PLAYGIARISM

Curated by Astria Suparak
For the Film-maker’s Cooperative Personal Selections Series
@ Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY
August 18, 1999

Personal selections from the Film-maker’s Cooperative, commissioned by Executive Director M.M. Serra.

Spanning four decades. A ‘play’ with the mediums of found-footage and desire. A play full ness, humor (dark, perhaps), subversion.

PROGRAM

1. Conscious, Julie Murray, 1993, silent, 10 min.

2. Her Fragrant Emulsion, Lewis Klahr, 1987, 10 min.
“An obsessional homage to the ’60s film actress Mimsy Farmer. The film’s visceral collage images act as a metaphor for sensuality and move in and out of sync with the soundtrack to evoke the distancing and intimacy cycles that are common in love relationships.”

3. I Begin To Know You, Lana Lin, 1992, 2.5 min.

4. Barbara’s Blindness, Joyce Wieland and Betty Ferguson, 1969, 17 min.
Hand-painted film.
“We started out with a dull film about a little blind girl named Mary and ended up with something that made us get crazy.”

5. The Doctor’s Dream, Ken Jacobs, 1978, 23 min.
“(Programmers: please don’t print the above [synopsis] for the audience to read before seeing the film. It would be like explaining a joke to them before they heard the joke. It’s important to the experience of the film to discover its system and its divulgences.)” – K.J.

6. Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy, Martin Arnold, 1998, 15 min.
“…Andy Hardy (Mickey Gooney), the all-American sunny boy of the ’30s and ’40s returns as an oedipally destroyed teenie clone to be released from his suffering by Betsy’s (Judy Garland) singing and kiss. Overlay here are the melancholic musical scores from Brown, Freed and others which will melt over the pictures (in forward and reverse) like icing sugar.” – M.A.

7. Just For You Girls, M.M. Serra, 1997, 2 min.

Other versions of this program included:

Anathema, Julie Murray, 1993, silent, 10 min.

PRESS

THE VILLAGE VOICE:

Found footage collage was the most overused avant-garde genre of the 90s, but this program includes some of the most intriguing recent and historical works.
– Amy Taubin