From: Mark Toscano (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Feb 21 2009 - 18:30:34 PST
Wouldn't be surprised if it's not actually A Rainbow in Curved Air, but a similar-era organ piece. Those organ of corti releases are excellent by the way, Olson III being one of my favorites!
Haven't seen the film in ages, so I could've just remembered wrong. Anyway, it's definitely Riley and organ, and NOT a collaboration with Gleeson. It's two separate pieces, one by Gleeson, one by Riley.
Also, the Moritz/O'Neill piece is great and worth reading. But the footnote about a color ending and 8mm and all of that, that actually refers to Cosmic Ray, not Crossroads. (The article covers a few Conner films.)
Michelle Silva recently showed what I assume is the referenced three-screen variation of Cosmic Ray at Views last year (or a revamping of it, or something). Hope other folks get to see that, it was a blast.
Mark T
--- On Sat, 2/21/09, C Keefer <email suppressed> wrote:
> From: C Keefer <email suppressed>
> Subject: Re: [FRAMEWORKS] Question about Crossroads
> To: email suppressed
> Date: Saturday, February 21, 2009, 4:30 PM
> "Fallout - Some Notes on the Films of Bruce
> Conner," by William Moritz and Beverly O'Neill, in
> Film Quarterly, Vol XXXI, No. 4, Summer 1978, discusses the
> "local color" of Patrick Gleeson's sound
> track, and [Re the second part]
> "We hear a lush, repetitive meditation music specially
> composed and performed for the remainder of the film, by
> Terry Riley" which is footnoted as: RAINBOW IN CURVED
> AIR
>
> Another footnote mentions the original ending in color, in
> the original version of the film, and
> "Conner also prepared the film originally as a
> three-screen loop event, so that two supportive side panels
> flanked the movie as it is most often shown, and the whole
> length of the film was repeated several times. Conner hardly
> thinks of the film in any definitive or superior state, and
> sold the three-screen reels in 8mm so that they could be
> projected at 5-frame-per-second speeds with separate
> sounds."
>
> This article is at the Center for Visual Music online
> Library, courtesy William Moritz:
> www.centerforvisualmusic.org/library/WMConnerFallout.htm
>
> Is this information incorrect re Rainbow in Curved Air?
>
> Cindy Keefer
> Center for Visual Music
> www.centerforvisualmusic.org
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> >
> >> From: k. a.r. <email suppressed>
> >> Subject: [FRAMEWORKS] Question about Crossroads
> >> To: email suppressed
> >> Date: Friday, February 20, 2009, 5:59 PM
> >> Hello everyone.
> >> Last night at the New Nothing there was a Bruce
> Conner
> >> screening.
> >> They screened 8 of Bruce's films, all in 16mm.
> (yay!
> >> Thanks Rock!!!!)
> >>
> >> Crossroads clocked in at 38 minutes, but it seemed
> >> different than I remember.
> >> (I haven't seen it in probably 15 or 17 years,
> since
> >> the good old days of UW-Milwaukee
> >> mandatory weekly screenings.)
> >>
> >> Last night Crossroads consisted of 2 parts. The
> first was
> >> the bomb explosion footage,
> >> with the real sound of the planes and explosions.
> >> The second part was the bomb footage again, some
> the same,
> >> but some different,
> >> and with some mellow instrumental music.
> >> In the beginning, and before the second part there
> was a
> >> bit of black leader with a white +.
> >>
> >> What I remember is a part that was silent? that
> had the +
> >> in white, but the four quadrants of it
> >> got filled in with the explosion footage.
> >> There were four explosions happening at once in
> the 4 parts
> >> of the cross.
> >>
> >> So am I remembering it wrong, or am I thinking of
> a
> >> different film with atomic bomb explosions?
> >>
> >> Any insight greatly appreciated,
> >> sincerely,
> >> Kristie
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Kristie Reinders, B.F.A.
> >>
> >> Director of Cinematography, Electric Visions
> >>
> >> Curator and Head Projectionist, Electric Mural
> Project
> >>
> >> The Mission, San Francisco, CA
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.