The Chilean doc/fiction hybrid No (T/F 2013) has returned to Columbia, and is now playing at Ragtag Cinema.
No is director Pablo Larrain third consecutive film dealing with the rule of General Augusto Pinochet, whose military junta governed Larrain’s native Chile from 1973-1990. Each approaches life under the dictatorship through the story of an unusual, seemingly apolitical protagonist. Tony Manero (2008) follows a psychopath obsessed with imitating John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever, a darkly comic echo of Pinochet’s regime. In Post Mortem (2010) a middle-aged morgue worker’s strange romance with a burlesque performer plays out during the violent coup that brought Pinochet to power. In No our hero is René Saavedra, an ad-man who creates a catchy campaign to bring down the general. Saavedra is portrayed in a powerful and subtle performance by Gael Garcia Bernal.
No has a direct connection to Columbia, in that it was produced by Hickman grad Daniel Dreifuss. In the video below, shot following our closing night screening at the historic Missouri Theater, Dreifuss discusses the film’s universalism and its use of archival material to create “a feature with a documentary soul”.
Stories We Tell, a runaway hit at True/False 2013, is now playing theaters in New York with more cities soon to follow. Sarah Polley’s autobiographical documentary debut explores an uncomfortable family secret with humor and grace, carefully combining interviews, Super-8 archival footage and sly reenactments in an inventive structure. Avoiding the obstacles of self-importance and excessive cuteness that derail similar projects, Polley uses her family’s story to explore universal questions about the elusiveness of truth, the nature of familial bonds and the role stories play in our lives.
Sarah’s father, the actor Michael Polley, serves as the film’s narrator. You can hear his elegant and resonate voice at the beginning of the film’s trailer.
Arthur Lipsett transformed literal trash into cinematic treasure. Working at the National Film Board of Canada during the 1960s, he wove bits of discarded audio and film into unforgettable collages. The four films embedded below through the NFB archive, all less than 13 minutes in length, inaugurated his tragically short career. They continue to delight, confound and provoke some fifty years later.
As Brett Kashmere put it in a Senses of Cinema essay, Lipsett’s work “disrupts the representational value of documentary image and sound, moving beyond the genre’s aesthetic codes of truth and reliability”. What we see and what we hear seem at first unrelated. Sometimes the sights and sounds come to form some sort of compliment, but frequently they press against and even threaten to negate one another, creating an unresolved and unresolvable tension. Lipsett speaks through these strange sensory paradoxes, offering a fascinating commentary on modern life.
His first film, 1962’s Very Nice, Very Nice (which played before Zielinski at T/F 2011) places us in the shadow of Madison Avenue and the Atom Bomb.
Very Nice was originally conceived as an audio only experiment, in Lipsett’s words “purely for the love of placing one sound after another”. We hear a series of voices, at times threatening to speak for the film directly in samples of cultural critics including Northrup Frye and Marshall McLuhan. But just as our understanding begins to congeal, the audio melts away into incoherence and redundancy. The result looks like this:
“We’re living in a very competitive world today as compared to 30 or 40 years ago, everything is highly competitive, uh, would you like to answer that Paul? . . . people who have made no attempt to educate themselves live in a kind of dissolving phantasmagoria of a world, that is, they completely forget what happened last Tuesday, a politician can promise them anything and they will not remember later what he has promised, and ah, the . . . oh, the game is really nice to look at, for me I like football . . . in other words we are suffering from uh, everybody wondered about what the future will hold, what’s ahead of us, but if you feel well, you know inevitably whatever’s going to happen, you feel well anyway . . . warmth and brightness will return, and renewal of the hopes of men.”
And so on. Our faculty for discerning meaning in spoken language is deftly turned against us. So too, our capacity for reading expressions at a glance is frustrated and confounded by the visuals. Mismatched edits link still photographs of faces transfixed in rapture, terror, confusion, joy and sadness. Lipsett’s simultaneous tweaking of these two cognitive systems masterfully effects the “dissolving phantasmagoria of a world” promised above.
These head games also help to account for the film’s unnerving shifts in tone, an essential feature of all of Lipsett’s work. What at first reads as a brooding, somber meditation is quite suddenly a zany carnival. Late in the film a sudden parade of magazine cutouts dance before our eyes, and the soundtrack is given over to trite, jazzy music and ecstatic yelling. Tragedy and farce are indistinguishable.
Stanley Kubrick was so impressed with Very Nice, Very Nice that he approached Lipsett about directing the trailer for his own black comedy of atomic warfare, Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. When Lipsett declined, Kubrick directed the trailer himself, but in a style clearly indebted to Lipsett. It has always been one of my favorite trailers. The unnerving audio track fills me with a weird sort of giddy horror.
Lipsett’s second film, 1964’s 21-87, confronts humanity’s search for an essential identity.
The very first image is a forceful reminder of mortality, a leering skull letting us know the stakes. The series of film clips that follow depict modern life as either mechanized or frivolous. People are seen as actors performing roles: models in a fashion show, a man dressed in a space suit, kids gyrating to rock and roll, acrobats moving across a wire. A bombardment of faces is again essential to the film, this time as a procession on an escalator, jump cuts linking the uninterested faces moving simultaneously upwards and towards us.
After opening with an unnerving robotic grind, the soundtrack offers a diverse sampling of our religious and spiritual aspirations, “the search for the force behind this apparent mask”. These range from austere choral arrangements to soulful gospel music, from Orthodox liturgies to extemporaneous musings in a public park. By the time we reach the frightening conclusion, it appears we are content to be thought of as just a number.
Lipsett’s third film, Free Fall (1964), is his most abstract sensory overload.
A pounding jazz melee immediately sets the tempo for this cinematic blitz. Even when the film slows down, the relaxed interludes are fraught with tension. Visual and thematic motifs of the first two films reappear here, the sea of faces invoking humanity lost in the crowd, the bewildering snippets of anxious dialogue and monologue. But here they are in service of something more primal and frenzied. Human beings are juxtaposed with insects, maniacally scrambling across the frame. Our Free Fall could be from grace, either real or imagined, back into the the chaos of nature.
The final film in Lipsett’s inaugural quartet, A Trip Down Memory Lane (1965), is a chilling history lesson.
Subtitled Additional Material for a Time Capsule, the film is more formally restrained than the other three, utilizing relatively longer snippets of archival newsreel footage. Public celebrations of “achievements”, political, cultural, economic, religious, military, technological and scientific, are fed back to us as an alarming spectacle. The common aura of pomposity surrounding these events, despite their diversity, creates a nauseating sense of the grotesque. This feeling builds until it manifests as the searing audio distortion of the film’s climax. Our present search for meaning, it would seem, needs to avoid such public displays of “meaningfulness” at all costs.
For a clear example of Lipsett’s continuing influence, see Adam Curtis’s brilliant It Felt Like A Kiss (T/F 2010). Curtis describes this film as a “psycho-archaeological dig of the American Empire”. As in Lipsett’s Trip, shock edits highlight unsettling connections, and the comfortable compartmentalization of our historical memory is gleefully destroyed.
Curtis’s collage is just one example of Lipsett’s continuing relevance. His films feel perfectly at home in the age of YouTube and will no doubt continue to confound and delight far into the future.
La Operación Jarocha hail from Veracruz, Mexico and appeared at T/F 2013 alongside the film Who is Dayani Cristal? which features their music. These energetic performers were also a part of our first ever at music showcase at Sparky’s Homemade Ice Cream, a long time sponsor of the fest. Thankfully our friends from Folk to Folk were there to capture a stirring performance. See for yourself!
Herman’s House (T/F 2012) opens this weekend at Cinema Village in NYC. It tells the moving story of the friendship and collaboration of artist Jackie Sumell and Herman Wallace, who has spent over forty years living in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell in solitary confinement at Angola prison in Louisiana. As part of an art project, Jackie helped Herman imagine and design his dream home, an exercise in creative resistance to the unbelievable inhumanity of his living conditions. I spoke briefly with the film’s director Angad Bhalla by phone yesterday about why he wanted to tell this story.
Following its theatrical run, Herman’s House we play PBS’s POV this summer on July 8th.
-Dan Steffen
T/F: How did you first become involved in telling Herman and Jackie’s story?
AB: My introduction came through Jackie. She was a friend of mine from school, and we were politically active together, so I first learned about Herman through her art. A gallery in Europe put out a book of Jackie and Herman’s correspondence. When I read that, I realized there was something here even more interesting than an art project, that there was a compelling friendship and an unusual mentor/student relationship.
T/F: Did you know at the outset that you wouldn’t be able to film Herman in Angola?
AB: Yeah, I spoke with other filmmakers who had attempted to film Herman and they were denied. I wrote a letter and I was denied. But I spoke with him on the phone early on and I began to think, maybe not seeing him makes sense . . . that it’s a way to highlight his separation. But it was also a challenge, not to have your main character on screen.
T/F: Could you tell during that first conversation how powerful Herman’s presence was, and how powerful his voice was at conveying that presence?
AB: Yes, definitely. He was always very comfortable on the phone and very relaxed, but his voice was able to convey so many emotions.
At the same time we were worried about what we were going to show, because we wanted to have times where it was just Herman, where the audience was just with Herman and his thoughts.
T/F: And did you plan on using animation to help fill in those scenes?
AB: Yes and no. I knew we would need animation, but I didn’t realize we’d need to rely on it as much as we did. We were wary of the traps of animation, that we could fill in too much. We wanted to bring attention to what was lacking. We wanted the darkness and the black. We also didn’t want the animation to feel too digital, since this is the story about a man who has been in prison since the 70s. Nicholas (Brault) did an amazing job and once we found this texture it really came together. We knew we wanted to treat the archival footage in the film, especially since we didn’t have archival of Herman himself, to create an impressionistic sense, to make it feel like more of a memory. It really blended well with the animation.
T/F: What’s happening on the activism front? Has there been any movement on ending long term solitary confinement?
AB: It’s going to be a long journey. Once something has become an institution, like this has, it is difficult to change. I hope the film helps to humanize the issue, and that people can begin to develop an emotional connection to it, something beyond statistics.
This campaign is really happening state by state, since it is primarily in state prisons that this solitary confinement is happening. The NYCLU just helped organize a screening in Albany, New York that was attended by several politicians interested in working on this issue. In Arizona they screened the film as part of a campaign not to build new solitary cells. There is also a campaign to have the American Institute of Architects change their code of ethics to state that it is not acceptable to build inhumane facilities like these.
So there are a lot of ongoing activism throughout the country focused on this issue. I hope the film can continue to serve as a resource for them.
Herman’s House is playing now at Cinema Village in NYC. This weekend’s screening will feature post-film Q and As with filmmakers and activists working on the issue of long term solitary confinement. The schedule of screenings is as follows:
Friday, April 19, 7:00 PM (SOLD OUT!) Moderator: Anna Sale, WNYC Reporter Speaker: Taylor Pendergrass, Senior Staff Attorney, New York Civil Liberties Union Speaker: Jackie Summell, Artist, Activist Featured in Film Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House
FRI April 19, 9:15 PM Speaker: Five, Mualimm-AK, NYC Jails Action Coalition Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House
SAT, April 20, 7:00 PM Moderator: King Downing, Campaign to End the New Jim Crow Speaker: Soffiyah Elijah, Executive Director, Correctional Association Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House
SAT, April 20, 9:15 PM Speaker: Jean Casella, Editor, SolitaryWatch.com Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House
SUN, April 21, 3:00 PM Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House Speaker: Representative from Metro NY Religious Campaign Against Torture
Our 2013 True Life Fund Film, Which Way is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington, premieres tonight on HBO. This film is director Sebastian Junger’s moving tribute to his lost friend and colleague, the photographer Tim Hetherington, who was killed while photographing the Libyan civil war in 2011.
This year was the first time our True Life Fund film featured a subject no longer with us. In Tim’s memory, we raised funds for two charities closely linked with his life and work. These are the Milton Margai School for the Blind, where Tim took some of his most powerful photographs, and RISC (Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues), an group recently created by Junger to provide war reporters with first-aid training. Through the generosity of our audiences and our TLF partner The Crossing we were able to raise a record $36,760 for these organizations.
Hetherington’s photography captures human dignity and frailty in the midst of war and its aftermath. His unforgettable images continues to attract attention and create conversation.
photo by Tim Hetherington
photo by Tim Hetherington
photo by Tim Hetherington
The last two photos are both part of exhibitions of Hetherington’s photography currently running in NYC. “Sleeping Soldiers”, pictures of US troops deployed in Afghanistan, is at The International Center for Photography. And ”Inner Light: Portraits of the Blind”, black and white photos taken at Milton Margai between 1999 and 2003, is showing at the Yossi Milo Gallery (you can find coverage of this show and a selection of images on the New Yorker’s Photo Booth blog). You can explore more of Tim’s work in online galleries at Vanity Fair, the Guardian and HBO Documentary Films.
Tragically, Tim’s promising career as a filmmaker was only in its infancy when he died. In addition to co-directoring with Junger the masterful Afghanistan war documentary Restrepo (T/F 2010) Hetherington created the short film Diary, available below through Vimeo. He described Diary as “a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.”
Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington premieres tonight 8 Eastern on HBO, and will be available afterwards on HBO Go and HBO On Demand.
Tonight! One night only! Fake It So Real (T/F 2011) is playing online for free! Enter the lives of the dedicated men of the Millennium Wrestling Federation as they spend a week preparing for a big show. You can watch Fake It between 7:30-9:30 Eastern/6:30-8:30 Central tonight on the UStream link you’ll find embedded here. Following the film, it’s your chance to probe the unhinged mind of filmmaker Robert Greene during an online Q and A. Be warned though, things may become disturbing. Last year Michael Tully of Hammer to Nail attempted to interview Greene before the film’s VOD release, and the results weren’t pretty.
Each year, the True/False Film Fest selects one film as its True Life Fund recipient. This is a way for us to give back to that film’s subject who has made a significant achievement in selfless social impact. When documentary subjects share their stories with us they not only reveal painful details about their lives, they frequently incur a financial burden or even put themselves in danger. This year’s True Life Fund film, Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington, tells the story of someone who has already given his life. Tim worked as a photojournalist in war torn countries, documenting the true life stories of the people he found there. He died on the way to the hospital from complications due to shrapnel wounds while photographing the civil war in Libya. Columbia has a rich history of producing great journalists, so we felt our home town would be especially responsive to Tim’s story. That has proven to be so, with the 2013 True Life Fund reaching a new record in donations, totaling $36,760.
This number was reached through a combination of audience donations made during the two screenings of the film during the fest, entry fees for the True Life Run, a generous matching donation from the Bertha Foundation, support from the official True Life Fund sponsor The Crossing and the incredible efforts of the students of Hickman High School. $20,000 of the funds will go to RISC (Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues), an organization founded by the film’s director Sebastian Junger in honor of his fallen colleague and Restrepo co-director, Tim Hetherington. In a phone conversation Wednesday between RISC’s Deputy Director, Lily Hindy, and True Life Fund director, Tracy Lane, Hindy was overwhelmed by the generosity of the people of Columbia, “We are so grateful. Thanks to you, we can fund an entire training session.” Each training session provides 24 combat journalists with a medical kit and the medical skills needed to save each other’s lives on the battlefield. Junger visited The Crossing during T/F, to share his experiences alongside his former colleague on the battle field and to explain the life-saving opportunities that RISC provides. Hindy visited Columbia’s three public high schools as well as the photojournalism department at MU during T/F week, to share information about RISC with young journalists. $16,760 will go to the Milton Margai School for the Blind in Sierra Leone, where Tim took many photographs.
Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington premieres on HBO this Thursday, April 18th. A slideshow of Tim’s photography is available on their website.
Chase Whiteside and Erik Stoll, the team that brought us the unflinching taxidermy short Lifelike (T/F 2011), created a short film during last month’s fest. Staring Eyes documents the shared anticipation in the moments before a T/F screening at Ragtag Cinema. Take a look.
Downtown Columbia’s main artery, Alley A, was adorned during True/False 2013 by “Stilted”. This strange threshold was California-based artist Yulia Pinkusevich’s take on our year ten theme, “the Collective Architecture of the Impossible”. Our T/F video team talks with Yulia about her art’s use of perspective and shares images of her finished product in this video.
You can find more photos of the “Stilted” installation below. Also, be sure to check out Yulia Pinkusevich’s homepage for many more pictures and videos documenting her impressive body of work.
