Film Screenings / Programs / Series
INFRADESTRUCTION! (aka WHEN INFRASTRUCTURE ATTACKS)
April 13 – April 21
In the aftermath of the 20th century’s gruesome world wars, advances in infrastructure propelled forward with a utopian determination that was both ardent and threatening. The Eisenhower-inducted Interstate Highway System was a signature achievement of postwar America, and the preening roadways lay supine across the vast countryside, showing off their concrete pylons and cloverleaf junctions. “I believe that a clean and well functioning freeway has a beauty of its own,” said one besotted spokesperson for the American Road Buildings Association. This beauty, however, was in the eye of the beholder, for the freeway could just as easily sneer into a maliciously functioning ugliness, dividing cities, isolating communities, and cutting off small rural towns – not to mention rushing giddy teenagers to their deathbeds. Is it any wonder that in the 1970s, in the wake of oppressive 1950s-era nationalism and its demolition in the 1960s, the disaster film would take hold as a popular genre?
Portrayals of disaster and destruction run right alongside the admiring depictions of human achievement from the Industrial Age to the emerging Information Age. Photography, film, and video have captured plenty of horrific catastrophes, but the exploitation of their spectacle for entertainment suggests a link between the disaster genre and exploitation cinema: their rebellion against the homogenizing classicism of studio Hollywood. The disaster films in this series undermine the propaganda of the built world by vividly conjuring scenarios in which the roadways under our feet, the ships that carry us across the oceans, the machines in our service, and the cities and buildings containing us become malevolent antagonists, hell-bent on our destruction. To further titillate the audience, a carefully arranged program of topical music will play while people await their grim entertainment.
Guest-curated by Rebecca Cleman (Electronic Arts Intermix), who also wrote the introduction and film descriptions. “Infradestruction!” is presented in the wake of our earlier (March) series, “Infrastructure on Film,” and alongside our trucker-themed film series, “Jammin’ Gears” (April 3-21).
Special thanks to Zoe Beloff, Chris Chouinard (Park Circus), Eric Di Bernardo (Rialto Pictures), Joe McKay, John Mhiripiri, Kristie Nakamura (WB), and Veronica Neely (20th Century Fox).
Stephen King
MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE
1986, 98 min, 35mm
Preceded by: Vladislav Tvardovsky THE LITTLE SCREW / VINTIK-SHPINTIK 1927, 11 min, 35mm-to-digital, silent
Stephen King has made a career of spoiling the American myth by poking at its fissures, characterizing the postwar period not as one marked by prosperity and peace but by paranoia, greed, and social unrest. In a decade that was nostalgic for the so-called innocence of 1950s America, King directed his only feature, an unfairly overlooked film that parodies the hubristic naiveté of American consumer culture by showing what might happen if all the machines that service us suddenly gained emotions and agency. Accompanying this film is a Soviet animation that was featured in artist Zoe Beloff’s installation “Emotions Go To Work,” which explored our imaginative relationship with machines.
Sat, April 13 at 6:45, Wed, April 17 at 9:15, and Fri, April 19 at 7:00.
David R. Ellis
FINAL DESTINATION 2
2003, 90 min, 35mm
Preceded by: Richard Wayman HIGHWAYS OF AGONY 1969, 28 min, 16mm-to-digital (viewer discretion advised)
Jeffrey Reddick’s FINAL DESTINATION horror series is arguably the best representation of the genre in the aughts, reflecting the proliferation of graphic scenes on the news, in forensic crime shows, and all over the Internet. The fetishization of these scenes also harks back to the driver’s ed exploitation movies most American youth were forced to watch as a right of passage. HIGHWAYS OF AGONY is one of the most striking examples, thanks to Hungarian composer Zoltan Rozsnyai’s ominous score, which stands as a perfect compliment to the sinister voice-over narration: “The epidemic of death on the highway continues to spread, as if American motorists were suddenly obsessed with the urge to destroy themselves, or someone else…”
Sat, April 13 at 9:15, Tues, April 16 at 6:30, and Fri, April 19 at 9:30.
UNSTABLE INFRA
Though it is now a four-lane Google-owned Interstate where it was once a charming two-lane blacktop, YouTube is the grandest conduit for all manner of private interests, ranging from harmless to jail-able. This is where all the disaster scenes of the world are deposited for delectation, watched and commented upon until their titillations wear off. Video cameras mounted on dashboards or positioned with the perfect view of a certain low clearance bridge supply plenty of fodder for the hungry eyes that search desperately for their next fix. This program will feature some of the most shocking and outrageous scenes the perverse social subconscious has to offer.
Compiled with contributions from media artist Joe McKay.
Sun, April 14 at 5:30.
Roy Ward Baker
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER
1958, 123 min, 35mm
The Titanic was a symbol of Western industrial achievement that taunted the natural world and lost. Recent discoveries have revealed however that the sinking of the unsinkable ship was the result of infrastructural failings all along the way. Subpar construction materials and communication breakdowns contributed to its horrible fate and heavy death toll, even though it was touted as the pinnacle of human invention. A NIGHT TO REMEMBER is meticulously based on survivor’s accounts, and no other Titanic movie has succeeded so well in imparting an unromantic sense of the strange disaster, which played out in relative slow motion. First class passengers sipped champagne even as their silver serving trays rolled away thanks to the gradual slope of the ship falling into the ocean. Lurking within every boastful industrial claim is the inevitability of its ruin.
Preceded by:
ACHIEVEMENT USA 1955, 10 min, 16mm-to-digital
This promotional film was designed to celebrate the production of GM’s 50 millionth automobile in Flint, Michigan.
Sun, April 14 (the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic!) at 8:00, Wed, April 17 at 6:30, and Sat, April 20 at 6:30.
John Guillermin
THE TOWERING INFERNO
1974, 165 min, 35mm
Preceded by: Edwin S. Porter THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN FIREMAN 1903, 6 min, 35mm-to-digital. Produced for the Edison Manufacturing Company.
One of the earliest narrative films, THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN FIREMAN exploited the thrill of disaster, and was especially proud of its “wonderful” crisis scene of real fire consuming a house, making the heroism of the firemen, and the peril of a trapped mother and child, all the more palpable. In the 1970s, disaster maven Irwin Allen blew up Porter’s basic plot to its grandest scale – a skyscraper in San Francisco – producing one of the greatest depictions of architectural catastrophe in American cinema. THE TOWERING INFERNO stars Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, as fire chief and architect, and a wide array of supporting stars, including Fred Astaire and O.J. Simpson.
Mon, April 15 at 7:00 and Thurs, April 18 at 7:00.
Mick Jackson
VOLCANO
1997, 104 min, 35mm
To close out a decade that shone a mostly unflattering light on Los Angeles, English director Mick Jackson followed up his L.A. STORY (1991) with an outrageous disaster movie. The volcano blooming in the city’s heart may be a too on-the-nose metaphor for roiling tensions in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating, L.A. riots, and the O.J. Simpson trial, and the moralizing conclusion is cringe-inducing, but the majority of the film does a satisfying and highly entertaining job of focusing on the infrastructural aspect of the crisis. Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, and Don Cheadle star.
Preceded by:
Public Enemy’s music video for “911 is a Joke” 1990, 3.5 min, digital
Tues, April 16 at 9:15 and Sun, April 21 at 6:30.
