Film Screenings / Programs / Series
A TRIBUTE TO AMOS VOGEL AND ‘FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART’
February 6 – March 14
Published in 1973, FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART is an oft-referenced, hugely influential, landmark text in the history of film literature. A book with no discernible beginning, middle, or end, it’s as energizing, entertaining, and important a work of film criticism as any that has ever been written – a labyrinthine trek through world cinema via one man’s visionary cosmology. That man was Cinema 16 and New York Film Festival founder Amos Vogel (1922-2012), who dedicated his life to supporting the pioneering efforts of independent artists and aesthetic rebels. In its radical, impassioned polemics and dialectically-placed film frames, FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART is the fulcrum of Vogel’s years as a film programmer, festival juror, lecturer, and critic. Citing numerous films that have become increasingly difficult to see due to the vagaries of distribution, his book remains a Pandora’s box of cinematic treasures and an astute elucidation of the artist’s role in contemporary society.
To honor Amos and this singular work, Anthology is pleased to present an extensive film series featuring more than two dozen works discussed in FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART. Organized to reflect the structure of the book, with films chosen to represent particular chapters, this program brings together a hugely varied and eclectic collection of works, the majority of them unscreened in NYC for many years. Taken together, they demonstrate not only the riches that lie within Vogel’s book, but the extraordinary potential of the cinema, especially in the hands of truly visionary, vanguard artists.
Co-curated by Michael Chaiken; special thanks to Steven & Loring Vogel, Brian Belovarac & Sarah Finklea (Janus), Cassie Blake (Academy Film Archive), Chris Chouinard (Park Circus), Rebecca Cleman (Electronic Arts Intermix), Christophe Deverdun (Blaq Out), Sam Di Iorio, Jane Gutteridge (National Film Board of Canada), Henrikku, Go Hirasawa, Tanja Horstmann (Arsenal), Jonathan Howell (New Yorker), Jyette Jensen, Gabe Klinger & Kitty Cleary (MoMA), Mark Johnson (Harvard Film Archive), Joel Kozberg, Gérard Leblanc, Kate Millett, Stephen Parr, Boris Pollet, Julian Ross, Elena Rossi-Snook (NYPL), MM Serra (Film-Makers’ Coop), Gaël Teicher (P.O.M. Films), and Zelimir Zilnik & Sarita Matijevic (Playground produkcija).
Except where noted, all film descriptions are from Amos Vogel’s FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART.
Anthology’s series has been organized in collaboration with the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, which will present its own Amos Vogel tribute in March; for more details visit: www.movingimage.us/films/
