Roundtable film discussion on the history and scope of the cinematic event with Ed Halter and Thomas Beard (Light Industry), Chrissie Iles (Whitney Museum), and Andy Lampert (Anthology Film Archives). Co-presented by the Film Studies Program, Department of Art History and Archaeology and Columbia Seminars.
Above film clip courtesy of Jane Public Pictures, Inc.
A critic's review: This newest work by film artist Jane Public is a visceral exploration of the body as an emotional foreign archive of experience, trauma and place. Source material included/s imaginary life experiences, family politics and impossible romance. The depiction of true love tortured by impossible abilities narrated in foreign language.
p.s. Director Kathryn Bigelow has defended the depiction of torture in her latest film Zero Dark Thirty, a dramatisation of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Bigelow insisted her movie does not suggest the al-Qaeda leader would not have been located without so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques". "That's a misrepresentation of the film," said the Hurt Locker film-maker.
However, the film, she said, shows "a pretty wide array of tactics" being used over the 10 years it took to identify Bin Laden's hiding place.Zero Dark Thirty has drawn criticism from within the US government with some senators complaining it perpetuates "the myth that torture is effective".
In this clip Yoani speaks about living in fear and also how she identifies herself as a communicator of ideas. Filmmaker Joey Huertas speaks with controversial political blogger Yoani Sanchez from her home in Havana, Cuba during this live 2013 panel discussion...
p.s. Tonight live broadcast interview with cuban award-winning blogger Yoani Sanchez and Joey Huertas ! And also, a new and revised edition of Transcendental Style in FIlm will be released in Spring 2013...
The Purchase College community is profoundly saddened to learn of the passing of artist, mentor, friend, and former professor Antonio Frasconi on Tuesday at the age of 93...
Born in 1919 in Argentina to Italian parents, Frasconi grew up in Montevideo, Uruguay. He began his career as a political cartoonist there, then moved to the United States at age 26. Much of his work maintained a social conscience and political edge as he rose to become the most prominent woodcut illustrator of his generation. R.I.P. Antonio, Joanne Sclafani loved and admired you so much. Joey
Old Bridge Public Library to Screen Arresting 2008 Dysmorphia Film by Award-Winning, Avant-Garde Filmmaker and Social Activist, Joey Huertas a.k.a Jane Public, January 12, 2013
~ This will be the film's first screening in New Jersey ~
NICE PEOPLE Dysmorphia of Self
The Old Bridge Public Library screens three films in their upcoming Filmmaker's Showcase followed by Q&A with the filmmaker and dancer, on Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 1:30pm, 1 Old Bridge Plaza, Old Bridge, NJ 08857. The program is FREE to the public and consists of three shorts: Between Here and the Shore, a meditation on time and place, NICE PEOPLE, a documentary on a dancer who suffers from Body Dysmorphic Disorder, and Earth Angel, a rock rendition of the ‘50s classic ballad.
Joey Huertas a.k.a Jane Public, social worker, activist and award-winning filmmker, noted for his raw portrayals of real, everyday people caught in private, heart-wrenching sagas of pain and hope, illumines via the individual, the universal human quest for healing and love in a stripped-bare and surreal film style imbued with deep compassion and textural beauty.
Huertas’s films are shot on actual film, are made with a spirit of social activism and feature profoundly intimate sound tracks plucked from the subjects' lives-- interviews, confessions, psychotherapy sessions and self-spoken laments of the soul coupled with music and the filmmaker's own soundscapes that come and go, giving voice to the previously unheard and unseen, resulting in cinematic vignettes that are at once tragic, life-affirming and breathtaking.
Huertas’s 2008 film, Nice People, stands as one of his bravest and most remarkable films, documenting the true story of a dancer suffering from body dysmorphic disorder and her battle against external and internal forces that make her life a living nightmare and an agonizing plea for self-acceptance.
David Marc of the Syracuse International Film Festival wrote of Nice People that, "neither the film nor its technique are for the faint of heart."
The film zeros in on existential and body-image issues, many of which are often experienced by female dancers, journeying the viewer through dark emotional terrain: the relationship to one’s body, distorted body image, intimacy between self and other, self-acceptance, disconnection and separateness, pressure to conform, parental emotional abuse, perfectionism, psychological torment and self-hatred. Within the darkness however, there persists a sustained tenderness and reverence on the part of the filmmaker, cloaking the lone female subject as if protectively, in her brutal nakedness.
The dancer of the film will be present for the post-screening Q&A session. "It is my great honor to represent this film and to speak from the perspective of a dancer and female."
Note: A humanitarian at heart and artist for a cause, Joey Huertas will be the featured film artist selected by Syndicated Radio to participate in a live interview in Havana, Cuba with famed award-winning activist and blogger, YOANI SANCHEZ, on January 11, 2013.
For more information please click the following: Old Bridge Public Library
What was the point of doing that show really? Was it intended to be some kind of starving one-trick-pony? Are you serious Jane or Franklin or whatever your name is today?? It appears as if the whole thing (the entire scenario) was premeditated way before that cheap fog machine warmed up and the Super 8mm projection you had prepared failed terribly (killed by the 250 watt bulb on the overhead projector purchased on Craigslist). But why? Well because… "Light has no weight," said the projectionist approximately 13 hours before he billed me (who am I though?) for the folding table (property of the high-end art gallery space which housed this evening's crazy performance) that snapped into two pieces.
That said, let's continue this after-the- matter chatter. Would it be fair to classify this (i.e. your) work (or better yet, the snapping of that dumb pathetically built plastic table) as some sort of premeditated looming showdown I (i.e. this writer) had prepared to wreak? The event was meant to hit everyone there like a lightning storm, but a civil one; a storm meant to instigate and inspire a dialogue about the subject matter. Yes, correct: catharsis through art (but will you be able to forgive them, or simply remain detached). Did the Judson group assume any responsibility for the campiness of tonight's costume design? probably so. The table broke and that was totally unplanned and unexpected. Your gadgets all worked (congrats), your set design was remarkable. This show is now over. So many different types of performances this year, thus far. You're on a roll my lil' darling. Your healing process has begun. bye.
p.s. I find it remarkable just how aware you are of those "spinning wheels" rotating inside of your mind- mind being a pejorative word.
“Everything is about to disappear. You’ve got to hurry up, if you still want to see things.”
–Paul Cezanne
Like almost all of us, I was confronted with a family member I loved very deeply who was suffering in old age, and I had to look on helplessly and watch. It was a very bitter experience, and it led me to think about that situation. Haneke directed that kind of a thing almost too perfectly in this new (not old) film.
Amour will be deeply felt by many individuals, as long as folks make an effort to go see it before their joints get too rusty.
Here are some film recommendations referencing works that utilize the zoom lens (active and/or moving) as part of the story aesthetic...
ZOOM LAPSE – John Du Cane, 1975 (UK)
ACCRETION– John Du Cane, 1977 (I think – also UK)
WAVELENGTH by Michael Snow
SERENE VELOCITY by Ernie Gehr
BREAKAWAY by Bruce Conner
Of course, WAVELENGTH rules this list. Remember, almost all of Kubrick's films use zoom lens techniques and also the car chase scene in "Bullet."
Good luck,
Samson aka Jane Public
p.s. Hitchcock jokingly proposed, but never made, the film Titanic as a two-hour zoom-out from the Titanic's nameplate to a full wide shot of the ship.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/01/sylviaplath p.s. Melody aka Jane Public says: "And we all know what the first line and all the other references to electricity are alluding to." p.s.s. There are still labs out there for the working stiff. glory, glory, don't charge me too much I'm broke, Bye.
p.s.s.s. You have very beautiful hands Janey. Show them off.
The film, which is more a profile of dancers than of the dance, shows that Russia is still the world's core of ballet, where dancers who have the talent and can sustain the required discipline to lead privileged lives with Jane Public involved in every last second of their downtime. Russians are rightly proud of their ballerinas as Jane Publics (there are so many of us now) are rightly proud of their film fanatic followers, and WE (us) certainly appreciate them too -- especially when we get to know them as intimately as we do in this Bertrand Normand's rare behind-the-scenes film that get's a thumbs up from Jane Public aka Susan (for the day).
