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Sarah Jacobson I Was a Teenage Serial Killer (1992)
‘Inspired by underground cinema, indie record labels and ‘zine culture, Sarah Jacobson was a one-woman powerhouse of independent filmmaking in the 1990s. Taking on every major function from production through distribution, Jacobson operated with a fuck-you, can-do attitude that shone through her work onscreen and beyond.
‘The 27-minute short I WAS A TEENAGE SERIAL KILLER was produced with the encouragement of filmmaker George Kuchar, Jacobson’s instructor at San Francisco Institute of the Arts. Like SLACKER meets Valerie Solanas, the film depicts a 19-year-old woman who responds to catcalls, condescension and bad sex the only way she knows how: murder.
‘Jacobson’s work stands in opposition to what she dubbed “Indiewood,” the ‘90s era of movies that claimed independence while playing it safe. In her short life, Sarah Jacobson proved herself as a shitkicker and rule breaker, finding fans in Allison Anders, Tamra Davis, and Kim Gordon. These films stand as a testament to the vision, grit, determination, and raw talent of the Queen of Underground Cinema.’ — Alicia Coombs
the entire film
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Birgit Hein and Wilhelm Hein Rohrfilm (1968)
‘One of the most important structural films of the period, Rohfilm demonstrates a radical anti-representational approach, destroying the figurative image and bringing attention back to the ‘raw’ photographic material, particularly its physical form. Resisting a stable reference point, the film is a multi-layered onslaught of blurred impressions, shifting surfaces and grating sounds that activates a form of sensuous viewing. In the making of the film, the Heins employed just about every technique of defamiliarization, including direct intervention on the surface of the film strip, rephotography, remediation, and different kinds of mechanical interruption and destruction. It is a striking example of a truly handmade approach. (Kim Knowles)
‘“Particles of dirt, hair, ashes, tobacco, fragments of cinematic images, sprocket holes and perforated tape are glued onto clear film. This is then projected and re-photographed from the screen, since the conglomeration of strips and glue technically only allow one projection. During this process the original gets stuck now and then in the projector gate, so the same image appears again and again, or film frames melt under the excessive heat of the projector, which is running at a very slow speed. The ensuing film is put through all kinds of reproduction processes, projected as video, appears on the editing board and on a movie-scope, and is filmed again in order to capture the specific changes engendered by the processes of reproduction. Other pieces from various positive and negative strips and from 8mm and 16mm strips with their different frame sizes are also glued together and re-filmed. 8mm film is run without a shutter through the viewing machine and rephotographed so that frame borders and perforations, in other words the film strip as material, become visible” (Hein 1971: 149).’ — Reset the Apparatus
Excerpt
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Timothy Carey The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962)
‘The World’s Greatest Sinner is the story of the mysterious transformation of insurance salesman Clarence Hilliard into a “rockabilly messiah.” Clarence quits his job, changes his name to God, and exhorts his followers to become “superhuman beings,” working the crowds at his pep rallies into a frenzy! Urged on by a sinister image-maker, God Hilliard parlays his rock stardom into a career in national politics, founding the Superhuman Being Party. His followers wear jet-black uniforms with God’s name inscribed on their arm bands. At this point, Sinner becomes a souped-up, low-budget version of All the King’s Men (1949), a fictionalized account of the rise and fall of Louisiana Governor Huey Long.
‘The concert performances that Carey unleashes in Sinner are genuinely exciting. Goateed and with dangling oil-slicked hair, Carey looks great and has the rock gyrations down pat; he radiates boatloads of charisma and exhibits genuine showmanship. It’s also great to see this excellent actor (so often relegated to uncredited bit parts) in a lead role. Frank Zappa’s music is deft and compelling, not some fake rock ‘n roll soundtrack a la Les Baxter. Despite its limited distribution, Sinner’s reputation spread far and wide. In 1969, while Carey was shooting his scene for Elvis Presley’s last film, Change of Habit, the King approached Carey and asked for a copy of Sinner. He’d heard good things about it.
‘Carey shot most of Sinner in El Monte and Long Beach, California from 1958 to 1962. The movie was mainly self-financed from Carey’s earnings as an actor in such films as East of Eden (1955), The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Gunfight at Dodge City (1959), The Boy and the Pirates (1960), and Mermaids of Tiburon (1962), as well as his frequent guest appearances on television in Westerns like Gunsmoke and Rawhide. Tim also got $25,000 in sponsorship from a man in Louisiana (M.A. Ripps, the producer of the drive-in classic Bayou, 1957, in which Carey starred),” recalls actor Gil Barreto, who played the Mexican gardener in Sinner. Tim kept on shooting until about 1965 and stopped, because he ran out of money and the guy wouldn’t give him any more.” (Even though Sinner was barely released in 1962, Carey continued working on it—re-editing the footage and shooting new scenes—for the rest of his life.)’ — Absolute Films
the entire film
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Storm de Hirsch Divinations (1964)
‘Despite the fact that De Hirsch’s contributions to the avant-garde film film scene of the 1960’s has been largely forgotten, her work remains a source of inspiration to the underground. She started out as a poet before switching over to film as a medium of expression. In an interview with Jonas Mekas on the making of Divinations she said, “I wanted badly to make an animated short and had no camera available. I did have some old, unused film stock and several roles of 16mm sound tape. So I used that- plus a variety of of discarded surgical instruments and the sharp edge of a screwdriver- by cutting, etching, and painting directly on both film and tape.”
‘Divinations is a hallucinatory, dizzying, and meditative collage of image and sound. The work is part of de Hirsch’s (1912-2000) trilogy of films entitled The Color of Ritual, the Color of Thought (1964–67). To make the work she subjected rolls of 16mm sound tape and unused film stock to a process of cutting, scratching, and painting. Richly hued, abstract swaths of painted film are interspersed by black and white footage of a series of interior spaces. Multiple scenes depict a kind of circular motion–the camera spins around a room or tea leaves eddy at the bottom of a cup. An early film by de Hirsch, Divinations attests to the artist’s interest in form, color, and process, as well as myth, ritual, and mysticism.’ — collaged
the entire film
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Bette Gordon Variety (1983)
‘In Bette Gordon’s pioneering indie film about voyeurism from a female perspective, a young woman (played by Sandy McLeod) works as a ticket taker in a porn theater, and her curiosity leads her to shadow a male patron. Variety radically subverts the classic narrative mode of presenting stories from the perspective of the male gaze (exemplified by such films as Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo), and in its place asserts the presence of female desire. Female director Bette Gordon subtly infuses the narrative with layers of ambiguity about the motives and movements of the female protagonist all the way through to the final image of the film.
‘Gordon developed her filmmaking craft in the avant-garde circles of the 1970s, making her own small-format films as well as in collaboration with James Benning on a series of loosely strung narratives depicting the American landscape. With her features Empty Suitcases (1980) and Variety (1984), Gordon became identified with the No Wave cinema movement emerging from the punk rock music scene of the Lower East Side (see Blank City, TFF ’09). Variety features an unparalleled collaborative team of downtown artists and performers, including composer John Lurie, cinematographer Tom DiCillo, writer Kathy Acker, photographer Nan Goldin, and actors Spalding Gray and Luis Guzmán. In retrospect, Variety also represents a time capsule of New York City, filmed at bygone landmarks like the Variety Theatre, Fulton Fish Market, and Yankee Stadium, as well as an edgier incarnation of Times Square.’ — Tribeca Film Festival
the entire film
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p.s. Hey. The episode of ‘Bookworm’ devoted to PERMANENT GREEN LIGHT with Zac and myself as guests is out and listenable if you click this. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I Think the camp in the slave posts comes from the re-contextualising, but I guess I do at least have an eye for how that works, true. Well, the ghost in our next movie is a pretty important aspect of it, so I think it’ll probably be our ‘ghost’ movie. ** _Black_Acrylic, I am indeed (still into Eurovision), and I’m rushing a bit this morning due to an imminent meeting, but I am highly intrigued to get a gander at Hatari, so this afternoon .. click. Thanks for thinking of me thereby, Ben. ** Sypha, I thought that might perk up your eyes. Yes, MySlaveName appears to have a good understanding of what his niche audience wants. ** Natty, Hi, Natty! How lovely to see you, sir! You’re coming to Paris? Whoa, great! Why, or, I mean, why not? Well, I don’t know my sched. for September yet, but chances are I’ll be here, and I’ll make an extra effort to be here if that means we can meet up. Do you know your dates yet? Fantastic! How are you? What’s going on? ** Steve Erickson, That was my guess too. No clue as to what Caverta is. Re: the pills, you know as much as I do. Good for Morris for self-distributing the film. Given the dire state of distribution possibilities for uncommercial films in the US these days, that’s the way to go when necessary and given the resources to do so. Given my my admittedly limited experience re: US film screenings and distribution with ‘PGL’, and my knowledge of other filmmakers’ experiences there, I think the ‘political correctness’ problem is a very, very real problem. ** Brendan Lott, Sweet! I honestly wasn’t sure if they were still in operation. I saw OM a number of years ago, and it was totally killer. Let me know how the show is now. Enjoy maximally. ** Bill, Hi. Ha ha, me too, the resemblance. We’re supposed to get heat again on Monday, but the workers have not confirmed the appointment yet, so fuck knows, but, yes thank you, because March is starting chill-ily. ‘Akira’s’ fun? I’ve been on the fence, but, okay, fun sounds very nice. ** Right. Today you a quintuple feature of some awesome and not easy to see otherwise films. Pick one to five of them and kick back, if you can and want. See you tomorrow.
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