Directing
From its distinctive neighborhoods to its architectural homes, Los Angeles has been the backdrop to countless movies. In this dazzling work, Andersen takes viewers on a whirlwind tour through the metropolis' real and cinematic history, investigating the myriad stories and legends that have come to define it, and meticulously, judiciously revealing the real city that lives beneath.
Dr. Eva Ray is 90 years old. She lives in a house by herself outside of Philadelphia. Born in former Yugoslavia, her family fled the Nazis and settled in New York. As a biochemist she worked for NASA and retired in her late 50's. She got divorced after 40 years of marriage and spent her time volunteering in local politics. After many years of independence and freedom, she now feels a deep sense of restlessness and finds herself at a significant turning point. Weaving through her memory and her present, she asks herself what she will do next in what she calls her "final chapter."
On an interstellar journey, a group of scientists studies the last living vestiges of Earth. The artificial intelligence, Museo, becomes a portal to the crew’s diaries and a fragmented archive of humanity. On Earth, the one believed to be the last of the humans traverses a ruined planet that is slowly recovering, little by little, from the apocalypse it endured.
This film applies the six principles for composition delineated in ‘Opinions on Painting by the Monk of the Green Pumpkin’, written by the eighteenth-century Chinese painter Shih-T’ao as referenced in Raúl Ruíz’s essay For a Shamanic Cinema (for example, ‘draw attention to a scene emerging from a static background’ or ‘add scattered dynamism to immobility’). The film is composed of scenes with non-actors, and texts by R.D.Laing and Lucy Lippard. Filmed and recorded in Habana, Cuba; Los Angeles; Devil's Punch Bowl; Ryan Mountain; Jurupa Hills, Pasadena and Idyllwild, California.
While editing the sound for Thom Andersen's Get Out of the Car, I realized that many of the images had different meanings for me than for him. So I took 14 scenes, made them all 30 seconds, and created my own non-specific narratives, though traditional sound design. (C.S.)
Begin is an experiment in non-specific narrative film. While preserving a large library of vintage Hollywood optical sound effects, the filmmaker became attracted to the sounds of slates, discussions, splices, and noise. These sounds were created, with much effort, to enhance specific narrative images. But these sounds can also tell a story as involving as the films they were created for. A silent picture edit was created from leftover narrative film footage. Like the sounds, the shots contain no specific narratives. The sounds and images were finally combined, forming relationships that set up and subvert narrative expectations. Begin is also a valentine to the craft of filmmaking.
When I ride trains, I usually get hypnotized watching the rails running parallel to mine. Although they are following the same path, they weave, cross, disappear and reappear in seemingly random ways. When I saw these twenty-eight 8mm leaders spliced together, the result was very much like the movement of the rails. I recorded the sounds on a trip from Albany to Penn Station, mostly in the spaces between cars. I've edited and mixed that sound to fit the image. (C.S.)
An examination whereunto is joined a discourse of the causes, continuance and qualities of such phenomena in nature; occasioned as a matter in contest with those who have deemed these lights to be manifestations of the paranormal.
A city symphony film in 16mm composed from advertising signs, building facades, fragments of music and conversation, and unmarked sites of vanished cultural landmarks in Los Angeles.
The Surrealist, "Exquisite Corpse" was a French Café parlor game. "Exquisite Moving Corpse" is more of an artist chain letter. 60 artists participated over a two-year period, beginning in March 2020. Each invited artist made a one minute video in response to the last frame of the previous minute.
Laida Lertxundi continues her exploration of the American West with the intimately scaled 025 Sunset Red, which folds in autobiography as she looks back to her parents' radical activism in Spain.
Short by Craig Smith, re-editing footage from "Viva Las Vegas" (1964).
Dear, When I Met You is a meditation on how art can be both ephemeral and immortal at the same time. The film begins with a badly deteriorating 1928 musical short and reworks it into something new by celebrating the beauty of the original film’s aging.
Films about the American West tend to move quickly. In reality, the West moved at a much slower pace, and without snappy dialogue or musical underscore. This non-traditional narrative uses leftover second-unit footage from Arizona (1940), and vintage Hollywood sound effects.
