Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives
INSISTENT CLAMOR FOREVER: KEN JACOBS TURNS 80!
May 24 – May 26
May 24-26, 2013
Given his limitless energy and youthful spirit, it seems impossible that Ken Jacobs is turning 80 this month. A recipient of multiple awards from the National Society of Film Critics, numerous grants (Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Creative Capital), and festival prizes, Jacobs has been called “one of the most extraordinary unknown personalities in the history of American movies” by critic J. Hoberman. Jacobs, a native New Yorker, began his artistic career as a painting student of abstract-expressionist Hans Hoffman but quickly progressed to a more flexible canvas, cinema. His decades worth of restless activity includes more than 40 films, live performances (shadow plays and other staged productions), countless film performances (often with his self-invented double 16mm projection “Nervous System”), magnificent 3D slide and “Nervous Magic Lantern” shows, and, since the late 1990s, digital video. It is Jacobs’s total dedication to the multiple possibilities and mutations of the moving image that binds all his seemingly disparate modes into a brilliantly cohesive whole.
Far from being a complete retrospective, this robust six-program tribute includes films and videos from every decade of Jacobs’s voluminous back catalog. With so many works to choose from (and with some of Jacobs’s best-known films screening annually at Anthology as part of our Essential Cinema series), we opted for pieces that have either been long neglected (including works originally made on 8mm in the early-to-mid 1960s) or never more than irregularly screened. This includes a number of older 3D 16mm films as well as more recent pieces that use digital means to scramble our perception of space and time. Whether radically reworking found imagery, documenting his friends and family, or constructing works of astute political commentary, Jacobs is a tireless innovator whose sizable influence on several generations of film and video artists is undeniable.
The Museum of Modern Art will also be celebrating Ken Jacobs's 80th birthday with a series entitled "Carte Blanche: Ken Jacobs", taking place from May 2-5; for more info visit: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1370
PROGRAM 1:
ORCHARD STREET
1955, 12 min, 16mm-to-35mm blow-up. Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with support from the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation.
ARTIE AND MARTY ROSENBLATT’S BABY PICTURES 1963, 4 min, 8mm, sound on tape
AIRSHAFT 1967, 4 min, 16mm
JERRY TAKES A BACK SEAT, THEN PASSES OUT OF THE PICTURE 1975, 15 min, 8mm-to-16mm blow-up
THE WINTER FOOTAGE 1964, 50 min, 8mm-to-16mm blow-up
Total running time: ca. 90 min.
Fri, May 24 at 7:00
PROGRAM 2
:THE WHIRLED 1956-63 (compiled in early 1990s), 19 min, 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives.
BAUD’LARIAN CAPERS (A MUSICAL WITH NAZIS AND JEWS) 1963, 25 min, 16mm
BOB FLEISCHNER DYING 2009, 3 min, digital video
HOT DOGS AT THE MET 2009, 10 min, digital video
LISA AND JOEY IN CONNECTICUT, JANUARY ’65: “YOU’VE COME BACK!” “YOU’RE STILL HERE!” 1965, 18 min, 8mm-to-16mm
Total running time: ca. 80 min.
Fri, May 24 at 9:15
PROGRAM 3:
THE DOCTOR’S DREAM 1978, 23 min, 16mm
PERFECT FILM 1985, 22 min, 16mm
WHAT HAPPENED ON 23RD STREET IN 1901 2009, 14 min, digital video
THE SURGING SEA OF HUMANITY 2006, 11 min, digital video
Total running time: ca. 75 min.
Sat, May 25 at 7:00
PROGRAM 4:
GLOBE 1969, 22 min, 16mm, Pulfrich 3D
INSISTENT CLAMOR 2005, 22 min, digital video
BRAIN OPERATIONS 2009, 22 min, digital video
MAKE LIGHT ON FILM 1995, 15 min, 16mm, Pulfrich 3D
Total running time: ca. 85 min.
Sat, May 25 at 9:00
PROGRAM 5:
AMERICA AT WAR 2011, 30 min, digital video, anaglyph 3D
ANOTHER OCCUPATION 2011, 15 min, digital video
SEEKING THE MONKEY KING 2011, 40 min, digital video
Total running time: ca. 90 min.
Sun, May 26 at 6:15
PROGRAM 6:
KEATON’S COPS 1991, 23 min, 16mm
HIS FAVORITE WIFE IMPROVED (OR THE VIRTUE OF BAD RECEPTION) 2008, 2 min, digital video
WE ARE CHARMING 2007, 1 min, digital video
HANKY PANKY JANUARY 1902 2007, 1 min, digital video
NYMPH 2007, 2 min, digital video
ALONE AT LAST 2008, 2 min, digital video
THE DISCOVERY 2008, 5 min, digital video
LOVE STORY 2008, 3 min, digital video
DISORIENT EXPRESS 1996, 30 min, 35mm
Total running time: 75 min.
Sun, May 26 at 8:30
