Date: Thursday, July 24th, 2014 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com
Featuring:
Tanka (1976)
“An Extraordinary
Film”-Melinda Wortz, Art News
Tanka means, literally, a thing rolled up. David LeBrun’s
Tanka is brilliantly powered by the insight that Tibetan religious paintings
are intended to be perceived in constant movement rather than repose. The film,
photographed from Tibetan scroll paintings of the sixteenth to nineteenth
centuries, is a cyclical vision of ancient gods and demons, wild revels, raging
fires and sea battles with monsters-an animated journey through the image world
of the “Tibetan Book of the Dead”. With
an original score by Ashish Khan
(sarod), Buddy Arnold (saxophone, clarinet, flute), Pranesh Khan (tablas) and
Francisco Lupica (percussion).
Arabesque (Color, 1975)
John Whitney’s shimmering lines and waves of oscillating color
dance to the music of Eastern rhythms in Whitney’s undisputed masterpiece.
Flowing lines evolve from randomness to patterns inspired by 8th century
Persian designs. Music by Persian classical composer Maroocheher Sadeghi.
Binary Bit Patterns (Color,
1969) The spectacular, fast-paced film features quilt-like tapestries of polyhedral and crystalline figures pulsating and multiplying with a kind of universal logic eliciting a hypnotic, trancelike effect from the viewer. This film echoes a preoccupation with the mandala image and the interest in Eastern meditative philosophy that is seen in the work of the whole Whitney family. Employing computer generated imagery with optically introduced color and flicker effects, Michael Whitney creates a hypnotic, psych-folk audiovisual experience that suggests a secret symbiosis between the digital and the organic as various Persian inflected graphic permutations appear, dissolve and undergo metamorphoses on the screen. With original soundscore.
Lapis (Color, 1965)
This film, by film pioneer James Whitney consists entirely
of dot patterns. Like a single mandala moving within itself, the particles
surge around each other in constant metamorphosis, a serene ecstasy of what
Jung calls "individuation." For 10 minutes, a succession of beautiful
designs grows incredibly, ever more intricate and astounding; sometimes the
black background itself becomes the pattern, when paths are shunned by the
moving dots. A voluptuous raga soundtrack by Ravi Shankar perfectly matches the
film's flow, and helped to make LAPIS one of the most accessible
"experimental films" ever made.
The images were all created with handmade cels, and the
rotation of more than one of these cels creates some of the movements. John
Whitney Sr. had built a pioneer computerized animation set-up—the prototype for
the motion-control systems that later made possible such special effects as the
"Star Gate" sequence of 2001. James used that set-up to shoot some of
his handmade artwork, since it could ensure accuracy of placement and
incremental movement.
A Chairy Tale (B+W, 1957) w/ Claude Jutra
National Film Board of Canada founder and stop motion genius
Norman McLaren’s modern fairy tale, told without words. A chair (animated by Evelyn
Lambart) that declines to be sat upon and a young man perform a surrealpas de deux.
The musical accompaniment is by sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar and Chatur Lal. A
dizzying display of dance!
The Rolling Rice Ball (Color, 1965, Gakken Films)
Singing and dancing mice! Itty-bitty treasures! Mochi
pounding! What more could you want from a stop-motion folktale? When a gentle
woodcutter shares his humble lunch with a mouse colony, their magical world
opens to him. Boy, do those mice know how to party! Will the good times be
undone by a greedy hunter? A classic from Japan.
The Magic Horse (B+W, 1953)
Lotte Reiniger’s condensed version of her internationally
successful cut-out animated film The
Adventures of Prince Achmed tells the magical story of a magician who comes
to the court of the Caliph of Baghad to demonstrate his invention-a magical
flying horse.
Tara the Stonecutter (1955, color)
British filmmaker John David Wilson masterfully renders this
circular Japanese folktale about desire and power through a visual combination
of Asian inspired drawing techniques and abstract watercolor painting. This is the story of a poor stonecutter who
wishes again and again to be more rich and powerful than he is and is granted
each desire only to reveal a deeper lesson about greed and the power of
perception.
Spacy (Color, 1980-81)
"Film is capable of
presenting a unrealistic world as a vivid reality and creating a strange space
peculiar to the media. My major intention is to change the ordinary every day
life scenes and draw the audience (myself) into a vortex of supernatural
illusion by exercising the magic of films." (Takashi Ito, in Image
Forum, Oct.1984)
Takashi Ito is one of the leading experimental filmmakers in
Japan. He graduated from Art and Technology Department of Kyushu Institute of
Design in 1983. Spacey consists of 700 continuous still photographs which are
re-photographed frame by frame according to a strict rule where movements go
from rectilinear motion to circular and parabola motion, then from horizontal
to vertical.
SPACY has vast spaciousness and dramatic sensation of
movement and a mesmerizing electronic soundtrack completes this trance-inducing
meditation on time and space.
Perspectrum (Color, 1974)
A film without words produced for the National Film Board of
Canada. This animated short consists of
simple geometric forms, as thin and flat as playing cards, but so arranged that
a sense of perspective is conveyed. The effect is kaleidoscopic, but much more
active, forming and re-forming constantly to the music. The koto, a
thirteen-stringed Japanese instrument, is played by plucking the strings; the
sound has a tinkling effect, synched to the glasslike shapes of the moving
designs. Directed by famed Indian animator Ishu Patel with music by Michio
Miyagi.
The Ant and the Grasshopper (Color, 1967)
Leave it to the Japanese in the 60s to create the cutest
colony of ants you’ve ever seen. In this adaptation of the Aesop’s Fable,
a family of busy ants work hard all summer long, gathering delicious pies
and cakes, while a dapper, but lazy grasshopper enjoys himself, sleeping
in the sun, dancing with his friends. But when winter comes and the ants’
pantry is fully stocked and their log is warm and inviting, who’s dancing now?
For more information about John, James and Michael Whitney’s
work:
Another link to James Whitney’s influences and life:
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/WM_JWsight.pdf