At first I didn’t pay attention to the fact that she wasn’t blinking. It was almost just like a still photo. When I saw the tears dripping from her face I wanted to reach out and wipe them off! It is natural reaction to want to wipe away the tears and I’m sure she had a difficult time resisting the temptation to blink or rub her eyes. It was uncomfortable because I know I would never volunteer to attempt that. This film is similar to the fluxus films because it is very minimal. Not much is occurring and you have to pay close attention to very specific details in order to see the moment unfold onscreen.
J. Hoberman, Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Underground
1. Some venues associated with the early underground film movement in NYC include Fashion Industries Auditorium, the Thalia, the New Yorker, and the Bleecker Street Cinema. The Charles Theater was a seven hundred seat movie house on Avenue B. It showed an eclectic variety of different movies such as Astaire Rogers musicals as well as Italian Neorealist ones. Work of directors such as Edgar Ulmer, the Marx Brothers, and Orson Wells appeared.
2. Baudelairean Cinema included Jack Smith, Ken Jacobs, and Ron Rice. They were dramatic and risqué pictures that received mixed reviews from audiences. They were characterized by themes of beauty and evil. The name comes from Ken Jacob’s 1963 film called Baud’larian Capers.
3. Why did underground films run into legal trouble in New York City in 1964? What film encountered legal problems in Los Angeles almost on the same day as Mekas’s second arrest in New York City?
J. Hoberman, Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Underground
1. Some venues associated with the early underground film movement in NYC include Fashion Industries Auditorium, the Thalia, the New Yorker, and the Bleecker Street Cinema. The Charles Theater was a seven hundred seat movie house on Avenue B. It showed an eclectic variety of different movies such as Astaire Rogers musicals as well as Italian Neorealist ones. Work of directors such as Edgar Ulmer, the Marx Brothers, and Orson Wells appeared.
2. Baudelairean Cinema included Jack Smith, Ken Jacobs, and Ron Rice. They were dramatic and risqué pictures that received mixed reviews from audiences. They were characterized by themes of beauty and evil. The name comes from Ken Jacob’s 1963 film called Baud’larian Capers.
3. Why did underground films run into legal trouble in New York City in 1964? What film encountered legal problems in Los Angeles almost on the same day as Mekas’s second arrest in New York City?
The Gramercy Arts and the Pocket theater were shut down by the police due to the obscene content. The film Scorpio Rising was being shown on the same day of Meka’s second arrest. The reason that there were charges against Scorpio Rising was due to a Halloween party sequence that contained a brief moment of “male frontal nudity.”
4. Tavel wrote scripts for Warhol. It seems that the subjects only loosely followed these scripts during the very long takes. Vinyl was one of these long takes of just a group of actors sitting in a room and saying their lines, probably not word for word I assume. It is unique because it is in a space that seems so boring, yet there is actually a lot of movement going on within the space. One minute someone is sitting, and the next minute they are walking off screen. Edie grabs the attention of the audience because she is the only girl. She sits and looks pretty as she smokes her cigarette and sips her drink or dances and does other normal things. I was wondering how she was so quiet and nonchalant while all the craziness was happening. It was interesting.
5. Underground films started getting more attention through articles in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post to Playboy and the Museum of Modern Art. In addition to this more venues such as Film-Makers’ Cinematheque, two East Village venues, the Bridge, and the Gate were regularly screening underground films. The New York Times writer and critic Bosley Crowther pointed fingers at Warhol and his friends saying that they were “pushing a reckless thing too far.” He was not excited that they were growing in popularity because he didn’t think adults should encourage them to fame.
6. Mike Getz of the Cinema Theater in LA was important because he packaged underground films and distributed them to a group of movie venues that his uncle owned. These shows proved to be very successful and many of the shows were sold out. They introduced underground films to many Americans.
7. How do Hoberman and Rosenbaum characterize Warhol’s post-1967 films?
4. Tavel wrote scripts for Warhol. It seems that the subjects only loosely followed these scripts during the very long takes. Vinyl was one of these long takes of just a group of actors sitting in a room and saying their lines, probably not word for word I assume. It is unique because it is in a space that seems so boring, yet there is actually a lot of movement going on within the space. One minute someone is sitting, and the next minute they are walking off screen. Edie grabs the attention of the audience because she is the only girl. She sits and looks pretty as she smokes her cigarette and sips her drink or dances and does other normal things. I was wondering how she was so quiet and nonchalant while all the craziness was happening. It was interesting.
5. Underground films started getting more attention through articles in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post to Playboy and the Museum of Modern Art. In addition to this more venues such as Film-Makers’ Cinematheque, two East Village venues, the Bridge, and the Gate were regularly screening underground films. The New York Times writer and critic Bosley Crowther pointed fingers at Warhol and his friends saying that they were “pushing a reckless thing too far.” He was not excited that they were growing in popularity because he didn’t think adults should encourage them to fame.
6. Mike Getz of the Cinema Theater in LA was important because he packaged underground films and distributed them to a group of movie venues that his uncle owned. These shows proved to be very successful and many of the shows were sold out. They introduced underground films to many Americans.
7. How do Hoberman and Rosenbaum characterize Warhol’s post-1967 films?
Warhol’s films of 1967 and after were characterized as “nudity filled features” or “flesh films.”
Robert Pike, “Pros and Cons of Theatrical Bookings”
[in folder: notes_from_the_creative_film_society_pros_and_cons_of_theatrical_booking]
8. Advantages include: the filmmaker can be reimbursed by making money and that the filmmaker can be in the limelight. Disadvantages include: wear and tear on the prints, and a lack of respect by exhibiters or projectionists who may not handle the films with care.
9. Non-exclusive distribution can obtain loyal customers, allowing many distributers access to films. Exclusive distributers can acquire higher film rates for the benefits of the filmmakers and the films are exclusive to them.
10. They ran into problems with a chain of Rivoli Theaters because they noticed that titles rented from them by the uptown theater were ran in ads by the Rivoli theater. They were told that they were not really playing the advertised titles, but they were actually false advertising. Now they are investigating these theaters.
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