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Flammes [Flames] (Adolfo Arrieta, 1978)
Jul
15
Barbara (Caroline Loeb) – in a patterned firetruck-red dress – descends a grande staircase. At the bottom of the stairs a long, beautifully set table with well-dressed guests. The seat at the head of the table is empty. DP: Thierry Arbogast.
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少林三十六房 [Shao Lin san shi liu fang / The 36th Chamber of Shaolin] (Chia-Liang Liu, 1978)
Jul
8
rice
Monk San Te (Chia-Hui Liu aka Gordon Liu) carefully handles a large ladle with watery rice. His sceptical sifu (Hung Wei) looks on. DPs: Yueh-Tai Huang & Arthur Wong.
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Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt [It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives] (Rosa von Praunheim, 1971)
Jul
6
National Daniel Day
A gay couple kissing on the street in front of a black-tiled Berlin bar. A third gay man nearby looks away. DP: Robert van Ackeren.
“Werdet stolz auf eure Homosexualität! Raus aus den Toiletten, rein in die Strassen! Freiheit für die Schwulen!”
Von Praunheim's Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers is a plea for rebellion and visibility. For revolt and love. A wakeup call for gays and straights alike. Such a stir this film pamphlet made it became the blueprint for West-Germany's gay liberation movement.
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Ein Bild von Sarah Schumann [A Picture of Sarah Schumann] (Harun Farocki, 1978)
Jun
26
National Sarah Day
A close-up of the artist's hand at work. More stills and details about this film on Frieze. DP: Ingo Kratisch.
Commissioned for a West-German TV series called Kunstgeschichten (litt. both “art stories” and “#art histories”), filmmaker Harun Farocki visits artist Sarah Schumann in her #Berlin studio.
“An diesem Tag war das Bild, drei Monate nach Beginn und 67 Arbeitstagen fertig.”
– narrator
The resulting documentary shows the process of creating one art piece over the course of nine weeks. Schumann's work in that period consists of collage portraits of women important in her life.
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A Bigger Splash (Jack Hazan, 1973/74)
Jun
24
Swim A Lap Day

A Bigger Splash is the name of one of painter David Hockney's best known works and part of a series of pool portraits of the artist's close friends, one of them his lover Peter Schlesinger, an artist in his own right. When in the early 1970s the relationship between the two men started to unravel it affected #Hockney so much it almost rendered him incapable of working.
“I paint what I like when I like, and where I like.”
– David Hockney
While going through Polaroids he found that two of the shots, one of a man #swimming underwater, the other of a man standing on a poolside, fell into the composition he was looking for. The resulting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) – where an unknown man can be seen swimming towards Hockney's fully-dressed former lover – bears similarities to Renaissance paintings where the composition of human figures, landscape, and perspective culminate in proto-cinematic storytelling.
A Bigger Splash is of course not the only (pseudo) documentary about an artist and his or her life, but one of the very few honest ones. The struggle to create is not romanticised, nor is the intimate relationship between artist and muse a playground of lazy, perverse speculation. As Hockney creates, destroys, and recreates his Pool, so we all destroy our lovers to bloom again.
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Dark Star (John Carpenter, 1974)
Jun
23
space lunch
The men enjoying a joyless lunch, consisting of something semi-liquid in a squeeze packet. DP: Douglas Knapp.
“Today over lunch I tried to improve morale and build a sense of camaraderie among the men by holding a humorous, round-robin discussion of the early days of the mission. My overtures were brutally rejected. These men do not want a happy ship. They are deeply sick and try to compensate by making me feel miserable.”
– Sgt. Pinback's video diary
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Umut [Hope] (Yilmaz Güney, 1970)
Jun
18
Cabbar (Yilmaz Güney, center), his travel companions, and their hosts share an opulent meal. DP: Kaya Ererez.
“I left forty lira at home, the family is hungry now.”
– Cabbar
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Dark Star (John Carpenter, 1974)
Jun
17
International Surfing Day
Lt. Doolittle (Brian Narelle) dreaming of catching that wave. DP: Douglas Knapp.
On the other end of outer space, far far away from existentialist odysseys and crypto-fascist space operas, there's a little stoner cosmos where a small, dilapidated starship manned by long-haired freaks drifts about.
“You know, I wish I had my board with me… even if I could just wax it once in a while.”
– Lt. Doolittle
Dark Star started out as a highly ambitious, underfunded student film that, in a blessed pre-Lucas, pre-blockbuster universe, got recognised for its #counterculture glory. In the early 70s, when #surfing was not yet mainstream and a handful of restless pioneers continued west despite the lack of mainland, a cross-pollination between beach blond daredevils and stoner culture happened.
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Lisztomania (Ken Russell, 1975)
Jun
16
National Richard Day
“No, Wagner! Stay in Hell where you belong!”
– Franz Liszt
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Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait [General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait / No One Can Run Faster Than a Rifle Bullet] (Barbet Schroeder, 1974)
Jun
9
National Heroes Day Of Uganda
Schroeder in tuxedo interviewing General Idi Amin Dada Oumee. Even in the context of the scene, Schroeder just came from a gala event, the tuxedo is a statement of assumed superiority. DP: Néstor Almendros.
It's easy… no lazy to put this documentary away as a failed Idi Amin propaganda project. In 1974, German-Swiss Barbet Schroeder, privileged son of a diplomat, already knew more than enough about how to select framing and manipulate timing. The result, Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait, is a prime example of the neo-colonialist gaze.
“You film. Film helicopter.”
– The General explaining a director's one and only task
Amin, clearly not speaking his native language, tries to explain his plans for #Uganda. The camera (Spanish cinematographer) moves in on his gesturing hands, then a jump cut (French editor) to soldiers who – instructed in English – seem unsure of what is asked of them. When (in the copy I watched) people speak in Swahili, no translation is provided and the portrayed are little more than undeveloped, exotic backdrop. Everything seems to be a joke to Schroeder: the air force's MiGs, Amin and his higher-ups joining tribesmen in dance, even the President's children are used to exemplify the stereotype of the overly virile, primitive African male.
Amin was, as Schroeder is, a product of Europe's Scramble. With the difference that, although bloody and despicable, Amin's strategy was not to embolden the West's moribund empire.