settima

documentary

Vérités et Mensonges [F for Fake] (Orson Welles, Gary Graver, Oja Kodar + François Reichenbach, 1973)

March

29

Smoke And Mirrors Day

Vérités et Mensonges (1973)

A wide shot of Orson Welles in his black cape and wide rimmed hat. His corpulence and black outfit sharply contrast with the bright, white background. The background is a white plane, held up by two assistants. The wide shot reveals that Welles, the white plane, and the assistants are on the platform of a train station, obscuring a passenger train if in close-up. DP: François Reichenbach.

Vérités et Mensonges is what it's actually called, but you may know it as F for Fake. Orson Welles and three uncredited fellow conspirators – Gary Graver, Oja Kodar, and François Reichenbach – delve into the world of #art forger Elmyr de Hory by way of his biographer Clifford Irving.

“Back to the old tricks.”

– Orson Welles

Welles et al free-associate with concepts of art, lies, #deception, and #authenticity. #Houdin, Welles, #Picasso and Hughes, hoaxers, hucksters and artists in their own right. And then it's over: this work of art, this sleight of hand, this demonstration of factuality, an exposé.

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) & The Wormwood Star (1956)

The Scarlet Woman (Marjorie Cameron) wearing a fantastic peacock-like robe and crown. DP: Kenneth Anger.

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)

March 26: someone wears purple on #PurpleDay / #InternationalEpilepsyDay

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (Kenneth Anger, 1954)

Purple beyond purple: it is the light higher than eyesight. — Liber AL vel Legis sub figura CCXX

Both in The Wormwood Star (Curtis Harrington, 1956) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (Kenneth Anger, 1954) Marjorie Cameron wears shades of purple. Professionally known as Cameron, she was a follower of #Thelema, the philosophical movement founded by occultist Aleister Crowley.

Cameron as herself. Here too she wears references to the peacock Aiwass, who dictated The Book of the Law to Crowley.

The Wormwood Star (1956)

The Wormwood Star (Curtis Harrington, 1956)

Meanwhile in 1946, rocket scientist #JackParsons and (pre-Scientology) sci-fi author #LRonHubbard worked on a series of #Crowley-related magic ceremonies named Babalon Working. After Parsons declared the rituals a success, he encountered Cameron in his own house. She became the element required to continue the ceremonies, this resulting in her being declared Babalon, the #Scarlet Woman.

#Bales2023FilmChallenge #KennethAnger #SamsonDeBrier #MarjorieCameron #AnaïsNin #CurtisHarrington #PaulMathison #colours #purple #occultism #Magick #ShortFilm #Avantgarde #USA #1950s ★★★★☆

#Bales2023FilmChallenge #CurtisHarrington #Cameron #PhilipHarland #LeonaWood #PaulMathison #documentary #occultism #FineArt #colours #purple #witches #USA #AleisterCrowley #1950s ★★★½

#todo

Полустанок [Polustanok / The Halt] (Sergey Loznitsa, 2000)

Mar

17

World Sleep Day

Полустанок (2000)

People leaning back on the train station's benches, fast asleep. DP: Pavel Kostomarov.

In a small train station's waiting room, people #sleep. #Trains in the distance rumble along. #Snow covers footprints crossing nearby tracks and the wooden shed where travellers, strangers, huddle together in their shared fate. Pavel Kostomarov's cinematography and Sergey Loznitsa's direction capture the silence.

High School (Frederick Wiseman, 1968)

Mar

11

National Promposal Day

High School (1968)

Girls PE class accompanied by last year's hit single, 1910 Fruitgum Company's “Simon Says”. DP: Richard Leiterman.

Frederick Wiseman is the fly-on-the-wall at Northeast High School, filming teenage angst and awkwardness. There's talk of #PromNight, and small dramas when it turns out that above-the-knee is not formal wear thankyouverymuchyounglady. The dance itself is never shown.

“I didn't mean to be individualistic.”

– student

This is High School. I'm glad I never have to set foot in one ever again.

Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)

Mar

6

National Dress Day

Paris Is Burning (1990)

Pepper LaBeija is a stunningly extravagant gold-sequined dress. DP: Paul Gibson.

Paris Is Burning is probably best known for its fabulous #ballroom and #vogue​ㅤing scenes but in its heart, it tells the story of #family, of people who found their new ménage where they can live and love without fear and prejudice.

“In the ballroom circuit, it is so obvious that if you have captured the great white way of living, or looking, or dressing, or speaking – you is a marvel.”

– Pepper LaBeija

While you may expect a fierce documentary about #TransRights, or maybe merely a glamorous parade, you will be confronted with the flagrant #racism that made the #BallroomScene so essential for the Black and #Latinx LGBT+ community who founded it. And the tragedy of its demise in the name of pop culture even more heartbreaking.

Het Leesplankje [The Reading Lesson] (Johan van der Keuken, 1973)

Mar

2

National Read Across America Day

Het Leesplankje (1973)

Reading board tiles laid out on a newspaper. Half a headline – 7.000 ARRESTANTEN (“7000 DETAINEES”) – can be read. A photograph of a shellshocked, very young soldier in front of a fleeing crowd illustrates the article. DP: Johan van der Keuken.

Amsterdam schoolchildren recite the words from a reading board while the traditional teaching method's pictures are interspersed with news photos of then-current events and children's drawings.

“Aaaaap” “Nooot” “Miiieees”

This short, and life, is haunting and violent; schools should be safe for all. Even if only to escape in a book.

Transition de phase dans les cristaux liquides [Liquid Crystals] (Jean Painlevé, 1978)

Feb

28

National Science Day – India

Transition de phase dans les cristaux liquides (1978)

A scene that foreshadows computer-generated imagery. DP: Jean Painlevé.

Filmmaker, photographer and honorary surrealist Jean Painlevé made science films that verge on experimental art cinema. With custom-built camera setups, he explored the world above and below the water surface, and with that exposed human traits.

 

It's almost impossible to select one film from a filmography as vast as #Painlevé's. In honour of C.V. #Raman, lets go with his Transition de phase dans les cristaux liquides.

 

It's on Ubu, in case you wonder.

Fast Break (Mike McLeod + Don Zavin, 1978)

Feb

19

NBA All Star Game

Fast Break (1978)

Bill Walton hosting a basketball camp for Indigenous kids. Children line up to get pictures and T-shirts signed. DP: Mike McLeod.

Primate (Frederick Wiseman, 1974)

Feb

12

Georgia Day

Primate (1974)

Man and ape sharing a white concrete cell. The man playfully dangles from a chain attached to the wall while the ape looks on. DP: William Brayne.

Filmed at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Now, we'll just let nature take its course.”

– researcher

De werkelijkheid van Karel Appel [The Reality of Karel Appel] (Jan Vrijman, 1962)

Feb

3

American Painters Day

De werkelijkheid van Karel Appel (1962)

Appel at work. He said about painting “Ik begin vanuit mijn materie, dat is verf.” (“I start from my matter, which is paint.”). DP: Eduard van der Enden.

CoBrA (1948—51) was a Copenhagen / Brussels / Amsterdam art collective whose manifest revolved around the liberation from the rigidity of art and life in drab, post-war Europe. Their spontaneous primal iconography and graffiti allowed them to not only regain the pleasure of painting, but also forge a new connection to colour and material. Especially the Dutch artists involved – Corneille, Appel, Lucebert, Constant – looked at the way children respond to the act of creation resulting in easy to comprehend semi-abstract paintings, sculptures and poems. The moronic “my child can paint that” that people still associate with modernist art can be traced back to (deliberately) misinterpreting these artists' objectives.

“Ik schilder als een barbaar van deze barbaarse tijd.”

– Karel Appel

After CoBrA broke up, Appel started treating his canvas not as something that merely props up an image, but as part of the artwork itself. Working in layers of paint and other media, with any tool at hand, he'd build a sculptural object that incorporates the movement of both artist and material. In order to film De werkelijkheid van Karel Appel, he cut a hole in the canvas through which the camera captures the physicality of the action and the emotional involvement of the artist.

 

For this film, and Karel Appel, Componist by photographer Ed van der Elsken (1961), Appel (in collaboration with Frits Weiland) composed tape loops to create a wall of sound complementing the image.