Film Screenings / Programs / Series
FILMS FOR THE FAIR: THE WORLD’S FAIR & THE CINEMA
May 8 – May 19
May 8-19, 2019
The phenomenon of the World’s Fair (or International Exposition) came into being in the middle of the 19thcentury, and continues to this day to represent the occasion for a celebration of international unity, a platform for the demonstration of social, technological, and commercial advances or visions, a showcase for architectural experimentation, and of course an engine for tourism and national promotion. Outside of specialist circles, however, the role of the moving-image in the World’s Fair/Expo is rarely emphasized. Highlighting the various ways the cinema and the World’s Fair have been interconnected through the years (and timed to coincide with the 80thanniversary of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, not to mention the 55thanniversary of the 1964 edition), this film series encompasses films documenting the various Fairs and Expos, movies that were famously shown during the events, and, most intriguingly, some of the many films and moving-image installations that were commissioned specifically for the Fairs.
The series focuses in particular on a handful of Fairs and Expos, above all the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, the 1939 and 1964 New York World’s Fairs, Expo 58 in Brussels (which featured an important film festival devoted to experimental filmmaking), and – the Fair that incorporated the moving-image more fully than any other – Expo 67 in Montreal (which was distinguished by the many experiments in multiple-screen presentations that it showcased).
The World’s Fair is a strange beast: a paradoxical mixture of shameless advertising and at times genuinely ambitious visions of the technological and social future. Above all, they constitute the opportunity for a society to construct myths of itself, past, present, and future – and these myths are quite literally constructed, resulting in spectacular but temporary built environments. The temporary nature of these grandiose built environments makes their cinematic portraits all the more fascinating. All films are fated to become documents of a vanished world, but all the more so those works that depict the elaborate fairgrounds of the World’s Fairs, which were built to impress but also to disappear abruptly almost immediately following each Exposition. The films screening here – which reflect or explore the many different facets of the World’s Fair phenomenon – depict worlds both imagined and lost.
Curated in collaboration with Caroline Golum, who wrote many of the program descriptions.
Special thanks to: Jerry Beck (Cartoon Research); Daniel Bish (George Eastman Museum); Eric Breitbart; Daniel Brantley, May Haduong & Edda Manriquez (Academy Film Archive); Jesse Brossoit (Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre); Heesok Chang; Robert Cordier; Stéphanie Côté, Catherine Gadbois-Laurendeau & Guillaume Lafleur (Cinémathèque Québécoise); Dennis Doros & Amy Heller (Milestone Films); Skip Elsheimer (A/V Geeks); Genevieve Fong (Eames Office); Monika Gagnon; Paul Gordon & Tina Harvey (Library and Archives Canada); Jane Gutteridge & Tamara Ivis (National Film Board of Canada); Larissa Harris, Hitomi Iwasaki, Vyoma Venkataraman & Louise Weinberg (Queens Museum); Peter Kelly (Cinema Guild); Anthony Kinik; Marleen Labijt (EYE Film Institute); Caroline Martel; Craig Moyes; Kristie Nakamura (WB); Steven Palmer; Elena Rossi-Snook (New York Public Library for the Performing Arts); Lynanne Schweighofer (Library of Congress); William Stingone & Thomas Lannon (NYPL, Manuscripts and Archives Division); Arianna Turci & Arnaud Van Cutsemand (Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique); and Todd Wiener & Steven Hill (UCLA Film & Television Archive).
The series is presented in collaboration with the Queens Museum, whose home – the New York City Building in Flushing Meadows Corona Park – was built to house the New York City Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair. The building again housed the New York City Pavilion in 1964, when the extraordinary architectural model, the Panorama of the City of New York, was created for the Fair. The Panorama still exists, and is open to the public as part of the Museum’s collection. For visiting hours and other info, visit: queensmuseum.org/
“Films for the Fair” is presented with generous support from the Quebec Government Office in New York; special thanks to Jean-Pierre Dion & Caroline Dufresne.
The following programs will be introduced by series co-curator Caroline Golum:
Thurs 5/9 at 9:00: VISITING THE FAIR
Fri 5/10 at 6:45 and 9:15: MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS and IT HAPPENED AT THE WORLD’S FAIR
Lance Bird & Tom Johnson
THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
1984, 83 min, 16mm. Print courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
“A fine, funny feature-length documentary about the New York World’s Fair of 1939, when, for a few, short, glittery months, Western civilization paused between the Depression and World War II. The fair, devoted to the material and scientific wonders awaiting in the world of tomorrow, was held over for a second season in the summer of 1940, but by then the Netherlands, Belgium and France had fallen to the Germans, and business at the fair was disappointing. ‘The World of Tomorrow,’ the fair’s official theme, had come to be less a promise than a threat. Using newsreel footage, home movies and some wonderfully revealing promotional movies shown within the fair, Tom Johnson and Lance Bird, who produced and directed the film, and John Crowley, who wrote it, have created an exceptionally perceptive film-essay on the cockeyed optimism that since the mid-19th century has been a historical obligation for all right-thinking Americans.” –Vincent Canby, NEW YORK TIMES
Wed, May 8 at 7:00 and Fri, May 17 at 9:15.
THE PRICE OF PROGRESS: PROMOTIONAL FILMS
Designed as a showcase for man’s achievements in the fields of science, technology, and social engineering, the World’s Fairs and Expos of the 20th century were also the birthplace of that history-making scourge, “branded content.” Pavilions sponsored by behemoth manufacturing concerns touted exciting new developments designed to maximize efficiency and bring order to our fast-changing lives, promising health, happiness, and ease with the right line of housewares. From peanuts to petroleum, television to push-button telephones, the pavilions of Chrysler, AT&T, IBM, et al., were an opportunity for visitors to look today at the conveniences that would change our collective tomorrows.
PART 1: 1904-40:
WESTINGHOUSE WORKS FILMS 1904, 10-min excerpt, 35mm-to-digital. Produced by Westinghouse Works for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
RHAPSODY IN STEEL 1934, 10 min, 35mm-to-digital. Produced by the Ford Motor Co. for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.
TELEVISION: AN RCA PRESENTATION 1939, 9 min, 35mm-to-digital. Produced by RCA for the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Joseph Losey PETE-ROLEUM AND HIS COUSINS 1939, 20 min, 16mm-to-digital. Produced by the Petroleum Industry Exhibition Inc. for the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
LEAVE IT TO ROLL-OH 1940, 9 min, 35mm-to-digital. Produced by Chevrolet for the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair.
Total running time: ca. 65 min.
Wed, May 8 at 9:00.
PART 2: 1958-64:
Lewis Jacobs FIBERS AND CIVILIZATIONS 1958, 27 min, 16mm-to-digital. Produced by Chemstrand Corp. for Expo 58/Brussels World’s Fair.
Charles & Ray Eames THE INFORMATION MACHINE 1957, 10 min, 35mm. Produced by IBM Corp. for Expo 58/Brussels World’s Fair. Preserved print courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Charles & Ray Eames IBM AT THE FAIR 1965, 7.5 min, 35mm-to-digital. Produced for the IBM Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
Saul Bass FROM HERE TO THERE! 1964, 9 min, 16mm. Produced by United Airlines for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Archival print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
FOOTAGE OF THE RCA “SEE YOURSELF ON COLOR TELEVISION” PAVILION AT THE 1964 WORLD’S FAIR 1964, ca. 4-min excerpt, video. Courtesy of Bill Seery.
Saul & Elaine Bass THE SEARCHING EYE 1964, 22 min, 16mm. Produced by Eastman Kodak Co. for the 1964 World’s Fair. Archival print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
Total running time: ca. 85 min.
Thurs, May 9 at 6:45.
VISITING THE FAIR
For grandeur and pageantry, no modern phenomenon could touch the pervasive allure of a World’s Fair Exposition. Emerging in tandem with the increasing reach of mass media, Expositions at home and abroad offered entertainment and insight yet unseen on such a massive scale. Visitors traveled to growing citadels like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, but arrived at a stateless utopia – no place, and every place, at once. In the grand human theater of the World’s Fair, celebrities and working stiffs stood shoulder-to-shoulder under the beaming smile of progress! Early film stars Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand, a gleefully bland American nuclear family, and visiting foreign dignitaries are just a few of the characters one encounters on a leisurely stroll through the fairground.
Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle & Mabel Normand MABEL AND FATTY VIEWING THE WORLD’S FAIR AT SAN FRANCISCO 1915, 19 min, 35mm, silent. Archival print courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Robert R. Snody
THE MIDDLETON FAMILY AT THE NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR
1939, 55 min, 35mm-to-digital. Produced by Westinghouse for the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Alexander Hammid & Wheaton Galentine TO THE FAIR! 1964, 27 min, 35mm-to-digital. Courtesy of the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library.
Total running time: ca. 105 min.
Thurs, May 9 at 9:00 and Sat, May 18 at 4:15.
Vincente Minnelli
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS
1944, 113 min, 35mm
This Vincente Minnelli classic is a musical love-letter to a changing America, as personified by one year in the life of a spirited St. Louis family. Events magnificent and mundane befall the Smith daughters as they flit and flutter like moths, drawn to the luminous 1904 World’s Fair.
Fri, May 10 at 6:45 and Wed, May 15 at 9:00.
Norman Taurog
IT HAPPENED AT THE WORLD’S FAIR
1963, 105 min, 35mm
Combining the grandeur of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair with the star-wattage of the King himself, Elvis Presley, Norman Taurog’s romantic romp through the mod pleasuredome is a celebration of youthful glee and Space Age optimism.
Preceded by:
CENTURY 21 CALLING 1962, 14 min, 16mm
Fri, May 10 at 9:15 and Thurs, May 16 at 6:30.
EXPANSIVE EXHIBITION: MULTI-SCREEN CINEMA AT THE WORLD’S FAIR
As television emerged as an entertainment staple in middle-class households, cinema started looking a little long in the tooth. But at World’s Fairs in Seattle, New York, and Montreal, inventive filmmakers and technicians were exhibiting site-specific work that demanded a larger arena than the average living room could afford. Luminaries Charles and Ray Eames, already known the world over for their exemplary work in industrial design and the applied arts, debuted their revolutionary short film THINK at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, while documentary duo Francis Thompson and Alexander Hammid reunited for the six-screen opus WE ARE YOUNG! at the 1967 Montreal Expo. Building on a rich aesthetic that began, arguably, with the tricolor finale of Abel Gance’s 1927 silent epic NAPOLEON, these multi-screen works from the heyday of midcentury modernism pushed filmmaking to the limit of two-dimensional exhibition and inspired subsequent artists for decades to come.
On Saturday, May 11, both programs will be introduced by Guillaume Lafleur, Director of programming at the Cinémathèque québécoise, and Anthony Kinik (Brock University), who contributed the essay “Celluloid City: Montreal and Multi-screen at Expo 67” to the anthology “Reimagining Cinema: Film at Expo 67,” and as part of the research team for the project, Cinema Expo 67 (http://cinemaexpo67.ca), rediscovered and initiated the digital restoration of WE ARE YOUNG!
PROGRAM 1:
Charles & Ray Eames HOUSE OF SCIENCE 1964, 14 min, 6-screen 35mm-to-digital
Charles & Ray Eames THINK 1964, 15 min, 15-screen 35mm-to-digital. Reconstructed by the Library of Congress.
Francis Thompson & Alexander Hammid TO BE ALIVE! 1964, 18 min, 35mm-to-digital. Film courtesy of SC Johnson.
Francis Thompson & Alexander Hammid WE ARE YOUNG! 1967, 20 min, six-screen 35mm-to-DCP. Courtesy of Library & Archives Canada.
Vincent Vaitiekunas MOTION / LE MOUVEMENT 1967, 14 min, 70mm-to-digital. Courtesy of the Cinémathèque québécoise.
Total running time: ca. 85 min.
Sat, May 11 at 4:30 and Thurs, May 16 at 9:15.
PROGRAM 2:
Roman Kroitor, Colin Low & Hugh O’Connor IN THE LABYRINTH 1967, 21 min, 5-screen 35mm-to-digital
Christopher Chapman A PLACE TO STAND 1967, 17 min, 70mm-to-35mm. Courtesy of the Linwood Dunn Collection at the Academy Film Archive.
George Dunning CANADA IS MY PIANO 1967, 4.5 min, 3-screen 35mm-to-digital. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada.
Michel Brault SETTLEMENT AND CONFLICT / CONFLIT 1967, 5 min, 2-screen 35mm-to-digital. Courtesy of the Cinémathèque Québecois.
Georges Dufaux & Claude Godbout MULTIPLE MAN 1969, 15 min, 70mm-to-digital
Total running time: ca. 70 min.
Sat, May 11 at 6:30 and Sun, May 19 at 3:45.
EXPO 67 MONTREAL
Expo 67 was the most moving-image-saturated Exposition of them all. While the films and installations that attracted the most attention were those that experimented, often boldly, with the possibilities of multiple-screen cinema (and are therefore included in the two multi-screen programs elsewhere in this series), Expo 67’s moving-image works ran the gamut of styles and approaches. This program features some of the single-screen highlights, including William Brind’s city-symphony-like IMPRESSIONS OF EXPO 67, two films exploring the pavilions devoted to Canada’s indigenous culture (as well as the experiences of the Inuit artists and craftspeople who participated in the Fair), John & Faith Hubley’s experimental animation URBANISSIMO, and a section of Jud Yalkut’s film METAMEDIA that was shot at the Expo.
On Saturday, May 11, the program will be introduced by Guillaume Lafleur, Director of programming at the Cinémathèque québécoise, and Anthony Kinik (Brock University), who contributed the essay “Celluloid City: Montreal and Multi-screen at Expo 67” to the anthology “Reimagining Cinema: Film at Expo 67,” and was part of the research team for the project, Cinema Expo 67 (http://cinemaexpo67.ca).
William Brind IMPRESSIONS OF EXPO 67 1967, 8 min, 35mm-to-digital
Eva Kolcze & Phil Hoffman BY THE TIME WE GOT TO EXPO 2015, 9 min, digital
Marc Beaudet THE CANADIAN PAVILION, EXPO 67 1967, 19 min, 35mm-to-digital
David Millar AKI’NAME (ON THE WALL) 1968, 22 min, 35mm-to-digital
Michel Régnier INDIAN MEMENTO 1967, 18 min, 35mm-to-digital
Hubs Hagen EXPOSITION 1967, 10 min, 16mm. Archival print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
John & Faith Hubley URBANISSIMO 1967, 6 min, 16mm
Jud Yalkut EXPO ‘67 1967, 2 min, 16mm-to-digital, silent
Total running time: ca. 100 min.
Sat, May 11 at 9:00 and Sun, May 19 at 6:00.
SCIENCE + RELIGION
After two bloody world wars and decades of rapid technological advancement, old-fashioned American religion reemerged on the Exposition scene as a brief respite from the anxiety-inducing cacophony of modern life. Travelers to the 1964 New York World’s Fair could choose Christian Science or Mormonism as easily as they could a new car or toaster. While faith-based filmmakers battled for the souls of an increasingly-jaded public, the promise of scientific innovation raced to fill the gap, offering concrete solutions to the ever-present specters of disease and death. Engaging with promotional films and pavilions from religious and scientific research organizations gave visitors an opportunity to exercise their freedom of choice, and create a personal patchwork of answers to life’s most beguiling questions.
Introduced by Steven Palmer, History Professor at the University of Windsor, who rediscovered Robert Cordier’s MIRACLES IN MODERN MEDICINE, and has co-directed a documentary about Cordier (GHOST ARTIST).
Edgar G. Ulmer LET MY PEOPLE LIVE 1939, 13 min, 16mm. Produced by the National Tuberculosis Association and Tuskegee Institute for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. From the collection of George Eastman Museum.
BRUSSELS 58 – HUMANISM / BRUXELLES 58 – HUMANISME 1957, 14 min, 35mm-to-digital. Produced by Prociné for Expo 58 Brussels. Screened courtesy of the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique/Koninklijk Belgisch Filmarchief.
Charles & Ray Eames HOUSE OF SCIENCE 1964, 14 min, 6-screen 35mm-to-digital. Commissioned by the U.S. Department of State for the United States Science Exhibit at the Century 21 World’s Fair in Seattle.
Rolf Forsberg & Tom Rook PARABLE 1964, 20 min, 16mm. Produced by the Lutheran Council for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Print courtesy of A/V Geeks.
Charles Gagnon THE EIGHTH DAY 1967, 14 min, 16mm. Produced by Charles Gagnon for the Christian Pavilion at Expo 67, Montreal.
Robert Cordier MIRACLES IN MODERN MEDICINE 1967, 19 min, 35mm-to-DCP. Produced by Vision Now for the Canadian Corporation for the World Exhibition’s Man and His Health Pavilion at Expo 67, Montreal. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada.
Total running time: ca. 100 min.
Sun, May 12 at 4:30 and Sun, May 19 at 8:30.
TO THE FAIR: HAMMID & THOMPSON
Czech documentarian Alexander Hammid – best known for his work on Maya Deren’s seminal 1942 film MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON – began the third act of his filmmaking career in 1962, when he partnered with filmmaker and painter Francis Thompson to execute a commission for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The resulting films – TO THE FAIR! and TO BE ALIVE! – were instant successes, and the pair would continue to collaborate for more than a decade. Returning to similarly optimistic territory with their 1967 Montreal Expo film WE ARE YOUNG!, Hammid and Thompson secured their reputation as the go-to guys for sentiment and spectacle. Their legacy as filmmakers and boosters of human civilization lives on in some truly unlikely places, including the IMAX exhibition format – pioneered by the pair for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s grand opening in 1976.
Francis Thompson & Alexander Hammid TO BE ALIVE! 1964, 18 min, 35mm-to-digital. Film courtesy of SC Johnson.
Alexander Hammid & Wheaton Galentine TO THE FAIR! 1964, 27 min, 35mm-to-digital. Courtesy of the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library.
Francis Thompson & Alexander Hammid WE ARE YOUNG! 1967, 20 min, six-screen 35mm-to-DCP. Courtesy of Library & Archives Canada.
Total running time: ca. 70 min.
Sun, May 12 at 7:00.
Noriaki Yuasa
GAMERA VS. JIGER (aka GAMERA VS. MONSTER X, aka MONSTERS INVADE EXPO ’70)
1970, 83 min, 35mm-to-digital
“GAMERA VS. MONSTER X is a rather curious affair because it was pegged to Expo 70, the World’s Fair being held in Osaka. Clearly this was a major event for Japan, and in that pre-al-Qaeda era the only genuine major threat to a major international gathering was the untimely appearance of a grumpy monster. In this case, the grumpy monster came from a Pacific Island where a large Easter Island-worthy statue was dug up for shipment to Japan for Expo 70 display. The island’s chief protested this plundering and even Gamera tried to dissuade the Expo 70 bunch from taking the statue. Gamera, for those who forgot, is a giant fire-breathing turtle who flies thanks to jet propulsions in his shell.” –Phil Hall, FILM THREAT
Sun, May 12 at 9:00.
EXPO 58 BRUSSELS, PROGRAMS 1 & 2:
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL
A veritable rogue’s gallery of experimental film titans – Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage, Shirley Clarke, and Kenneth Anger, among many, many others – exhibited work at the 1958 Brussels Expo. Presented by the Knokke Experimental Film Festival, which had debuted in 1947, the Expo’s International Experimental Film Festival further solidified the connection between cinema as both a creative and scientific practice. The Expo 58 program brought heretofore underground and under-seen works to a curious audience of international attendees, effectively nudging experimental cinema into the mainstream and broadening the defining parameters of a still-young medium. With a comprehensive line-up boasting more than 130 films from over 29 countries, Expo 58 connected seemingly disparate artists and viewers under the ameliorating umbrella of the Seventh Art. For these two programs, we’ve selected the prize winners plus an assortment of the more rarely-screened and forgotten films from the festival.
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL, PROGRAM 1:
AWARD WINNERS:
Walerian Borowczyk HOUSE / DOM 1958, 12 min, 35mm. First Prize/Grand Prix.
Len Lye FREE RADICALS 1958/79, 4 min, 16mm. Second Prize.
Roman Polanski TWO MEN AND A WARDROBE / DWAJ LUDZIE Z SZAFA 1958, 15 min, 16mm. Bronze Medal.
Hilary Harris HIGHWAY 1958, 5 min, 16mm. Bronze Medal.
Francis Thompson NY, NY 1957, 15 min, 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives; special thanks to Cineric, Inc. and Trackwise. Bronze Medal.
Hy Hirsh GYROMORPHOSIS 1956, 7 min, 16mm. Bronze Medal.
Agnès Varda L’OPÉRA MOUFFE 1958, 16 min, 35mm-to-DCP. Bronze Medal.
Total running time: ca. 80 min.
Mon, May 13 at 6:45.
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL, PROGRAM 2:
Hans Nordenström & Pontus Hulten A DAY IN THE CITY / EN DAG I STADEN 1956, 19 min, 16mm
Alain Tanner & Claude Goretta NICE TIME 1957, 17 min, 16mm. Archival print courtesy of the British Film Institute.
John Hubley THE ADVENTURES OF * 1957, 10 min, 16mm
Madeline Tourtelot WINDSONG 1958, 18 min, 16mm-to-digital. Score by Harry Partch!
Ernest Pintoff & Gene Deitch FLEBUS 1957, 6 min, 16mm
John Whitney, Fred Crippen & Ernest Pintoff THE PERFORMING PAINTER 1955, 4 min, 16mm
Shirley Clarke MOMENT IN LOVE 1956, 11 min, 16mm
Total running time: ca. 90 min.
Mon, May 13 at 9:00.
EXPO 58 BRUSSELS, PROGRAM 3:
Shirley Clarke & D.A. Pennebaker
BRUSSELS LOOPS
1957, 59 min, 16mm
Commissioned for the 1957 American Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair, BRUSSELS LOOPS comprises a series of 3-minute vignettes designed to paint a panoramic portrait of the U.S. Three of the films (MELTING POT, BRIDGES, and OCCUPATIONS) were created solely by Shirley Clarke, while the majority of them were shot by D.A. Pennebaker and edited by Clarke, who professed to have cut them with an eye to creating “little, jazzy, dance-like films,” especially after she was informed by the State Department that jazz itself was forbidden as a subject.
With:
Edgard Varèse, Le Corbusier, and Iannis Xenakis LE POÈME ÉLECTRONIQUE 1958, 8.5 min, 35mm-to-DCP. Digital reconstruction courtesy of the Eye Filmmuseum.
A multimedia performance combining filmed imagery, color projections, and sound recordings, LE POÈME ÉLECTRONIQUE took place during Expo 58 in the Philips Pavilion. Le Corbusier designed the pavilion itself, while the installation was devised by Le Corbusier in collaboration with architect and composer Iannis Xenakis, and featured an extraordinary composition by Edgard Varèse, which continues to stand as a seminal work of electronic music in its own right. Though the pavilion was destroyed following the Expo, the Eye Filmmuseum preserved the film material, and created this digital reconstruction of the installation in 2017, in collaboration with architect Jan de Heer and composer Kees Tazelaar.
Tues, May 14 at 7:00 and Sat, May 18 at 9:15.
EXPO 58 BRUSSELS, PROGRAM 4:
André Verhaeghe
WORLD FAIR MEMORIES AND FANTASIES / SI L’EXPO NOUS REVENAIT. UN FILM DE SOUVENIRS ET FANTASIES
1959, 73 min, 16mm-to-digital. In French with English subtitles.
This long amateur film, shot in “exposcope,” is a report on a two-day visit to Expo 58. Not much is known about André Verhaeghe. He was vice-president and technical advisor of the amateur film club, AMICI. He lived in Antwerp, where he worked in the import business, bringing canned goods and California dried fruit to Europe. This film reveals him to be a talented and ambitious filmmaker. He liked technical challenges, and here he puts particular energy and ingenuity into the striking credit sequence, a sophisticated soundtrack combining music, direct sound, and voice-over, and sequences such as an optically enabled ‘x-ray’ of the Atomium.
Preceded by:
Paul Flon PANORAMA – IMAGES FROM BELGIUM 1959, 4-min excerpt, 16mm-to-digital
Gaston Schoukens I’VE SEEN THE ATOMIUM BEING BUILT 1958, 11-min excerpt, 16mm-to-digital
Total running time: ca. 95 min.
This program is presented in collaboration with Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique/Koninklijk Belgisch Filmarchief.
Tues, May 14 at 9:00.
Eric Breitbart
A WORLD ON DISPLAY
1994, 52 min, video
&
Marlon Fuentes
BONTOC EULOGY
1995, 56 min, 16mm-to-digital
The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis World’s Fair) was, up to that point, the largest in history in terms of the area it encompassed, with dozens upon dozens of grand (if temporary) structures erected across 1,270 acres. Among the many “attractions” arrayed across the sprawling fairgrounds – and certainly the most notorious to this day – were exhibits devoted to “native peoples” from around the world, with men, women, and children transported vast distances to demonstrate their cultures (or a simulated version thereof) to the Fair’s visitors.
While incorporating much of the same preserved footage of the 1904 Fair, these two films explore this dimension of the Fair from radically different perspectives. For A WORLD ON DISPLAY, Eric Breitbart tracked down several surviving witnesses – men and women, now in their nineties or older, who visited the Fair as children and share their memories of the “native peoples” displays. BONTOC EULOGY, on the other hand, addresses the phenomenon from a Philippine perspective, with director Marlon Fuentes conjuring up a mix of history and storytelling to cast his approach in personal terms.
Wed, May 15 at 6:30.
1939: NEW YORK NEW DEAL DOCUMENTARIES
The 1939 World’s Fair was the first Exposition held in New York and, like its host city, it straddled an ever-wavering line between naked commercialism and progressive-minded optimism. With a pavilion constructed under the authority of master builder Robert Moses, bolstered by considerable funding from the waning Works Progress Administration, the political climate of 1939 positioned the New York World’s Fair – and, by extension, the United States – at an ominous crossroads. On one side, the simmering specter of fascism, growing to a rolling boil. And on the other, the ebbing tide of progressivism, where proponents of a generous social safety net struggled to maintain a toehold in the wake of the declining New Deal. This program showcases three films – all shown at the 1939 Fair – that reflect some of these socio-political cross-currents: Jacques Tourneur’s short film surveys the history of American democracy and the dangers of fascism; THE CITY sings the praises of city planning as a solution to the ills of American cities; and SCHOOL portrays a typical day at the progressive Hessian Hills School in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.
Jacques Tourneur YANKEE DOODLE GOES TO TOWN 1939, 11 min, 35mm-to-DCP. Courtesy of the Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg.
Ralph Steiner & Willard Van Dyke
THE CITY
1939, 44 min, 35mm
Lee Dick SCHOOL: A FILM ABOUT PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION 1939, 24 min, 16mm-to-digital
Total running time: ca. 85 min.
Fri, May 17 at 7:15.
FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE ACADEMY FILM ARCHIVE:
AMATEURS IN THE EXPOSCAPE
Weaving together World’s Fair footage from the 1930s to the 1970s, this show will explore the futuristic landscape, architecture, and design of the Expo site through the lens of home movies, newsreels, and excerpts from short films created for the fair. Focusing on the mystifying experience of this aspirational world, the program will showcase home movies filmed by everyday fairgoers and renowned film figures – all curated from the collection of the Academy Film Archive.
Guest-curated by Daniel Brantley (Academy Film Archive).
Sat, May 18 at 6:45.
