Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives
LAWRENCE JORDAN
September 6 – September 10
September 6 - 10, 2013
LAWRENCE JORDAN WILL BE HERE IN PERSON FOR THE 7PM SHOW ON FRI, SEPT. 6 & THE 11AM SHOW ON SUN, SEPT. 8!
The ceaselessly prolific, still-vital filmmaker and animator Lawrence Jordan (b. 1934) has been active in the West Coast experimental film and art scenes since 1952. Jordan was a crucial part of the San Francisco experimental film scene in the 1950s & 60s, not only as a filmmaker but also as the founder of the film society Camera Obscura (co-founded by Bruce Conner) and the 16mm screening space The Movie, and the co-founder of Canyon Cinema (which continues to distribute experimental cinema today). In 1969, he started the film department of the San Francisco Art institute, where he taught for over thirty years. He also worked for a period as an assistant to Joseph Cornell, for whom he assembled six films (and also made, covertly, a portrait of the artist, CORNELL, released in 1979).
Over the decades Jordan has created a dazzling array of works in a multitude of styles but is most widely recognized for the cutout collage films he began making at the end of the 1950s. Assembling nineteenth century Victorian engravings, Jordan made surrealist films in the tradition of Max Ernst. Following in Ernst’s footsteps in particular, Jordan used Gustave Doré engravings in his film THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER (1977), in which the eponymous Coleridge poem is read by Orson Welles. In his cutout films (notably ONCE UPON A TIME and ORB), Jordan reorganizes the images within the frame, with what he calls “alchemical” methods. Lesser-known perhaps are his non-animated films, such as VISIONS OF A CITY, BIG SUR: THE LADIES, and the epic 720-minute CIRCUS SAVAGE, completed in 2009, which we’ll be screening in its entirety!
This extensive, 7-program series, comprising 41 films, showcases Jordan’s extraordinary creativity and range, and features the first public screenings in New York of many of the 26 Jordan films preserved by Anthology between 2003-2006.
Co-presented by Canyon Cinema; special thanks to Denah Johnston. For more info visit www.canyoncinema.com.
Unless otherwise noted, all films are 16mm.
PROGRAM 1:
ORB 1973, 5 min
MOONLIGHT SONATA 1979, 5 min
WATERLIGHT 1957, 8 min
THE VISIBLE COMPENDIUM 1991, 17 min
CHATEAU/POYET 2004, 6 min
SOLAR SIGHT 2011, 15 min
SOLAR SIGHT II 2012, 10 min
Total running time: ca. 70 min
Fri, Sept 6 at 7:00
PROGRAM 2:
SOLAR SIGHT III 2013, 16 min
ENID’S IDYLL 2004, 17 min
VISIONS OF A CITY 1957-78, 10 min
PINK SWINE 1964, 3 min
RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 1977, 45 min
Total running time: ca. 95 min
Fri, Sept 6 at 9:00
PROGRAM 3:
THE ONE ROMANTIC VENTURE OF EDWARD 1956, 8 min
TRUMPIT 1956, 8 min
SPECTRE MYSTAGOGIC 1957, 8 min
UNDERTOW 1956, 7 min
THE SOCCER GAME 1959, 5 min
PORTRAIT OF SHARON 1960, 7 min
THE 40 AND 1 NIGHTS 1962, 6 min
BIG SUR: THE LADIES 1964, 3 min
THE DREAM MERCHANT 1964, 3 min
EIN TRAUM DER LIEBENDEN 1964, 6 min
RODIA-ESTUDIANTINA 1964, 4 min
JEWEL FACE 1964, 6 min
TRIPTYCH IN FOUR PARTS 1958, 12 min
Total running time: ca. 90 min
Sat, Sept 7 at 6:00
PROGRAM 4:
ONCE UPON A TIME 1974, 12 min
SACRED ART OF TIBET 1972, 28 min
CORNELL, 1965 1965-79, 8 min
CARABOSSE 1982, 3 min
POET’S DREAM 2005, 5 min
THE MIRACLE OF DON CRISTOBAL 2009, 11 min
Total running time: ca. 75 min
Sat, Sept 7 at 8:15
PROGRAM 5:
CIRCUS SAVAGE
2009, 720 min, 16mm-to-video
This remarkable, 12-hour-long work, here receiving its NYC premiere, is a truly career-spanning creation, spinning a lifetime of cinematic production into an epic, all-encompassing, immersive experience. Whether you spend the whole day and night in Jordan’s world, or choose to sample particular (or multiple) passages, this is an event that’s not to be missed!
“I have woven together a vast river of image and sound from all the unused film material piled up in my studio since 1952. In essence this is my visual autobiography. There are clips from strange and unusual films, all the outtakes from all my films, as well as all the uncompleted projects. The sound makes no attempt to comment on the picture, but goes its own way: See a rose, hear a bomb. To me there is a wonderful counterpoint, continually bristling with surreal innuendo.” –L.J.
Sun, Sept 8 at 11:00am
PROGRAM 6:
BEYOND ENCHANTMENT 2010, 9 min
BLUE SKIES BEYOND THE LOOKING GLASS 2006, 17 min
MASQUERADE 1981, 5 min
ADAGIO 1981, 8 min
WINTER LIGHT 1983, 9 min
COSMIC ALCHEMY 2010, 23 min
Total running time: ca. 75 min
Mon, Sept 9 at 7:30
PROGRAM 7:
ANCESTORS 1978, 5 min
POSTCARD FROM SAN MIGUEL 1996, 8 min
THE APPARITION 1976, 50 min
Total running time: ca. 70 min
Tues, Sept 10 at 7:30
