OTHER STATES: a program of films selected by Paul Clipson – Canyon Cinema Salon 11/9/2015

Please join Canyon Cinema on the evening of Monday November 9, 2015 at New Nothing Cinema for the next installment in our Salon series. This month, we’re pleased to welcome filmmaker Paul Clipson. Paul will screen a selection of some of his favorite films from the Canyon Cinema catalogue, works that influenced him and continue to generate inspiration in his practice of Super 8mm and 16mm filmmaking. After the screening, a conversation will focus on the potential narrative, visual, editing, sound and silent elements of the films.

The Canyon Cinema Salon Series is a FREE event hosted at New Nothing Cinema (located at 16 Sherman St, off Folsom between 6th and 7th in SOMA).

7:00pm- Reception
7:30pm* – Screening and discussion.
*Note: Street entrance locked at 7:30 – please arrive on time.

Program will include –

Walking from Munich to Berlin (1927) Oscar Fischinger, silent, 4 minutes
Puce Moment (1949) Kenneth Anger, sound, 6.5 minutes
Glimpse of the Garden (1957) Marie Menken, silent, 5 minutes
Castro Street (1966) Bruce Baillie, sound, 10 minutes
Asyl (1975) Kurt Kren, silent, 9 minutes
Kristallnacht (1979) Chick Strand, sound, 7 minutes
Visions of a City (1978) Lawrence Jordan, sound, 8 minutes
Commingled Containers (1997) Stan Brakhage, silent, 5 minutes
Other States (2013) Paul Clipson, Super 8mm, sound, 7 minutes

 

Full program notes below.

 

Refreshments for this event are provided by Ordinaire Wine – purveyors of fine natural wines.

The Canyon Cinema Salon series is made possible with generous support from the George Lucas Family Foundation and The Owsley Brown III Philanthropic Foundation.

 

OtherStatesCollage

 

Walking from Munich to Berlin (1927) | Oskar Fischinger | 4 minutes | 16mm | B&W | SILENT

“In the summer of 1927, Fischinger walked from Munich to Berlin carrying his camera and equipment in a back-pack. Along the way, he took single-frame images of certain people and landscapes he encountered. The resultant film survives in a single consistent 100 meter negative copy, of which the last fourth had been cut off by Fischinger himself and placed in one of the cans designated as first priority for transfer to safety film. Fortunately the cut was in the middle of a cluster of similar frames, so I was able to recognize and rejoin the two pieces, and transfer them to a 16mm safety negative.” – Dr. William Moritz, Film Culture

 

Puce Moment (1949) | Kenneth Anger | 6.5 minutes | 16mm | COLOR | SOUND

Concept, direction, camera and editing by Kenneth Anger. Music by Jonathan Halper. Filmed in Hollywood. Cast: Yvonne Marquis (Star).

“A lavishly colored evocation of the Hollywood now gone, as shown through an afternoon in the milieu of a 1920s film star.

“PUCE MOMENT is a fragment from an abandoned film project entitled Puce Woman. The soundtrack used here is the second one; the first was the overture to Verdi’s I Villi. The film reflects Anger’s concerns with the myths and decline of Hollywood, as well as with the ritual of dressing, with the movement from the interior to the exterior, and with color and sound synchronization ….” – Marilyn Singer, The American Federation of Arts

 

Glimpse of the Garden (1957) | Marie Menken | 5 minutes | 16mm | COLOR | Soundtrack: birdsong

“A lyric, tender, intensely subjective exploration of a flower garden, with extreme magnification, flashing color harmonies.” – Cinema 16

“She deserves the order of the square halo, first class, with harps in diamonds.” – Dwight Ripley

 

Castro Street (1966) | Bruce Baillie | 10 minutes | 16mm | COLOR/B&W | SOUND

Coming of consciousness.

 

31/75: Asyl (1975) | Kurt Kren | 9 minutes | 16mm | COLOR | SILENT

“Between 1975 and the present, Kren has continued working in a formalist vein, all the while incorporating elements of his older systems and themes.” – Regina Cornwell, The Other Side: European Avant-Garde Cinema 1960-1980.

“The camera with a sun shade is mounted on a heavy camera mount in front of a window. During 21 consecutive days the view outside is being filmed from this standpoint. The same three rolls of film (totaling 90 m) are used one after the other each day, while the mask in front of the camera objective is also changed every day. Each of the 21 masks made of black cardboard has four or five rectangular small openings. All these openings together would clear the full view. On each take (one day) not only the mask is used, but sometimes the diaphragm is closed. This change differs >from take to take …. The picture is changing constantly …. Towards the end of the film the unmasked view is being shown for a short moment. Since the weather was changing throughout the time of shooting (March/April), the brightness of the picture is very different from take to take. Sometimes snow is seen on the ground. The change of the situation in the viewed portion of the landscape is taken in a static picture during 21 days. The exchange of the masks is noticed as movement, but not as a course of time towards some goal.” – Birgit Hein, Film als Film, 1977

 

Kristallnacht (1979) | Chick Strand | 7 minutes | B&W | Sound

Dedicated to the memory of Anne Frank, and the tenacity of the human spirit.

 

Visions of a City (1978) | Lawrence Jordan | 8 minutes | 16mm | B&W | SOUND

Originally shot in 1957 and edited in 1978.

The protagonist, poet Michael McClure, emerges from the all-reflection imagery of glass shop and car windows, bottles, mirrors, etc. in scenes which are also accurate portraits of both McClure and the city of San Francisco in 1957. At the same time it is a lyric and mystical film, building to a crescendo of rhythmically intercut shots of McClure’s face, seemingly trapped on the glazed surface of the city. Music by William Moraldo. I don’t think of this as an “early film” anymore, since it never came together until ’78. Now it’s tight.

 

Commingled Containers (1997)| Stan Brakhage | 1997 | 5 minutes | 16mm | COLOR | SILENT

This “return to photography” (after several years of only painting film) was made on the eve of cancer surgery – a kind of “last testament,” if you will … an envisionment of the fleeting complexity of worldly phenomenon.

 

OTHER STATES (2013) | Paul Clipson | 6 min | Super 8 | color | sound by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – print provided by filmmaker.

The third in a trilogy (with SPEAKING CORPSE and ANOTHER VOID) of films studying the effects of multilayered music and multi-compositional night imagery, of dense superimpositions of eyeballs, ATM machines and neon signs. Filmed in the Lower East Side and on 42nd Street in New York, and in the Tenderloin of San Francisco.