Offscreen Notes
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Call for Papers for ‘Music and the Moving Image VIl, June 1-3, 2012
MUSIC AND THE MOVING IMAGE VII
CONFERENCE at NYU Steinhardt, June 1-3, 2012CALL FOR PAPERS
The annual conference, Music and the Moving Image, encourages submissions from scholars and practitioners that explore the relationship between music, sound, and the entire universe of moving images (film, television, video games, iPod, computer, and interactive performances) through paper presentations.
This year’s conference will include practitioner roundtables on “Songs in Film,” featuring leading music supervisors and chaired by Grammy-nominated NYU Songwriter-in-Residence, Phil Galdston (Save the Best for Last). We also encourage abstract submissions on “Songs in Film” for panels. We will present our second year of panels dedicated to papers on Film Music Pedagogy chaired by Philip Tagg and Ron Sadoff, and we invite those who teach within film, media, and/or music curricula to submit abstracts about applying particular theoretical approaches to the practice of teaching soundtracks. Streaming video of the presentations will be available only at NYU from June 1-11, 2012.
The Program Committee includes Roberto.Calabretto (Lo schermo sonoro. La musica per film); Jeongwon Joe (Wagner and Cinema; Between Opera and Cinema); Philip Tagg (Kojak: 50 Seconds of Television Music; Ten Little Title Tunes); Emile Wennekes (Chair of the Music and Media Study Group of the International Musicological Society); and coeditors of Music and the Moving Image, Gillian B. Anderson (Haexan; Pandora’s Box; Music for Silent Film 1892-1929: A Guide); and NYU faculty, Ron Sadoff (The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation; Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood). The conference will run in conjunction with the NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop in Memory of Buddy Baker (May 22-31, 2012).
MaMI Conference website.
Abstracts or synopses of papers (250 words) should be submitted to: Dr. Ron Sadoff, [ mamicon2012@gmail.com ] chair of the program committee, by no later than Dec. 16, 2011.
E-mail ron.sadoff@nyu.edu for more information.
Ron Sadoff
New York University
35 West 4th St
Suite 777
New York, NY, 10012MUSIC AND PERFORMING ARTS PROFESSIONS
Conference fee (June 1-3, 2012): $175.00 – Students: $85.00 – Housing Available -
World Film Festival 2010: A Preview
Once again we are faced with the biggest challenge of the film-going year in Montreal: which films to see at the World Film Festival (WFF)? In terms of feature-length films, there are fewer new titles—exactly 200 if one counts the two Canadian student features (a first); 208 including all new films over 45 minutes long. At first glance, the line-up doesn’t look as strong as last year, although the same could be said about TIFF’s screening list in Toronto. As we know, the WFF can’t possible compete for the year’s hot films (from Cannes, let’s say), but there are surprising omissions from both festivals this year: Kiarostami’s new film starring Juliette Binoche, for example. According to the catalogue, there are 52 World Premieres and 69 International Premieres in Montreal—well over half of the films—and, obviously it is tough to select films no-one has seen, but we’ll do our best to recommend 10 films this year. You can still purchase a 10 coupon book for $65.
Starting with the Official Competition—and we haven’t been able to see any of these, as they are all World or International Premieres—we would definitely take a chance on the Opening Film, Luis Bélanger’s Route 132, from Québec. I found his Gaz Bar Blues (2003) to be one of the four or five best Canadian films of the last decade, and, considering that his latest film is also being showcased at TIFF, we are tipping this to be the best bet, and likely one of the few films to sell out. You might have to move fast to get a ticket…
The strongest national selection this year looks to be the Japanese. There are new films by a number of well-known directors, including the outrageous “new wave,” “pink” director Wakamatsu Koji (Caterpillar), Morita Yoshimitsu (Bushi no kakeibo??/ ??Abacus and Sword, a World Premiere), best known for The Family Game (1983), both in the Hors Concours Section, and Nakata Hideo, of Ringu (1998) fame with Inshite miru: 7-kakan no desu gêmu (The Incite Mill), a World Premiere in the Focus on World Cinema section. But, I am recommending a competition selection, Hisshiken torisashi (?? Sword of Desperation??), directed by Hirayama Hideyuki who, according to young Japanese film scholar, Alexander Jacoby, “has been responsible for some of the more original and diverting Japanese films of recent years.” (Warning Jacoby also calls Hirayama’s Samurai Resurrection (2003), “a large, dumb action movie…”)
I should mention that both Japanese films that were given press screenings were good: Yazaki Hitoshi’s Suîto ritoru raizu (Sweet Little Lies) is a very sophisticated treatment of adultery, starring the amazing Miki Nakatani (Memories of Matsuko, 2006), and our next recommendation in the First Films World Competition is a co-production filmed entirely in Taiwan, Torocco (Rail Truck), directed by Kawaguchi Hirofumi. A remarkably accomplished 1st feature, Torocco presents an interesting critique of Japan’s colonial past in Taiwan, while featuring a gorgeous treatment of the rural, island landscape, aided considerably by Mark Lee Pin Bing’s cinematography. (Pin Bing is a veteran of over 50 films, including most of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films).
Our fourth recommendation is a fairly conventional historical melodrama focusing on a troupe of performers in 1930s Spain who struggle to survive the interventions of Franco’s fascist forces. It is hard to believe that Emilio Aragón’s Pájaros de papel (Paper Birds) won’t win a major prize in the First Films Competition. The acting is uniformly excellent, and, apart from a passage near the end, in a train station, which is un-necessarily “over-the-top,” Paper Birds is consistent and sober in its emotional tenor and does a good job on the political front, too. According to the WFF catalogue, Cuban- born Aragón is something of a renaissance man, having been a TV presenter and actor, series creator, producer, humorist, manager, musician, clown and screenwriter!
Our fifth recommendation goes to the first half of Tehran Tehran, an Iranian film in the World Cinema section, which is a World Premiere. It is a two-part anthology film, the second of which, “The Last String,” directed by Mehdi Karampour, contains a very strange build up to a contemporary music video. But, the first part, “Days of Acquaintance” directed by Dariush Mehrjui, shows us things we don’t think we’ve ever seen in a post-Revolutionary Iranian film. Mehrjui is nothing if not a “survivor,” having continuously made films in Iran since the late-1960s, and here, maintaining his gaze on the bourgeoisie, he shows us an architectural portrait of the rich, golden, brightly colored world of the Shahs! It is also a comedy.
A film in the Focus on World Cinema section that arrives with strong “word-of-mouth,” is a Cuba/Russia co-production, Lisanka, directed by Daniel Díaz Torres, who is best known as the man who made Alicia en el pueblo de Maravillas (Alice in Wonderland, 1991), the first Cuban fiction feature to be banned on the island. Remarkably, the director’s career in Cuba flourishes. He is one of the most highly respected teachers at EICTV, the independent film school at San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. Lisanka promises to be a political/romantic comedy, set during the Cuban Missile Crisis!
Something that the WFF continues to do well is showcase films directed by women. This year, some 42 features are directed or co-directed by women. One that I am looking forward to watching is the historical epic, Kongzi (Confucius), directed by Hu Mei. Ms Hu was one of two women who were members of the 1983 Beijing Film Academy “Fifth Generation” to become immediately successful as film directors. The other was Li Shaohong. Interestingly both have become even more famous as directors of hit TV, historical epic series, and Confucius marks Hu Mei’s return to the big screen. It will also be interesting to see Chow Yun-fat in the starring role, and to note if there is any resemblance to the 1940 film, directed by classical Chinese film director, Fei Mu.
Brasilian Sandra Werneck is no stranger to the WFF, having had her films Little Book of Love (1996) and Possible Loves (2001) play here. Unfortunately, I have yet to see any of her work, and perhaps I have been mistaken in not watching her films. Her latest, Sonhos roubados (Stolen dreams), which concentrates on the adventures of three poor, but trendy, young women who live in a favela (slum) in Rio de Janeiro, could be a good place to start…
We have already seen our third choice of a film directed by a woman: Montreal resident He Xiaodan’s The Fall of Womenland. This documentary on the matriarchal Mosuo Culture of Yunnan province (where Ms He is from) is extremely well structured and quite surprising in its trajectory. It is a fairly conventional, but important, feminist addition to ethnographic film work, and needs to be seen more widely. Martin Doepner’s digital cinematography complements the power and beauty of the Mosuo culture and landscape.
To be fair, we should give a recommendation to at least one of the 33+ French films in this year’s WFF. Surely, it isn’t necessary to mention Bertrand Tavernier’s La princesse de Montpensier, one of the very few selections to have been shown at Cannes this year. No doubt I will be among a large crowd flocking to see this film, as well as the latest by Georgian-born Otar Iosselliani, Chantrapas, also at Cannes, which promises to be one of the most experimental films on view. But, we reserve our final recommendation for a film I barely glimpsed this Monday: I saw the first two long takes of the striking, yet weird Dooman River, a Korea/France co-production, directed by Zhang Lu (who is a Chinese poet). If you are interested in watching at least one “experimental” film at the WFF, this could be a very rewarding experience (or not…).
Bon cinema, Peter Rist
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Fantasia Metropolis Screening
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis at Fantasia, July 28
Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival out did itself with the special event screening of the recently restored (with the new footage found in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2008), that played on the final night, July 28, at the ritzy 3000 seat Salle Wilfred-Pelletier, Place des Arts (an Eastern Canadian Premiere). I arrived just at the screening time, 7:30pm, so missed the cue entering the theatre. I was expecting to find a theatre with many empty seats, but when I stepped through the last door with my reserve seat ticket into the theatre to discover a full house (or very nearly), I was flabbergasted! It is proof again at how sophisticated Montreal audiences are, and a testament to how Fantasia has hit the big time. The buzz of this event will surely be heard all the way to the government cultural funding agencies and should mean an increased profile for Fantasia in future years. Kudos to all the people at Fantasia who worked hard to make this event happen. And what about the screening? The highlight was certainly Gabriel Thibaudeau’s live score, which saw him conduct a 13-piece Orchestra through the newly restored 147 minutes. Thibaudeau’s score took its cue from Metropolis’ visionary, experimental aesthetics, which ranges from the modernist machine montage opening to the Expressionist-tinged Art Deco styling, Futurist/Constructionist technology (the science-fiction elements), and quasi-Gothic touches (the seven deadly sins skeletons, the chase through the catacombs). In other words, Thibaudeau’s score was also on the experimental side, in terms of musical scope, ranging from searing, full orchestration to more subtle, nuanced flavoring. There were a few beautiful, romantic, almost Morricone-like motifs during the more human moments, played briefly enough so as to make you yearn for them. I loved the fact that the electric organ was dominant and that the score resisted the trap of always trying to emulate sound effects for the on-screen actions (of course there was some of this but it did not go overboard). All that remains now is the over-all impression of the score, so I would love to hear it again with a more critical ear. It was easy to detect the 25 newly restored minutes because of the degradation in image quality. In terms of content, the new footage included a whole sub-plot concerning a spy implanted by the father Joh Fredersen to over-see the goings on of his son, an ex-employee whom he fired Joshapat, and the workers. At times the spy, nicknamed “The Thin Man” (played by Fritz Rasp), added a touch of comic relief. In general the new footage seemed to fill in elements of character and plot surrounding the father’s attempt to sabotage the worker’s unity, and takes away from the science-fiction element; however, a full appreciation of the impact of the new footage will have to wait until the imminent DVD & Blu-ray release (I just hope that it has Thibaudeau’s score). The Salle Wilfred-Pelletier is not normally used as a film screening facility, and the digital projection of the film was far from ideal. To begin, the film was projected from behind the back of the screen, which meant it must have been projected off a mirror, which could mean a loss in image quality (read here for an in-depth description of rear screen projection technology). Aside from being rear projected (which can be excellent if projected in the best possible way), the screen itself had three horizontal scratches or creases running the full horizontal length which were visible as hair-line information loss in the image. Depending on the dark/light levels of the action (it was more noticeable in lighter scenes), at times it was barely noticeable, and I’m sure the average viewer may not have noticed it at all; but cinemaphiles who take their projection technology very seriously would have noticed. This minor criticism (of the venue) aside, it was a marvelous night of film magic.
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New York Asian Film Festivals
In term of festivals that feature Asian cinema exclusively this is one of the best, and certainly so when it comes to North America.
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Fantasia International Film Festival, July 8-28, 2010
Fantasia is back in its usual latish summer slot for another bonanza of films, events, and added attractions. There is no doubt that with its increasing profile with the governmental granting agencies, Fantasia is stepping up as one of the big players in Canada’s festival scene. This year’s catalog is much thicker than it has ever been, a testament to its increased advertising dollar (not that fans care about these matters, but money does make the overall spectacle better). And it doesn’t get much bigger than having the restored Metropolis with a full orchestra at the posh Place Des Arts theatre as the closing film. The films are always what really matters at a festival, but having guests on hand to introduce their films, host Q & A, and do interviews adds the all important ‘buzz’ that festivals love, and this year has a fascinating round-up of guests, including Ken Russell (and a rare 35mm screening of his notorious The Devils), Jeffrey Combs, H.G. Lewis (the man who innovated blood and cuts to the arsenal of cinema), Neil Marshall, and Stuart Gordon.
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Blue Sunshine: Home of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies
Festival programmer, writer, author Kier-La Janisse has moved to Montreal and is about to launch an intriguing new venture that will surely bring back a bit of the 1970s repertory madness that I lived through and loved. Kier-La has great ambitions for a loft space she envisions as a meeting ground for like-minded fans of esoteric cinema to watch movies (both 16mm prints and digital) and engage in talk and discourse. Along with screenings, Kier-La has plans for educational nights where practitioners, artists, and scholars can lead discussions on a variety of subjects related to horror culture in its broadest sense. Offscreen wishes Kier-La the best for her new ventures.
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Dennis Hopper: 1936-2010
The great cult actor Dennis Hopper passed away on Saturday May 29, at the age of 74. Hopper’s career spanned over 50 years, and included roles with some of the greatest actors and directors. His career was filled with risks, taking on independent, controversial roles (Easy Rider, The Trip, Kid Blue, River’s Edge, Out of the Blue, and Blue Velvet. His performance as psychotic Frank Booth in the latter is still many people’s choice for the creepies ever, get-under-your-skin villain. Hopper battled through alcohol and drug addictions during the 1970s to revitalize his career in the 1980s, and continued to breakthrough into more conventional films right up until his death.
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Rue Morgue 100th Issue
The May 2010 issue of the Canadian-made (all-entertainment) horror magazine Rue Morgue marked its 100th issue, a laudable achievement in today’s difficult era for print magazines of all type. Rue Morgue joins a select few horror magazines yo have achieved a similar longevity in publication, notably Famous Monsters (the granddaddy of all horror mags), Fangoria and The Dark Side. Congratulations.
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New Sergio Leone Book
Offscreen contributor Roberto Donati has had a book on Sergio Leone recently published, alas only in Italian for non-Italian readers, by Falsopiano publishers. Donati’s book Sergio Leone: L’America, la nostalgia e il mito (Sergio Leone: America, nostalgia, and myth) is split between an intelligent close textual analysis of three films which he identifies as being part of a ‘trilogy of time,’ Once Upon a Time in the West, Duck You Sucker, and Once Upon a Time in America, and new interviews with fourteen people who worked with Leone, including key collaborators such as composers/musicians Ennio Morricone, Alessandro Alessandroni (the whistler!), Franco De Gemini (the harmonica man), writers Sergio Donati, Luciano Vincenzoni, Franco Ferrini, film critics Sir Christopher Frayling, author of several important books on Leone and the spaghetti western, including Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans, From Karl May to Sergio Leone, Luca Beatrice, author of the excellent Italian book Al Cuore, Ramon, al cuore, Western all’italiana, Antonio Monda, Carlos Aguilar, and actress Claudia Cardinale. The first 121 pages consist of Donati’s critical analysis of the works, followed by about 100 pages of interviews, ending with some wonderful pencil drawings on Leone and his works (which are worth the price of admission alone) by Luca Zampetti. I hope that out there somewhere is an enterprising publisher that would take on an English translation of this important book (Harvey from FAB Press, are you listening!). If you would like a sampling of what to expect in terms of the book’s critical approach, I suggest you read the following essay by Donati on Leone published on Offscreen, entitled “Once Upon a Time….Introduction to the Theme of Nostalgia in the Films of Sergio Leone”.
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The Wooden Lightbox / Alex MacKenzie
THE WOODEN LIGHTBOX: A SECRET ART OF SEEING / ALEX MACKENZIE
Monday, February 15, 2010. 7:30 pm
Engineering-Visual Arts Building
Black Box, sub-basement room OS3-845Concordia University
1515 St. Catherine West, at GuyFree admission.
Alex MacKenzie performs The Wooden Lightbox live in an intimate setting with a hand-cranked 16mm projector built from various relic parts and framed in an austere wooden box. The manual operation of the projector, placed in the middle of the audience, invokes a pre-electronic, pre-digital era of moving pictures, when aesthetic astonishment was achieved through stagecraft and mechanical mastery. In the role of travelling projectionist, MacKenzie renews a tradition of itinerant exhibition from a time when the endurance of cinema was not seen as a given, and the shape of the medium’s future was yet undetermined. Through this invocation of the early days of cinema, The Wooden Lightbox confronts our taste for novelty and challenges the amnesia of new media discourses, demonstrating how concepts of mobility, interactivity, and visual wonder have long been central to moving image innovation.
Following the performance, MacKenzie will talk about his practice and take questions from the audience.
Alex MacKenzie is a Vancouver-based media artist working in film, video, light projection, and performance. He was the founder and director of The Edison Electric Gallery of Moving Images, The Blinding Light!! Cinema, and the Vancouver Underground Film Festival. He currently works as an independent curator, graphic designer, and writer. His works have been screened internationally. This event was made possible with the generous collaboration of the Studio Arts & MFA Visiting Artist Program, Mobile Media Lab, Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Spectral Media Lab, and Hexagram.
