04.06.08
Posted in Cinema, Music, Events, Experimental Film, Seattle Stuff, 16mm Film at 6:43 pm by Spencer
This coming Sunday at the Rendezvous, the Sprocket Society presents a special event featuring original works by Los Angeles filmmaker and noted restorationist ROSS LIPMAN, plus live music by Seattle’s own RUBY THICKET and THE PHILISTINE LIBERATION ORCHESTRA.
Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 7:00 PM
The JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous
2322 2nd Avenue, Seattle (in Belltown)
$5 suggested donation
More info at the Sprocket Society web site.
KEEP WARM, BURN BRITAIN! is Ross Lipman’s personal memoir of the London anarchist squatters movement during the 1980s. A work-in-progress, Ross will present it as a Magic Lantern slide show with live narration plus recorded music by legendary street performer Thoth (who was the subject of a 2002 Oscar-winning documentary short).
Lipman is internationally known for his film/video and performance work, as well his writings and restorations of independent cinema. His 16mm and 35mm experimental films have screened throughout the world at venues such as London International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives (NYC), the Los Angeles Film Forum, the San Francisco Cinematheque, Sixpackfilm/Top-Kino (Vienna), AMIA (Austin, Minneapolis), Chinese Taipei Film Archive (Taiwan), and many others. This is his Seattle debut.
Lipman is also one of the world’s leading figures in the restoration of independent cinema. Working at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, he has restored films by John Cassavetes, Kenneth Anger, John Sayles, Emile de Antonio, and others. In 2007, the National Society of Film Critics gave Lipman their Film Heritage Award “for the restoration of Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep and other independent films.”
Also on the program are several of Ross’ earlier experimental shorts and and documentaries:
10-17-88 (1989, 16mm)
An optically printed collage of found and archival footage, with audio collage by John (Ruby Thicket) Shaw.
AFTERNOON IN BOTTLE VILLAGE (2007, DV)
A requiem for Grandma Prisbrey’s famous cathedral of light, built entirely of glass bottles, pencils, and industrial detritus. With a score improvised on a broken piano by Jodie Baltazar (aka Monotrona).
THE GIFT: MICHAEL BARRISH SCREEN TEST (1997, Super-8)
A screen test for a film that was never made, a feature-length narrative about the unbridgeable gap and connection between a father and son.
PLUS!
Live music by RUBY THICKET
Featuring John Shaw (vocals, guitar, bass, harmonica), Mac McClure (bowed saw and vocals), Bob Barraza (drums, shakuhachi flute, ukulele, and vocals), Jillian Graham (vocals and rhythm guitar), and Jim Graham (bass). Download sample MP3s from their CD You Never Know What You’ll See.
And the sultry cacophony of THE PHILISTINE LIBERATION ORCHESTRA
Lounge and show standards crooned (or c-ruined?) over free improvised accompaniment. Featuring the velvet pipes of John Shaw backed by composer Bill Potter on guitar-synth, the lovely and talented David Milford on fiddle, members of Ruby Thicket, and other surprise guests. The set list includes songs associated with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Kate Smith, Robert Goulet, Man of La Mancha, and Woody Guthrie.
Hope to see you there!
PS — Ross Lipman will be presenting at the Pop Conference at EMP this Friday, April 11. He will give his lecture “Mingus, Cassavetes, and the Politics of Improv”, using film clips, texts, and still photographs to examine the complex and explosive collaboration of John Cassavetes and Charles Mingus for the film Shadows (1959) at a pivotal moment in the history of independent cinema, jazz, and race relations. More info is online at the Pop Conference web site.
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01.07.08
Posted in DVDs, Animation, Experimental Film, Seattle Stuff at 11:58 pm by Spencer
My old pal Hell’s Donut House just directed me to this excellent news from Brett Ingram, recently posted at Idiot Bastard Son, a Frank Zappa fan site:
In the next few months, Bright Eye Pictures will release Bruce Bickford’s Prometheus’ Garden, the first film over which Bickford maintained 100% artistic control.
Prometheus’ Garden is a 28-minute stop-motion film utilizing clay puppets and sets, cutouts, replacement series, aluminum foil, “strato-cut” slices, molten wax, and other techniques. The film is (very) loosely based on the Greek myth of Prometheus — an immortal who (in some versions of the story) created the first mortals out of clay. Bickford’s incorporation of this myth into his animated film includes appearances by Vikings, cowboys, Vietnam War era mercenaries, imps, elves, fairies, and countless other historical and mythological creatures.
Prometheus’ Garden, like most of Bickford’s later films, is an unscripted stream of consciousness animated over the course of years. Bickford began work on Prometheus immediately after the release of Frank Zappa’s film Baby Snakes in 1980. Prometheus’ Garden was completed by Bickford in 1988.
I recently recorded Bickford’s (characteristically dry-witted) commentary tracks for the upcoming DVD and began production on “extra” elements — including the documentary featurette, Luck Of A Foghorn. This new half hour documentary will take viewers behind the scenes and into the mind of Bickford. I shot miles of film while making Monster Road (the documentary feature I made about Bickford) and most of this footage has never seen the light of day. Luck Of A Foghorn will unearth these images along with footage from the making of Prometheus. Laird Dixon (from Shark Quest) has created an original score for Luck Of A Foghorn and it is hauntingly beautiful. The title of the featurette originates from a surreal day dream Bickford had while hovering near death with pneumonia in hospital.
I hope to have the DVD ready for sale on the Bright Eye Pictures site (along with Monster Road) no later than February 1, 2008. [See update, below.] Bickford has several films that have hovered near completion for years. Hopefully, the release of Prometheus’ Garden will spark a chain reaction so that Bickford’s recent work can find the audience it deserves.
As readers of Mugu Brainpan may recall, I’m huge fan of Bickford’s truly amazing animation (to wit and thus). It is my considered opinion that he is one of the greatest animators ever, as well as among the greats of visionary film more generally.
The reclusive filmmaker, who lives in the Seattle area, garnered some well-deserved attention thanks to the excellent aforementioned documentary, Monster Road (2005), after many years of grossly undeserved obscurity (not helped, I’m sad to say, by copyright snarls involving the Zappa estate). Following that release, Bruce surfaced in 2006 with an all-too-small spate of rare screenings and public appearances in Baltimore and Seattle, including a May 2006 screening at the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery that included a recently completed new work of line animation.
The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore included clay sculptures and projections by Bickford in Home & Beast, an exhibition that opened in October 2006 and ran for a year. His work was featured alongside paintings by William Kurelek in a gallery of the exhibit titled “Home Sweet Home,” described by the Museum as exploring “memories of home life and what, in fact, constitutes a home.”
Since precious few of Bickford’s astonishing film works are in circulation (and not even Canyon Cinema includes him in their legendary catalog of avant garde works), news of this DVD release is very good indeed. Keep an eye out, and kindly ask for it at your neighborhood video outlet.
Update: Brett Ingram recently announced on his blog that release of this DVD has been delayed (again), as he works to complete editing on Luck of a Foghorn: The Making of Prometheus’ Garden. Once completed, the whole shebang will still need to be mastered and duplicated, so it will be some weeks (at best) before the disc sees the light of day. Brett also announced he is launching a new web site, BrettIngram.org (still very much under construction, so don’t order yet), that will offer direct-sale copies of the Prometheus’ Garden DVD, as well as the collectors’ edition of Monster Road, his aforementioned (and excellent) documentary about Bruce Bickford. Watch this space for further info.
Bruce Bickford Films on Home Video
Baby Snakes (1979 - released on DVD in 2003) — A Frank Zappa concert film that includes several segments of Bickford’s animation. The most widely-seen examples of Bruce’s work.
The Amazing Mr. Bickford (1987, VHS - out of print) — A superlative anthology inexcusably unavailable on DVD. In Seattle, Scarecrow Video has a copy for rent (with deposit). Used copies also occasionally surface on eBay.
The Dub Room Special (1982 - released on DVD in 2005) — A sadly ill-fated TV special by Frank Zappa that, along with some great concert footage, includes various snippets of animation by Bickford.
Monster Road (2005 - released on DVD in 2006) — An excellent and endearing documentary that takes us into Bickford’s very private world. The DVD includes a number of his short films as extras, including spectacular examples of his line animation.
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12.09.07
Posted in Cinema, Events, Artniss, Experimental Film at 10:02 pm by Spencer
Coming up this weekend (Fri. Dec. 14 - Sun. Dec. 16), the Northwest Film Forum is hosting A Clockwork Reduction Live, an ambitious new conceptual multimedia project by Seattle School, the same folks that organized the amazing MOTEL event back in September. The full scoop — including the all-star cast — is below, and meanwhile you can get advance tickets via BrownPaperTickets.com.
A CLOCKWORK REDUCTION LIVE
A Conceptual Project By Seattle School
Northwest Film Forum
1515 12th Ave. (on Capitol Hill, between Pike and Pine)
Fri. Dec. 14 & Sat. Dec. 15 @ 8 PM - the main event
Sun. Dec. 16 @ 8 PM - screening of the finished work
FEATURING:
Virginia Bogert - Tootie Pie
Sue Corcoran - She’s a Dog
Daniel Gildark - Cthulhu
Kris Kristensen - Inheritance
Christian Palmer - Forcefields
Lynn Shelton - We Go Way Back
WITH:
Rob Millis - Climax Golden Twins
Jacob Stone - Punch Drunk Productions
Kris Moon - Fourthcity
AND:
Aaron Allshouse, JD Barton, Kyle Bliss, Danielle Gibeson, Dustin Kemp, Abby Klein, Caitlin Ngo, and more …
Six years before Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Andy Warhol adapted the Anthony Burgess novel for his classic, black and white Factory film, VINYL. [You can rent the original at Scarecrow, albeit only on PAL.] In homage to Warhol, Seattle School will transform the entire Northwest Film Forum building for a unique Factory-style recreation of the film. This grand, live happening restages the film in parts, with simultaneous live performance, filming, and screening in our two cinemas and lobby.
Northwest filmmakers Lynn Shelton, Daniel Gildark, Virginia Bogert, Sue Corcoran, Christian Palmer and Kris Kristensen will direct models cum actors in cinema 1. Their footage will be projected live in cinema 2, where the audience intervenes in the creative process and composers (including Rob Millis of Climax Golden Twins) perform an improvised score. In the lobby, VJs (including Jacob Stone of Opticlash and Kris Moon from the Decibel Festival) will merge and edit the video and audio feeds from both cinemas in real time, creating a live finished film projected onto a translucent screen.
The audience can move around freely between rooms throughout the evening, witnessing the different stages of the event’s unique filmmaking process. The event ends when the final new interpretation of VINYL is complete. In keeping with Seattle School tradition, everyone is invited to stay after for fresh waffles (and yes, there will be Cool Whip.)
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12.04.07
Posted in Nifty Links, Avant Experiwhosis, Experimental Film, Online Video, 16mm Film at 10:46 pm by Spencer
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
April 30, 1969 KQED TV, San Francisco, CA
18 min. B&W and color. Originally on 16mm.
Part 1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Hn1aV3VnZQg
Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9IY1STwLoqU
Part 3: http://youtube.com/watch?v=xeHVSKEUfAo
Aired on KQED TV in 1969, the Dilexi Series represents a pioneering effort to present works created by artists specifically for broadcast. The 12-part weekly series was conceived and commissioned by the Dilexi Foundation, an off-shoot of the influential San Francisco art gallery founded by James Newman. Newman, who operated the Dilexi Gallery from 1958 until 1970, saw this innovative series as an opportunity to extend the influence of the contemporary arts far beyond the closeted environment of the commercial gallery.
Formal agreement was reached with KQED in 1968 with the station’s own John Coney designated as series producer. No restrictions, regarding length, form or content, were imposed upon the works, except for Newman’s stipulation that they be aired weekly within the same time-slot. Upon their completion, the 12 works were broadcast during the spring and summer of 1969.
Of the 12 artists invited to participate in the Dilexi Series, ten of them completed new works, and two, Andy Warhol and Frank Zappa, submitted extant works. The tapes and films are far-reaching in their approaches to the medium and the circumstance of the broadcast series. Some of the artists chose to intervene in the relationship of broadcaster and audience by broaching the subject of communications. (…)
Burnt Weeny Sandwich is another rarity. Created by Frank Zappa, the film, in one form or another, found its way into a larger work, Uncle Meat. Something of a high-speed home movie, Burnt Weeny Sandwich features the original Mothers of Invention, along with Captain Beefheart. This is one of the works that exists only within the Dilexi Series.
Once broadcast, the Dilexi Series was stored on the original 2″ videotape masters, a now archaic video format. Some masters were transferred to a contemporary format in 1982 and presented at the S.F. Video Festival. Through the generosity of KQED, the last of the Dilexi Series was just transferred to an exhibition format. This marks the first time in 22 years that all the Dilexi tapes are available. (…)
More info at: http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/videography/Burnt_Weeny_Sandwich.html
The Music:
- 00:00 “Uncle Meat: Main Title Theme” (1:26-1:55) from Uncle Meat
- 00:34 Unidentified Percussion Piece
- 01:27 “Theme From Burnt Weeny Sandwich” from Burnt Weeny Sandwich
- 05:47 “A Pound For A Brown (On The Bus)” from Uncle Meat
- 07:15 “Snork”
- 07:22 “Dog Breath, In The Year Of The Plague” from Uncle Meat
- 11:20 Unidentified Percussion & Snorks Piece
- 11:44 “Prelude To King Kong” from Uncle Meat
- 15:22 “God Bless America” from Uncle Meat
- 16:01 “The Dog Breath Variations” from Uncle Meat
More Things to Thank John Coney For:
(King Kong-sized hat tip to Hell’s Donut House.)
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10.07.07
Posted in Cinema, MP3s, Experimental Film, Books at 1:13 pm by Spencer
The ever-lovin’ folks at the utterly phenomenal UBUWEB have posted MP3s of Test of Time, a 20-part series of radio broadcasts by seminal experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, recorded at KAIR, Univeristy of Colorado in 1982.
The series includes “long passages of Brakhage musing on subjects such as film, poetry, theater, and other arts. Includes music, lectures, readings, and sound pieces by Edgar Varèse, Peter Kubelka, Kenneth Patchen, Charles Ives, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Duncan, Ed Dorn, Glenn Gould, James Joyce, Virgil Thomson, Gertrude Stein, Olivier Messiaen, Louis Zukofsky, William Faulkner, Charles Olson, Henry Cowell and many others.” Transcripts of the broadcasts are also provided in both HTML and PDF formats.
UBUWEB also offers a free PDF e-book edition of The Brakhage Lectures (1972: The GoodLion, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago), in which he discusses the works of George Méliès, D.W. Griffith, Carl Theodore Dreyer, and Sergei Eisenstein.
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05.10.07
Posted in Cinema, Events, Animation, Artniss, Experimental Film, Seattle Stuff at 9:18 pm by Spencer
Mugu Brainpan is a huge fan of animator Bruce Bickford, and you should be, too.
This Saturday, Seattle-ites will be treated to a rare, uh, treat when the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery down in Georgetown hosts a special screening of four recent short films by Mr. Bickford, including “the public debut of a recently completed untitled line animation.” If you’ve checked out the extras on the Monster Road DVD (Scarecrow has it for rent), then you know that Bruce’s line animation is even more mind-blowing than his clay stop motion…and that’s really saying something. It’s one of the only times I gave my TV a standing ovation.
As an added bonus, Seattle cartoonist Jim Woodring will host the evening, and the reclusive Mr. Bickford himself will be in attendance.
By way of teasers, here’s the current YouTube offerings of Bruce Bickford’s work.
Following is the full press release from the Fantagraphics blog. (Sorry the reference link takes so bloody long to load. For some reason you can’t link to an individual post but only the whole bloody month.)
Fantagraphics Bookstore Presents “The Idiosyncratic Cincema of Bruce Bickford” on Saturday, May 12
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is pleased to host a screening of animated shorts by Seattle-based artist Bruce Bickford on Saturday, May 12 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. This event, hosted by Bickford’s associate Jim Woodring, gives the public a rare opportunity to view new and recent works by the highly acclaimed, yet reclusive, filmmaker. Fantagraphics Bookstore is located at 1201 S. Vale St. at Airport Way S. in Seattle’s Georgetown arts community. The screening is free to the public of all ages.
Bruce Bickford’s obsessive clay and line animations are at once seductive and grotesque. The son of a Boeing engineer, Bickford began working in film as an adolescent, drawing on childhood insecurities and dreams to create a stunning body of work of singular vision. His work gained international prominence when featured in Frank Zappa’s 1979 concert documentary Baby Snakes. Bickford’s contribution served as a dynamic visualization of Zappa’s approach to composition-as-metamorphosis. Bickford is the subject of the award-winning feature length 2005 documentary Monster Road, which will be available on DVD at the event. He continues to create subversive films in seclusion in his south Seattle studio.
The program on May 12 will feature four short films, including the public debut of a recently completed untitled line animation, in addition to other recent works. Seattle cartoonist Jim Woodring will serve as host. Woodring’s art, currently on view at Fantagraphics Bookstore, shares Bickford’s meticulous and visionary approach to the creative process. The screening will be followed by comments from Bickford and a question and answer period with the audience…
Listing Information:
The Idiosyncratic Cinema of Bruce Bickford
Saturday, May 12, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.) Seattle
Admission Free. All Ages.
206.658.0110 www.fantagraphics.com
Hours: Daily 11:30 - 8:00 PM (Sundays until 5:00 PM)
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04.16.07
Posted in Cinema, Me, Experimental Film, Seattle Stuff at 9:22 pm by Spencer
Over the weekend I was a “featured extra” for a cool ongoing film project led by Adam Sekuler (program director at the NW Film Forum), known by the working title of Stop Action Set. All I’ll say is the role involved an umbrella and wearing a bunny head. You’ll have to come see the finished work to find out more.
As explained on the project’s web site:
Every month for the next year, the cast of 8 dancers will attend a planning meeting, where director Adam Sekuler will present to the group a location and several obstructions. That night, the cast and crew will determine the plot of the film to be shot in 5-hour sessions the following Saturday and Sunday using only a digital still camera. During the next three weeks, Spaghetti Western will create a score, and Adam will edit a short film. At the end of 12 months, the project will have created 12 short films, which will be edited into 1 full-length film.
This is month seven of the project, which will wrap in September or shortly thereafter.
The filming process used for Stop Action Set is a kind of pixilation deal, where live actors are stop-motion animated. Though first used as early as 1911, pixilation was made famous by Scottish-Canadian master animator Norman McLaren in his short films Neighbors (1952) [NFBC, Wikipedia] and A Chairy Tale (1957) [NFBC, Wikipedia].
In this case, instead of using a film or video camera they’re using a digital still camera, a really great idea since it gives enormous flexibility and mobility to the camera person, and the images can be stored on tiny memory cards instead of video tape or lugged to a processing lab and all that follows from that. The memory cards can also be freed up by downloading the images to a laptop on set…which this weekend was actually the woods. Ah, the miracles of the digital age.
The gigabytes of stills are later compiled in (I presume) Final Cut and any extra frames (or dud takes) are selectively dropped so that the whole thing flows as though it were film/tape.
You can view a Quicktime of the first short film (made in October, 2006), entitled Writer’s Block, at the official web site. Though the later films are not posted for viewing online, you can see stills and basic breakdowns of what elements comprised each month’s opus to date…er, but they’re a month or so behind.
This month’s film (sorry, dunno the title) was shot in the “wilds” of Interlaken Park. It was a good time (especially since the weather cooperated), everyone was really nice, the whole thing very laid back and collaborative — and as an added bonus I got to spend the day in the woods. What more could you want?
This marked my semi-decennial return to screen acting. I was a lead in Jim Sikora’s entertainingly demented Super 8 opus, Stagefright Chameleon (1988) — featuring mad poet, outsider artist, and bona fide Guinness World Record holder Lee Groban, as well as music by tondant shaman (my band at the time) and Illusion of Safety. It was released twice on VHS by FilmThreat on Bring Me the Head of Geraldo Rivera (short films by Jim Sikora) and Small Gauge Shotgun (short films by Danny Plotnick and Jim Sikora) — which Seattle-ites can rent from Scarecrow Video. Then in 1999 I played, um, a serial killer in an unfinished film by Cole Drumb based on a short story by Andrew Vacchs and shot as a single take from the victim’s POV. Yes, very creepy. In 2000 I was in an impromptu bit shot for Cal Godot’s Alex the Great [director’s site, streaming preview] but it stank and was mercifully immediately forgotten by all concerned.
Update: I was all but cut out of Stop Action Set. Serves me right.
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03.21.07
Posted in Cinema, DVDs, Experimental Film at 8:58 pm by Spencer
May 1, 2007 is the official street date for the long-awaited Alejandro Jodorowsky DVD box set, The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. (See related posts from this here blog.) The MSRP is $49.98 (do retailers still think we think that doesn’t mean $50??), but if you poke around you can find web sites offering presales for less.
Beware, tho — one asshole with an Amazon shop is actually trying to sell this for $165 — a more than 440% markup over the MSRP. The jerk even claims it’s “in stock” and that you can “buy with confidence.” Suffice to say, never buy anything from the ImportCDs_Com Amazon shop! No doubt other scamming shitbags are out there trying to prey on unknowning Jodorowsky fans, so caveat emptor my friends.
It should also be noted that the title of the box set is slightly misleading — it does not include all of the films made by Jodorowsky, tho his best ones are indeed represented.
Ahem. So getting back to the happier news, this is the first-ever US home video release (let alone on DVD) of Jodorowsky’s masterworks, El Topo and The Holy Mountain — previously available (legally) only on Italian Region 2 import DVDs and older Japanese import VHS and Laserdisk (and in the latter instances only with blurred nasty bits) — plus his first feature, Fando y Lis, soundtrack CDs, and a boat-load of delicious extras (see below). You can buy singleton DVDs of El Topo and The Holy Mountain, but at $19 a pop MSRP you really really should spring the extra 10 lousy bucks for the box — or even less for the aforementioned discounted presales. Seriously, yo.
All three of the features have been newly-remastered to HD specifications from the original negatives, personally supervised by Jodorowsky himself. This includes Fando y Lis, which was released on Region 1 DVD by Fantoma (in a very fine edition, I might add) in 2003.
Inexplicably — and rather inexcusably — Anchor Bay (the label handling the releases) has zero, and I mean zero, info on their site. But following below is the full text of the press release with full details of the extras (including deleted scenes from Holy Mountain!), et cetera, courtesy of DVDsnapshot.com. (A slightly truncated version, minus the company self-promo babble, was posted way back in January by Fangoria.com — so full props to them, they who well corrupted my young mind back in the pre-Web ’80s.)
FROM ABKCO FILMS: THREE CLASSICS OF CINEMATIC SURREALISM FROM “MIDNIGHT MOVIE” PIONEER ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY — EL TOPO, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN AND FANDO Y LIS DISTRIBUTED BY ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT!
PREMIERING ON DVD MAY 1st [2007] WITH EXCLUSIVE NEVER-BEFORE SEEN EXTRAS!
New York, NY – On May 1, 2007 ABKCO Films will release Alejandro Jodorowsky’s trio of mind-bending classics, El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Fando Y Lis, on DVD for the first time ever [sic]. These astonishing films, which have been fully restored and remastered, will be available as a special limited edition collector’s box set featuring exclusive rare bonus materials. The box set will be available for an SRP of $49.98, with El Topo and The Holy Mountain also available separately at $24.98 each. [Note: Various online retailers are offering these individual titles for less than $20 each.]
Originally released in 1970, El Topo quickly caught the imagination of movie audiences, becoming a landmark in independent film-making. The early screenings at New York’s Elgin Theater sparked the Midnight Movie phenomena, catalyzed by an endorsement from John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Classic Americana and avant-garde European sensibilities collide with Zen Buddhism and the Bible as master gunfighter and mystic El Topo (played by writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky) tries to defeat four sharp-shooting rivals on a bizarre path to allegorical self-awareness and resurrection. As it seeks an alternative to the Hollywood mainstream, El Topo is also the most controversial quasi-Western head trip ever made!
Jodorowsky’s high budget follow up effort, The Holy Mountain, takes his psychedelic allegorical mastery to another level. Grotesque, mystical and sacrilegious, it is an excursion into the meaning of earthly wealth and immortality.
Rounding out this unique set is Jodorowsky’s first full-length feature film, Fando Y Lis. Based on Jodorowsky’s memories of a play by surrealist Fernando Arrabal, it caused an uproar in the avant-garde community when it premiered in 1967 in Acapulco.
Among the extras included in this collector’s box is previously unseen footage, a feature on the restoration process, an exclusive interview with Jodorowsky, optional director commentary tracks, subtitles, two special CDs of the films’ soundtracks and a separate DVD of the first film ever made by Jodorowsky, La Cravate.
EL TOPO:
Digitally restored to HD from original negative
Original Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
5.1 Dolby & 2.0 Stereo
Original Feature Language: Spanish
Optional Subtitles: EN, SP, FR & BR PORT
Optional commentary track by Director (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
Optional English overdub track
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN:
2K scanned digitally restored to 35mm & HD
Original Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Enhanced for 16×9
5.1 Dolby & 2.0 Stereo
Original Feature Language: English
Optional Subtitles: EN, SP, FR & BR PORT
Optional commentary track by Director (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
FANDO Y LIS
Digitally restored from original negative
Original Aspect Ratio 1.66:1 Letterboxed
Original Language: Spanish
Optional Subtitles: EN, SP, FR & BR PORT
Optional commentary track by Director (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
EXTRAS -
EL TOPO:
-Original theatrical trailer- English V.O.
-2006 on camera interview with Jodorowsky (Language English/English subtitles)
-Photo Gallery/Original script excerpts
-Exclusive interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN:
- Deleted scenes with director commentary (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
- Original theatrical trailer -English V.O
- The Tarot short with director commentary (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles)
- Restoration process short (Original Language English)
- Photo Gallery / Original Script excerpts
- Restoration Credits
BOX SET EXTRAS:
FANDO Y LIS
-La Constellation Jodorowsky documentary
-Original language French and English Stereo
TWO AUDIO CDs
- El Topo soundtrack
- The Holy Mountain soundtrack
LA CRAVATE
- Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first film
- Never released before
Street Date: May 1, 2007
Runtime: EL TOPO: 125 minutes
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN: 114 minutes
FANDO Y LIS: 93 minutes
Price: Box set $49.98, EL TOPO, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN $24.98 each when purchased separately
Language: Varied, see above
Subtitles: Varied, see above
Available at: Retailers Nationwide
ABKCO Films has been involved with many successful movies including La Grande Bouffe (winner of the International Critics prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival), The Greek Tycoon starring Anthony Quinn and Jacqueline Bisset, The Concert for Bangladesh featuring Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr. In 2003 ABKCO won a Grammy for their DVD release of Sam Cooke – Legend and the following year released on DVD The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus to critical acclaim.
ABKCO Films is a division of ABKCO Music and Records, one of the leading independent record companies in the world. It is home to critical catalogue assets that include recordings by Sam Cooke, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Herman’s Hermits, Marianne Faithfull, The Kinks as well as the Cameo Parkway label, which include the master recordings of artists such as Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, The Orlons, The Dovells, The Tymes, Charlie Grace and Dee Dee Sharp. www.abkcofilms.com / www.abkco.com.
Anchor Bay Entertainment is distributed by Starz Home Entertainment, a division of Starz Media. Starz Media, LLC, is a programming production and distribution company operating worldwide. It includes the Film Roman, Anchor Bay Entertainment, and Manga Entertainment brands. Its units create animated and live-action programming — including theatrical films — and programming created under contract for other media companies. It distributes that programming, and programming acquired from outside producers, through home video retailers, theaters, broadcasters, ad supported and premium television channels, and Internet and wireless video distributors in the US and internationally. Starz Media is an operating unit of Starz, LLC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation that is attributed to Liberty Capital Group.
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02.01.07
Posted in Cinema, Events, Experimental Film, Seattle Stuff at 7:57 pm by Spencer
This Friday (Feb. 2, 2007), Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo begins a one-week run in Seattle at The Grand Illusion, in the U-District at the corner of 50th and University Way (aka The Ave). Enter on 50th.
Showtimes: 6:30 PM and 8:45 PM daily. Plus: 4 PM matinees on Sat. 2/3 and Sun. 2/4; and 11 PM late nites on Fri. 2/2 and Sat. 2/3. Run concludes on Thurs. 2/8, and Holy Mountain opens the following day.
As was sorted out here in unnecessary but joyously geeky detail, both El Topo and Holy Mountain are being screened as new 35mm prints, only months old according to the distributer. El Topo is a newly-struck 35mm print of the 1996 optical restoration (not the just completed full digital restoration supervised by Jodorowsky himself). But word is that Holy Mountain (opening Fri. 2/9) will indeed be a new 35mm print of the newest restoration (again, supervised by Jodorowsky).
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01.03.07
Posted in Cinema, Events, DVDs, Experimental Film at 11:30 pm by Spencer
As readers of this here blog hopefully know by now, El Topo and The Holy Mountain are currently hitting the road for what is certainly their first US theatrical run since their release in the early ’70s — if not ever. (Distribution was, I understand, spotty even at the time and I half-deduce their original runs were extremely limited, perhaps even to just a couple-few of the larger cities, tho I could have that wrong. And I’ve no idea how extensive European distro was. Jodorowsky experts are encouraged to correct me.)
As I’ve also mentioned, this is in advance of their release (along with Fando y Lis) as a legal (!!) DVD box-set.
For Jodorowsky fans, no matter their nationality, simply seeing these baroque psychedelic mind-bombs in an honest-to-god theater at all is one of the rarest of cinema treats, like a UFO landing, hitherto restricted only to the not-very-occasional film festival having to make do, usually, with battered old prints.
But the even bigger ballyhoo in this case is the films’ status as freshly, lavishly, HD-digitally restored jewels with the direct participation and supervision of Jodorowsky himself. Naturally, as a true film nerd, I wanted to know: we will be seeing new prints of the new restorations?!?!
Turns out, this is a trickier question than meets the mind’s eye. Alan Klein’s ABKCO Films, which owns the rights to the films (itself a minor saga), is being somewhat parsimonious with the information. The company’s web site, while featuring only information about the new releases, provides only plot descriptions (*cough*) and not one single solitary word about the restorations. Very strange publicity ploy, n’est ce pas?
Further confusing things was the December run of El Topo in New York City at the IFC Center (once the famed Waverly Theater, yes the one in the lyric from Hair). As discussed in an earlier post, the copy IFC ran was digitally projected HDcam tape, not film. With digital, about 75% of your experience depends on the quality of the projector, but HDcam tape is probably one of the best projection sources you can hope to get. But…it ain’t film, and despite the enormous strides made in digital projection in the last decade (both theatrical and home-style), it still does not come close to a quality film print — a fact noted by some who saw screenings there.
Things were bemurked further still by a comment to my post by a “John” (who claimed to be “Davis” in his nearly-verbatim comment on another blog). “John”, speaking with self-assured authority, stated categorically that “for better or worse, there are no 35mm prints from this new 2006 restoration.” When commenting as “Davis” at notcoming.com, he stated “while IFC Center would have preferred to have shown a brand new 35mm print from this Jodorowsky-authorized restoration, such a print does not and will not exist.” (I later deduced he was referring specifically to El Topo.)
Well stop the damn presses, I thought. WTF?? Are we getting chopped liver, or what? And who is this “John”/”Davis” guy anyway, and how the hell does he know? From the sound of things, it seemed like he might be an IFC flack or maybe just a defensive staffer “moonlighting” on his own.
So, I cruised the web sites of the other venues ABKCO lists as hosting this Jodorowsky film roadshow. They all trumpeted the restoration, but the screening prints themselves were often unaddressed — perhaps making the same, possibly erroneous, assumption I had made? The Music Box in Chicago said “new print” for one film but not the other, The Castro in SanFran proclaimed “New 35mm Prints!” (plural), and a buddy of mine at the Grand Illusion told me they were under the impression/assumption they would be new prints (plural)…but when it came down to it they weren’t positive. As a regular parser of politician-speak, I knew a skillfully unanswered question when I saw one.
So, just before xmas I sent an email to the press contact address on the ABKCO site, explaining the conflicting information I’d gleaned and asking for clarification. Were they sending out film prints or digital? Or both? If print(s), were it/they old or new? And while yer at it, got anything to share about the restoration tech trip? Well, so far no reply, though in fairness I did write just before the holiday week.
But a funny thing happened. As related to me, ABKCO contacted the Grand Illusion’s programmer (who happens to have the same first name as me, albeit with the different “second-S” spelling) and revealed unto him the nature of the prints that will be circulating during this roadshow, and thus coming to Seattle in February.
Drum-Roll Please…
So…as per ABKCO, to me via the grapevine:
El Topo will be a newly-struck 35mm print of the 1996 optical restoration. It will not, alas, be the brand-new restoration recently completed. (Or maybe, I theorize, that restoration is not quite complete or wasn’t completed in time for prints to be converted and stuck. That might explain the HDcam digital screening in NYC.) So far I’ve not been able to scrape up doodly about the 1996 restoration, but according to the mysterious “James”/”Davis” dude, it “was done without Jodorowsky’s participation and is very different (in terms of color corrects, sound mix, etc.) from the new digital version.” With no other context or info, it’s impossible to know if that’s actually as dire as he seems to imply. That said, I seriously doubt even the mercurial ABKCO would release a truly crappy version of El Topo to promote their super-lush DVD release…tho, of course, anything is possible when you get down to it.
But rejoice still, for The Holy Mountain will be a brand new 35mm print of the new digital restoration! This is glorious news, indeed, as the colors and music in that film were jaw-dropping even in the fairly battered print I saw (once, ca. 1987). Also, the latter print (which I gather from Googled press snips appeared every once in a great while at other fests) had no soundtrack at all for at least one full reel. So at last, I will finally get to see a complete film print of this masterpiece.
In both cases, my source tells me, these new prints are merely months old (even if the reportedly-substandard El Topo neg just celebrated its 10th b-day).
El Topo was shot in 1.85:1 and Holy Mountain was shot in scope (2.35:1), and I’m assuming the original aspect ratios have been preserved. Please note that both films were originally produced with mono soundtracks, so do not be disappointed that they are not stereo.
I do not know what lab produced the prints (or the ‘96 restoration of El Topo for that matter), but a little trolling at IMDB revealed that Postworks, New York provided 2K HD restoration and color correction services for the newest digital versions of the films.
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