Photo Collection / Austrian Film Museum Vienna
SPECIAL EVENT - PETER KUBELKA
“Kubelka’s cinema is like a piece of crystal, or
some other object of nature: it does not look like
it was produced by man.” – Jonas Mekas
Since the 1950s Austrian filmmaker and archivist
Peter Kubelka has argued for a history of cinema that
celebrates experiment and research. This is radically
different from film histories centred on Hollywood, or
European auteur cinema. But it’s also an approach that
celebrates de-specialisation, integrating the cultures of
cinema and of cooking, architecture, archaeology and
music. A guest of the National Film and Sound Archive,
Peter Kubelka will give the first and only Australian
presentation of his ideas and films (unavailable on video),
in three lively lectures through September. The first Metric Cinema (4 September, 7:30pm), looks at
groundbreaking films like Arnulf Rainer (1960) and Poetry
and Truth (2003), arguing that evolution is manifested
throughout cinema’s history and in the potential of every
frame of film. A second lecture, Metaphoric Cinema,
examines Kubelka’s radical experiments in sound and
image, and in ‘cultural ethnography’, in films like Our
Trip to Africa (1966). Finally, The Edible Metaphor
celebrates food preparation as the first communicative
art, with on-stage demonstrations of food's textures,
tastes and smells. Lectures all approx. 120 mins.
(unclassified 15+). Watch for full lecture dates and
details on the website.
THU 4 SEP, 7.30PM
PETER KUBELKA: METRIC CINEMA
Approx. 120 mins. (unclassified 15+)
Kubelka’s early work used the projector’s ‘flicker’ phenomena to create a new cinematic language, built not from a montage of shots but from a precisely ordered relation between single frames and the whole film. Screening these influential ‘Metric films’, including Adebar (1956/57) and the beer ‘commercial’ Schwechater (1958), Kubelka argues that each 24 frames of every second of film is open to human manipulation and intelligence.
For details of Peter Kubelka’s other appearances at Arc cinema, see his lectures Metaphoric Cinema (Wed 10 Sept. 6.30pm), The Edible Metaphor (Sun 14 September, 2.30pm) and a screening of his restoration of Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm (Wed 1 Oct, 6.30pm)
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
Dir: John Ford, USA, 1940, 128 mins, 35mm, b&w, Eng. (PG)
John Ford’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel is the most celebrated of his Expressionist-influenced films of the late 1930s and ‘40s, alongside Stagecoach and Young Mr. Lincoln. Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson softened Steinbeck’s original radical indignation. However, the emotional and allegorical plight of the ‘Okies’ – Depression-era sharecropping families driven from the Dust Bowl to California’s Promised Land – is conveyed with almost biblical power and lyricism by Gregg Toland’s camerawork, and embodied in the lean gravitas of Henry Fonda’s Tom Joad. New imported print.
SANJURO
(Tsubaki Sanjûrô) Dir: Kurosawa Akira, Japan, 1962, 96 mins, 35mm, b&w, Japanese with Eng. subtitles (G)
Kurosawa’s follow-up to Yojimbo continues the charmed adventures of Mifune Toshirô’s rogue samurai and his knack for playing bad against worse to get a little good. The sequel finds Sanjûrô inadvertently walking into the trap laid by a corrupt regional warlord against a faction of reforming aristocrats – then out again to rescue their kidnapped families. Sanjuro is less comic but faster on its feet than its predecessor. Mifune perfectly times his signature brands of throw-away nonchalance and swordplay. New print.
PETER KUBELKA: METAPHORICAL CINEMA
Approx. 120 mins (unclassified 15+)
In films such as Mosaic in Confidence (1955), Pause! (1977) and Our Trip to Africa (1966) Kubelka offers an ethnography of our time, but also an extraordinary experiment in sound/image dislocation and reconfiguration. This lecture uses these works to examine the idea of evolution as manifested in cinema’s development. “I know of no other cinema like this. The ultimate precision, even fixity, Kubelka achieves frees them to become objects that have some of the complexity of nature itself” – Fred Camper.
For details of Peter Kubelka’s other appearances at Arc cinema, see his lectures Metric Cinema (Thurs 4 Sept, 7.30pm), Edible Metaphor (Sun 14 Sept. 2.30pm), and a screening of his restoration of Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm (Wed 1 Oct, 6.30pm)
GHOST DOG
Dir: Jim Jarmusch, USA, 1999, 115 mins,
35mm, col., Eng. (MA15+)
Director Jim Jarmusch and actor Forest Whitaker
(The Last King of Scotland) blend Zen and The
Sopranos, when a philosophically reluctant hitman
serves out a debt of honour to a New Jersey mafia
boss. As Ghost Dog’s warrior code leads to inevitable
conflict between body, mind and the mob, Jarmusch
finds a comic, but never insincere continuity between
action cinema and the eclectic principles of Sioux
mysticism, the Bushidõ sayings of the Hagakure and
even Felix the Cat. Music by Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA.
ZOU ZOU
(Zouzou) Dir: Marc Allégret, France, 1934,
92 mins, 35mm, b&w, French with Eng. subtitles
(unclassified 15+)
The emblem of 1920s Afro-American vitality, Josephine
Baker, teams with her equivalent in French virility, Jean
Gabin, for a frothy musical about adopted siblings bound
for stardom. Baker’s own favourite (“…my own life
being played out on the sets…”), Zou Zou is a delirious
Francophone twist on Hollywood’s early 30s backstage
musicals. It’s also a fascinating confection of ideas about
race, modernity and colonialism fashionable in 1930s
Paris. Celebrating Shooting Stars, VIVID National
Photography Festival. Imported print.
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
(Per qualche dollaro in più) Dir: Sergio Leone, Italy, 1965, 132 mins, 35mm, col., Eng. version (M)
Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars sequel was not just good for a few more dollars at the box office. It’s undoubtedly a superior film: the formula’s bedded in (foreseeing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), the narrative leaner, the set-pieces more explosively cinematic. Casting is also a magnificent confrontation between Hollywood and European acting mannerisms, with Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef in a distrustful alliance to destroy a bandit gang led by manic-depressive Gian Maria Volontè and bug-eyed psychopath Klaus Kinski.
PETER KUBELKA: THE EDIBLE METAPHOR
Approx. 120 mins
For Peter Kubelka food preparation is cinema’s forebear, and the first communicative art. In dialogue and actual on-stage demonstration of how food feels, tastes and smells, Kubelka engages with the audience in food’s primary and sensual experiences and outlines a history of how it has been used and enjoyed. "Cooking must be seen as the oldest expression of world view and identity, long before the arrival of sculpture, painting, and even spoken language… It must also be seen as the ancestor of physics, chemistry, and philosophy" – Peter Kubelka.
For details of Peter Kubelka’s other appearances at Arc cinema, see his lectures Metric Cinema (Thurs 4 Sept, 7.30pm), Metaphoric Cinema (Wed. 10 Sept. 7.30pm), and a screening of his restoration of Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm (Wed 1 Oct, 6.30pm)
MUHAMMAD ALI, THE GREATEST
Dir: William Klein, France, 1964-1974, 110 mins, 35mm, col./b&w, Eng. (unclassified 18+)
Trend-setting photographer William Klein spent over ten years following Cassius Clay as he evolved into Muhammad Ali. ...The Greatest brings together footage shot during preparations for two key bouts: his crowning 1964 fight against Sonny Liston and 1974’s ‘Rumble in the Jungle’. If the images and shtick seem a little familiar – yet with a rawer intensity – it’s because ...The Greatest is the original and source material for all Ali biopics since, including When We Were Kings and Michael Mann’s Ali. Imported print.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
Dirs: William Dieterle & Max Reinhardt, USA, 1935, 135 mins, 35mm, b&w, Eng. (G)
Berlin theatre genius Max Reinhardt joined with fellow German émigré director William Dieterle to make this bejewelled and experimental version of Shakespeare’s fey Dream play. Deploying (against type) some of the leading Hollywood comic and hoofing talents of the day, including Dick Powell, Mickey Rooney and James Cagney (as Bottom!), its genius is to re-imagine the Bard with the same modern energy as the musicals of Busby Berkeley and Fred Astaire. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Celebrating Shooting Stars, VIVID National Photography Festival.
PLAY MISTY FOR ME
Dir: Clint Eastwood, USA, 1971, 102 mins,
35mm, col., Eng. (M)
In his first directing gig, Clint Eastwood also stars
as a local DJ with a weakness for the adoring fans –
until one begins stalking his talkback line. A cautionary
tale about minor celebrity, Eastwood works the same
San Francisco Bay-area fault-line Hitchcock surveyed in
The Birds and Vertigo: somewhere between the cool,
the neurotic and the gothic. There are also early signs
of Eastwood’s signature directing manner, in a mellow
jazz score from Cannonball Adderley, and tributes to
the noir stylings of mentor Don Siegel. New print.
LAURA
Dir: Otto Preminger, USA, 1944, 88 mins,
35mm, b&w., Eng. (PG)
It’s maybe a little glossier, and more in the mannered
style of director Otto Preminger. But Laura joined
Double Indemnity and The Big Sleep in defining
Hollywood film noir as it was discovered at WW2’s
end. Whilst Gene Tierney’s Laura is the centrepiece of
fatal glamour around which the film’s bystanders and
protagonists orbit (Dana Andrews, Vincent Price
and Australian Judith Anderson), its unlikely gem is
Clifton Webb’s Waldo Lydecker: an egomanic Pygmalion
of questionable sexuality, allegiances and temper.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
THE MUPPET MOVIE
Dir: James Frawley, UK/USA, 1979,
95 mins, 35mm, col., Eng. (G)
The first feature outing for Kermit, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and the Jim Henson repertory company probably best captures the manic energy and satire of the original TV series. Playing foils and fall guys to the Muppet’s soft wit, the celebrity cameos just fly by: Steve Martin, Bob Hope, James Coburn, Richard Pryor, Orson Welles as “Lew Lord” (a tongue-in cheek – or is it hand-in-cheek? – tribute to producer Lord Lew Grade); even the wooden jokes of their TV puppet forebear, Charlie McCarthy. Imported print.
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
(Der Heilige Berg) Dir: Arnold Fanck, Germany, 1926, 100 mins, 35mm, b&w, silent with Eng. intertitles (unclassified 18+)
Leni Riefenstahl’s first role was as earthmother and object of desire for two handsome mountaineers. It’s also the first ‘Mountain Film’; a unique cycle in 1920s German cinema. The direction of Riefenstahl’s mentor, Arnold Fanck, is breathtakingly cinematic, with vertiginous shots of rugged nature, visionary slow-motion and shimmering dissolves. However, The Holy Mountain is also a call ahead to the cinema of Nazism. Courtesy Friedrich- Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung. Live accompaniment by Mauro Colombis.
