“My cinematic excreta is of four varieties:–batiked abstractions made directly on film between 1939 and 1946; optically printed non-objective studies composed around 1950; semi-realistic animated collages made as part of my alchemical labors of 1957 to 1962; and chronologically superimposed photographs of actualities formed since the latter year. All these works have been organized in specific patterns derived from the interlocking beats of the respiration, the heart and the EEG Alpha component and they should be observed together in order, or not at all, for they are valuable works, works that will live forever—they made me gray.”Mahagonny [Number 18] (Harry Smith, 1980)
Dec
22
राष्ट्रिय गणित दिवस
A kaleidoscopic New York street scene. Mahagonny was “made to be displayed with four separate 16 mm projectors onto a single screen or onto two billiard tables suspended over a boxing ring” (Kevin Arrow, see link below).
A mathematics focused movie for National Mathematics Day, India.
Mahagonny is filmmaker, artist, musicologist, and alchemist Harry Smith's mathematical analysis of Marcel Duchamp's masterpiece La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même [The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even], aka Le Grand Verre [The Large Glass], which was completed in 1923. It is set to Brecht and Weill's opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny [Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny] from 1930, which was an opera Smith was obsessed with while living in New York's Chelsea Hotel.
– Harry Smith, via
Read an interview with Jonas Mekas about Harry Smith and his Mahagonny.
opera
The Medium (Gian Carlo Menotti, 1951)
Sep
18
Madame Flora (Marie Powers) by herself at a small table in a shady bar. DP: Enzo Serafin.
“No, Wagner! Stay in Hell where you belong!”Lisztomania (Ken Russell, 1975)
Jun
16
National Richard Day
The cover of November 1975's films and filming (NSFW). Richard Wagner (Paul Nicholas) appears as a vampire in a German sailor uniform to Franz Liszt (Roger Daltrey). DP: Peter Suschitzky.
– Franz Liszt
“I love the spontaneity of this situation. If you'd like to spend the night, we'll make up as many rooms as needed. I'm pleased to see the old spirit of improvisation is alive and well.”El ángel exterminador [The Exterminating Angel] (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
Jun
3
National Black Bear Day
A young brown bear in a luxuriously furnished room. DP: Gabriel Figueroa.
As part of a witty surprise, Lucía Nóbile (Lucy Gallardo) arranged a #bear and three #sheep for the lavish dinner party she's thrown for her fellow #opera-loving guests. However, the joke is not appreciated and in the cause of the evening – and a ruined dinner when the staff decides to go even before serving any of the #food – the company find that they cannot leave the salon.
– Edmundo Nobile
While the beasts roam the house, the elite are faced with hunger, primal urges, and no motivation to leave.
“This is the funny thing abut sea voyages. After a few days, you feel as if you'd been sailing forever. You feel you've always known your fellow voyagers.”E la nave va [And the Ship Sails On] (Federico Fellini, 1983)
May
5
National Concert Day
The opera singers and their entourage performing on a platform high above the boilers and elated ships' crew. DP: Giuseppe Rotunno.
The opera world is in mourning. Edmea Tetua, the greatest singer of all time, has passed away. On a grande ocean liner, her friends, colleagues, admirers have come together to scatter Edmea's ashes near Erimo, the island where she was born.
During a tour of the ship, the passengers visit the boiler room where – urged on by the engine room crew – an impromptu operatic competition unfolds, all to the pulsating rhythm of the steamliner's bloated belly.