Oddball Films and guest curator Landon Bates bring you Submerged Cinema, a screening teeming
with celluloid cephalopods and European seamen. Among other wet wonders,
we'll spy the likes of shimmering starfish and gnashing sharks, in films that
range from nature docs to sci-fi shockers. Peering through our 16mm
porthole, we'll begin our descent into the murky depths with that nephew of
Neptune, that red-capped Renaissance man of the sea: Jacques Cousteau. In
Sharks,
an episode from The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau (1970),
the captain and his Calypso crew provoke that ferocious fish--and all for the
sake of science. Biology is on the brain again, when an unsuspecting team
of researchers find themselves in the lair of The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954); in this excerpt from the Jack
Arnold classic, the eponymous monster stalks a scientist’s wife from below,
Jaws-like. Smaller and less hostile creatures abound in the microscopic
slides of photographer-biologist Roman Vishniac, in The Big Little World
of Roman Vishniac (1980's), whose wondrously amorphous images come to
resemble avant garde cinema; which will lead us to L'etoile de Mer (1928), Man Ray's somber surrealist
film, starring a starfish and shot through textured glass to produce a
delirious underwater look. Before concluding with one last Cousteau--Night
of the Squid (1970)--we'll get a dose of Diver Dan, a puppet-laden
live action children's show from the early 1960's. In "Secrets of
the Throne," our scuba man Dan finds himself in hot water, bubbling in the
prison cell of an evil king. So, pinch
your nose, hold onto your trunks, and start your summer off with a splash at
Oddball! 
Date:
Friday, June 7, 2013 at 8:00pm
Venue:
Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission:
$10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to programming@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Featuring:
Two Cousteau Classics from The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau
Among his almost innumerable accomplishments in the
realms of both marine biology and cinema (a couple of which feats include
developing the Aqua Lung, and collaborating with Louis Malle on the Oscar- and
Cannes-winning film, The Silent World), Jacques Cousteau’s specials revealed
the mysteries of the ocean to an international audience. While Cousteau’s
series often took the form of nature documentaries, episodes such as these
contain the suspense and thrills of the adventure film. The aesthetics and tone
achieved in the series have also been lovingly adopted and parodied in
subsequent television shows (e.g. “Fishing With John”) and films (e.g. Wes
Anderson’s Life Aquatic
with Steve Zissou).
Sharks
(Color, 1970)
Join Cousteau
and the crew of The Calypso as they take on that ancient and inscrutable sea
creature, the shark. Cousteau and his
men conduct experiments to study how sharks are attracted to an alien presence
in the water, how they make visual discriminations, how night affects their
behavior, and how man might protect himself from them. The
Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling lends his authoritative voice.
The Night
of the Squid (Color, 1970)
Cousteau and co.
investigate Sea Arrow Squids, who gather in large masses during their annual
mating frenzy and exhibit strange behavior after dark.
An excerpt from The Creature from the Black Lagoon
(B&W, 1954)
In this 1954 sci-fi horror
film directed by Jack Arnold--starring Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard
Denning, Antonio Moreno, and Whit Bissell—an amphibious-humanoid monster goes
after the scientists who study it. The
creature lurks in his lagoon, excited by human visitors (particularly the
ladies).
Diver
Dan: Secret of the Throne (B+W, 1963)
One in a series
of 104 short children’s TV programs; in tonight’s film our main man Dan and his
fish puppet companions find themselves in an undersea pickle once again. While Dan is trapped in a deep-sea prison
cell by an evil king, he is assisted by pal ‘Trigger’ and a sawfish (who easily
saws through the metal bars with his snout) to narrowly escape an underwater
earthquake. Don’t miss the action-packed
adventures of this scuba goofball and his puppet pals!
The Big
Little World of Roman Vishniac (Color, 1980’s)
Photographer,
biologist, and art historian, Roman Vishniac is most widely remembered for his
photographic documentation of pre-Holocaust Jewish culture in Central and
Eastern Europe. Vishniac also
contributed to the development of photo microscopy (photographs taken through
microscopic lens) and time-lapse photography.
In this film, showcasing various marine specimens, the gentle Vishniac
discusses his love of the natural world and the abundance of life found on the
seashore.