhol, Ken Jacobs, Yvonne Rainer, Alan Sondheim, the surrealists. I was very interested in textures of speech and gesture, in-and-of-themselves, like an anthropologist of our own culture. Early on I realized that I wanted each film to be like a new leap into the abyss.> --L.T. Leslie will be on hand for a Q&A after each program, & will present a surprise from her personal archive at every show. PROGRAM 1: The Archive Almost all of Thornton^s work includes archival footage used in a very distinctive way. <I want to spark the imagination into sensing something of a past, while at the same time giving a place for the images to have a full, awesome present. Not to privilege the past, but to experience wonder that it exists, like looking at stars.> --L.T. OH, CHINA, OH (1983, 3 minutes, b&w, 16mm) ADYNATA (1983, 30 minutes, color, 16mm) [DUNG SMOKE ENTERS THE PALACE] (1989, 16 minutes, b&w, 16mm film & video) ANOTHER WORLDY (1999, 24 min, b&w-color 16mm) CHIMP FOR NORMAL SHORT (1999, 7 min, 16mm) LET ME COUNT THE WAYS: Minus 10, 9, 8, 7~E(2004-05, 20 minutes, color, video) Total program time: ca. 110 minutes Thursday, September 15 at 8:00 PROGRAM 2: Early Works and Collaborations The early works show the influence of both the structural and minimalist preoccupations of the film and art world, then fast-forward through a series of experiments in storytelling. Subjects include portraits of eccentrics, dying and faith in art; collaborations are with Ron Vawter, the Wooster Group, and others. X-TRACTS (1975, 9 minutes, b&w, 16mm film) ALL RIGHT YOU GUYS (1976, 16 minutes, b&w, 16mm film) HOWARD (1977, 20 minutes, b&w, 16mm film) JENNIFER, WHERE ARE YOU? (1981, 10 minutes, color, 16mm film) SHE HAD HE SO HE DO HE TO HER (1987, 5 minutes, color, 16mm film) Produced in conjunction with Fireworks, an experimental theater production STRANGE SPACE (1993, 4 minutes, color, video) Co-produced with Ron Vawter RHYME ^EM TO DEATH, a film by THE WOOSTER GROUP, cinematography by LESLIE THORNTON (1992, 12 minutes, b&w, video) THE LAST TIME I SAW RON (1994, 12 minutes, color, video) Total program time: ca. 95 minutes Friday, September 16 at 8:00 PROGRAM 3: A Quest Thornton became obsessed with the biography of Isabelle Eberhardt, a late-nineteenth century traveler and adventurer who passed herself off as a Muslim man and lived a scandalous life in North Africa. The program includes her groundbreaking feature-video, <Unseen Cloud...> and excerpts from an ongoing project entitled <The Great Invisible>, in which she digs deeper into Eberhardt^s story and into her ecstatic, yet devious relation with Islam. THERE WAS AN UNSEEN CLOUD MOVING (1988, 60 minutes, color, video) THE HAUNTED SWING (1998, 16 minutes, color, video) Total program time: 80 minutes Saturday, September 17 at 6:00 PROGRAM 4: PEGGY AND FRED IN HELL: End in New World The 2005 version of the on-going series, 90 minutes, 16mm & video <Forever unfinished, Thornton^s magnum opus resembles nothing else known in the cinema avant-garde; two children, Peggy and Fred, in a setting that could have been invented by an elder, pessimistic brother of Samuel Beckett, talk, dance, sing and squabble with each other as they move through the history of the 20th Century.> -- Bill Krohn, CAHIERS DU CINEMA <There^s something edgy and strong about PEGGY AND FRED IN HELL... which comes on like a Godard movie starring children... an audacious film/video you won^t want to miss.> --John Powers Total program time: ca. 90 minutes Sunday, September 18 at 6:00 ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street) New York City Telephone: (212) 505-5181 www.anthologyfilmarchives.org _____________________________________________________