Curating the Moving Image (2011) | The P&P Blog

In the mode of Méliès and Keaton

Outkast-Hey Ya

The Stage on the Screen: Intermedialities in the Silent Era

One of the first published considerations of intermediality between theatre and film appeared in 1966, in the journal The Tulane Drama Review. Contemporary scholarship has taken an increasing interest in the subject since then, but works that could be said to fit this paradigm have been appearing since the birth of cinema.

In her article appearing in the journal, “Film and Theatre,” Susan Sontag confronted attitudes towards art works that hybridized these two forms. As she writes, “the history of cinema is often treated as the history of its emancipation from theatrical models,” noting that this contributed towards “purist” definitions of cinema that strove to eliminate associations with the theatre.

This program aims to demonstrate that cinematic-theatrical hybrid works and symbiotic influences between the two forms have always been present. In our era, we see everything from moving pictures projected in live stage productions to live stage productions broadcast into movie theatres, and artists such as video and performance artists experimenting with everything in between.

The Stage on the Screen investigates the overlapping of film and theatre in the period before the proliferation of synchronized sound. In this era, the cinema was gradually superseding the theatre, in particular vaudeville, as the dominant popular entertainment form. However, the traces of vaudeville were everywhere in the cinema of the period, as many of its star actors and creators began their careers onstage before moving into film.

In these films, we often see these artists playing with the conventions of their original artistic home, often beginning by setting their films in theatrical contexts. But the paradigms of how the two forms meet in each varies from film to film. Examples from the program include the first film to ever be commissioned for inclusion in a live vaudeville program, an early animator who presented his work onstage and interacted with his moving drawings, and short films of famous vaudeville acts.

This program demonstrates that not only have artists always been playing with the boundaries of these art forms, but also that the results are not merely experimentations or failed “impure” works that were forgotten on the way to the eventual manifestation of the narrative classical cinema. These films are each fascinating in their own right, possessing individual and original articulations of form.

1. L’Homme Orchestre (1900)

Georges Méliès, 2 min.

This film is typical of Méliès in its set-up, a very theatrical presentation in which the camera frames a stage-like space and he performs to the audience as though in a theatre. The set is also very two-dimensional and looks as though it was made for a theatrical play. However, the filmmaker, who had also performed live onstage as a magician, takes advantage of the possibilities of cinema to create tricks that would be impossible in a live theatre production. Through the use of multiple exposures, he is able to produce several images of himself that appear simultaneously onscreen.

2. Trapeze Disrobing Act (1901)

Thomas Edison, 2 min.

This short exemplifies the meaning of the term “cinema of attractions,” featuring a burlesque performer onstage who performs a combination striptease/trapeze act. The camera remains still for the duration of the film, which takes place in one take. In the frame we see the performer, hanging from her trapeze in an upper corner of a stage set, and two audience members in a box to the side. Like many films concerning theatrical productions, this short is concerned with the audience as well as the performance- and how the  two connect, crossing the line between the two spaces. As in the Méliès short described above, the theatrical set-dressing gives the film a particular look through its obvious artificiality and two-dimensionality.

3. Paris to Monte-Carlo in Two Hours (1905)

Georges Méliès, 10 min.

The first known case of a film being made specifically for inclusion in a stage act. The film was commissioned by the Folies-Bergères and was shown within a performance of variety acts. The stage and screen spaces and the temporality were contrasted and connected by the presence of some of the same actors in both the film and the live performance. Méliès himself had performed magic live on the same stage in the past; here he created a passage between the worlds of stage and screen for the performers. Greg Giesekam notes in his book Staging the Screen: The Use of Film and Video in Theatre that the film’s premise, the notion that the trip from Paris to Monte-Carlo could be achieved in such a short time, was a way of playing with space within the film- another example of Méliès using the medium of film to perform magic tricks that he could not achieve on the stage.

4. Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

Winsor McCay, 10 min.

One of the first animated films, this was the first to present a fully-formed cartoon character. McCay toured with his animated film and would appear onstage with the screen, talking to “Gertie” and giving her instructions which she would then appear to follow. At the end, he would announce that Gertie was now going to give him a ride. He would then disappear by walking behind the screen, at the same moment that an animated version of himself entered the frame onscreen. The film that remains today also contains a narrative surrounding the creation and first presentation of the animation, and McCay’s instructions to Gertie appear as intertitles. As in some of the live-action films in the program, the “magical” passage of the performer between stage and screen is central to this animated film.

5. A Night in the Show (1915)

Charlie Chaplin, 30 min.

Chaplin came from a stage family and was performing on the British Music Hall circuit from a young age, later going to the United States and working in Vaudeville before starting to make films. This film, based on a stage act of Chaplin’s, features the slapstick that is typical of his work. He plays two audience members who cause havoc at a vaudeville show, Mr Pest and Mr Rowdy. Most of the action takes place in the audience, with the drunken Mr Pest sometimes climbing on the stage and interacting with the very poor acts being presented. While in the stage version, Chaplin would have played the drunk planted in the audience, at screenings of this film the audience would have been separated from the action. However, the film medium allows him to cross other boundaries; including pouring a drink from the balcony as one character onto the other version of himself seated below.

6. The Playhouse (1921)

Buster Keaton, 20 min.

Like Chaplin, Buster Keaton’s parents were performers, and he was onstage early in his life. In this film set in a theatre, he is multiplied many times through trick photography. He plays the performers, the musicians, and the audience. This is very similar to the gimmick in Méliès’ L’Homme Orchestre, in which the earlier filmmaker also appears as multiple versions of himself. Both filmmakers use this narcissistic joke in which they play all the parts to bring the “magic” of cinema to their former métier, making tricks that make the theatre itself magical. Keaton’s fantasy turns out to be a dream in this film, which he wakes up from in the second half.

7. Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Buster Keaton, 45 min.

This film sees Keaton, a projectionist at a cinema, fall asleep and dream that he enters the world of the movie he is showing. He achieves this by simply running up to the screen and jumping into it, as though onto a stage set. The rest of the film concerns his adventures within the film-within-the-film, but this moment is remarkable for the way that it confuses stage and screen space. As in The Playhouse, the muddling of theatrical and cinematic worlds is explained by the fact that Keaton’s character is dreaming.

8. La Revue des Revues (1927)

Joe Francis, 103 min.

This beautifully coloured feature film is in fact a compilation of Parisian Vaudeville (Variété) acts, including two shorts that feature Josephine Baker. They are strung together with a plot concerning a young performer starting out in the business, but the story is really an excuse to showcase the stage acts. They are similar to the Vitaphone films in that they are shot from a still position, mostly from a distance that frames the stage. They also operate almost as documentation, as the uni-directional, unmoving camera work suggests the point of view of an audience member. Here, however, the stage is much larger, and the acts are more spectacular than showcases for talent. Though the segments are obstensibly dance numbers, the choreography is minimally challenging, and the execution by the chorus girl performers is less than brilliant. However, the film has a captivating look, the grandiose sets and the carefully coloured film creating a very special and unique aesthetic.

9. Hello Bluebird (1927)

Vitaphone, 2 min 30 sec.

This is one of many Vitaphone short subjects featuring Vaudeville acts, which were produced in New York between 1926 and 1929. The shorts featured popular Vaudeville stars performing their stage acts; these films would then actually be shown themselves, in between live acts, at Vaudeville shows. This film features Blossom Seeley and Benny Fields, a couple who were well-known for their stage performances; this film would have enabled audiences to see them all over the country. The camera is stationary and the scene is presented very simply- almost as a document of what the stage performance would have been like. We are even presented with a curtain at the start that opens to reveal the scene. The shorts were shot directly on a stage, as this photograph from a shoot at the Manhattan Opera demonstrates. The films are an oddity in this program because they had live sound- it was recorded onto 12- and 16- inch shellac soundtrack discs, however, and had to be played back separately from the film on the projector, making them an example of the in-between area between silent and synchronized-sound films. The film reels and their soundtracks have in many cases become separated from each other over the years- though there is a project to seek them out and reunite them (see Resources below).

Resources

The Vitaphone Project- http://www.picking.com/vitaphone.html

Cherchi Usai, Paolo. Silent Cinema: An Introduction. London: British Film Institute, 2000.

Giesekam, Greg. Staging the Screen: The Use of Film and Video in Theatre. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.

Sontag, Susan. “Film and Theatre.” The Tulane Drama Review. 11.1 (1966). 24-37.

Mothers of Iran

Ten mothers
Even though the world has witnessed the human rights violations during the attempt of the Iranian people to have a green revolution after the presidential elections of 2009, not much has changed in Iran. There is still an urgent need for change for the better with regards to the oppressive regime and its complete disregard for basic human rights for all Iranians; the young, old, men and women.

It is the women of Iran I will focus on in this concept for a programme entitled Mothers of Iran. I have chosen this topic out of a belief in the power of women to make a change in society for the better – be that very needed change, or be it just a small, almost insignificant change. We are brought up by women, and yet the world often treds on them because they are women. The very immediate power and influence of women to bring up our children and give guidance to those who will be shaping the future are often unseen or denied.

In Iran, artists are faced with great challenges creating their work. Filmmakers for example need permission to shoot their film. Obviously, if the film seems critical of the current government in the slightest way, it is not possible at all to obtain such a permission. Hence, many filmmakers operate underground, taking great risks to show their films to the world.

Through this conceptual programme, which offers a focus on Iranian mothers in the broadest metaphorical sense of the word, I wish to show you the strength of the Iranian people, and the strength of the Iranian mothers in particular. It is a tribute to all brave Iranians who overcome difficult challenges to live a life that we often take for granted as we live it, meanwhile forgetting about what goes on in other countries to similar people.

With these ten films, I want to challenge the viewers of Mothers of Iran to reconsider, rethink, re-evaluate what they are seeing on the screen. Are these mothers you recognize? Could one of these women be your mother? Did you ever find yourself in these situations?

I think some of these women could very well be my mother. But that might not be the same for all of you. Hence, I have chosen ten films, so you may each pick a mother and try to envision yourself in her situation. The films I have chosen show the versatile roles Iranian women play in their society; from trying to be a singer in a band to trying to bring up your child under an oppressive government; nothing is quite what you would expect of it.

It is of vital importance to this conceptual programme and the understanding of it that I point out to you, the reader, that it is my belief that all of these films have been made out of a deep respect for the country of Iran, Iranian culture and the Iranian people from the starting point.

Lastly, I also have something to say to all men who are reading this. Obviously, my programme is also saying something for and about men. The absence of men. It talks about the need for men, and especially the role of men in Iranian contemporary society. As an outsider who has never had the opportunity to visit Iran, but has met many Iranians in her life and has grown a deep respect for and appreciation of Iranian culture and people, I wish to reassure you all that this programme has been created to honour allIranian people – for, as the films will show you, everyone can be a mother, you definitely do not have to necessarily be a woman for that.

Ten films
No One Knows About Persian Cats by Bahman Ghobadi, 2009, 106 minutes, – view trailer

Women Without Men, Shirin Neshat, 2009, 95 minutes – view trailer

Persepolis by Vincent Paronnaud, 2007, 95 minutes – view trailer

Wind and Fog (Bad Oh Meh) by Mohammad Ali Talebi, 2011, 74 minutes – trailer TBA

The Birthday by Negin Kianfar, 2006, 72 minutes – view website

Divorce Iranian Style by Kim Longinotto, 1998, 80 minutes – view trailer

Women in Shroud (Before the Flood II) by Farid Haerinejad and Mohammad Reza Kazemi, 2009, 73 minutes – view YouTube video

The Green Wave by Ali Samadi Ahadi, 2010, 80 minutes– view trailer

Nader and Simin: a Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin) by Asghar Farhadi, 2011– trailer TBA

Rainy Seasons, by Majid Barzegar, 2011, 86 minutes – view International Film Festival Rotterdam 2011 Tiger Award Spotlight

Ten things you can do now to help create awareness of human rights violations in Iran
Write a letter to the Iranian embassy closest to you, write a letter to the UN, write a letter to the International Criminal Court, or support Amnesty International, support Human Rights Watch, support Iran Human Rights, support International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, support United 4 Iran – Netherlands, support Movies that Matter Foundation or simply promote this website: example tweet: Mothers of Iran – pick a mother, watch a film and support #Iran #HumanRights #MothersofIran http://bit.ly/gbu9bO

Want to know, do, see more?
For those of you who have read this and want to screen, view or use any or all of these films – please contact me directly by sending me an e-mail here, so I may help you find a possibility to do so. Or if you want to help me realize this project somewhere near you, just write to me and we’ll try to make it happen together. Please, specifiy your wish or plans as much as possible in terms of your preferred audience, location, venue, date.

Also, please, be advised that three of these films (The Green Wave, Women Without Men and Divorce Iranian Style) will be screened at the upcoming Movies that Matter Festival in The Hague between March 24-30, 2011.. For more information about times and dates, please, see www.moviesthatmatterfestival.nl or make a reservation to visit a screening directly at the box office of Filmhuis Den Haag: +31 (0)70-3459900.

My deep respect and thankfulness go out to Shadi Sadr, human rights advocate and lawyer in Iran. I was very happy and honoured to meet her during the 2010 edition of the Movies that Matter Festival. Thank you Shadi, for showing the way to everyone who has their eyes open.

A Concrete Cinema?

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A Concrete Cinema?

In 1959, in a television interview conducted by actor Jean Desailly, Pierre Schaeffer expressed the intention to explore and develop a form of cinema that could be called concrete. A visual counterpoint to what he, together with fellow composer Pierre Henry, had conceived as musique concrète in the late 1940′s.

It is unclear precisely what Schaeffer intended with the expression cinéma concret. However, Schaeffer’s initiative resulted in a very large body of audiovisual works, produced within the Research Service of ORTF (The French Radio): approximately 1200 television productions, animation films and video art pieces.

Unfortunately, very little critical reflection on his theories and art, has been dedicated to the audiovisual productions that came out of the Research Service, in its years of existence between 1960-1974. It is only in the most recent years that the mass-digitization of INA’s archives, has unveiled to a larger public a glimpse of what the films contain. This program, assembles and reveals a tiny fraction of this production in the form of twenty-five films, selected with the aim to illustrate the theoretical foundations and aesthetic discourses of the Research Service’s audiovisual production.

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- Part I: Beginnings and Endings -

Discorama, 12 juin 1959: Pierre Schaeffer à propos de la musique concrète
France 1959, 6 minutes, color.

Journal télévisé – August 10, 1961 (excerpt)
France 1961, 6 minutes, b/w.

Symphonie pour un homme seul
Dir.: Louis Cuny. France 1955, 14 minutes, color.

Étude aux allures
Dir.: Pierre Schaeffer and Raymond Hains. France 1960, 5 minutes.

Objets animés
Dir.: Jacques Brissot. France 1960, 5 minutes.

Les Achalunes
Dir.: René Laloux. France 1958.

Chercheurs 62 (short version)
France 1962, 17 minutes, b/w.

Égypte ô Égypte: Dans ce jardin atroce, Un présent du fleuve, Livre des morts
Dir.: Jacques Brissot and Pierre Schaeffer. Music: Luc Ferrari. France 1962, 62 minutes.

Presque rien avec Luc Ferrari, 2006
Dir.: Jacqueline Caux and Olivier Pascal. France 2005, 50 minutes, color.

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- Part II: A Concrète look at film, art and music -

Les Grandes répétitions – Cecil Taylor, 1965
Dir.: Luc Ferrari and Gérard Patris. France 1966, 44 minutes, color and b/w.

Eurêka – Visualisation, art et cybernétique, 1967
France 1968, 16 minutes, b/w.

Entretien Pierre Schaeffer-McLuhan, 1970
Dir.: Fabien Colin. France 1973, 12 minutes, b/w.

L’écran transparent, 1973
Dir.: Bernard Parmegiani. Music: Bernard Parmegiani. France 1973, 26 minutes, color.

Essai visuel sur l’objet sonore, 1962
Dir.: Fabien Colin. France 1973, 12 minutes.

L’ange, 1982
Dir.: Patrick Bokanowski. Music: Michèle Bokanowski. France 1982, 70 minutes, color.

Court-Circuit No. 180: Michèle Bokanowski
France 2004, 17 minutes, color.

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- Part III: Children’s play and adult animation -

Les Shadoks: episode 1, 2 and 8
Dir.: Jacques Rouxel. Music: Robert Cohen-SolalFrance 1968, 11 minutes, color.

Une lettre égarée – Les Francais écrivent aux Shadoks
France 1969, 4 minutes.

Délicieuse catastrophe
Dir.: Piotr Kamler. Music: Robert Cohen-Solal. France 1970, 11 minutes, color.

Coeurs de secours
Dir.: Piotr Kamler. Music: Francois Bayle. France 1973, 9 minuts, color.

Jeux des Anges
Dir.: Walerian Borowczyk. Music: Bernard Parmegiani. France 1964, 9 minutes, color.

Chronopolis
Dir.: Piotr Kamler. Music: Luc Ferrari. France 1982, 52 minutes, color.

Scherzo Infernal
Dir.: Walerian Borowczyk. Music: Bernard Parmegiani. France 1984, 5 minutes, color.

Les Maîtres du temps
Dir.: René Laloux. Original Music: Jean-Pierre Boutayre, Pierre Tardy and Christian Zanési. France 1982, 78 minutes, color.

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Why Concrete Cinema?

First of all because the audiovisual productions of the group are not very widely known, though the composers of the GRM put just as much effort into them as in their musical composition. Second, because it is interesting to take a look at a lesser known area of European experimental film and media art, to try to bring out new perspectives and hidden gems. In historical accounts of experimental film, it is often New York and Vienna, that are thought of as the creative centers of the mid-twentieth century filmic avant-garde. These accounts see the European avant-gardes of the 1920?s as a precursor to many of the later American and Austrian filmmakers, implicitely assuming that the European filmic avant-gardes dried out after the 1920?s. Though it is not within the aim of this program of films to contest that historical exposition, it is definitely a point to demonstrate that experiments were going on in France in those later years as well, that were definitely unique and original, although perhaps not as widely influential and conceptually radical. What was going on in France, will be referred to here as Concrete cinema: an institutional production led by Pierre Schaeffer, at the same time functional and experimental, and at the same time apart from and completely intertwined with contemporary French experimental, art and documentary cinema production.

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To identify this body of works – in a context outside of France – it is necessary to look differently at its founding figure and his role within the French radio: Pierre Schaeffer. Let us start by comparing two photos of Pierre Schaeffer here. From being thought of today as mainly a composer outside of France, I would like to bring attention to the many activities, productions and research projects he was involved in, and think of him here as a catalyst for many different media experiments.

The first photo has become almost iconic. It is from a session shot in 1951 by photographer Serge Lido, that depicts Schaeffer in front of the Phonogène à clavier - in english the Phonogene. The Phonogene was an instrument invented at the French radio, that controlled the speed of short tape loops via a keyboard, crucial to the development of the compositional method of musique concrète. Loops of recorded sounds on magnetic tape would pass by the tapeheads at different speeds according to the keys pressed. In manipulating the sounds in this way they would change pitch, and reveal hidden abstract aural qualities. Simply put, the Phonogene was a prototype of the modern day sampler, where short digitally stored sound bits are manipulated from – in most cases – a keyboard.
This photo, has become almost synonymous with Schaeffer, his conceptualization of organised real sound on tape as a compositional principle, and with musique concrète. I think this is a result of the dramatic effect of the blinding light bulb, and Schaeffer’s intense look in this picture as if he is listening with the utmost attention reproduced by the instrument. The photo invokes perhaps a romantic cliché of the inspired artist with a vision. It has created an image of him as a  visionary inventor and composer, and put him and his work on a piedestal that tends to overshadow the diverse activities of the composers working within the GRM and the research service. But the claim here is, that it has also overshadowed the many faces of Schaeffer himself, his theoretical work and his involvement in cinema and radio on a broader scale.

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As this program intends to see Schaeffer and the activities of the Research Service in a different light in the context of this course, it is appropriate as a point of departure to include another photo from the same session, that litteraly puts him in a different, less dramatic light, and sort of dedramatizes this overshadowing vision of Pierre Schaeffer.

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Pierre Schaeffer dedicated most of his professional life to write theoretically about music, sound, radio and television. He kept close relations with Marshall McLuhan, and it is often forgotten that there was a fruitful theoretical exchange between the two, though they had fundamental disagreements. In academia and especially in the field of media studies outside of France, the name of Pierre Schaeffer as an important thinker and European media theorist of the twentieth century is virtually ignored, though the nature of his activities was extremely rich and mulit-faceted. One of the activities that he initiated – that supplements the musical output of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales – was the audiovisual production of the Reserch Service, that existed at the French radio between 1960 and 1974.

Several of these works have circulated individually in festivals in recent years, and some are published on DVD. To give some examples: last year, two of the collective works by the couple of filmmaker Patrick Bokanowski and composer Michèle Bokanowski L’Ange (1982) and Battements Solaires (2008) were presented at the Rotterdam Film Festival. This year in Brussels, the composer Bernard Parmegiani’s L’oeil écoute (1973) was shown as a part of the La Semaine du son-festival. In France the DVD editions of the children animation series that features the music of composer of Robert Cohen-Solal, and was produced by Pierre Schaeffer, is still today a great success.

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The films range from children’s and adult animation (Kamler, Laloux, Borowczyk, Rouxel), documentary (Schaeffer, Patris, Ferrari, Tréguer, Brissot) and experimental film (Bokanowski, Parmegiani). Characteristic for most of them, is a sort of aural vision. The audiovisual works made within the Service de la Recherche either promote or are aesthetically governed by a philosophy of sound and recording. Acousmatic sound challenges the hegemony of the moving image and contests a separation of the senses, in a relationship where sound and image are equally important and the eye listens.

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- Sources -

Bibliography

Gayou, Évelyne. GRM. Le Groupe de Recherches Musicales. Cinquante ans d’histoire. Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris 2007.

Lammer, Jocelyne-Tournet. Sur les traces de Pierre Schaeffer. Archives 1942-1995. La documentation Française, Paris 2006.

MacDonald, Scott. A Critical Cinema 3: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. University of California Press 1998.

Noguez, Dominique. Éloge du cinéma expérimental. Éditions Paris Expérimental, Paris 2010.

Schaeffer, Pierre. Machines à communiquer 1. Genèse des simulacres. Éditions du seuil, Paris 1970.

Blogs/Web Resources

INA: www.ina.fr

INA-GRM: www.inagrm.com

Knox, Jim. Concrete Cinema. www.liquidarchitecture.org.au/la4/concrete_essay.html

The Sound of Eye: http://thesoundofeye.blogspot.com/

UbuWeb: http://www.ubu.com/film/kamler_coeur.html

Spirit of ’69: the apolitical multicultural roots of skinhead

Curatorial statement – Spirit of ’69: the apolitical, multicultural roots of skinhead

Is not black, is not white, is what is right
Everything will be all right if we just unite
Sheggae, reggae

Skinhead moon invasion!
Leaving from shanty town to brixton
Sheggae, reggae, jeggae, reggae, sheggae
Reggae, sheggae, jeggae

(Apollo 12 A.K.A Skinhead Invasion – Laurel Aitken)

Ska music started in Jamaica. There was a great mixture of two influences: there was the rude boy and the sort of hard working class kids growing up, and what came out of the two was skinhead. And it was white and it was black. The two clashed only on the dance floor and only for the best of reasons.

(Douglas Trendle A.K.A. Buster Bloodvessel in: Skinhead Attitude)

From Jamaica to Brixton, from west to east, to the moon and back: the skinhead subculture is and always has been an inherently cross- and multicultural phenomenon.

Jamaican rude boys living in the UK introduced British working class youth with something they had not experienced before: reggae music. The need to distinguish themselves from their parents combined with this new dance music gave rise to a subculture called mod. Because of the economic boom in the 1960s this subculture became more and more intertwined with consumerism and expensive fashion. The (hard) mods who did not have that much to spend on clothing, but were proud of their working class roots developed into a distinct subculture. They became known as skinheads.

Skinheads combined their love for reggae music and the rude boy apparel (closed cropped hair) with working class aesthetics (work boots, braces) and some fashion conventions incorporated from the mod subculture. It was pride in the working class and love for ska, rocksteady and reggae that unified the skinheads, not politics, hate or aggression. In fact, the traditional skinhead movement was and still is inherently apolitical.

Black reggae bands and performers such as Symarip, Laurel Aitken, Derrick Morgan, Desmond Dekkers and the Hot Rod All-stars directly addressed this new subculture with their distinctive skinhead (or: early) reggae music. The traditional skinhead movement faded away, but experienced a revival at the end of the 1970s with bands such as The Specials, The Selecter, Madness and Bad Manners. Some of these bands are still active today and share the stage with a new generation of contemporary skinhead reggae musicians (although they might not call themselves this any longer) such as the Aggrolites and the Upsessions.

Traditional skinheads today are active all over the world, in every continent, with members from all colours and religions abiding to different political ideas. Although style and appearance may vary greatly, traditional skinheads all over the world share their working class pride and love for early reggae music.

So what about the extremely right wing, racist and/or nationalist politically engaged (neo-Nazi) skinheads you see on the news and read about in the papers? They are real, they exist and they are probably as aggressive and violent as the media depicts them, but the skinheads that propagate these messages of hate are not the only skinheads that are around and certainly not the same skinheads that met up at the dancehalls to listen and dance to reggae music, drink beer and have fun with friends.

This is not to say that the traditional skinheads were completely innocent and passive, but instead that politics, aggression and hate was not what united them as a group, as a subculture; it was pride, pride in themselves, in the movement, in their working class roots and their love for Jamaican music.

In this exhibition a more positive view on the skinhead subculture is presented, with the focus on what the news media left underexposed: its apolitical multicultural roots and cross-cultural pride, fashion, friends, fun and reggae music.

Books:

Skinhead (Nick Knight, Omnibus Press: 1982)

Skinhead Nation (George Marshall, S.T. publishing: 1996)

Spirit of ’69: A Skinhead bible. (George Marshall, S.T. publishing: 1994).

Photography:

Skins (Gavin Watson, Independent music press: 2007)

Skins and Punks: Lost archives 1978-1985. (Gavin Watson, Vice books: 2008)

PYMCA (Photographic Youth Music Culture Archive)

Documentary:

Skinhead Cross Culture (Bryan Davis, USA, 2009, 111 min)

Skinhead Attitude (Daniel Schweizer, Switzerland/France, 2003, 90 min)

World of Skinhead (Doug Aubrey, United Kingdom, 1995, 59 min)

Film:

Bronco Bullfrog (Barney Platt-mills, United Kingdom, 1969, 86 min)

This is England (Shane Meadows, United Kingdom, 2006, 101 min)

16 Years of Alcohol (Richard Jobson, United Kingdom, 2004, 102 min)

Television:

This is England ’86. (Shane Meadows, United Kingdom, 2010, 185 min)

S.O.U.L.-Sounds of Underground London: The Skinhead Generation: 54, 46 Was My Number. (United Kingdom, 2003 )

Skinhead Farewell. (Ian MacMillan, United Kingdom, 1996, 50 min)

Music:

Symarip – Skinhead Moonstomp: Deluxe edition (Universal Music, 2008)

Trojan Skinhead Reggae Box Set (Sanctuary Records, 2002)

The Aggrolites – Aggrolites (Hellcat Records, 2006)

The Volonté Affair

The Italian cinema of the 1970s was confronted with a reality of unprecedented gravity and complexity. The 1970s in Italy were the so-called ‘Years of the Bullet’. Bombings, assassinations, secret masonic lodges plotting to subvert the democratic order, neo-fascist groups executing civil servants – policemen, magistrates – in the streets, planting bombs in public spaces with the aid of powerful officers of the secret services, and communist terrorists kidnapping and murdering servants of the state, like the Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978. The Italian cinema of those years was brave in its attempt to explain and reconstruct the shocking events that terrorized the country; events that politicians always refused to speak about, and that long trials mined by cover-up operations never managed to unravel.

Gian Maria Volonté is the symbol of the Italian political cinema of those years, and his films paint an accurate historical portrayal. Volonté was openly involved in political activism, his affiliation to the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was known to all; he always spoke in favour of the working class and encouraged the general public to engage in political discussions through street performances and debates. He actively participated in the writing and directing of his highly political films. Because of his open commitment, the Italian public came to interpret his presence in films as a guarantee of truth and civil courage. As for those who did not agree with his beliefs, they still admired his great acting skills, and praised his international reputation, that was bringing such a good name to Italian cinema. In a time of extremisms, Volonté managed to unite the two major political factions in Italy at the time – the conservatives and the left-wing intellectuals – thanks to his double status: talented actor/film star and icon of civil courage.

The exhibition proposes to illustrate the ‘Years of the Bullet’ through examples of the political cinema of the time; the films are placed in a rich historical background, consisting of photographic material and archival television footage. The historical information and the films are intrinsically bound, and they cannot be understood separately; however, the historical context must precede the films, in order to make them intelligible to a non-Italian audience. The historical material should ideally be placed in the hall that leads to the screening room. The amount of information, presented on different media, both verbally and visually, should literally ‘assault’ the spectator, just as Italians were assaulted from all sides by constant news of disaster and violence in those years. The spectator will return to the hall after viewing the films with a more vivid and personal view of the historical facts. A guiding principle of the retrospective is that the films in the programme are an essential vehicle for historical research and reconstruction of those years. Lastly, the exhibition aims at promoting these films also for their great aesthetic and entertainment value, and at Gian Maria Volonté’s recognition worldwide for his unique talent and contribution to cinema.

Programme
(for further information on the programme click here)

Indagine su un Cittadino al di Sopra di Ogni Sospetto (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, directed by Elio Petri, 1970)
La Classe Operaia Va in Paradiso (The Working Class Goes to Heaven, directed by Elio Petri, 1971)
Todo Modo (directed by Elio Petri, 1976)
Banditi a Milano (Bandits in Milan, directed by Carlo Lizzani, 1968)
Il Caso Moro (The Moro Affair, directed by Giuseppe Ferrara, 1986)
Io Ho Paura (I am Afraid, directed by Damiano Damiani, 1977)
Il Caso Mattei (directed by Francesco Rosi, 1972)
Sacco e Vanzetti (directed by Giuliano Montaldo, 1971)
Sbatti il Mostro in Prima Pagina (Slap the Monster on Page One, directed by Marco Bellocchio, 1972)
Gian Maria Volonté: Un Attore Contro (Gian Maria Volonté: An Actor in Revolt, directed by Ferruccio Marotti, 2005)

Resources

Ginsborg, Paul. A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943 – 1988. Palgrave MacMillan, 2003.
Lawton, Harry. “Enrico Mattei: The Man That Fell to Earth.” in Poet of Civic Courage: The Films of Francesco Rosi, edited by Carlo Testa, 60-86. Greendwood Press, 1996.
Uva, Christian. Schermi di Piombo: il Terrorismo nel Cinema Italiano. Rubbettino, 2007.
The 35mm prints for these films can be found at Cineteca Nazionale in Rome (except for Il Caso Moro, its whereabouts are still unknown).

Memory, écriture of-with archival footage.

We piece together a memory that is recollected only after encountering a fragment that reminds us of it in the external world. (Katherine Elkins)

Memory, écriture of-with the archival footage is the pilot episode of the workshop Écriture with the archival footage. Four international professional and amateur filmmakers have been individually subjected to archival amateur and documentary films they had never seen before and asked to remember-imagine the youth of their parents. How much of their imagination based on oral history and of their parents’ authentic past define these remixed works? Or are the images, eager to enter the realm of the present, pushing and writing the creators’ imaginations and memories? Where do individual and collective memory cross? Memory, écriture of-with the archival footage raises questions over which light will be cast by the presentational sequence of its remixed works and to the combination of these with their original audiovisual materials.

The processes of reconstruction of memory has been made possible thanks to the digital on line film archives. The workshop of écriture with archival footage will continue thanks to your contribution: write a visual Mnemosyne following the example of Aby Warburg, exclaim the visual concepts of colour and patterns, shout your political dissent and experiment with sound and moving images!

Program:

Il Sogno (The dream), Story/Editing by Francesca Morselli, 2.10 min, 2011.
A young woman has just learned of her pregnancy. She’s flooded by profound emotions as the perception of a new life is changing for her body and femininity. She imagines sea lanscapes that evoke a sense of freedom and escape from her social and psychological ties.
In the background lies the shadow of a rapidly changing society: women are gaining conscience of their body and their new role in society, and these changes reflect in the thoughts and dreams of the protagonist.

Francesca Morselli is a film editor and curator and a recently graduated student of Archive discipline. She is based in Amsterdam.

Zakupy (Shopping),Story/Editing by Alek Rzeszowski, 1.35 min, 2011.
Shopping for food behind the iron curtain was a complex affair. Thank goodness for the Party!

Alek Rzeszowski is a filmmaker and Polish emigre living abroad.

My parents could have been like this but…, Story/Editing by Anna Dabrowska, 6.20 min, 2011.
Poland during the 70′-80′. My parents could have been like this but I do not know. I imagine and remember them at the same time.

Anna Dabrowska is a student of archive science, a short film programmer and she seeks to be an amateur filmmaker.

This very Sunlight, Story/Editing by Milosz Hermanowicz, 6.40 min, 2011.
We take a trip back in time. We meet ancestors and the people they knew. We experience History. Is such a trip even possible?

Milosz Hermanowicz is a Warsaw-based independent film editor. www.miloszhermanowicz.com

Documentation:

Memory as the theatre of the archive footage started on the 9th of February 2011. All I knew at that moment was that I wanted to remix the beautiful found footage films of the on-line Enthusiast Archive. I was attracted by the imperfection and the warm colours of its digitized films which moreover where portraying contemporaries of my parents. I wanted to play with this readymade, meaningful and “analog” material as I could play with my video camera in my hands, with one enormous difference: I did not have to face the outside reality.

My parents could have been like this but… is an ambiguous potrayal of my parents, which could be representatives of the Polish generations of the 70′s and 80′s, but it is also an intimate reminiscence of them and of my tormented and childish idea about them. The ephemerality of their youth and of these same images. Or is the remix just another strategy to escape in the idyllic and naive past where capitalist consumption was unknown and where I, as an adolescent, always wanted to live-feel? It is probably both. One thing is certain: I used the images to write as if they were a camera-stylo but they also used me to revive themselves.

Then I remembered the Open Images Festival project, which I invented just two months ago and … click! This blog was going to be the place to realize the envisioned projects. Virtuality became reality. Suddenly I had in my mind the kind of program I was going to develop, and even with other people! I started to contact some of my friends who do editing and make films, illustrating my draft idea to them: remixing the archival footage of Enthusiastarchive.net, Openimges.eu and Archive.org to tell the past of our ancestors. Some of them where ready to start straight away, others took more time to decide.
Time became waiting, hoping, suspense, trust: excitement! Meanwhile I was deepening my knowledge about the theme of memory: Benjamin, Warburg, Assmann, Erll, Godard are among those who inspired me at first. Then Katherine Elkins:

“Remembrance or strong memory relies on an understanding of memory that is largely archival: we store the entire past, perfectly preserved, as in an archive. This new model, however, is distinctly nonarchival. We do not store the entire past, and what we do store is dispersed in multiple regions of the brain. Remembering is always an act of recollecting fragments scattered across these different regions.We must reassemble these fragments into a coherent, seamless memory. Often, of course, key elements are missing. In these instances, the gaps are filled in through a process of invention and subtle revision. The memories created to fill these gaps are continually revised through a process of evaluation based on recognition. We might think we are comparing our “memory” with some “original” stored away in a central archive. But we are really evaluating the invented memory retrospectively. If we “recognize” it, we accept it as “true.” If we do not, we revise the memory slightly and reevaluate once more.(…) Between an initial impression of an event and its subsequent recollection lies a stretch of forgetfulness. The final difference between a modern art of memory and a classical one appears in the reformulation of the self. The old, classical art of memory unifies or centers the self, enclosing the past in an internal space within the subject. This new art of memory decenters the self, drawing the person who remembers towards memories of others in the outside world.”

The readings led me to the final concept of écriture of-with the archival footage as a mutual process where the rediscovered images resuscitate personal memories but also re-write and re-contextualize themselves perpetually in the creator’s imagination. Il Sogno, Zakupy and My parents, are three remixed works influenced by the stories and images of the amateur films on which they are based, but they tell us also so much about the authors themselves. This is why I affirm the importance to show the re-contextualized works close to their inspirational and constituent sources. It is enlightening to notice how Il Sogno and Zakupy are incidentally based on the same feminine character but that in the end tell two different stories, even in a distinct genre. The workshop generated plural meanings about one given topic. Individual memories became collective when they needed to communicate to a group of people, when they had to exist outside the domestic walls. This very Sunlight is an overview of my discourse here: memories live as images enclosed in our bodies and it is our decision how to use them.
It has been a beautiful life experience of some weeks which could continue with other experiments as mentioned above: can we use the archives of these images as they were an alphabet? As the initiator of this workshop, I hope to have given my friends just another chance to be creative, to reminisce their memories, maybe to discover how to work with found footage, maybe to free themselves from them and finally to share a laugh with their families.

THIS BLOG EXISTS THANKS TO JOHN HALTIWANGER.

Memory, écriture of-with archival footage. Francesca Morselli.

Memory, écriture of-with archival footage. Aleksander Rzeszowski

Memory, écriture of-with archival footage. Anna Dabrowska