From: ADAM ABRAMS (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Jun 26 2006 - 10:12:35 PDT
Jefferson Presents ... NEXT SCREENING:
WHEN: Thursday, June 29, 2006, 9PM
WHERE: Garfield Artworks 4931 Penn Ave.
HOW MUCH: $5/$4 students, seniors
Jefferson Presents ... welcomes visiting filmmaker
Bill Daniel (Portland, OR) in person with his film
"Who is Bozo Texino?" a 55 min. experimental
documentary on hobo culture. Read below for full
description and go to www.billdaniel.net for more
info.
Who is Bozo Texino? by Bill Daniel (55 min. black and
white, experimental/documentary)
THIS SPECTACULAR TRAVEL ADVENTURE FAITHFULLY
PHOTOGRAPHED IN REALISTIC BLACK AND WHITE FILM AT
CONSIDERABLE RISK FROM SPEEDING FREIGHT TRAINS AND IN
SECRET HOBO JUNGLES IN THE DOGGED PURSUIT OF THE
IMPOSSIBLY CONVOLUTED STORY OF THE HERETOFORE UNTOLD
HISTORY OF THE CENTURY-OLD FOLKLORIC PRACTICE OF HOBO
AND RAILWORKER GRAFFITI AND THE ABSURD QUEST FOR THE
TRUE IDENTITY OF RAILROADING’S GREATEST ARTIST WILL
LIKELY AMUSE AND CONFOUND YOU IN ITS SINCERE ATTEMPT
TO UNDERSTAND AND PRESERVE THIS ARTFORM.
Who is Bozo Texino? is a film on the 100-year-old
tradition of hobo and railworker graffiti. The project
is the result of a 20-year study of “monikers ” and is
fabricated from hours of 16mm and super 8 film, most
of it shot on freight trips across the western US. The
film includes interviews with some of the railroad’s
greatest graffiti legends: Colossus of Roads, The
Rambler, Herby (RIP) and the granddaddy of them all,
Bozo Texino. The film also catches some of the
socioeconomic history of hobo subculture from its
roots after the Civil War to the present day. Included
are interviews with tramps that Daniel encountered in
his travels. The range of the interviews, and the
film’s style deal with both the clichés and the harsh
realities of tramp life. In researching hobo culture
Daniel found the written histories fraught with myth,
and was initially frustrated by the apparent lack of
verifiable truth to much of the lore.
“At some point in the research, and in the filming, I
had to give up on the idea of being able to tell every
story down to the detail. One of my initial impulses
was to create a highly resolved document that would
allow people in the future to see exactly what this
culture was like. Impossible enough. But at the same
time I was painfully aware that to broadcast these
discoveries would alter or wreck the innocence and
freedom that was there. Gradually, I realized that to
report on freight train culture I should just
acknowledge this mythologizing that permeates the
culture and adopt that as an essential part of my
approach. But the difficulty was, at the same time, to
present this purely documentary material that I
earnestly want to be appreciated and preserved. And no
matter what the disappointment might be in finding the
lonely reality behind a particular myth or graffiti,
there is a mystery, or truth, that will always evade
the documentarian and the audience.” - Bill Daniel
Jefferson Presents...
Movies for YOU
http://www.geocities.com/jeffersonpresents
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