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Come On-A My House

Ooo, pretty! Some lovely artist types constructed Hitchcock-themed dioramas for an auction in Alberta. Click through to goggle at the rest--several iterations on North by Northwest's iconic cornfield scene, lotsa Birds, and a clever rear projection-style To Catch a Thief. But it may be the Man Who Knew Too Much one that I like most.

Figurantes

No sooner had I finished teaching mise-en-scene this week using Me and You and Everyone We Know than Vice posts this great photo essay with Miss Miranda July, in which she... Well, I'll let her explain. From the intro:

Do you ever feel like an extra in your own life? It seems like I'm forever stuck in the background, watching other people say and do all the things I feel inside...

It's like Zeroville and John Waters' art had a baby!

Jittery

It's nearly time for my film students to tackle a shot-by-shot analysis. It's a vital skill--I think, anyway--for writing about film, but I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out a more visual approach to complement it, riffing perhaps on the great Movies in Frames site. Any thoughts?

Oh, and I've been drinking too much coffee. Thus the Martin Arnold and very Breathless grab from Three Frames.

A moment of silence

Images from The Book of Life, 1999.

Also, my friend Brian's brother Michael, 81st floor, WTC.

Chick Strand Tribute at Anthology

Loose Ends from therealeyedeal on Vimeo.

Let this serve as a gentle reminder:

Chick Strand Tribute!
September 14, 7:30pm, Anthology Film Archives

Flaherty NYC returns this September, commemorating the work of Chick Strand, whose work was featured at the 2009 Flaherty Seminar and who passed away this July at the age of 78 after battling cancer. Chick Strand is a seminal filmmaker who helped found Canyon Cinema alongside filmmaker Bruce Baillie when she was living and studying in Berkeley in the early 1960s. She was also a painter, photographer, and professor; she taught filmmaking for more than two decades at Occidental College in Los Angeles. For more information on the Flaherty NYC program click HERE.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker, Hampshire professor, and Flaherty Trustee Bill Brand, filmmakers Barbara Hammer and Lynne Sachs, and other friends of Chick Strand.

Films and videos to be screened:

Anselmo and the Women (1986, 16mm, 35min, Mexico)

One of a series of films about Anselmo, a Mexican street musician, and his life-long struggle to make a good life for his children. This film focuses on his relationship with his wife Adela and his mistress, Cruz, and theirs with him.

Mosori Monika (1970, 16mm, 20min, Venezuela)

The relationship between the Warao Indians and the Spanish Franciscan missionaries sent to "civilize" them is simple on the surface, but actually manifested in a complex change of techniques, values and life style which have indelibly altered the Warao vision of life.

Fake Fruit (1986, 16mm, 22min, Mexico)

An intimate documentary about young women who make papier mache fruit and vegetables in a small factory in Mexico, foucssing on the color, music, movement, and the constant gossip that reveals what the young women think about men.

The cinetrix finally saw Strand's Soft Fiction at the Flaherty this summer, and it was a revelation. Her Loose Ends is embedded above.

Also!

Mark McElhatten, curator of Walking Picture Palace and co-curator and founder of Views from the Avant-Garde, will also be doing a tribute to Chick Strand in New York City, this October .
A Tribute to Chick Strand (1931-2009) Part One
(curated by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith)
October 3 at 3:00pm
New York Film Festival, Views from the Avant-Garde, Walter Reade Theater
* Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966, 4min)
* Cartoon Le Mousse (1979, 15min)
* Kristallnacht (1979, 7min)
* Loose Ends (1979, 25min)
* Fake Fruit Factory (1986, 22min)

A Tribute to Chick Strand (1931-2009) Part Two
(curated by Mark McElhatten)
October 6 at 6:30pm
Walking Picture Palace, Anthology Film Archives
* Waterfall (1967, 3min)
* Cosas de mi Vida (1976, 25min)
* Soft Fiction (1979, 54min)
* Elasticity (1976, 22min)

Obligatory new At the Movies post

The cinetrix has been kicking around online looking for the first show of the rebooted franchise because, it seems, At the Movies plays at 4 a.m. on Saturdays around here, and I don't have one of those new-fangled DVRs. Then Vadim at IFC was kind enough to post the little gem embedded above.

"Birds fly through the air." Hee!

As it turns out, At the Movies doesn't appear to be available online. But this is!

Wild horses

Evelyn: I went riding rather early.
Jake: Looks like you went quite a distance.
Evelyn: I was riding bareback

What's with all the horseplay in Chinatown? I've written before about the film's nods to The Big Sleep, but screening it again recently for class all I could see were horses.

This framed and tinted photograph on Hollis Mulwray's desk at the Department of Water and Power confirms for Jake Gittes that Evelyn is the real Mrs. Mulwray, as claimed.

And when he goes to her house, she emerges, flushed and in riding clothes, through the garden gate, and the suggestive exchange quoted above takes place.

But Jake's had his eye on horses the whole time. Here, following Hollis at the request of the fake Mrs. Mulwray, Gittes kills time waiting for him speak at a municipal hearing.

Espying the young boy who speaks to Hollis in the dry river bed.

Nouvelle vague

Dance with me!