From: email suppressed
Date: Mon Mar 01 2010 - 12:14:02 PST
Hurrah! This film wipes the floor with "Zidane",
Nicky Hamlyn.
On 27 Feb 2010, at 22:49, Patrick Friel wrote:
> Missed getting this into the “This Week in Avant-Garde” listing.
>
>
>
>
> WHITE LIGHT CINEMA PRESENTS
>
>
> HELLMUTH COSTARD’S RARE 1970 SOCCER FILM
> FOOTBALL AS NEVER BEFORE
>
>
> FRIDAY, MARCH 5 – 8:00pm
> AT THE NIGHTINGALE (1084 N. MILWAUKEE AVE.)
>
>
>
> For the rest of the world, “football” equals soccer and passions and
> obsessions run deep. It’s hard to imagine an American filmmaker
> focusing on a single player for an entire game or match, but that’s
> just what German filmmaker Hellmuth Costard did in 1970 – filmed
> Manchester United star George Best for an entire match (long before
> British artist Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno made their 2006
> variant “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait”).
>
> FOOTBALL AS NEVER BEFORE (1970, 105 mins, 16mm on video, Germany) is
> legendary among soccer aficionados and one of the great works of
> post-WWII German cinema, but is little known here and rarely
> screened (no prints are available in the U.S.). White Light Cinema
> is pleased to provide an alternate sports-fix to baseball spring
> training.
>
> Like the film, director Hellmuth Costard (1940-2000) is little known
> in the U.S. He was part of the vibrant New German Cinema movement of
> the 1960s and 70s - which included Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner
> Herzog, Wim Wenders, and others – that revitalized and
> revolutionized German film. Costard was more of an avant-gardist
> than the better-known names of the period, and his work is more
> often aligned with Alexander Kluge, Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele
> Huillet, and Klaus Wyborny. His work ranges from experimental films,
> allusive narratives, documentaries, children’s television and a
> child’s storybook, to magazine cartoons.
>
>
> “The sun shone on Old Trafford on 12th September 1970 as Manchester
> United beat Coventry 2:0 in a league match. It was not an important
> victory; that season Man Utd would only be also-rans in the race for
> the championship. But a record was preserved of the match that is
> probably unique in the history of film and television. Using eight
> 16mm cameras, Hellmuth Costard, one of the most important
> experimental filmmakers in German cinema of the 60s and 70s,
> followed every move over the 90 minutes of the man in the red jersey
> with the number 11 - traditionally associated with the conventional
> outside left, but here worn by the mercurial George Best.” (Goethe
> Institut)
>
>
> “The real Warholian moment of football cinema is Hellmuth Costard’s
> film Fußball wie noch nie (Football as Never Before, 1971). A point
> of reference for Zidane… (…), the film takes the famously charming
> George Best as its subject and edits multiple camera views to
> produce a real-time portrait of the player singled out during the
> course of an entire match. Lest we miss the homoerotic subtext of
> football art (and football culture), the half-time interval features
> a cruisey bit of filmmaking as we follow Best through a narrow
> hallway and into what looks like the boot room. Best turns and faces
> the camera for nearly three minutes. He holds our gaze as long as he
> can, pursing his lips, looking away and then back in a seemingly
> overt homage to the Warholian screen test. Best strikes a deal here
> with the camera, inviting us to look at him when he takes the field
> again; shots of his socks, his shoulders and his crotch seem to go
> on for ever.” (Jennifer Doyle, Frieze)
>
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
>
> This program screens Friday, March 5, 2010 at 8:00pm at The
> Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.).
>
> Admission: $7.00-10.00 sliding scale
>
>
> Website: www.whitelightcinema.com
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.