The Tranquility of Influence – part one : Mosaics in Transit

Curated by Mark McElhattenThis program explores some specific tributaries and detours of Film bricolage -“film mosaics”and the prodigal and migrant image. In keeping with the spirit of “Cinema Regained” this program is composed of films that are in varying degrees of intentional and direct dialogue with of other films. Simply put Bruce Conner’s “A Movie” is derived wholly from found materials many images which are seen in Castle Films Newreel presentations and other sources. The Castle Film Newsreel film shown in this program is itself a compendium or digest of previously released- cannibalized footage. An iconic image from” A Movie” reproduced in countless films appears is in evidence (as a specimen as Nitrate camera original snatched from the brink of oblivion.) in Standard Gauge. Standard Gauge is composed of strips and frames a corpus delecti , a reliquary of abandoned footage defunct television episodes, “China girls” glorious frames that resemble El Litsky and Rothko paintings illustrating the filmically inscribed runic codes of off screen technologies and procedures. Physical fragments and narrated references including Godard, Corman, Ulmer and Leonard Kastle illustrate a mortal and metaphorical biography of the history of film and the partial autobiography of Morgan Fisher himself. Thom Anderesen and Malcolm Brodwicks — ——– made in 1966/67 is experiencing a second coming -rediscovered this year as it forms the original call to the inspired response of ( ) Morgan Fishers recently completed film. — ——– is a highly charged and innovative collage film composed of beautifully recomposed partially found sound materials and strikingly original footage. It serves both as prescient document of Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip and the pop scene of the 1960’s (important in that respect as an auxiliary satellite to Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself made in 2003 screening at IFFR) and as a highly combustible formally innovative film built upon metric – iambic strategies. A sensational and pioneering example of what could be (but has never before been called)”Pop Structuralism.”( ) by Morgan Fisher is a found footage of Rousellian elegance and mystery built from a plethora of “insert shots” culled from junked films and composed with a principle of editing that is in homage to — ——.