Film Screenings / Programs / Series
ACF PRESENTS: THE FILMS OF JOHN COOK
December 2 – December 4
Anthology presents a long-overdue retrospective devoted to John Cook, a key figure in Austrian cinema whose films – several of which have recently been restored by the Austrian Film Museum – are virtually unknown in the U.S. The Canadian-born Cook almost single-handedly introduced a type of freewheeling auteur cinema in his adopted homeland, reminiscent of both Italian neorealism and the works of the French nouvelle vague. A truly independent artist, Cook never repeated himself – his four feature (or medium-length) films (three of which are screening here) are each made in an entirely different register, running the gamut from relatively straightforward cinema-vérité-inflected non-fiction to full-on narrative drama, with perhaps his greatest film, SLOW SUMMER, a particularly striking hybrid of documentary and fiction. Thanks to the Film Museum’s efforts, Cook’s work is currently enjoying a revival in Europe, and this retrospective will hopefully spread the word on this side of the Atlantic as well.
“One of the crucial figures of Austrian cinema was Canadian: John Cook, self-confessed ‘Viennese by choice’ made only four films in his adopted country, which have achieved nearly mythical status in Austrian film circles. It is easy to see why: the groundbreaking, unforced realism of [his films] still startles, even as ‘realistic’ filmmaking has become the national cinema’s norm. You could even call it a cliché, since your average Austrian slice of depressive realism is clearly geared toward certain expectations of the arthouse and festival circuits – by comparison, the almost preternatural pull of Cook’s unprejudiced vérité seems even more exceptional.” –Christoph Huber, MOVING IMAGE SOURCE
All three prints in the series were preserved and loaned by the Austrian Film Museum, Vienna; SLOW SUMMER was jointly preserved by the Austrian Film Museum and the film’s producer Michael Pilz in 2006. A DVD featuring all three films is available from the Austrian Film Museum (www.filmmuseum.at/en); institutional sales in North America are handled by Gartenberg Media Enterprises (www.gartenbergmedia.com).
The new print of SLOW SUMMER will have its NY premiere as part of the Museum of Modern Art’s TO SAVE AND PROJECT series on November 3 & 5, immediately preceding our retrospective.
Special thanks to Martin Rauchbauer & Andreas Stadler (Austrian Cultural Forum NY), Alexander Horwath, Regina Schlagnitweit, Markus Wessolowski & Michael Loebenstein (Austrian Film Museum), and Josh Siegel (MoMA).
Also, please note:
SPECIAL MICHAEL HANEKE EVENT AT THE ACFNY IN DECEMBER:
On Thursday, December 9 at 6:30, at the Austrian Cultural Forum NY - at 11 East 52nd Street - Fatima Naqvi, Associate Professor of German Studies at Rutgers University, and Roy Grundmann, Associate Professor of Film Studies at Boston University, will explore some of the themes in Haneke’s television and film works in a conversation with Martin Rauchbauer, deputy director of the ACFNY. Film excerpts will be shown, and the authors will present their new books Trügerische Vertrautheit (Deceptive Familiarity, Vienna: Synema, 2011) and A Companion to Michael Haneke (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Copies of the books will be available for purchase.
Visit www.acfny.org/event/395/ for more info.
