Re: Interesting Screening at the University of Chicago (Ron Rice, Edward Owens, others)

From: andrew lampert (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Feb 01 2006 - 12:48:53 PST


Hi Greg-

DIRT was preserved by Anthology a few years back and I
believe the Coop is distributing a print from the new
neg. AVOCADA was preserved by the Coop back in 1989
or so. This is when Robert Haller was the director
there, pre-MM Serra. He told me just now that he got
the film preserved with an in-kind donation from DuArt
here in New York. I'm not sure why you wouldn't have
been able to rent that in the mid-late 90s when the
Jack Smith show was happening.

A.

--- "Pierce, Greg" <email suppressed> wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong - those who know - aren't
> the copies of Dirt and Avocada that are now
> available examples of recent
> preservation/restoration work? I know I couldn't get
> the Bill Vehr film years ago when we at The Warhol
> wanted to show it as part of our film program that
> ran in conjunction with the Jack Smith: Flaming
> Creature exhibiton.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Experimental Film Discussion List
> [mailto:email suppressed]On Behalf Of
> Fred Camper
> Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 12:24 PM
> To: email suppressed
> Subject: Interesting Screening at the University of
> Chicago (Ron Rice,
> Edward Owens, others)
>
>
> From:
>
> http://filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu/navevents.html
>
> "Beyond Warhol, Smith and Anger" Film Series
> The Gender Question / Questioning Gender
> Friday, February 3, 2006, 7 pm
>
> "Behind Every Good Man" (Nikolai Ursin, 1965, 8
> minutes)
> "Chumlum" (Ron Rice, 1964, 26 minutes)
> "Dirt" (Piero Heliczer, 1965, 12 minutes)
> "Avocada" (Bill Vehr, 1966, 37 minutes)
> "Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts" (Edward
> Owens, 9 minutes)
> "Tomorrow's Promise" (Edward Owens, 1967, 45
> minutes)
>
> Free and open to the public at:
>
> Film Studies Center
> 5811 South Ellis Ave. Cobb Hall 307
> Chicago, IL 60637
> 773.702.8596
>
> My suggestion: come early; seating may be limited.
>
> Also see http://www.chicagoreader.com/movies/ after
> this Thursday as
> well as the upcoming print edition of the "Chicago
> Reader" for my
> capsule review.
>
> "Chumlum" is an all too rarely screened masterpiece,
> an extravagantly
> costumed orgy in lush colors and multiple
> superimpositions. It's one of
> the very first avant-garde films I saw, as a
> teenager. I still remember
> seeing two middle aged men outside the screening.
> One said to the other
> something like, "Chumlum was very beautiful, but I
> didn't understand the
> meaning. Orgy? Paradise?" The other responded with
> knowing certainty,
> "Paradise." I was amused by this at the time. Today
> I would say that
> obviously it's both, and a few other things as well.
>
> "Dirt" is a pretty interesting example of Heliczer's
> found footage,
> "looks a bit like random" aesthetic.
>
> But the real reason for this post is the presence of
> two filmmakers I'd
> never heard of, unearthed in the research of
> University of Chicago
> professor Ron Gregg. Ursin's film is not that great
> aesthetically, but
> is interesting as a very early example of a
> documentary on a drag queen.
> I don't know of any earlier ones.
>
> Owens's films I liked pretty much. They aren't
> great, but they're very
> good. They both show the influence of Gregory J.
> Markopoulos, and it
> turns out that Owens was a student at the School of
> the Art Institute,
> doing painting and then collages from the early 60s
> on. He later studied
> with Markopoulos when he taught film briefly there
> in 1966-67, and the
> Owens films seem in some ways very much like
> Markopoulos's at the time,
> with their use of editing and superimpositions to
> create a sense that
> figures and objects are interrelated and
> interpenetrating. They are
> quite curious, very slow, lots of pauses, static
> figures. The longer of
> the two has writing also on its dark leader, looking
> at times like it
> wasn't completely finished. It also seems that Owens
> was African
> American, making him a rare example of an African
> American working in
> the American avant-garde mode. I couldn't find any
> references to him
> other than for these films in a quick 'Net search,
> though I didn't
> explore most of the hits; if anyone knows anything
> about him, or about
> what happened to him, I'd be curious to learn more.
>
> All these films are from the Filmmakers' Cooperative
> in New York. Who
> knows what other treasures lie there unrented?
>
> Fred Camper
> Chicago
>
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
>
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
>

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__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.