Suzan Pitt
Directing
Biography
Suzan Pitt (July 11th, 1943 - June 16th, 2019) was born and grew up in Kansas City, MO. In 1965 she graduated with a BFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art and has lived and worked in Europe, Mexico, New York and Los Angeles. In 1968 she began making animated films which were inspired by her paintings “My painted images seem to have a past and future and through animation I could imagine and dramatize their stories”. Her film "ASPARAGUS"'premiered in an installation at the Whitney Museum in 1979 and ran for two years with David Lynch’s ERASERHEAD in the midnight shows at the Waverly Theater and the NuArt theater in Los Angeles. A retrospective of Suzan Pitt’s prize-winning animated films was presented in 2017 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her paintings and films are in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center, The Museum of Modern Art, The Stedeliik Museum Amsterdam and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Los Angeles. Her animated films have been featured at hundreds of prestigious venues around the world, including the Sundance Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the London Film Festival, the Ottawa International Animated Film Festival, the Morelia International Film Festival, and the Image Forum Film Festival in Tokyo.
Known For
Celebrated for his minimal, monumental landscape studies, James Benning turns to the intimacy of the portrait in his latest film, TWENTY CIGARETTES. Referencing Warhol’s screen tests, 1930s Hollywood glamour, and the disappearing cigarette break, the film captures 20 of Benning’s friends (including filmmaker Sharon Lockhart, cultural theorist Dick Hebdige, and book editor Janet Jenkins) satiating their smoke cravings. Each shot’s length is determined by the time it takes each subject to smoke a cigarette, and over the course of the film a dynamic range of personalities emerges out of an array of physical characteristics, distinctive settings, and personal relationships to the camera. (Amy Beste and Jessica Bardsley)
Twenty Cigarettes
A nightmare of a woman depressed by the concrete world she lives in, and her journey from suicidal despair to personal renewal with the help of an unlikely spirit guide.
Joy Street
Six animated shorts eschew traditional animation by featuring supernatural elements and darker themes, such as alien snatchings, life among mannequins and a spiritual rebirth. Among the films are "Ape," which features a couple fighting over a cooked monkey every night; "The Story of the Cat and the Moon," which is a tale of unrequited love; and "Gentle Spirit," which is based on a Fyodor Dostoyevsky story.
Cartoon Noir
The film, Al Tudi Tuhak, is a creation story inspired by the art and mythology of the Northwest coast people. The story involves the creator, or "The Great Father" as he whittles the world into existence. Each of his wood shavings became fish, trees, birds,... even the sun and moon.
Al Tudi Tuhak
In a crumbling 1920s Mexican hospital, patients with bizarre afflictions are in constant need of medical attention, but the miserable doctor in charge prefers to drink. However, an encounter with the Saint of Holes will rearrange the doctor's fate, sending him on a journey of altered perspective.
El Doctor
A woman's nightly domestic rituals—from putting her baby to bed to making love—unspool in a playful parade of surreal, straight-from-the-id images.
Crocus
A symbolic reflection on issues of female sexuality, art and identity constructs.
Asparagus
A short documentary about Suzan Pitt and her animated films, Asparagus (1979), Joy Street (1995) and El Doctor (2006).
Suzan Pitt: Persistence of Vision
In a fantasy world, life-size cardboard animations interact with children clad in clown wigs, monkey masks, and princess costumes. Together, they host a carnival of surreal goings-on.
Jefferson Circus Songs
As George Antheil's avant-garde composition "Ballet Mecanique (1952 revision)" plays, a dizzying array of abstract paintings are captured in close-up, spun around, and rapidly edited together. Grotesque and frightening creatures start to emerge through the flickering shapes and patterns.
Pinball
In an outer-world night, creatures that live beneath human consciousness emerge and take hold of the narrator, dissecting his spirit and dismembering his thoughts. He beholds a mythical eternity filled with shadowy industrial scenes and monochrome textures—a heavenly hell of unending life and death.
Visitation
Films: - Asparagus (1979, 20 min, 35mm) - Joy Street (1995, 24 min, 35mm) - El Doctor (2006, 23 min, 35mm & video) - Visitation (2012, 12min, video) - Pinball (2013, 7min, video) Bonus: - Persistence of Vision, a film by Blue And Laura Kraning - 2006, 33min
SUZAN PITT - ANIMATED FILMS
A showcase for the MCAD Animation Workshop 1972 where each student was given one of a series of cells to animate whatever they pleased.
Cels
A short film by Minneapolis School Children.
A City Trip
An animated short consisting of 4 segments: bowl, garden, theatre, marble game. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Harvard Film Archive in 2015.
Bowl, Garden, Theatre, Marble Game
A clay woman smokes.
Clay Woman Smoking
In December 2013 I went to Cuba for 10 days to show my films at the Havana Film Festival. I did not intend to shoot a film about Cuba- but I fell in love with the people, music, and nature of this beautiful island. I turned my video camera on the subjects which passed in my view and then made this edit. The scenes were shot in Havana, in Las Terrazas, and in the Orchid Garden in Soroa. - to Cuba with affection!