Tuesday, February 14, 2017, 7:00 pm, $6-$10
CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN – PLUMB LINE, 1968-71, COLOR, 15MPlumb Line is made from scrap. Footage shot in 8mm and 16mm ’68-69, a film diary of daily movements-the couple. Sounds of my cat singing, repeated cries of ‘no’, sirens screaming, my voice describing food from the maze of a breakdown, his voice ‘tell me a story…I’ve got a truck you know’. Moving footage into freeze frames, stills animated, 8mm mirror printed as 16mm, images in 16mm reshot in 8. A portrait of a man and the dissolution of a relationship and of the film itself. The accumulation patterns of imagery are finally set on fire. Sound and images edited during ’70-72. – C.S.
The dissolution of a relationship unravels through visual and aural equivalences. Schneemann splits and recomposes actions of the lovers in a streaming montage of disruptive permutations: 8 mm is printed as 16 mm, moving images freeze, frames recur and dissolve until the film bursts into flames, consuming its own substance. -EAI
SU FRIEDRICH – RULES OF THE ROAD, 1993, COLOR, 31MA typical American family car for an atypical American family, it provides the women at first with all the familiar comforts. But when their relationship ends, the car becomes the property of one and the bane of the other’s existence. Even long after their separation, this tangible reminder of their life together—and thousands of its imitators—continues to prowl the streets of the city, haunting the woman who no longer holds the keys either to the car or the other woman’s heart.
Through spoken text, popular music and images from the streets of New York, Rules of the Road takes a somewhat whimsical, somewhat caustic look at how our dreams of freedom, pleasure, security, and family are so often symbolized by the automobile.
“… the light, almost whimsical tone of the film should not blind us to the part of it that is irreducibly personal. Station wagons are everywhere; everybody’s got a sad love story. But only one filmmaker, to my knowledge, has Su Friedrich’s eye….With Rules of the Road, she creates a film like a perfect short story.”
—Stuart Klawans, THE NATION
CHICK STRAND – FEVER DREAM, 1979, B/W, 7MA wet hot dream about sensuality.