Curated by Chrissie Iles, curator of film and video, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Mark Webber

Curated by Chrissie Iles, curator of film and video, Whitney Museum of American Art. Film Program for the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s co-curated with Mark Webber.

The Cool World surveys the development of avant-garde film and video in America, from the Beats of the 1950s to the recent innovations of the 1990s. The exhibition includes experiments in abstraction and the emergence of a new, "personal" cinema in the 1950s, the explosion of underground film and multimedia experiments in the 1960s, the rigorous Structural films of the early 1970s, and the new approaches to filmmaking in the 1980s and 1990s. The program also traces the emergence of video as a new art form in the 1960s, its use as a conceptual and performance tool during the 1970s, and its exploration of landscape, spirituality, and language during the 1980s. The Cool World concludes in the 1990s, with experiments by artists in projection, digital technology, and new media.

The series is divided into two parts. Part I (September 26–December 5, 1999) presents work from the 1950s and 1960s. Part II (December 7, 1999–February 13, 2000) surveys the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Each month is devoted to a specific decade.

All films are 16mm. Those marked (v) are shown on videotape. Asterisked films are shown in both the repeating weekly programs and the Thursday/weekend theme programs.

September 26–October 24

Theme programs of 1950s films are screened on Thursday evenings and on weekends. Two general programs of 1950s

classics are repeated on alternate days, Tuesday, through Friday.

Avant-garde film in America had begun in the 1930s, blossomed in the 1940s, and continued to flourish in the 1950s. Many of the new avant-garde films were premiered at Cinema 16, which formed the focal point for avant-garde film presentation and distribution in New York throughout the 1950s. On the West Coast, abstract, surrealist, and expressionist filmmaking continued to develop, showcased by the Art in Cinema Society in San Francisco, and, from the mid-1950s, the rebellious films of the Beats emerged. Together, this diverse body of films created a new film language that radically transformed cinematic space, structure, and subject matter.

During the 1950s, America experienced a period of uncertainty brought about by the aftermath of World War II, and the perceived threat of Communism. Avant-garde filmmakers, many expressing a Beat sensibility, satirized the Cold War, rejected the political establishment, and addressed the unsettled, existential mood created by the fear of nuclear weapons and an anxiety about the future.

12 noon

*Christopher MacLaine, The End, 1953, b/w and color, sound, 35 min.

*Stan Brakhage, Reflections on Black, 1955, b/w, sound, 12 min.

Robert Breer, Jamestown Baloos, 1957, color, sound,

6 min.

Stan Brakhage, The Dead, 1960, color, silent, 11 min.

1:30 pm

*Bruce Conner, A Movie, 1958, b/w, sound, 12 min.

*Stan Vanderbeek, Science Friction, 1959, color, sound, 10 min.

Gregory Corso and Jay Socin, Happy Death, n.d., b/w,

sound, 20 min.

Stan Vanderbeek, Snapshots of the City, 1961, b/w, sound, 5 min.

Ray Wisniewski, Doomshow, c. 1965, b/w, sound, 10 min.

Edward English, The Family Fallout Shelter, 1962, b/w, sound, 14 min.

3:15 pm

Star Spangled to Death

Ken Jacobs, Star Spangled To Death, 1958-60, b/w and color, sound, c. 180 min.

A film performance presented by Ken Jacobs.

"Bestrewn with found film cadavers, the film proceeds as if on holiday, in manic fits and starts ... Studied composition vies with hand-held rambunctiousness, an Action Filming akin to Action Painting ... Its proto-Beat sensibility...is at odds with the lemming drift of the 1950s, when chauvinist anti-Communism threatened us all with the final star-spangling to death." (Ken Jacobs)

6 pm

Shirley Clarke, The Cool World, 1963, b/w, sound, 125 min.

The crossover between Beat and black bohemianism in the 1950s produced a number of important films, including Shirley Clarke's raw portrayal of life in the Harlem ghetto, represented by a black teenager’s descent into crime.

The essence of Beat lay in the literary radicalism of its writers and poets, including Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. Their existentialism, cultural displacement, and rebellious rejection of conventional values were affirmed in cinematic terms by filmmakers on both coasts. This weekend program presents a concise survey of Beat cinema, including film collaborations by Anthony Balch and William Burroughs, and rare films by Larry Jordan, Piero Heliczer, and Dion Vigne.

12 noon

Stan Brakhage, Desistfilm, 1954, b/w, sound, 7 min.

Larry Jordan, Trumpit, 1955-56, b/w, sound, 7 min.

Larry Jordan, Triptych in Four Parts, 1958, color, sound, 12 min.

Piero Heliczer, The Autumn Feast, 1960, color, sound, 14 min.

*Ken Jacobs and Bob Fleischner, Blonde Cobra, 1959-63,

b/w and color, sound, 30 min.

Ken Jacobs, Little Stabs at Happiness, 1959-63, color, sound, 15 min.

2 pm

Wallace Berman, Untitled, 1956-66, color, silent, 7 min.

Robert Pike, The Tragi-Comedy of Marriage, 1957, b/w, sound, 8 min.

Frank Paine, Motion Picture, 1956, color, sound, 4 min.

Alfred Leslie, The Last Clean Shirt, 1964, b/w, sound, 39 min.

Dion Vigne, North Beach, 1958, b/w and color, sound, 10 min.

Anonymous (unknown Beats), Miscellaneous Fragments: North Beach, c. 1955, b/w, silent, 10 min.

4 pm

Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy, 1959,

b/w, sound, 30 min.

*Anthony Balch, Towers Open Fire, 1963, b/w, sound, 10 min.

Anthony Balch, William Buys a Parrot, c. 1963, color, silent, 2 min.

Anthony Balch, The Cut-Ups, 1961-67, b/w, sound, 10 min.

*ruth weiss, The Brink, 1961, b/w, sound, 40 min. (v)

12 noon

*Shirley Clarke, The Connection, 1961, b/w, sound, 103 min.

A tough exploration of the drug world in the 1950s, seen through the eyes of a group of junkies waiting for their fix. A film of The Living Theater’s adaptation of Jack Gelber’s revolutionary Off-Broadway play.

2 pm

The complete works of this neglected Beat filmmaker and poet, whose existentialist films used radical in-camera montage techniques to alter perception. In The End, gaps in dialogue and imagery become metaphors for the world annihilation that MacLaine felt was imminent.

*Christopher MacLaine, The End, 1953, b/w and color, sound, 34 3/4 min.

Christopher MacLaine, The Man Who Invented Gold, 1957, b/w and color, sound, 14 min.

Christopher MacLaine, Beat, 1958, color, sound, 6 min.

Christopher MacLaine, Scotch Hop, 1959, color, sound, 5 1/2 min.

3:30pm

Introduced By Taylor Mead

Taylor Mead, the first "star" of the underground, will appear in person to present two of his earliest and most celebrated performances, which showcase his comic style.

Vernon Zimmerman, Lemon Hearts, 1960, b/w, sound, 26 min.

Ron Rice, The Flower Thief, 1960, b/w, sound, 75 min.

6 pm

Peter Emmanuel Goldman’s haunting film of the seedier side of 42nd Street and Lionel Rogosin’s dark study of alcoholism on Manhattan's Skid Row.

Peter Emmanuel Goldman, Pestilent City, 1965, b/w, sound, 16 min.

Lionel Rogosin, On the Bowery, 1957, b/w, sound, 65 min.

Abstract cinema formed a central strand of early American avant-garde filmmaking during the 1940s and 1950s, particularly on the West Coast. Its non-objective colors, surfaces, and shapes create complex compositions of light in motion that often echo the structure of music. In the work of Jordan Belson and James Whitney, cosmic principles found expression through the delicate vibrancy of light and abstract forms.

12 noon

*Mary Ellen Bute, Mood Contrasts, 1953, color, sound, 7 min.

Mary Ellen Bute, Abstronics, 1952, color, sound, 7 min.

Stan Vanderbeek, Mankinda, 1957, b/w, sound, 10 min.

Jordan Belson, Mandala, 1953, color, sound, 3 min.

*Harry Smith, No. 7 (Color Study), 1952, color, sound, 5 1/2 min.

*Len Lye, Color Cry, 1952, color, sound, 3 min.

*Len Lye, Free Radicals, 1957, b/w, sound, 5 min.

Jim Davis, Becoming, 1955, color, silent, 8 1/2 min.

Jane Conger, Logos, 1957, color, sound, 2 min.

Jane Conger, Odds And Ends, 1959, color, sound, 5 min.

*James Whitney, Yantra, 1950-55, color, sound, 7 min.

1:30 pm

A rare screening of the abstract montage films of San Francisco filmmaker Hy Hirsh, who mostly worked in isolation in Europe during the 1950s. Hirsh mastered the techniques of optical printing, solarizing, multiple exposure, and split screens, and he was also one of the first filmmakers to incorporate electronic imagery into film.

Hy Hirsh, Eneri, 1953, color, sound, 6 min.

Hy Hirsh, Gyromorphosis, 1955, color, sound, 7 min.

Hy Hirsh, Autumn Spectrum, 1957, color, sound, 7 min.

Hy Hirsh, Scratch Pad, 1960, color, sound, 8 min.

Hy Hirsh, Come Closer, 1953, color, sound, 5 min.

*Hy Hirsh, La Couleur de la Forme, 1960, color, sound, 8 min.

Hy Hirsh, Divertissement Rococo, 1951, color, sound, 8 min.

Hy Hirsh, Décollages Recollés, 1961, color, sound, 7 min.

3 pm

A survey of the poetic use of light in Kenneth Anger’s Eaux d’Artifice, Robert Breer’s explorations of kinaesthetic space, Peter Kubelka’s experiments with the still frame, and the dancing light of Marie Menken’s Notebook. Also included is Ian Hugo’s Jazz of Lights, without which, as Stan Brakhage remarked, "there would have been no Anticipation of the Night."

Kenneth Anger, Eaux d’Artifice, 1953, color, sound, 13 min.

Marie Menken, Notebook, 1962-63, b/w and color, silent, 10 min.

*Marie Menken, Hurry! Hurry!, 1957, color, sound, 3 min.

Peter Kubelka, Adebar, 1956-57, b/w, sound, 5 x 1 1/2 min.

Peter Kubelka, Schwechater, 1957-58, color, sound, 5 x 1 min.

Peter Kubelka, Arnulf Rainer, 1958-60, b/w, sound, 6 1/2 min.

*Robert Breer, Recreation, 1956, color, sound, 1 1/2 min.

Robert Breer, A Man and His Dog Out for Air, 1957, b/w, sound, 2 min.

Robert Breer, Inner and Outer Space, 1960, color, sound, 4 min.

*Ian Hugo, Bells of Atlantis, 1952, color, sound, 9 min.

Ian Hugo, Jazz of Lights, 1954, color, sound, 16 min.

4:45 pm

Introduced by Stan Brakhage

Stan Brakhage, Sirius Remembered, 1959, color, silent, 12 min.

Stan Brakhage, Anticipation of the Night, 1958, color, silent, 40 min.

Stan Brakhage, Mothlight, 1963, color, silent, 4 min.

Repeat program: see Saturday, October 2

6 pm

Introduced by Robert Drew.

Robert Drew, Ricky Leacock, Al Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker, Primary, 1960, b/w, sound, 60 min.

This documentary about the 1960 primary elections and the shortcomings of the American political system received Film Culture’s Independent Film Award in 1961. The inclusion of a political documentary within the context of the New American Cinema demonstrated the increasing number of crossovers among different artistic practices.

12 noon

The rhythmic movement of dance made it a natural subject for experimental film. Fusing music, light, and the fluid choreography of the body, the films in this program form poetic compositions which, in Maya Deren’s In the Very Eye of Night, become a metaphor for the unconscious mind and the universe, through which the dancers move "like celestial satellites."

James Broughton, Four in the Afternoon, 1951, b/w, sound, 15 min.

Shirley Clarke, Dance in the Sun, 1953, color, sound, 6 min.

Shirley Clarke, A Moment in Love, 1957, color, sound, 8 min.

Ed Emshwiller, Dance Chromatic, 1959, color, sound, 7 min.

*Maya Deren, In the Very Eye of Night, 1959, b/w, sound, 15 min.

2.00 pm

The architecture of New York, transformed through the

filmmaker’s lens. This program includes rare screenings of Sidney Peterson's Architectural Millinery and Shirley Clarke's Skyscraper, which documents the construction of 666 Fifth Avenue. Also included is the first film by William Klein, best known for his 1956 photographic essay on New York.

Francis Thompson, NY, NY, 1957, color, sound, 15 min.

Sidney Peterson, Architectural Millinery, 1954, b/w, sound, 7 min.

Frank Stauffacher, Notes on the Port of St. Francis, 1951, b/w, sound, 20 min.

William Klein, Broadway by Light, 1958, color, sound, 14 min.

*Shirley Clarke, Bridges-Go-Round, 1958, color, sound, 4 min.

Shirley Clarke and Willard Van Dyke, Skyscraper, 1959, b/w and color, sound, 20 min.

4 pm

Since the beginning of the century, artists and filmmakers have depicted the streets of New York, creating portraits of urban life from the city’s visual cacophony. The films in this program present poetic studies of New York locations, including the Brooklyn Bridge, Mulberry Street, Little Italy, and the elevated subway.

*Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, and James Agee, In the Street, 1943-52, b/w, silent, with sound on cassette tape, 16 min.

Rudy Burckhardt, Under Brooklyn Bridge, 1953, b/w, sound, 15 min.

Ken Jacobs, Orchard Street, 1956, b/w, silent, 15 min.

Joseph Cornell and Rudy Burckhardt, Aviary, 1955, b/w, silent, 5 min.

Joseph Cornell and Rudy Burckhardt, A Fable for Fountains, c. 1954-57, b/w, sound, 6 min.

Joseph Cornell and Rudy Burckhardt, Nymphlight, 1957, color, silent, 7 1/2 min.

Joseph Cornell and Rudy Burckhardt, What Mozart Saw on

Mulberry Street, 1956, b/w, sound, 6 min.

Larry Jordan, Visions of a City, 1957/(edited 1978), b/w, sound, 6 1/2 min.

D.A. Pennebaker, Daybreak Express, 1953, color, sound, 5 min.

Repeat program: see Saturday, October 9

6 pm

As the Beat movement reached its height, Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie’s Pull My Daisy and John Cassavetes’ Shadows became the touchstones of the era, capturing the mood of an alienated generation poised to explode in the wide-reaching revolution of the sixties.

Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy, 1959, b/w, sound, 28 min.

John Cassavetes, Shadows, 1957-59, b/w, sound, 87 min.

Repeat program: see Sunday, October 3

Introduced by Amos Vogel, director of Cinema 16

12 noon

September 26–October 24

Two programs, alternating daily. Asterisked films are also screened in the theme programs.

11:30 am

*Shirley Clarke, The Connection, 1961, b/w, sound, 103 min.

1 pm

*Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy, 1959, b/w, sound, 28 min.

*Len Lye, Color Cry, 1952, color, sound, 3 min.

*Stan Brakhage, Reflections on Black, 1955, b/w, sound, 12 min.

3 pm

*Bruce Conner, A Movie, 1958, b/w, sound, 12 min.

*James Whitney, Yantra, 1950-55, color, sound, 7 min.

Roger Tilton, Jazz Dance, 1954, b/w, sound, 20 min.

*Shirley Clarke, Bridges Go Round, 1958, color, sound, 4 min.

*Ian Hugo, Bells of Atlantis, 1952, color, sound, 9 min.

*Anthony Balch, Towers Open Fire, 1963, b/w, sound, 10 min.

*Marie Menken, Hurry! Hurry!, 1957, color, sound, 3 min.

4:30 pm

*Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb and James Agee, In the Street, 1943-1952, b/w, silent with sound on tape, 16 min.

*Ken Jacobs and Bob Fleischner, Blonde Cobra, 1959-63, b/w and color, sound, 30 min.

*Maya Deren, In the Very Eye of Night, 1959, b/w, sound, 15 min.

11:30 am

*ruth weiss, The Brink, 1961, b/w, sound, 40 min. (v)

*Robert Breer, Recreation, 1956, color, sound, 1 1/2 min.

*Joseph Cornell and Rudy Burckhardt, What Mozart Saw on Mulberry Street, 1956, b/w, sound, 6 min.

*Hy Hirsh, La Couleur de la Forme, 1960, color, sound, 8 min.

1 pm

Anthony Balch, Ghosts at No. 9, 1963-67 (assembled by Genesis P. Orridge, 1982), color, sound, 45 min. (v)

*Mary Ellen Bute, Mood Contrasts, 1953, color, sound, 7 min.

Edward Bland, The Cry of Jazz, 1958, b/w, sound, 35 min.

*Stan Vanderbeek, Science Friction, 1959, color, sound, 10 min.

3 pm

*Christopher MacLaine, The End, 1953, b/w and color, sound, 35 min.

*Larry Jordan, Visions of a City, 1957 (edited 1978), b/w, sound, 6 1/4 min.

*Harry Smith, No. 7 (Color Study), 1952, color, sound, 5 1/2 min.

George Binkey (aka Adolfas Mekas), Anti-Film #2, 1951, b/w, sound, 18 min.

4.30 pm

*Kenneth Anger, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome: Sacred Mushroom Edition, 1954-66, color, sound, 38 min.

Peter Whitehead, Wholly Communion, 1966, b/w, sound, 33 min.

October 29–December 5

The radical environment of the sixties produced a rich mixture of alternative art practices, including an explosion of American avant-garde and underground film. Unprecedented crossovers among different artistic media led to new forms of art, including performance, Happenings, and new dance. It was during this period that many of the acknowledged classics of underground film were made. Filmmakers and artists also experimented with the newly arrived technology of video. The rebellious counterculture produced a body of films exploring psychedelia as well as radical films that independently documented political activism and protests against the Vietnam War. As in the 1950s, filmmakers allied themselves closely with music as a means of developing self-expression and independence.

Special programs exploring these different genres are scheduled on Thursday evenings and on weekends. Closed

Thursday, November 11, and Thursday, November 25.

In addition, four daily programs of important 1960s films and videotapes are repeated Tuesdays through Fridays.

4:30 pm

Jonas Mekas' film diary Lost, Lost, Lost, spanning 1949 to 1963, records both the evolution of the avant-garde film movement in New York and Mekas' own adaptation to life as a displaced person from Lithuania. Its melancholic tone is offset by the excitement and energy of a new life, which included cultural figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Robert Frank, and LeRoi Jones intercut with footage of the Film-Makers Cooperative, the Women for Peace protest, and other historic events.

Jonas Mekas, Lost, Lost, Lost, 1949-63 (edited 1976), b/w and color, sound, 178 min.

7 pm

An evening honoring Jonas Mekas, co-founder of the New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative, director of Anthology Film Archives, publisher of the influential magazine Film Culture, writer of the Village Voice "Movie Journal" columns, and self-appointed "minister of defense and propaganda of the New Cinema." On the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in New York on October 29, 1949, Mekas will comment on his role in the development of the American avant-garde film.

Followed by a screening of Gideon Bachmann’s Jonas, 1967, b/w, sound, 30 min.

During the 1960s, a young generation searching for spiritual and perceptual awakening experimented with mind-altering drugs. Encouraged by visionary guru Timothy Leary’s mantra "Turn on, tune in, drop out," young people took LSD as a means of expanding consciousness. The visionary quality of film made it an important medium for expressing the psychedelic sensibility. These programs present rarely screened experiments in hallucinogenic cinema.

12 noon

Jordan Belson, Caravan, 1952, color, sound, 4 min.

Jordan Belson, Mandala, 1953, color, sound, 3 min.

*Jordan Belson, Allures, 1961, color, sound, 9 min.

Jordan Belson, Re-Entry, 1964, color, sound, 6 min.

Jordan Belson, Phenomena, 1965, color, sound, 6 min.

Jordan Belson, Samadhi, 1967, color, sound, 6 min.

1 pm

Jud Yalkut, Turn Turn Turn, 1965-66, color, sound, 10 min.

Jud Yalkut, US Down by the Riverside, 1966, color,

sound, 3 min.

*Ben Van Meter, S.F. Trips Festival, An Opening, 1966, color, sound, 9 min.

Ben Van Meter, Acid Mantra, 1966-68, b/w and color, sound, 47 min.

Bob Cowan, Rockflow, 1968, b/w and color, sound, 9 min.

2:45 pm

Jonas Mekas, Report from Millbrook, 1966, color, sound, 12 min.

Victor Grauer, Archangel, 1966, color, sound, 10 min.

Victor Grauer, Certain Stars; Distant Stars; Acid, 1966, color, sound, 10 1/2 min.

James Whitney, Lapis, 1963-66, color, sound, 10 min.

Will Hindle, Chinese Firedrill, 1968, color, sound, 23 min.

John Hawkins, LSD Wall, 1964-65, color, sound, 6 1/2 min.

Keewatin Dewdney, The Maltese Cross Movement, 1967, color, sound, 7 min.

Scott Bartlett, Offon, 1968, color, sound, 9 min.

Eric Siegel, Tomorrow Never Knows, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 3 min.

4:30 pm

Ben Van Meter, Olds-mo-bile, 1965, b/w, sound, 14 min.

John Schofill, Filmpiece for Sunshine, 1966-68, color, sound, 24 min.

Ira Cohen, Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda, 1968, color, sound, 20 min. (v)

Stan Vanderbeek, Film Form No. 1, 1970, color, sound, 10 min.

(Ken Kesey's film of the Merry Pranksters’ bus trip across America will premiere on Saturday, November 27 at 4 pm.)

7 pm

Andy Warhol’s Uptight series and The Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) events that followed presented an innovative fusion of music and film. This evening of films related to the EPI features Ronald Nameth’s hallucinatory film of the event. Warhol’s recently restored film The Velvet Underground was conceived to be projected over the rock group as it played. The program includes other documents of, and by, the disparate factions that congregated around Andy Warhol’s Factory, among them rarely seen films by the poet Piero Heliczer, and Ron Rice’s Chumlum, featuring a cembalum solo by the Velvet Underground’s original drummer, Angus MacLise.

Ronald Nameth, Warhol’s EPI, 1966, b/w and color, sound, 22 min.

Piero Heliczer, The Soap Opera, c. 1964, color, silent, 13 min.

Piero Heliczer, Joan of Arc, c. 1967, color, sound on tape, 11 1/2 min.

Ron Rice, Chumlum, 1964, color, sound, 26 min.

Beverly and Tony Conrad, Straight and Narrow, 1970, b/w, sound, 10 min.

Keewatin Dewdney, Malanga, 1967, b/w, sound, 3 min.

Warren Sonbert, Where Did Our Love Go ?, 1966, color, sound on tape, 15 min.

Barbara Rubin, Christmas on Earth, 1963,

b/w, sound on tape, 29 min. (dual screen)

Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground, 1966, b/w, sound, 35 min. (dual screen)

Music was an important element of sixties avant-garde cinema. Many filmmakers collaborated directly with composers, or conceived works around particular soundtracks. The musicians represented in these films are cited in parentheses in the listings.

11:30 am

The close relationship between experimental filmmakers and popular music led to several dynamic works, including Mick Jagger's Moog score for Invocation of My Demon Brother. Jagger appears in Peter Ungerleider's film of the Rolling Stones' 1969 Hyde Park concert. Gunvor Nelson’s kaleidoscopic portrait of her daughter, Oona, contains a mesmerizing tape composition by Steve Reich.

John Rubin, The Who, 1967-69, color, sound, 3 min. (The Who)

Peter Ungerleider, Under My Thumb, 1969, color, sound, 30 min. (The Rolling Stones)

Kenneth Anger, Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969, color, sound, 11 min. (Mick Jagger)

Anthony Stern, San Francisco, 1968, color, sound, 15 min. (Pink Floyd)

Gunvor Nelson, My Name Is Oona, 1969, b/w, sound, 9 1/2 min. (Steve Reich)

Robert Shaye, Image, 1964, color, sound, 10 1/2 min. (Walter Carlos)

Bruce Conner, Permian Strata, 1969, b/w, sound, 4 min. (Bob Dylan)

1:30 pm

Four impressionistic films with jazz scores. Harry Smith's Number 11 (Mirror Animations) is precisely constructed to mirror Thelonious Monk's composition Mysterioso. The Forbidden Playground and Magic Sun were both inspired by the space music of Sun Ra, and were projected during the Arkestra's legendary appearances at Carnegie Hall in 1968.

Harry Smith, Number 11 (Mirror Animations), 1962 and 1976, color, sound, 10 1/2 min. (Thelonious Monk)

Phill Niblock, Magic Sun, 1966, b/w, sound, 17 min. (Sun Ra)

Maxine Haleff, The Forbidden Playground, c. 1966, b/w, sound, 10 1/2 min. (Sun Ra)

Bruce Baillie, All My Life, 1966, color, sound, 3 min. (Billie Holiday)

2:30 pm

ESP-disk was a pioneering record label that issued avant-garde rock and jazz records. Assembled here for the first time are the three films ESP-disk commissioned to promote its artists, together with Michael Snow's film New York Eye and Ear Control (A Walking Woman Work), featuring a soundtrack by Albert Ayler that became the first ESP jazz release.

Edward English, The Fugs, 1963, color, sound, 12 1/2 min. (The Fugs)

Jud Yalkut, The Godz, 1966, color, sound, 12 min. (The Godz)

Edward English, Spaceways, 1968, color, sound, 18 min. (Sun Ra)

Michael Snow, New York Eye and Ear Control (A Walking Woman Work), 1964, b/w, sound, 34 min. (Albert Ayler)

4 pm

The hypnotic and transcendental organ music of Terry Riley was chosen as a soundtrack by several filmmakers. Riley collaborated with sculptor Arlo Acton to make Music with Balls, a mantric early videotape mixed by John Coney.

Terry Riley and Arlo Acton, Music with Balls, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 24 min.

David McLaughlin, Getting Together, 1968, b/w, sound, 8 min.

Standish Lawder, Corridor, 1968-70, b/w, sound, 22 min.

John Whitney, Matrix III, 1973, color, sound, 10 min.

Bruce Conner, Crossroads, 1976, b/w, sound, 36 min.

3 pm

The Art of Vision is an expanded version of Stan Brakhage’s mythopoeic epic Dog Star Man, which expresses the cycle of the seasons and humanity’s struggle with nature. It contains the complete earlier film and is an analytical study of the footage within it.

Stan Brakhage, The Art of Vision, 1961-65, color, silent, 270 min.

12 noon

A key figure in the West Coast film community, Bruce Baillie created complex, multi-layered films that construct a poetic social commentary influenced by Eastern philosophy. His first major statement, To Parsifal, a film poem to the summer, is structured around the German legend. In Quixote, filmed on a cross-country trip in 1963-64, the filmmaker critically observes the social environment of America, from its Native American communities to Wall Street and Vietnam.

Bruce Baillie, Show Leader, 1966, b/w, sound, 1 min.

Bruce Baillie, Mr. Hayashi, 1961, b/w, sound, 3 min.

Bruce Baillie, A Hurrah for Soldiers, 1962-63, color, sound, 4 min.

Bruce Baillie, To Parsifal, 1963, b/w, sound, 16 min.

Bruce Baillie, Quixote, 1964-65, b/w and color, sound, 45 min.

Bruce Baillie, Tung, 1966, b/w and color, silent, 5 min.

Bruce Baillie, Castro Street, 1966, b/w and color, sound, 10 min.

2 pm

George Kuchar, a celebrated figure of underground cinema, will make a return to New York to present his lesser-known films of the 1960s. Kuchar’s distinct, personal view of life through Technicolor spectacles continues to entertain audiences after four decades of prolific production. After making early 8mm epics with his brother Mike, Kuchar burst onto the scene with Hold Me While I'm Naked, a parody of the frustration and loneliness which characterized his particular style of steamy, homespun melodrama. This selection features films made in New York before Kuchar’s relocation to California in 1971.

George Kuchar, Leisure, 1966, b/w, sound, 9 min.

George Kuchar, Mosholu Holiday, 1966, b/w, sound, 9 min.

George Kuchar, Color Me Shameless, 1967, b/w, sound, 30 min.

George Kuchar, The Lady from Sands Point, 1967, b/w, sound, 9 min.

George Kuchar, The Mammal Palace, 1969, b/w, sound, 31 min.

4 pm

Introduced by Owen Land

The earliest films of Owen Land (formerly known as George Landow) foreshadowed the Structural movement which was to dominate the cinematic avant-garde in the 1970s. Film in Which There Appear Sprocket Holes, Edge Lettering, Dirt Particles, Etc. is a film in which the print’s natural degradation, through collected dirt and scratches, becomes part of the work itself. Institutional Quality of 1969 (subsequently withdrawn and revised in 1976) marked a new phase of Land’s filmmaking, characterized by a dry sense of humor and a continual undermining of conventional cinematic perception.

Owen Land, Fleming Faloon, 1963-64, color, sound and silent, 7 min.

*Owen Land, Film in Which There Appear Sprocket Holes, Edge Lettering, Dirt Particles, Etc., 1965-66, color, silent, 4 1/2 min.

Owen Land, Diploteratology, 1967, color, silent, 7 min.

Owen Land, The Film That Rises to the Surface of Clarified Butter, 1968, b/w, sound, 9 min.

Owen Land, Institutional Quality, 1969, color, sound, 11 min.

Owen Land, Remedial Reading Comprehension, 1970, color, sound, 5 min.

Owen Land, What's Wrong with This Picture ?, 1972, b/w and color, sound, 12 1/2 min.

Owen Land, Wide Angle Saxon, 1975, color, sound, 22 min.

Owen Land, No Sir, Orison, 1975, color, sound, 3 min.

7 pm

Performances, readings and music by Dick Higgins, performed by Larry Miller, Alison Knowles, Eric Andersen, Jessie Higgins, and others.

Dedicated to Dick Higgins, a founding member of Fluxus, who died in December 1998.

See also Fluxday, Thursday, November 11, a day of Fluxus films and documents, which includes a program of Dick Higgins’ films.

12 noon

Spring Equinox 1966: The Magick Lantern Cycle of Kenneth Anger

Kenneth Anger is a highly influential figure in American avant-garde cinema, and Scorpio Rising has become one of underground film’s best-known classics. This program presents five of Anger’s key films from 1947 to the end of the 1960s that were shown together as Spring Equinox 1966: The Magick Lantern Cycle. The Cycle, which originally began with a slide sequence, fuses mysticism, alchemy, and desire with ritual, Hollywood imagery, light, and "magick."

Kenneth Anger, Kustom Kar Kommandos, 1965, color, sound, 3 1/2 min.

Kenneth Anger, Fireworks, 1947, b/w, sound, 15 min.

*Kenneth Anger, Eaux d’Artifice, 1953, color, sound, 13 min.

*Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising, 1963, color, sound, 29 min.

Kenneth Anger, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome: Sacred Mushroom Edition, 1954-66, color, sound, 38 min.

2 pm

Bruce Conner’s career as a leading West Coast assemblage artist deeply influenced his filmmaking. A Movie constructs an improbable continuity through an ironic juxtaposition of newsreel footage, scrap film leader, and commercial and military films. The frenzied editing of images in Cosmic Ray influenced the development of fast cutting in commercial television. This program brings together all of Conner's extant films of the 1950s and 1960s, including his moving document about the removal of Jay DeFeo’s sculpture/painting The White Rose from her studio.

*Bruce Conner, A Movie, 1958, b/w, sound, 12 min.

*Bruce Conner, Cosmic Ray, 1961, b/w, sound, 4 min.

Bruce Conner, Looking for Mushrooms, 1961-67, color, sound, 3 min.

*Bruce Conner, Report, 1963-67, b/w, sound, 13 min.

Bruce Conner, Vivian, 1964, b/w, sound, 3 min.

Bruce Conner, Breakaway, 1966, b/w, sound, 5 min.

Bruce Conner, The White Rose, 1967, b/w, sound, 7 min.

Bruce Conner, Marilyn Times Five, 1968-73, b/w, sound, 13 min.

*Bruce Conner, Permian Strata, 1969, b/w, sound, 4 min.

4 pm

A program from Robert Nelson’s collection of his rarely seen works from the 1960s. Nelson’s films are underpinned by a deeply felt sense of humor and the absurd. After becoming immersed in the Beat culture of San Francisco, he produced a series of anarchic comedies, including the underground classic Oh Dem Watermelons in 1965. The program will include the only existing prints of such works as Oiley Peloso, as well as films made in cooperation with Steve Reich, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the Grateful Dead.

Robert Nelson, Plastic Haircut, 1963, b/w, sound, 9 1/2 min.

Robert Nelson, T.P.I., 1965, b/w, sound, 3 1/2 min.

*Robert Nelson, Oh Dem Watermelons, 1965, color, sound, 10 min., 14 min.

Robert Nelson, 60 Lazy Dogs,

Robert Nelson, Oiley Peloso, 1965, b/w, sound 1965, 14 min.

Robert Nelson, T.P. II, 1, 1965, b/w, sound, 4 1/2 min.

Robert Nelson, Grateful Dead, 1967, color, sound, 7 1/2 min.

Robert Nelson, Soup or Spread, 1967, color, sound, 5 min.

Robert Nelson, 1/2 Bright, 1/2 Open, 1/2 Withered, 1/2 Lumpy 1967, color, sound, 3 min.

Robert Nelson, Hot Leatherette, 1967, b/w, sound, 4 3/4 min.

Robert Nelson, The Awful Backlash, 1967, b/w, sound, 4 1/2 min.

Robert Nelson, Gourley in 67, 1967, color, sound, 14 min.

Robert Nelson, The Offhand Jape, 1967, color, sound, 7 1/2 min.

Fluxus grew out of the breakdown between artistic disciplines that began during the early 1960s. Rejecting conventional definitions of high art, Fluxus created an irreverent, intermedia practice incorporating performance, music, scores, objects, and films. Centered around the forceful personality of its founder, George Maciunas, Fluxus activity was intimate, ephemeral, democratic, and poetic. This program features some of the key Fluxus films and documents, including an interview with George Maciunas.

1:15pm

Peter Moore, Stockhausen’s Originale, 1964-94, b/w, sound, 33 min.

Shigeko Kubota, George Maciunas with Two Eyes, 1972, George Maciunas with One Eye, 1976, 1994, videotape, b/w, sound, 7 min.

Larry Miller, Flux Wedding, 1978, b/w, silent, 7 1/2 min.

Larry Miller, Interview with George Maciunas, 1978, videotape, b/w, sound, 18 min.

Excerpt from Larry Miller, Some Fluxus, 1999

Jonas Mekas, Zefiro Torna, or, Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas, 1952–78-92, color, sound, 34 min.

3:15pm

Dick Higgins was a founding member and major force of Fluxus. He studied composition with John Cage, participated in many early Happenings, and is credited with developing the concept of "intermedia" in 1965.

Dick Higgins, The End, 1962, b/w, sound, 12 min.

Dick Higgins, Mysteries, 1969, b/w, sound, 8 min.

Dick Higgins, Hank and Mary Without Apologies, 1962-70, color, sound, 17 1/2 min.

4 pm

Yoko Ono’s films, scores, objects, and performances of the 1960s were an important contribution to early Fluxus. Her notorious film No. 4 (also known as Bottoms) is definitively Fluxus in its deadpan, irreverent structure.

Yoko Ono, No. 4 (Bottoms), 1966, b/w, sound, 80 min.

5:30 pm

Fluxfilms: Fluxfilm Anthology, 1966/70, b/w and color, silent, 120 min.

A collection of over thirty Fluxus films, ranging in length from 10 seconds to 10 minutes, edited by George Maciunas. Includes:

#1 Nam Jun Paik, Zen For Film; #2 Dick Higgins, Invocation For Canyons And Boulders (For Stan Brakhage); #3 George Maciunas, End After 9; #4 Chieko Shomi, Disappearing Music For Face; #5 John Cavanaugh, Blink; #6 James Riddle, 9 Minutes; #7 George Maciunas, 10 Feet; #8 George Maciunas, 1000 Frames; #9 Yoko Ono, Eye Blink; #10 George Brecht, Entrance To Exit; #11 Robert Watts, Trace No.22; #12 Robert Watts, Trace No.23; #13 Robert Watts, Trace No.24; #14 Yoko Ono, One; #15 Yoko Ono, Eye Blink; #16 Yoko Ono, Four; #17 Pieter Vanderbeck, Five O’Clock In The Morning; #18 Joe Jones, Smoking; #19 Erik Andersen, Opus 74, Version 2; #20 George Maciunas, Artype, #22 Jeff Perkins, Shout; #23 Wolf Vostell, Sun In Your Head (Television Decollage); #24 Albert Fine, Readymade; #25 George Landow, The Evil Faerie; #26 Paul Sharits, Sears Catalog 1-3; #27 Paul Sharits, Dots 1 & 2; #28 Paul Sharits, Wrist Trick; (unnumbered) Paul Sharits, Unrolling Event; #29 Paul Sharits, Word Movie; #30 Albert Fine, Dance; #31 John Cale, Police Car; #36 Peter Kennedy, Flux Film #36; #37 Peter Kennedy & Mike Parr, Flux Film #37; #38 Ben, Je Ne Vois Rien, Je N’Entends Rien, Je Ne Dis Rien; #39 Ben, La Traversé Du Port De Nice À La Nage; #40 Ben, Faire Un Effort; #41 Ben, Regardez-Moi, Cela Suffit

12 noon

In 1969, The Dilexi Foundation commissioned artists to create a pioneering group of videotapes. The videotapes were made specifically for broadcast on television by KQED, San Francisco. This selection of four of the twelve tapes demonstrates the creative potential of the unique collaboration that developed in the late sixties between artists and network television.

Julian Beck and The Living Theater, Rite of Guerrilla Theater, 1969, videotape, b/w, sound, 25 1/2 min.

Philip Makanna, The Empire of Things, 1969, videotape, b/w and color, sound, 20 1/2 min.

*Anna Halprin, Right On, 1969, videotape, b/w, sound, 29 1/2 min.

Frank Zappa, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, 1969, videotape, b/w and color, sound, 18 min.

See also Terry Riley and Arlo Acton, Music with Balls, 1968, another Dilexi program, screened on Sunday, October 31, and The Medium Is the Medium, 1969, which combines the works of six artists commissioned by television station WGBH, Boston, screened on Sunday, November 28, and Wednesdays, at 5.30 pm.

4 pm

The films of Gregory Markopoulos are some of the most revered works in the avant-garde film canon, although they rarely have been seen since being withdrawn from exhibition in the late 1960s. The Illiac Passion, based on Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, took three years to complete, and is an acknowledged masterpiece. Ming Green and Bliss, two of Markopoulos' "films of place," were shot in a single day and edited entirely in camera.

Gregory Markopoulos, Ming Green, 1966, color, sound, 7 min.

Gregory Markopoulos, The Illiac Passion, 1967, color, sound, 92 min.

Gregory Markopoulos, Bliss, 1967, color, sound, 6 min.

12 noon

Repeat program: see Saturday, November 13

2 pm

Introduced by Jerry Tartaglia, filmmaker and restorer of Jack Smith’s work for the Plaster Foundation.

Jack Smith was a prolific actor, writer, filmmaker, photographer, and a legendary figure of the New York underground. To complement his best-known film Flaming Creatures, screened in the weekly cycles, this program presents a group of rarely seen works. Many of these films were never assembled into definitive versions, and were constantly re-edited for individual screenings or used in Smith's theater presentations of the 1970s and 1980s. No President, a bewildering construction starring Irving Rosenthal, is arguably one of Smith's greatest achievements.

Jack Smith, Scotch Tape, 1959-62, color, sound, 2 min.

Jack Smith, Overstimulated, 1959-60, b/w, silent, 6 min.

Jack Smith, Reefers of Technicolor Island, 1967, color, sound on tape, 15 min.

Jack Smith, No President, 1967-70, b/w, sound on tape, 50 min.

Jack Smith, Song for Rent, 1968-69, color, sound on tape, 5 min.

4 pm

Repeat program: see Sunday, November 7

5:30 pm

Richard Myers, Akran, 1969, b/w, sound, 118 min.

Richard Myers’ first feature-length film overpowers the viewer with its technical virtuosity. Using an abundance of visual techniques, Akran constructs a rich mosaic that presents a subversive view of America in the late 1960s.

12 pm

The practice of projecting two 16mm film reels side by side was used extensively by Andy Warhol in the mid-1960s. Several of his films were presented in either single or dual screen. The films of Storm de Hirsch and Paul Sharits use the double screen to magnify their visual abstractions and to bombard the viewer with color and sound.

Andy Warhol, Lupe, 1965, color, sound, 36 min. (dual screen)

Storm de Hirsch, Third Eye Butterfly, 1968, color, sound, 10 min. (dual screen)

Ira J. Newman, French Lick, 1968–69, b/w and color, sound, 6 min. (dual screen)

Paul Sharits, Razor Blades, 1965-68, b/w and color, sound, 25 min. (dual screen).

2 pm

Introduced by Callie Angell, adjunct curator, Andy Warhol Film Project, Whitney Museum of American Art.

Andy Warhol, The Chelsea Girls, 1966, b/w and color, sound, 210 min. (in dual screen)

The Chelsea Girls is a collection of scenes presented as events occurring simultaneously in different rooms of the Chelsea Hotel, New York. Individual sections feature Warhol superstars Gerard Malanga, Mary Woronov, and Nico, and original music by The Velvet Underground. Following its initial screenings in New York, The Chelsea Girls went on to become the most commercially successful underground film of all time.

Introduced by Chrissie Iles, curator of film and video, Whitney Museum of American Art

11:30 am

Performance events and Happenings proliferated in the 1960s, as artists explored a process-based form of art-making which challenged the autonomy of the art object and traditional theatrical forms. These programs present rare films of Happenings and performances that took place in and around New York in the early 1960s, extending the boundaries of art to include danger, risk, and a liberation of the female body.

Raymond Saroff, Storedays: I & II,

Raygun Theater, 1962, b/w, silent, 14 1/2 min.

Documenting Happenings by Claes Oldenburg

Bud Wirtschafer, What's Happening, 1963, color, sound, 13 1/2 min.

Allan Kaprow, Household, 1964, b/w, silent, 22 min.

Robert Whitman, American Moon, 1961-99, edited by Sue Wrbican, interviews by Julie Martin, color, sound, 12 min.

1 pm

Experiments in Art and Technology, 9 Evenings: Theater & Engineering, 1966

Introduced by Billy Kluver of Experiments In Art & Technology

The world premiere of two recently restored and edited archival films documenting the historic performances that took place on nine evenings at the 69th Regiment Armory, New York, in 1966, by Robert Whitman, David Tudor, John Cage, Öyvind Fahlström, Robert Rauschenberg, Yvonne Rainer, Alex Hay, Steve Paxton, Robert Morris, and Deborah Hay. Organized by Experiments in Art and Technology.

Barbro Schultz Lundestam, Robert Rauschenberg, Open Score, 1996, b/w and color, sound, 34 min.

Barbro Schultz Lundestam, Öyvind Fahlström, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, 1996, b/w and color, sound, 71 min.

3 pm

Carolee Schneemann’s ground-breaking 1960s performances, documented by filmmakers.

Elaine Summers, Water Light/Water Needle, 1966, b/w, silent, 15 min.

Alphonse Shilling, Snows, 1966, b/w, silent, 24 min.

Gideon Bachmann, Body Collage, 1967, b/w, silent, 6 min.

4 pm

The 1960s saw an unprecedented crossover among disciplines, in particular those of art and "new dance." From the late 1950s through the 1960s, the Judson Dance Theater in New York became a center for experimental art and dance, showing work by Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, Simone Forti, Carolee Schneeman, and Robert Morris. Aside from the performers at Judson, other artists incorporated dance movements into their work. Bruce Nauman’s early performances were influenced by the work of Anna Halprin, while some of Joan Jonas’ early performances involved groups of people performing everyday movements in the open air within a choreographed structure.

Yvonne Rainer, Trio A, 1966 (filmed 1978), b/w, sound, 10 min.

Bruce Nauman, Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square, 1967-68, b/w, sound, 11 min.

*Anna Halprin, Right On, 1969, videotape, b/w, sound, 29 1/2 min.

Joan Jonas, Wind, 1968, b/w, silent, 5 1/2 min.

Robert Morris, Wisconsin, 1970, b/w, silent, 15 min.

12 noon

Repeat program: see Sunday, November 14

2 pm

Repeat program: see Saturday, November 6

4 pm

The theatrical premiere of Ken Kesey’s unfinished film - finally edited after thirty years - of The Merry Pranksters’ legendary bus trips across America in the 1960s, as immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. A bridge between the Beats and the hippies, The Pranksters were vanguard figures of the psychedelic movement, whose destination was always "furthur."

Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters, Intrepid Traveler and His Merry Band of Pranksters Search for a Cool Place, 1964 (edited 1999), color, sound, 60 min. (v)

Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters, Acid Test, 1964-65 (edited 1990), color, sound, 55 min. (v)

Video art was born out of two strands of sixties American counterculture: the utopian desire for an expanded perception through new technology, and a rebellion against the institutional authority of mainstream television. At the inception of video in the mid-1960s, filmmakers and artists experimented with psychedelically inflected electronic image-processing techniques using audio and video synthesizers. A number of filmmakers incorporated the new electronic imagery of video into their filmmaking, creating "electronic" films.

11:30 am

Jud Yalkut, Cinema Metaphysique Nos. 1-4, 1966-67 (edited 1972), b/w, sound, 13 min.

Jud Yalkut, Cinema Metaphysique No. 5, 1967, color, silent, 2 min.

Jud Yalkut, Electronic Fables, 1971, color, sound, 9 min.

Philip Makanna, The Empire of Things, 1969, videotape, b/w and color, sound, 20 min.

John Whitney, Permutations, 1968, color, sound, 8 min.

Doris Chase, Circles 1 (Subotnik), 1971, color, sound, 7 min.

Standish Lawder, Runaway, 1969, b/w, sound, 5 1/2 min.

1 pm

John Stehura, Cibernetik 5.3, 1961-65, color, sound, 8 min.

Scott Bartlett, Serpent, 1971, color, sound, 14 min.

Ed Emshwiller, Scape-Mates, 1972, color, sound, 28 min.

Stan Vanderbeek, Videospace, 1972, color, sound, 7 min.

Tom DeWitt, The Leap, 1968, color, sound, 7 min.

Stephen Beck and Jordan Belson, Cycles, 1974, color, sound, 10 min.

2:30 pm

Jud Yalkut, Beatles Electroniques, 1966-69, b/w, sound, 3 min.

Eric Siegel, Einstein, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 5 1/2 min.

Eric Seigel, Symphony of the Planets, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 10 1/2 min.

Eric Seigel, Tomorrow Never Knows, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 3 min.

Steina and Woody Vasulka, Calligrams, videotape, b/w, silent, 12 min.

*Steina, Violin Power, 1970-1978, videotape, b/w, sound, 10 min.

*WGBH, Boston, The Medium Is the Medium, 1969, videotape, color, sound, 28 min.

Nam June Paik, Global Groove, 1973, videotape, color, sound, 28 1/2 min.

4:30 pm

In 1969, the Raindance video collective was formed by Frank Gillette, Paul Ryan, Ira Schneider, and Michael Shamberg. Raindance’s "media primers," which include footage of Abbie Hoffman and the Altamont concert, propose an engagement with both counterculture and mainstream television in order to create alternative communication systems. Also in 1969, Ira Schneider made a historic recording of the first exhibition of video art in the United States, at the Howard Wise Gallery, New York.

*Ira Schneider, TV as a Creative Medium, 1969 (edited 1984), videotape, b/w, sound, 12 min.

*Paul Ryan, Proto Media Primer, 1970, videotape, b/w, sound, 16 min.

Ira Schneider, Media Primer, 1970, videotape, b/w, sound, 23 min.

Michael Shamberg, Media Primer, 1971, videotape, b/w, sound, 16 1/2 min.

5:30 pm

Ken Jacobs’ seminal film Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son ushered in a new era of filmmaking. Taking found footage of a black-and-white film from 1905, Jacobs dissected it, re-filming it backwards and forwards, elevating details, and opening up the structure of the film to an extreme degree, thus rewriting the rules of cinema. The historical precedent for Jacobs’ making of Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son is Rose Hobart, a film montage assembled by the artist Joseph Cornell, who re-edited footage from the 1931 Hollywood film East of Borneo.

Joseph Cornell, Rose Hobart, c. 1936, color, sound on cassette tape, 19 1/2 min.

Ken Jacobs, Tom, Tom, The Piper’s Son, 1969, b/w and color, silent, 115 min.

A weekend of programs documenting how the political and social turbulence of the sixties motivated the younger generation to become deeply engaged with civil rights, black power, personal liberation, and political action. Centered around university campuses and large-scale protest marches against the Vietnam War, their radical strategies of protest, resistance, and rebellion were recorded by avant-garde filmmakers. These filmmakers demonstrated a remarkable solidarity with a new, collectivized political filmmaking centered around the New York and San Francisco Newsreels (later known as Third World Newsreel), whose anonymously produced films challenged the hierarchy of television news reportage and "professional" documentary filmmaking.

11:30 am

*Third World Newsreel, America, 1969, b/w, sound, 30 min.

Leonard Henny, Peace Pickets Arrested for Disturbing the Peace, 1967, color, sound, 6 3/4 min

Rudi Stern and John Riley, The Flag Show: Judson Church, 1968, videotape, b/w, sound, 15 min. (excerpt)

Third World Newsreel, Up Against the Wall Ms. America, 1968, b/w, sound, 8 min.

1 pm

Introduced by D.A. Pennebaker

Jean-Luc Godard and D.A. Pennebaker, One PM, 1969, color, sound, 95 min.

3 pm

In the summer of 1967 in San Francisco, the first Be-In drew thousands of young people searching for a new way of life. Disillusioned with authority, and building on the earlier underground actions of the Beats, this new generation created a utopian counterculture, using hallucinogenic drugs, meditation, yoga, music, free love, and erotic liberation to open up alternative ways of living and loving.

Jerry Abrams, Be-In, 1967, color, sound, 7 min.

Les Blank, God Respects Us When We Work But Loves Us When We Dance, 1968, color, sound, 20 min.

Carolee Schneeman, Fuses, 1964-68, color, silent, 22 mins.

4.30 pm

During the sixties, the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the death of Malcolm X, the violence which increasingly accompanied protest demonstrations, the Manson murders, and the deaths at Altamont undermined the spirit of social, political, and personal transformation, and demonstrated the harsh realities behind the Flower Power generation’s attempts to create a new society.

Bruce Conner, Report, 1963-67, b/w, sound, 13 min.

Ken Jacobs, Perfect Film, 1965 (reprinted 1986), b/w, sound, 23 min.

Will Hindle, Saint Flournoy Lobos-Logos and the Eastern Europe Fetus Taxing Japan Brides in West Coast Places Sucking Alabama Air, 1970, color, sound, 12 min.

Richard Myers, Allison, 1970, b/w, sound, 7 min.

11:30 am

Carolee Schneemann, Viet Flakes, 1965, b/w, sound, 11 min.

Paul Sharits, Piece Mandala/End War, 1966, b/w and color, silent, 5 min.

Peter Gessner, Time of the Locust, 1966, b/w, sound, 12 min.

Albert Alotta, Peacemeal, 1967, color, sound, 7 1/2 min.

Rudi Stern and John Riley, The Flag Show: Judson Church, 1968, videotape, b/w, sound, 12 min. (excerpt)

Storm de Hirsch, Trap Dance, 1968, b/w, sound, 1 1/2 min.

*David Ringo, March on the Pentagon, 1968, b/w, sound, 20 1/2 min.

1 pm

Film, television, theater, and music played an important role in addressing issues in the black community during the 1960s. Eugene and Carole Marner’s feisty portrait of two teenage black girls living on New York’s Lower East Side predicts the ground-breaking work of Charles Hobson, whose Inside Bedford Stuyvesant series was the first locally produced black television documentary in America. Dutchman, adapting LeRoi Jones’ masterpiece representing the 1960s Black Theater Movement, captures the tension that erupts in America when race and class collide.

Eugene and Carole Marner, Phyllis & Terry, 1964-65, b/w, sound, 36 min.

Third World Newsreel, I Have a Dream, 1963, b/w, sound, 15 min.

Anthony Harvey, Dutchman, 1966, b/w, sound, 55 min.

Charles Hobson, Inside Bedford Stuyvesant, 1968, videotape, b/w, sound, 56 min.

4 pm

The revolutionary program of the Black Panthers proposed a militant solution to the social and political problems of the black community. Radical white filmmakers produced work in cooperation with the Black Panthers, as well as other films that independently documented this revolutionary period in black history.

Third World Newsreel, Black Panthers, 1968, b/w, sound, 15 min.

*Leonard Henny, Black Power - We’re Goin’ Survive America !, 1969, color, sound, 15 min.

David Loeb Weiss, No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger, 1968, b/w, sound, 68 min.

October 29–December 5

Four different daily programs of 1960s films and videotapes will be shown Tuesdays through Fridays. Asterisked films are also screened in the theme programs.

11:30 am

Stan Brakhage, Songs 1-7, 1964-1980, color, silent, 24 1/2 min.

Joyce Wieland, 1933, 1967, color, sound, 4 min.

Mike Kuchar, Tales of the Bronx, 1969, b/w, sound, 16 min.

*Paul Ryan, Proto Media Primer, 1970, videotape, b/w, sound, 16 min.

1 pm

John Cage, Aspects of a New Consciousness, Dialogue III, 1969, color, sound, 30 min.

In this important early television interview, Cage discusses the philosophical principles of his work and his radical musical forms.

Merce Cunningham, Variations V, 1966, b/w, sound, 50 min.

*Ben Van Meter, S.F. Trips Festival, An Opening, 1966, color, sound, 9 min.

3 pm

*Robert Nelson, Oh Dem Watermelons, 1965, color,

sound, 11 min.

Jack Smith, Flaming Creatures, 1963, b/w, sound, 45 min.

"A Saturday, night on 42nd Street, from dusk to dawn. The glamour, the garbage, the hot dogs, the movies, the sex and violence in the air."

4:30 pm

Gideon Bachmann, Underground New York, 1967, b/w, sound, 50 min.

A portrait of the New York underground film scene in the 1960s, with rare footage of Shirley Clarke, George Kuchar, Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas, and many others.

Storm de Hirsch, Peyote Queen, 1965, color, sound, 9 min.

In this "journey through the underworld of sensory derangement, of interior vision," abstractions drawn directly onto the film stock appear at rapid speed to the rhythm of African drumming.

Andrew Meyer, Match Girl, 1966, color, sound, 26 min.

11:30 am

*David Ringo, March on the Pentagon, 1968, b/w, sound, 20 1/2 min.

Ed Emshwiller, Thanatopsis, 1962, b/w, sound, 5 min.

*Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising, 1963, color, sound, 29 min.

Ernie Gehr, Morning, 1968, color, silent, 4 1/2 min.

1 pm

D.A. Pennebaker, Don’t Look Back, 1967, b/w, sound, 96 min.

Pennebaker’s documentary of Bob Dylan’s first British tour.

3 pm

James Whitney, Lapis, 1963-66, color, sound, 10 min.

Warren Sonbert, The Bad and the Beautiful, 1967, color, sound, 30 min.

Chick Strand, Waterfall, 1967, color, sound, 3 min.

*Will Hindle, Saint Flournoy Lobos-Logos and the Eastern Europe Fetus Taxing Japan Brides in West Coast Places Sucking Alabama Air, 1970, color, sound, 12 min.

*Standish Lawder, Runaway, 1969, b/w, sound, 5 1/2 min.

4:30 pm

*WGBH, Boston, The Medium Is the Medium, 1969, videotape, color, sound, 28 min.

Six original works created for television, by Allan Kaprow, Otto Piene, Nam June Paik, James Seawright, Thomas Tadlock, and Aldo Tambellini, all of whom explored the new medium of video, incorporating image- processing, dance, performance, and intermedia.

Gideon Bachmann, Jonas, 1967, b/w, sound, 30 min.

*Bruce Conner, Cosmic Ray, 1961, b/w, sound, 4 min.

*Jordon Belson, Allures, 1961, color, sound, 9 min.

*Bruce Baillie, All My Life, 1966, color, sound, 3 min.

*Jud Yalkut, Turn Turn Turn, 1965-66, color, sound, 10 min.

"A torrent of hurtling colors and lights, forms blinking, whirling and surging. Image follows image in rapid-fire succession, distorting awareness of time and space."

1:30 pm

Andy Warhol, My Hustler, 1965, b/w, sound, 67 min.

3 pm

*Ira Schneider, TV as a Creative Medium, 1969 (edited 1984), videotape, b/w, sound, 12 min.

*Third World Newsreel, Black Panther, 1969, b/w, sound, 15 min.

*Harry Smith, No. 11 (Mirror Animations), 1962-76, color, sound, 9 min.

Charles Henri Ford, Poem Posters, 1960s, color, sound, 24 min.

A documentary poem of the exhibition opening of Charles Henri Ford, with appearances by Edie Sedgwick and many other figures from the sixties scene.

*Paul Sharits, Piece Mandala/End War, 1966, b/w and color, silent, 5 min.

Michael Snow, Wavelength, 1966-67, color, sound, 45 min.

This classic early Structural film is composed of a single slow zoom shot of a loft space, whose sparse purity is disrupted by changes in the image color, film stock, and the appearance of people and a radio, creating a new perception of film time.

Yoko Ono, Freedom, 1970, color, sound, 1 min.

11:30 am

*Stan Brakhage, Mothlight, 1963, color, silent, 4 min.

*Steina, Violin Power, 1970-78, b/w, sound, 10 min.

The video camera becomes analogous to a musical instrument and the violin an image-generating tool, as the black-and-white image and a Beatles soundtrack are broken down into abstract visual and aural layers.

Tony Conrad, The Flicker, 1966, b/w, sound, 30 min.

In this radical minimal work, the flicker of alternating black and clear frames creates rhythms of light and dark that suggest aural patterns, applying the harmonic principles of serial music to film.

*Third World Newsreel, America, 1969, b/w, sound, 30 min.

1 pm

Norman Mailer, Maidstone, 1969, color, sound, 110 min.

Set in the civil unrest of 1968, this story of the murder of a commercial film director and presidential candidate uses avant-garde techniques to break down the division between fictive artifice and historical reality.

3 pm

Takahiko Iimura, Ai (Love), 1962, b/w, sound, 12 min.

"A poetic and sensuous exploration of the body."

Jerome Hill, Death in the Forenoon or Who's Afraid of Ernest Hemingway ?, 1965, color, sound, 2 min.

Ken Jacobs, Window, 1964, color, silent, 12 min.

George Kuchar, Hold Me While I'm Naked, 1966, color, sound, 15 min.

*Leonard Henny, Black Power - We're Goin' Survive America!, 1969, color, sound, 15 min.

*Owen Land, Film in Which There Appear Sprocket Holes, Edge Lettering, Dirt Particles, Etc., 1965-66, color, silent, 4 1/2 min.

4:30 pm

Robert Breer, 69, 1968, color, sound, 4 1/2 min.

Bruce Baillie, Mass for the Dakota Sioux, 1963-64, b/w, sound, 20 1/2 min.

Tom Chomont, Orphelia/The Cat Lady, 1969, color, sound, 2 1/2 min.

A film poem which conveys, through intense emotion and a delicate sense of beauty, the fragility of human existence.

*Jerry Abrams, Be In, 1967, color, sound, 7 min.

The first Be-In in San Francisco, with Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and Buddha. Peace, love, and euphoria.

Larry Jordan, Duo Concertantes, 1964, b/w, sound, 9 min.

*Eugene and Carole Marner, Phyllis & Terry, 1964-65, b/w, sound, 36 min.

Throughout the exhibition, the following off-site sound and light environment can also be visited:

La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela

275 Church Street 3rd Floor, New York 10013

open Thursdays and Saturdays 2 pm - midnight

tel. 212 925 8270

We would like to thank M.M. Serra of the New American Cinema Group/Film-Makers Cooperative, New York, for her extensive help and support during the research for this program. We are particularly grateful to Jonas Mekas for his help and advice, and to Robert Haller and all at Anthology Film Archives, New York. We would especially like to thank Amos Vogel for his counsel and curatorial expertise, and Scott MacDonald for his curatorial work on the Cinema 16 program. We are grateful to Professor William Moritz and to Larry Cuba of the Iota Center for lending many rare prints. We would also like to thank Gerald O’Grady, David Sherman, Dominic Angerame, Robert Beavers, James Grauerholz of the William Burroughs Estate, and Genesis P. Orridge. For the video programs, we would like to thank Barbara Wise and the staff at Electronic Arts Intermix New York: Lori Zippay, Galen Joseph Hunter, Seth Stein and Kate Travers. Stephen Vitiello’s help and advice have been invaluable throughout. We are also indebted to Jean Ma for her work on the project, and all the filmmakers and artists who have helped us in our research and have generously agreed to make their films and videotapes available for this series.