LATE SUMMER PROGRAMME JANUARY – MARCH 2008

18th January – 21st March

8.45pm every Friday

ABC GALLERY
127 Campbell Street
Collingwood 3066

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18th January

Grey Gardens – Mayles Brothers / 1972 100 min

In the shadow of Camelot stands the Grey Gardens. Inside this overgrown estate in East Hampton, Long Island, mother and daughter “Big” and “Little” Edie Bouvier Beale are caught in a time tunnel of regret and fantasy. Their once beautiful 28 room shingle mansion declined to such a state that after a National Enquirer story the Health Department threatened its closure. Close cousins Jaqueline Onassis Kennedy and her sister Lee Radizwell intervened, had it cleaned and saved the day. In the wake of this, Albert and David Mayles spent most of a year, assisting and documenting the fabric of these two women’s lives, amidst defecating cats and fleas. At once tragic and full of wit and spirit, Grey Gardens is a rare film portrait, a snapshot of the faded halcyon of fallen aristocrats, those rare types that even decay with a sense of style.

25th January

Bigger than Life – Nicholas Ray / 1956 95min

James Mason stars as Ed Avery, family man and school teacher, self-bound to the task of providing his family with a suburban lifestyle he cannot afford. Secretly taking a second job to make ends meet Ed precipitates a rare and potentially fatal coronary disease that strikes him down. The experimental steroid Cortisone that is used to save him becomes the vessel for a dark journey into the heart of 1950’s America. Hysterically terrified of death, Ed binges on the substance till he becomes addled with a psychopathic rage causing him to terrorise his family. Ray’s searing critique of the nuclear family, patriarchy and materialism passed cleverly under the censor’s radar due to such devices as its “drug-message” and it’s seemingly saccharine ending.

1st February

Experimental Music Documentaries

Two BBC Four documentaries exploring the life works of composers who have helped re-invent music in the 20th century.

The Outsider / 2007 60min

Harry Partch was a celebrated young American composer whose mission was to bury classical musical conventions such as notation, scales, and even its instruments. He constructed his very own orchestra replete with instruments with which to pursue his unique micro-tonal composition. Partch’s career was railroaded by the Depression, when he became a Hobo drifting the continent for 10 years and only returning to his work in the 40’s.

Alchemists of Sound / 2007 – 60min

Dick Mills, Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson were amongst numerous sonic experimenters, composers and engineers who worked at the BBC Radiophonics Workshop from 1958 til 1995. Hand-crafting sounds for such films, television and radio shows as “Quatermass”, “Doctor Who”, “The Goon Show”, “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” and “Blake 7″. In the process they contributed immeasurably to the development of electronic and electro-acoustic sound.

8th February

Danger Diabolik – Mario Bava / 1968 99min

An adaptation of the popular Italian comic book “Diabolik” which details the exploits of a master criminal who plunders both government and organised crime syndicates alike. John Philip Law, who played the blind angel in Roger Vadims’ “Barbarella”, sheds his wings and slips effortlessly into the black rubber and leather skin of an erotic demon. A superior comic book adaptation than “Barbarella”, Bava eschewed excessive dialogue and kept to the style of the graphic novel. Like Louis Feulliades “Fantomas” films which inspired the original comic-book character, Danger Diabolik gleefully revels in the pleasure of crime and destruction without any recourse to moralism.

15th Feb

Kurotokage 黒蜥蝪 (Black Lizard) – Kinji Fukasaku / 1968 88min

Screen-written by Yukio Mishima and directed by the man who brought us “Battle Royale”, “Kurototage” features transvestite actor Akihiro Maruyama (now a voice behind Hayao Miyazaki’s animations) and music by Isao Tomita. “Kurotokage” parallels the same impious spirit and excess as “Danger Diabolik”, and was released the same year. The Black Lizard is a female arch fiend who has set her eyes on the great jewel the “Star of Egypt” and kidnaps the daughter of its owner. Tormented by her own fading beauty, she is obsessed with the eternal beauty of her shimmering prize. A cat and mouse game between the Black Lizard and the detective hired to save both daughter and diamond evolves into a type of seduction culminating in increasingly bizarre scenarios. The Black Lizard turns those whom she seduces into preserved artefacts that she can enjoy forever…

22nd February

Boom! – Joseph Losey / 1968 110min

Joseph Losey was blacklisted by McCarthy’s HUAC for communist leanings and relocated to Britain, using pseudonyms to release films in his native country. His work ranged from the acclaimed “The Servant” through to the maligned “Modesty Blaise”. “Boom!” (aptly named after the crashing of waves on rocks) is perhaps the greatest blooper of his career, but that doesn’t stop it from being a foray into absolute excess. This insane rendition of “The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore” by Tennessee Williams features Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Noel Coward as “the witch of Capri”. A fashion designers dream (or nightmare) and a cloying portrayal of wealth and evil. Outrageously pretentious, overblown and over-dressed, this film is considered one of the greatest flops of the 1960’s, earning back a fifth of the money spent on it and becoming almost completely buried. “Boom!” was performed by a cast of drunkards, which only partially explains its particular qualities. John Waters has extolled it as his biggest inspiration, and continues to tour with it right across the world. (See him lecture about it in the video below).

29th February

Animationfest – Best of Looney Toons 120min

Brian May (AKA DJ Delay of “Balkan Beasts”) purveyor of “Loony Toons” an ongoing mix-up of animation and music brings a selection of his favourite animations from his personal collection, this time in their entire original sonic glory.

Run Wrake – Idol (2005)
Sun Ra & Dumbo – Pink Elephants
Visions Of Frank – (Taruto Fuyama)
Konstantin Bronzit (2003) – The God
Ishu Patel (1977) – The Bead Game.
Fallen Art (Tomek Baginsky) 2004
Osvaldo Cavandoli – la linea (episode 120 & 110)
The Fly (oscar winner 1980)
Bill Plympton – 25 ways to quit smoking (1995).
Don Hertzfeldt – rejected

March 7th

Brothers Quay Retrospective / 80min

Twin brothers Stephen and Timothy Quay have a keen eye for crumbling Victoriana, subtle emotional energies and a direct connection with the power of substances and objects. Their dream-like stop-motion films take a leaf from Czech and Polish animators such as Jan Svankmajer and Jan Lenica but take it to a more fetishistic and nightmarish level. This is a selection of films spanning their pure animation career before they embarked on producing drama features “Institute Benjamenta” and “Piano Tuner of Earthquakes”…

Nocturna Artificialia 1979 (21min)
Street of Crocodiles 1986 (20min)
Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer 1984 (14min)
Stille Nacht I / Dramolet 1988 (2min)
Anamorphosis 1991 (14min)
Stille Nacht III / Tales from the Vienna Woods 1992 (4min)

Video Clips for “His Name is Alive”
“Cant go Wrong Without You / Stille Nacht IV” and “Are we still married?”

March 14th

The Saddest Music in the World – Guy Maddin / 2006 96min

Winnipeg, Canada, during the heights of the great depression is dubbed the most depressed city in the world. A beer baroness embittered by the loss of her two legs and the cruel machinations of love is the richest woman of the city. In order to increase sales she embarks on a giant promotional campaign, to invite musicians from all over the world to compete for the title of the “saddest music”. Maddins films are like entering into an imagined past of cinematic melodrama, Frank Capra meets Arnold Fanck meets the Kuchar Brothers. Ridiculous, imaginative and unique….

21st March

Love and Anarchy- Lina Wertmuller / 1973 120min

Operatic, melancholic and warm spirited treatment of the ugly Fascist era of pre-war Italy. Turin a young peasant has taken on the task of assassinating Mussolini on behalf of Anarchist insurgents, and to avenge the murder of his father. He is deployed to take cover in a brothel under the wing of anarchist sympathising prostitute Salome until his opportunity has arrived. Racked equally by a lust for vengeance and fear of his inevitable death, Turin also realises that he has barely lived as he falls in love with a young prostitute. Wertmuller explores the painful territory where revolutionary ideals are eclipsed by totalitarian force, and attempts to express an emotionally feminine perspective on such loss.