______________ Arthur GansonVarious, 2008 – 2009 Kinetic sculptures constructed of wire and steel and others
Machine with Abandoned Doll
Machine with Grease
Knife Throwing Machine from ‘Shadow of a Doubt’
______________ David FriedSelf Organizing Still-Life, 1998 ‘Audible sound is transformed live into waves that silently stimulate each of the spheres into motion. The resulting action of the individual spheres and their interactions with one another are undetermined.’
______________ Hans HaackeWide White Flow, 1967 electric fans, white silk fabric
_____________ Robert BreerRug, 1968 golden aluminium, motors
_____________ Julius von BismarckEgocentric System, 2015 ‘It’s a giant concrete saucer spinning on an axis with the artist—who is tall, always in a designer suit jacket and rocking a ZZ Top-worthy beard—constantly inside. While the concave concrete structure spins, von Bismarck sits at a desk, or lies in a bed, or carefully walks around.’
_____________ Michael SailstorferForst, 2010 trees, engines
_____________ David EllisTrue Value (Paint Fukette), 2011 kinetic sound installation by David Ellis with composition by Roberto Carlos Lange
_____________ Björn SchülkeVarious, 2014 – 2018 sculptures, video- and sound installations, solar art
_____________ Michael GottliebZoomba, 2014 sculpture, motor, cocaine
_____________ Maxim ZhestkovUntitled, 2018 ‘Archive experiments with real-time installations and transferring energy from one kind to another.’
______________ Alan RathVoyeur III, 2007 Fiberglass, aluminum, G‐10, custom electronics, LCDs
______________ John DouglasPowers Locus, 2015 wood, steel, plastic and electric motor
______________ Ujoo + LimheeyoungMachine with Hair Caught in It, 2017 stainless steel, electronics, dc motor, human hair, chain
______________ Valdis CelmsGreece, 1967 ‘The artist made the strange kinetic object Greece in parallel to his academic assignments, while being a student at the Art Academy’.
______________ Choe U-RamRound Table, 2022 ‘“Round Table” is an installation work that features 18 headless straw figures that are all crouched down to hold on their backs a large black table. On top of the table is one single straw head and as the head rolls toward one edge the figure will try to claim it as its own while in the process allowing it to roll further away.’
______________ Simon WhethamVarious, 2021 – 2022 motorised instruments
As yet untitled 6th piece almost complete
Two dancing VHS loader/players
There’s always one quiet one…
______________ Otto PieneLichtballett, 1961 Synthetic sheeting, metal stands, light fixtures, transformer, and string
______________ Mathieu Zurstrassen\pär′ti kəl\, 2020 ‘”\pär′ti kəl\”is an interactive data sonification device, composed of an automated one string guitar driven by the Invisible.’
______________ Hrvoje HirslSpheres (Euclidian space), 2014 ‘The number of the spheres is variable, depending on the size and position of the work in the space. The spheres are randomly placed in the space, unequally distant from each other, creating fields of blanks and clusters. They are pneumatic and they respond to visitors, like some excited organic creatures, leaping in the air with an accompanying whistle when someone approaches them and tries to pass by them. They are connected by a system of rubber tubes to an air supply, that is, a compressor. A system of valves and sensors determines the order of their ignition and extinction, depending upon the presence of the visitors.’
______________ MespléKilling Time, 2017 ‘As a viewer approaches, a sensor detects their presence and triggers the handmade electromagnet to begin a curated sequence; drawing and releasing the ferrofluid with breath-like motions.’
______________ Julio Le ParcContinuel lumière cylindre, 1962 sculpture with rotating light inside 4 mirrors
______________ Bob TrotmanHave A Nice Day, 2017 wood, motor, tempera, wax
______________ Rebecca HornBee’s Planetary Map, 2021 ‘Empty beehives fill the space with the haunting buzz of a wandering swarm of bees. Honey-yellow light streams from the suspended baskets, which is in turn reflected off of round, rotating mirrors and projected across walls and ceilings. At regular intervals, a paving stone attached to a mechanical winch falls from the ceiling and shatters one of the mirrors. Spinning splinters of mirror chase panicked scraps of light across the room.’
______________ Kenny WongVarious, 2016 ‘(1) A slightly unbalanced machine pointing downwards is waiting to spin in high speed. Its kinetic motion comes from a single propeller from quadcopter parts. The noise of the spinning propeller amplifies the uneasiness, tension and fragility of the human depiction that spins in front of the viewer. The machine rotates at various speeds, randomly decided by the microcomputer. At the same time that is in motion, it attempts to stabilize the LCD display with a video of a woman taken from overhead. (2) Each sheet is fitted with 5 small motors, which produces vibrations in the metal. As the metal sheet thickness varies, vary different sounds are produced, with every imperfection and discrepancy on the surface creating new and unique qualities of sound. (3) The solenoid is randomly pressing the power button of the broken TV. A structure was built to barely hold the TV panel at the corner to decay. In behind, it is still playing a video that unable to display correctly.’
Undermine
The Canvas Of Resonance
Undermine.interim_1
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p.s. Hey. Terry Ratchett asked me to thank you for your attention and good words yesterday. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Interesting about ‘Drag Race’. That does make me want to check it out to understand what the problems are. I totally think its huge success is a big victory. I’ve just always been drawn to the more artistic and experimental/ confrontational or oddball drag practitioners: Vaginal Davis, the Goddess Bunny, Deaundra Peek, Divine, Leigh Bowery, Ethyl Eichelberger, etc. and ‘DR’ has always seemed too … vanilla (?) for me or something. I tend to do my escort and slave hunting first thing in the morning while I’m coffeeing. It concentrates me and helps wake me up. Love is very lucky! My copy of ‘Missed. Better Still’ is waiting for me in my LA apartment. Love teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony, G. ** CAUTIVOS, Hi. Ah, happy that Terry’s post made successful introductions. I’ll try to find one of Haslett’s novels in a store and poke around in it. My year has good vibes so far. What are you particularly looking forward to doing or happening this year? Hugs back. ** _Black_Acrylic, Oh, man, I really hope you’re feeling a whole lot better today. Are you? ** Charalampos Tzanakis, I wish you a happy new year too. I’m not so pumped to do all the work we need to do before we shoot the film, but I’m super pumped to actually get the cameras aimed and make it. Favorite Rollin? Hm, not sure. Maybe ‘Requiem for a Vampire’? But I also really like the two you like. All the best back from your non-French French friend. ** David Ehrenstein, Thanks, David! ** Jack Skelley, I just copied and pasted and inserted bold and italics where necessary, so Terry gets all the kudos. My NY(E) was as flat as a pancake, and I looovvve pancakes. I hope yours was mountainous. Turns out I won’t get to LA until after the 7th, so I’ll see you first on Saturday! ** Misanthrope, I can’t say for sure, but I suspect Terry would have waved his hands in the air like he just didn’t care (in the good way) when he saw that he’d creeped you out. American football’s draggy start-and-stop rhythm is just completely not my rhythm. And I think I only like sports where you can actually see the players’ faces and actual bodies while they’re playing. Like tennis enough that I’ll check out the new crop. My policy is that every new year is more interesting than the years before it, and, so far, it always is. ** Steve Erickson, Cool. I know Terry was happy to read that. Staley was an excellent vocalist. It’s really a shame that he nosedived so early. ** Philip Hopbell, Hi. Please do. I’ll be mostly in the States starting soon until mid-April, and then I’ll be in Paris most of the time ad infinitum. ** Sarah, Hi, Sarah! That’s so incredibly kind of you to say. Thank you. I’d love to get to know what you do if you feel like it. Very HNY to you! ** Nick., Hi! My year’s starting A-okay-ish so far. Yours too, right? Well, I mean, it doesn’t sound like that situation with you and the DJ is hopeless at all. As painful as it can be, that going crazy state of mind is such a great energy. Easy for me to say since I’m not in that state, but, yeah, every bit of luck in the world that whatever’s ‘meant’ to result results. I didn’t make a NY resolution but it would probably just be to make our new film as great as we want it to be. And I’d like to finish a book of short fiction I’m working on too, if that’s not asking too much. Have you resolved to do anything potentially amazing? I’ve never been able to explain why even to myself, but my favorite animal has always been the giraffe. There’s something so wrong about giraffes that just dazzles me. My friend George Miles had a pet snake. One time it got loose and killed the neighbor’s excessively loudly barking dog, which made George love it even more. I’m good. What’s the best thing that happened to you today? ** malcolm, Hey, m. Cool. Synchronicity. About ‘Daisies’. And just good old plain cool about your Old Skull love. I’m good. You? HNY right back. Nah, I just pretended it was any other day that people around me were strangely excited about. Did you mark the occasion wildly? ** Right. A bunch of hopefully interesting things that require motors to exist for you today. See you tomorrow.
_______________ Thomas WhiteWho’s Crazy (1966) ‘Accompanied by a frenetic original soundtrack by the great Ornette Coleman, insane asylum inmates escape their confinement and hole up in a deserted Belgian farmhouse, where they cook large quantities of eggs and condemn one of their own in an impromptu court. The actors don’t have much need for words when they can dance around, light things on fire, and drip hot wax on each other instead. Ornette Coleman and the other members of his trio – David Izenzon and Charles Moffett – recorded their score for WHO’S CRAZY? in one go while the film was projected for them, and the result feels like a bizarre silent film with the greatest possible accompaniment. The soundtrack also features a young Marianne Faithfull singing what are probably her most experimental riffs – written for her especially by Ornette – as she asks, “Is God man? Is man God?” in an original track titled “Sadness.” WHO’S CRAZY? was long thought to be lost by jazz-on-film scholars and the Library of Congress. In early 2015, the only surviving copy of the film, a 35mm print struck for the film’s debut at Cannes in 1966, was salvaged from director Thomas White’s garage after sitting on a shelf there for decades. Ornette’s soundtrack exists as a hard-to-find LP, but audiences have never before had the opportunity to see what Ornette saw when he composed it. The cast consists of actors from New York’s experimental theater troupe, the Living Theatre, who also performed in Shirley Clarke’s THE CONNECTION.‘ — Grand Motel
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_______________ Teinosuke KinugasaA Page of Madness (1926) ‘Though the synopsis of the plot doesn’t really do justice to the movie — a retired sailor who works at an insane asylum to care after his wife who tried to kill their child — the visual audacity of Page is still startling today. The opening sequence rhythmically cuts between shots of a torrential downpour and gushing water before dissolving into a hallucinatorily odd scene of a young woman in a rhomboid headdress dancing in front of a massive spinning ball. The woman is, of course, an inmate at the asylum dressed in rags. As her dance becomes more and more frenzied, the film cuts faster and faster, using superimpositions, spinning cameras and just about every other trick in the book. While Kinugasa was clearly influenced by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which also visualizes the inner world of the insane, the movie is also reminiscent of the works of French avant-garde filmmakers like Abel Gance, Russian montage masters like Sergei Eisenstein and, in particular, the subjective camerawork of F. W. Murnau in Der Letzte Mann. Kinugasa incorporated all of these influences seamlessly, creating an exhilarating, disturbing and ultimately sad tour de force of filmmaking. The great Japanese film critic Akira Iwasaki called the movie “the first film-like film born in Japan.”’— Open Culture
the entire film
____________ George BarryDeath Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977) ‘In 1972, some guy named George Barry got a camera and some film. What happened was Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. An incredibly bizarre mix of horror, sexploitation, avant-garde technique and arthouse, Death Bed was shot in 1972 but a print wasn’t struck until 1977. It then disappeared. before being rediscovered in 2003 and released on DVD, it gained a cult following when bootlegs made from a rare UK VHS/Betamax copy of the film began circulating. Director George Barry reportedly forgot about the film before he came across said bootleg found on a horror movie forum.’— collaged
the entire film
_____________ Standish LauderNecrology (1969) ‘Lauder’s film is a continuous shot of the anonymous faces of evening commuters in New York’s Grand Central Station. The film was made with a stationary camera pointed at a down escalator, and then the film was run backward, creating an effect of expressionless faces rising towards the heavens. Legendary filmmaker Jonas Mekas remarked of Necrology, “It is one of the strongest and grimmest comments upon the contemporary society that cinema has produced.”’— Andris Damburs
the entire film
_______________ Helge Schneider00 Schneider – Jagd auf Nihil Baxter (1994) ‘The funny clown Bratislav Metulskie is found dead in circus “Apollo”. The retired commissioner 00 Schneider is asked to assume control of the case. Schneider and his aged sidekick Korschgen investigate to find the murderer. Nihil Baxter, a passionate art collector who is a little nuts and does not cultivate social contacts at all. Commissioner Schneider investigates at the circus and pays Baxter a visit. Baxter makes up an alibi and claims that he was working on a painting when the murder took place. The Sidekick Korschgen finds out that the picture is an imitation. When Baxter tries to escape to Rio by plane after he stole a sculpture from the practice of Dr. Hasenbein 00 Schneider and his sidekick are also on board. As they are incognito they are able to arrest the criminal with the help of the world famous “sniffer dog nose” pilot.’— collaged
the entire film
_______________ Dušan MakavejevInnocence Unprotected (1968) ‘“Narrative structure is prison; it is tradition; it is a lie; it is a formula that is imposed,” Dušan Makavejev once said. The Serbian filmmaker, who rose to cinematic fame or infamy (depending on who you ask) in Communist Yugoslavia in the sixties and early seventies, believed in breaking all the rules. Through collage and juxtaposition, Buñuelian absurdity and sexual confrontation, Makavejev freed narrative cinema from all oppressive norms. This utterly unclassifiable film is one of Makavejev’s most freewheeling farces, assembled from the “lost” footage of the first Serbian talkie, a silly melodrama titled Innocence Unprotected, made during the Nazi occupation; contemporary interviews with the megaman who made it and other crew members; and images of the World War II destruction, and subsequent rebuilding, of Belgrade. And at its center is a (real-life) character you won’t soon forget: Dragoljub Aleksic, an acrobat, locksmith, and Houdini-style escape artist whom Makavejev uses as the absurd and wondrous basis for a look back at his country’s tumultuous recent history.’— The Criterion Collection
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______________ Oliver HerrmannOne Night, One Life (1999) ‘Oliver Herrmann was quickly proving to be an artist of provocative potential after creating the innovative short films Dichterlieb (2000), One Night, One Life (2002), and Le Sacre du Printemps (released 2004). Tragically, Herrmann’s life and career were cut short when he died of a diabetic stroke at the age of 40 in 2003. Herrman’s film of Arnold Shoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” is conducted by modern music specialist Pierre Boulez and starring Schäfer. A bit of history may be needed for Schoenberg’s atonal, expressionist melodrama. Set to Albert Giraud’s text, the poems, usually spoken by a soprano, are delivered in “Sprechgesang” (spoken singing). Upon its 1912 premiere, “Pierrot Lunaire” predictably offended the traditionalists. Much publicity was made about it, mostly bad, but at least this was a period when new music and new composers actually grabbed headlines. As late as the 1970s, conservative NY Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg claimed that “Pierrot Lunaire”‘s’ failure to enter the standard repertoire was an indictment of contemporary music. Yet, the 21st century has (somewhat) rendered Schonberg’s assessment as premature. If not quite part of the daily repertoire diet, “Lunaire” is extensively recorded and performed. One might envision it someday becoming as commonplace as Beethoven. However, together, Herrmann, Boulez, and Schäfer produce a commendable effort to rectify its potentially harmful respectability. The proof is in the pudding as far as music forum reviews go, with the hopelessly puritan music fans expressing outrage towards Herrmann’s blasphemous filming of music that was labeled blasphemous in 1912.’— Alfred Eaker, 366 Weird Movies
the entire film
_______________ Mauricio KagelHallelujah (1969) ‘Mauricio Kagel spent nearly the entirety of his career in Germany – arriving in 1957 at the age of 26, and remaining more or less for the rest of his life. He was born and raised in Argentina – the son of two Russian Jews who had fled persecution in the pogroms in 1920. Though nearly his entire body of work was made in Europe, it is filled with a spirit distinct to Latin America – one which embraces risk, metaphor, absurdity, and humor far more than its international counterparts. With his peers Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis, and György Ligeti, Kagel occupies a significant place within the cannon of 20th Century avant-garde Classical Music. The convenient overlooking of the fact that he was not European, assertively housing him within that tradition – over Latin America’s, indicates a larger condition favoring a single narrative, while neglecting others. It is in effect, a strange twist on cultural appropriation. Kagel produced roughly a film a year for his entire career. That he managed to produce anything else, particularity in the face of their ambition, is an astounding testament to how ambitious and prolific he was. A friend recently reminded me of a different era in the life of these films. He had first obtained them as a dub from Helen Mirra, who had dubbed them from Jim O’Rourke. There was a moment when they were quite obscure, and passed from hand to hand. It’s wonderful that we now live in a world – the result of things like Youtube, which has returned them to the life which the composer would have preferred – available to all.’— The Criterion Collection
the entire film
______________ Mamoru OshiiAngel’s Egg (1985) ‘When people talk about something as having multiple interpretations, there’s almost always one “master” interpretation of the material that bubbles to the top and gets stuck there. The more movies and shows I watch, even those not designed to be an open-ended viewing experience, the more I feel it’s best to leave all such theories out of the picture until you’ve formed an outlook of your own. A movie should be a viewing experience first and a theory-forming exercise second, doubly so if the first viewing yields up not a storyline or even a theory, but a mood. Mamoru Oshii’s Angel’s Egg is so heavily charged with meaning and symbolism, it practically dares you to make something of it. It seems foolish to write about the film without producing something akin to the I-think-this-means-that essays that swirled in the wake of Stanley Kubrick’s equally enigmatic 2001: a space odyssey. Surely the whole point of talking about a movie this heavily symbolic is to talk symbolism, right?’— Ganriki
the entire film
_______________ Gian Carlo MenottiHelp, Help, the Globolinks! (1969) ‘In this children’s opera, the world has been invaded by bizarre alien creatures named Globolinks, who are allergic to music. A bus full of children returning to boarding school breaks down in the middle of a lonely forest, and the students are surrounded by the alien creatures. Meanwhile, back at the school, the headmaster is infected by one of the aliens, meaning that he will soon turn into a Globolink himself. A children’s opera about music-loathing aliens is lready presumptively pretty weird. But when the opera is made in 1968, at the height of the psychedelic sixties, and utilizes all the camera tricks, distorted electronic noises, and bizarre set designs Summer of Love filmmakers developed in an attempt to mimic the disorienting effects of LSD, there’s no more need for the presumption–we’re definitely caught in a very weird nook of film.’— G. Smalley, 366 Weird Movies
the entire film
_________________ Pat O’NeillWater and Power (1989) ‘Water and Power is one of the most significant experimental films to come out of the 1980s, winning a Sundance Grand Jury Prize in1990 and being selected to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2008. Requiring almost a decade of work, the film is a true city symphony to the Los Angeles Basin. Like Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, the core focus of the film is the relationship of water, in all its forms, to the duplicitous undercurrents of this desert town. O’Neill implies a history of a frontier town, superimposing text and surrealist vignettes over wide vistas of the urban streets of LA and the landscape of Owens Valley, a main water source for the downtown area that is becoming increasingly sucked dry. The size and resolution of the 35mm film image provides a massive canvas for O’Neill’s incredibly precise optical printing work. The baselines for many of his compositions are time-lapsed landscapes, shot on a motion-control camera that allows precise movements to be duplicated in other locales. On top of these, O’Neill layers hi-contrast, ghostly figures performing surrealistic repetitive actions in a derelict downtown office, drawing historical and metaphoric parallels to the landscape being shown. The images are sutured together under the spell of George Lockwood’s beautiful sound design, layering snippets from B-movies, sound effects and a plethora of musical genres over the visual field.’— aafimfest.org
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________________ Věra ChytilováLes Petites Marguerites (1966) ‘The unconventional Les Petites Marguerites (aka “Daisies”) was the product of an unconventional filmmaker. A former philosophy and architecture student, Chytilová enrolled at FAMU in 1957, the only female in her class. There she discovered a love for improvisation, nonprofessional actors, and cinema verité—anything that rejected the idea of film as an exact science. Daisies incorporates all this and more in a wildly experimental narrative that is considered the movement’s singular feminist statement. Although Chytilová has denied that it was her intention to make a feminist film per se, it’s easy to see why decades of scholarship has made this assertion. The two teenage protagonists, Marie I and Marie II (Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová, neither of whom had any acting experience), refuse to play by the rules of the patriarchal culture around them, spending the film’s seventy-odd (very odd) minutes tearing up the world: exploiting weak-willed older men, consuming enormous amounts of food and drink, wreaking inebriated havoc, and finally descending into pure annihilation. In one of the film’s most famous sequences, they gleefully cut up a succession of phallic objects (bananas, sausages, bread rolls) with scissors. Chytilová ensures that something unexpected occurs in virtually every shot and edit, juxtaposing images with dissonant sounds, abruptly changing color filters within scenes, and fragmenting many sequences through unmotivated montage.’— Michael Koresky
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_______________ Shozin Fukui964 Pinocchio (1991) ‘Pinocchio 964 is a memory-wiped sex slave who is thrown out by his owners for failure to maintain an erection. It is unclear in what ways he has been modified beyond having no memory and being unable to communicate. He is discovered by Himiko while wandering aimlessly through the city. Himiko has also been memory-wiped, possibly by the same company that produced Pinocchio, but she is fully functional. Himiko spends her days drawing maps of the city, to aid other memory-wiped people. Himiko takes Pinocchio home and tries to teach him to speak. After much effort he has a breakthrough and finally becomes aware of his situation. At this point his body erupts in an inexplicable metamorphosis and it becomes clear that his modifications were much more involved and esoteric than simple memory loss. Himiko also begins to transform, though in a much more subtle manner.’— letterboxd.com
the entire film
_______________ Willard MaasGeography Of The Body (1943) ‘Extreme close-ups of nude male and female bodies, taken through a magnifying glass bought at a dime store, are combined with a surrealist text written and read by poet George Barker. The poem, in Barker’s deadpan reading, comments humorously on the body parts, which are photographed in such tiny detail that they appear as landscapes. Geography of the Body was the first widely distributed underground art film, and was a regular fixture of the campus art film circuit for years. Although by the year 2000 it appears as a relatively quaint antique (and is in serious need of preservation assistance), Geography of the Body was easily as influential in its day as Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s Meshes of the Afternoon, made the same year.’— Ubu
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_____________ Djouhra Abouda and Alain BonnamyAli in Wonderland (1976) ‘Miraculously blending styles of militant polemical and experimental essay filmmaking, ALI IN WONDERLAND speaks to the struggle of Maghrebi workers in Paris in the 1970s. Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy made the film in their twenties, as participants of the Centre Universitaire de Vincennes – a leftist cinema collective formed in the aftermath of the May 1968 uprisings. Fully living up to their stated intention to imbue images “like blows of the fist” upon the film’s viewers, Abouda and Bonnamy paint a visceral and unforgettable portrait of migrant exploitation as it manifests (whether in history or today) in western urban capitals – essential viewing alongside Spectacle favorites like Sidney Sokhona’s NATIONALITE: IMMIGRE and Madubuko Diakite’s THE INVISIBLE PEOPLE. Formally playful yet ferociously political, ALI IN WONDERLAND is among the most important Francophone films of the (increasingly so-called) postcolonial era, yet has been unavailable to see for decades.’— Spectacle
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_____________ Juraj HerzThe Cremator (1969) ‘In this mesmerizing, avant-garde Gothic horror film, a funerary specialist becomes obsessed with what he believes to be the nobility of his calling, with terrifyingly tragic and bizarre results. The production design is crisp and symmetrical. Stanislav Milota’s stunning black and white cinematography is haunting and beautiful. It features successions of extreme closeups that emphasize the slightly grotesque and disturbing features of the biological condition. Milota’s use of black and white film stock’s enhanced tonal range is artfully employed to focus attention on rich textures and multitudes of shades. This gives The Cremator a uniquely unsettling dreamlike quality. The musical score by Zdenek Liska is alluring, phantasmic, and aesthetically intriguing. Viewing The Cremator is akin to experiencing a nightmare that one is reluctant to wake from.’— Pamela de Graff, 366 Weird Movies
the entire film
______________ Jean RollinThe Iron Rose (1973) ‘THE IRON ROSE is a haunting experience – a macabre tone poem about youth and age, love and nihilism, nostalgia and superstition, and, above all, life and death. Francoise Pascal (There’s a Girl in My Soup) and Hugues Quester (Three Colors: Blue) go on a metaphysical, Orpheus-like journey inside an ancient, all-but-abandoned graveyard but, as night falls, they cannot find their way out. As Quester’s nihilism crumbles to impatience and terror, Pascal transfers her disappointed passion for him to the cemetery itself and becomes jubilantly (and dangerously) attuned to its dead. Pascal gives a remarkably intuitive performance, at times so spontaneous in spirit, one cannot imagine how parts of it were ever scripted. The cemetery itself is analogous to Rollin’s love for all things antiquarian, including the old train station and the nearly moribund city of Amiens. If Orson Welles was correct when he estimated that a film could only be considered good to the extent it represented the artist who made it, THE IRON ROSE is Jean Rollin’s first authentic masterpiece.’— Tim Lucas
the entire film
_______________ Jay Schlossberg-CohenNight Train to Terror (1985) ‘God and Satan are riding on a train at midnight. Looking out the window, they watch three stories, and debate the eternal fate of the protagonists. All the while, a teen pop/rock band is acting out a music video in a nearby compartment. Inspired by the box-office success of horror anthology movies like Creepshow (1982) and Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Night Train to Terror tries to hop a ride on the omnibus gravy train. Rather than shoot new stories specifically for this movie, however, the producers decided to save time and money by cutting unreleased full-length features they already owned the rights to into twenty-five minute segments. Needless to say, the results of this hacksaw editing, which consistently sacrifices narrative for nudity and gore scenes, are incoherent. The expository sequences with a hammy God (“I shed my mercy on them, as I do the gentle rain”) and hammier Satan (“there is no evil so vile which man will plunge himself into”) on a cosmic train judging the characters adds an additional layer of bizarreness. But, it’s the upbeat teen New Wave band shooting a music video in the next train compartment that sends the movie off the tracks and plunging into a void of pure weirdness.’— G. Smalley, 366 Weird Movies
the entire film
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p.s. Hey. Years ago Terry Ratchett, who’s a reader of this blog, made a post showcasing some relatively obscure avant-garde films, and he has returned with a sequel. You must know of my love for experimental film by now, so, naturally, I’m thrilled and grateful, and here’s hoping the blog has managed to draw you into an interest in such films, if you weren’t into them already, and that you’ll be pleased to some degree as well. Please say something to Terry today or at least thank him for his generous efforts, and, of course, thank you a lot, Terry, from yours truly. ** CAUTIVOS, Hi. I read a book of stories by Adam Haslett called ‘You Are Not a Stranger Here’, which I liked, but that’s all I’ve read by him. What’s the book of his you liked so much? In Paris, everything’s pretty expensive, but not as expensive as in Los Angeles, yow. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Thanks for the list. We have a few commonalities. I really need to start the habit of reading Snuggly’s output. I’m massively far behind re: them and theirs. HNY! ** ellie, Hey. If I notice someone geeking out, I’ll definitely up to him or or them and say hi. Luckily Theo’s on Facebook too, which is my only social media, so I get to follow his trajectory there. I haven’t heard the new Galas yet. Um, no, I can’t precisely remember my Genet diss. I think it was at a time when I thought his work was too narcissistic and fussy, but I don’t feel that way anymore. The new film is about a family who builds a haunted house attraction in their home which occasions a bunch of scary, tragic, funny things. Ooh, guro with code aesthetics? Those seem like magic words to me. De-mush your brain, although it didn’t seem mushy in your comment. Thanks for the link! Everyone, Here’s a new thing by the mega talented ellie for your to read and absorb called ‘TEDDY (ANATHEMA PRODUCTION LINE). Hit it! Cool title! ** _Black_Acrylic, HNY to you, B! My NYE was a nothing other than being woken up at the appropriate point by people in my building counting down in French at the tops of their lungs. ** Misanthrope, Belated HBD to that rapscallion David. Dude, I knew absolutely zip about American football when I lived in the States too. HNY to you, bro. Seems like a possible goodie so far. ** alex, Hi, alex. It sounds like we’re on the same writing page, yes. I tend to spend at least 80% of my time revising and editing, which is easily my favorite part. Meet Derek if you can. He’s amazing and a total sweetie. No, ‘United States …’ has sound, but it’s all just the natural sounds, no dialogue or anything, although I think you hear what’s on a radio in a couple of scenes. I still haven’t seen ‘Crimes of the Future’ for no real reason. Just a total oversight that I need to correct. Bresson, my personal god! I’m obviously thrilled that you’re watching all of his films. Amazing. I love ‘Four Nights…’. It’s his funniest film, not that it’s not mostly other things. I spent a whole evening some years ago talking with the guy who played the main character in the film. A real life’s highlight. In real life, he’s a physicist. Yeah, I have friends who also have violent dreams. It’s just kind of strange because I don’t think I’m a particularly stressed out or secretly tortured person or anything, But who really knows. Meditation seems like a really good daily must-do. I’ve tried a few times, but I could never get my mind to stop racing all over the place. Drat. ** Philip Hopbell, Hi, Philip! A very happy New Year to you too! Yeah, I’m still here doing this crazy thing. Surprises me too. 14 weeks in Paris? Why? Or well, why not? If our times here align, hit me up and let’s have a coffee or something. Take care. ** Ian, My total and great pleasure, man. I hope you’re greatly enjoying the stay at home stint. ** Nick., Hey, Nick, happy ultra-fresh 2023! It was just a normal day for me. No big. I’m pretty shy too. I’ve just learned how to fake not being shy because of the public stuff I have to do. Being shy and obsessive at the same is probably a lifesaver. Mm, yeah, tell me more specifics about that boy if and when you want, but, in general, honestly, using the power of the frenzy as fuel for writing is my go-to survival method. It doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, but at least you can get something valuable out of it that way? Is your year starting excitingly? ** h now j, Hey! HNY to you too! Thank you so much! The blog is going to be on- and offline soon for a while while I’m making the but film, but hopefully your visit will line up. Best of luck with everything you have and want to do. ** Robert, Hi, Robert! Good to see you! HNY!!! I missed the fireworks but they looked like they must’ve been pretty okay based on the youtube clips. Hugs. ** Paul Curran, Great, big, massive, voluminous, seething New Year to you and yours, Paul! ** ShadeoutMapes:O, Hi! Excited for your book poems in progress. And two Dead poems only increases that. How did your script work go or how is it still going? A possum? Wow. Here in Paris the only other species visitors are pigeons or rats. ‘Watamote’ sounds familiar. I’ll check. Oh, I don’t really remember how I got into to manga, to be honest. I think a friend must’ve either leant me a manga or given me one as a gift or something. Being not especially talkative and overly sensitive and kind of a hermit only helps when you’re a writer, trust me. You know what they say: an interesting person is a question. You don’t have to ask. ** Nick Hudson, Hi, Nick! I’m psyched to get through all the work still ahead and actually make the film. HNY! That’s funny, while you were watching ‘Nostalghia’, I was watching Hollis Frampton’s ‘Nostalgia’. What were the odds. Everyone, the superb and increasingly legendary musical artist and writer Nick Hudson wrote a thing on his blog about 2022 that I think you probably would like to read. It’s here. Sure, send your novel, thank you! Big warning, though: My brain is consumed by all the things Zac and I need to do to get ready to shoot our film and then the shoot will immediately take over, so I’m going to need to be about 90% output and 10% input until mid-April, so it will undoubtedly take me quite a while read the novel. But if that’s okay, yes, and thank you again. My next days are just film stuff: working on the budget, trying to find a DP and related crew, organising performer auditions, etc. etc. No huge fun, but utterly necessary. Enjoy the traveling and land home safely. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Promising next weekend you have there. I don’t remember the ‘Jar or Flies’ album in particular. I do think their kind of guitar-borne Gregorian Chant vibe thing was definitely one of the most interesting manifestations of the grunge area. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Ha ha, you too! Yeah, I agree on the reality show front. Can you believe that I’ve never watched ‘Drag Race’? Something about it has always made me suspicious, I’m not really sure what. You always see the same escort/slave linguistic highlights that I do! Maybe you should guest edit one of those posts, ha ha. Before you say yes you should probably say no because they’re actually a ridiculous amount of work. Love ordering your bed not to eat you, G. ** Bill, Agreed! Nope, skipped the fireworks. I like fireworks probably more than the next person, but I guess I like my sleep cycles more. I watched the documentary about King Crimson (pretty interesting) and ate a chunk of very dark chocolate and, like you, hit the sack. Happiest 2023, buddy! ** Right. Please enjoy Terry’s film program, and I will see you tomorrow.
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