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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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Jeopardy (John Sturges, 1953)
Jun
25
National Camp Counts Day
– Aw, mom. You always talk about civilization.
– Don't knock it, son.
John Sturges' Jeopardy is a thrilling reverse home invasion based on Maurice Zimm's radioplay A Question of Time. Without falling into the trap of an illustrated radio broadcast, the haunting photography by Victor Milner, small, intense cast, short runtime and claustrophobic sets make for a very modern, economic thriller.
And Barbara Stanwyck the type of heroine we wouldn't see much of until decades later.
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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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Le procès [The Trial] (Orson Welles, 1962)
Jun
23
National Typewriter Day
Josef K. (Anthony Perkins) crossing an enormous open office space. The endless room is filled with clerks, identical desks, telephones, and typewriters. DP: Edmond Richard.
Office worker Josef K. is brought to trial and at no point told what he is accused of, if anything. Orson Welles' Le procès is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's unfinished 1914/15 novel Der Prozess. The manuscript, guarded from Kafka by his friend #MaxBrod in an attempt to keep the self-doubting author from destroying his work, was against K's wishes posthumously (re)assembled by Brod without the latter knowing the intended sequence of the loose pages nor what chapters were finished.
“All these fancy electronics, they're all right in their place, but not for anything practical.”
– Uncle Max
The story holds up in its vagueness thanks to the quirks of #Kafka's Brotberuf; Franz K. was a trained lawyer, working as an insurance agent in an impossible artifice world of reports and precise wording. Within its extended logic, a man can get perplexedly lost, either within the walls of his #office or one's bed.
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Get Rollin' (J. Terrance Mitchell, 1980)
Jun
22
Young Black men jammin' to resident DJ “Big Bob” Clayton's grooves with Maurice Gatewood taking centre stage. Later in the 80s, the Empire Roller Disco would become a meeting point for gay Black and Latinx men who would hold rollerdance competitions. DP: Joseph Friedman.
The groove is driving and the characters jammin' in J. Terrance Mitchell's Get Rollin' (1980). We follow entrepreneur Vinzerrelli (Vinnie Vinzerrelli) who aims to become “the Muhammad Ali of #RollerBoogie” and to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the first roller skater to make a million dollars. In his tow, smooth-as-silk Pat the Cat (Pat Richardson), who calls it a day to become a star roller derby player in “London, England”. Pat's wife and suddenly-ex-boss are less charmed by the idea. Those skates are expensive, and steam-cleaning those customised tees cost a dime, too. But Pat, he's determined. He's the Cowboy on Skates, rollin' his and everyone's blues away.
“It's spontaneous combustion!”
– Vinzerrelli
And in her own quiet way, there's soft-spoken physical therapist Inez from Alabama, who can be seen swerving around like a Disco Queen if not teaching a mangled man in Central Park how to rollerskate with flair and self-esteem.
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The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Jun
21
National Arizona Day
Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) facing the endless desert. DP: Winton C. Hoch.
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Tire dié [Toss Me a Dime] (Fernando Birri, 1958)
Jun
20
National Flag Day – Argentina
A young boy running along the train. Another, even younger, child can be just seen behind him. DPs: Oscar Kopp & Enrique Urteaga.
A slum survives next to a railroad bridge. When the train travelling from the city shows up, the children who are old and gutsy enough run along and yell tire dié! toss me a dime! Some of them make more than their parents do.
“Tire dié!”
Tire dié is a sobering account of #poverty and how it's as much a part of life's schedule as a slow running train on a rickety bridge.
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Le trou [The Hole / The Night Watch] (Jacques Becker, 1960)
Jun
19
International Box Day
The prisoners keep themselves occupied with making cardboard folding boxes. The second man from the right is the novel's author and real-world (ex-) inmate José Giovanni aka Jean Keraudy as Roland Darbant. DP: Ghislain Cloquet.
Inmates preoccupy themselves with making cardboard boxes. While working together, talking, gaining trust, plans for an escape unfold.
“Hello. My friend Jacques Becker recreated a true story in all its detail. My story. It took place in 1947 at La Santé prison.”
– Jean Keraudy as himself
Le trou is based on a real prison escape and introduced by one of the men involved, Jean Keraudy.
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Der siebente Kontinent [The Seventh Continent] (Michael Haneke, 1989)
Jun
18
Clean Your Aquarium Day
Evi (Leni Tanzer) dedicated to her routine of feeding the aquarium fish before going to bed. DP: Anton Peschke.
A middle-class Austrian family – father, mother and their ten year old daughter – live a mundane, almost ritualised life. There's work, school, social obligations. Stuff to maintain and food to prepare. Patients to see and fish to feed. Constant repetition begets chaos.
“Okay, time to say your prayers.”
– Anna Schober
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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.