Bill Morrison at Silent Movie Theater
While one might think LA is a constantly-bumping party, culture and art zone, this isn’t always true. There are dry spells, unless you’re into the Sunset Strippin’, bar-hopping scene. This weekend, however, promises to be rather eventful. At 8 pm on Friday, The Machine Project [got my membership card in the mail last night!] has a lecture by Mark Allen on the topic of How Molecules Move Electrons – hardcore! And Saturday there is an art walk in Chinatown and, and, AND! A screening of Bill Morrison‘s short films at the at the Silent Movie Theater. You might remember this post by Mer showcasing Bill’s heart-stoppingly beautiful film, Light is Calling.
Still from Light Is Calling
The forgotten becomes unforgettable in the exquisite 35mm shorts of justly celebrated filmmaker Bill Morrison, known for his groundbreaking feature Decasia. Resisting the lures of kitsch, nostalgia and winking sarcasm, Morrison’s found footage films could be described as seances or invocations, playing on the idea of the motion picture as a kind of spiritual lost-and-found. Works like Light is Calling and The Mesmerist, which draw from damaged nitrate prints, let time perform its own commentary on the image. The Highwater Trilogy, a response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, looks at the representation of disaster through beautifully scarred archival clips. In these hauntological shadowplays, figures vanish into the flood of history, only to reemerge as ghostly apparitions and unreal visions. Also on the program are The Film Of Her and Outerborough.
The Silent Movie Theater can be found at 611 N Fairfax Avenue, LA. The tickets are $10 and the magic starts at 7:30.
Still from Decasia
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:51 pm
My GO-GO-GADGET LEGS still no worky. I take the further silence regarding the COILHOUSE JET as meaning I’m currently shit out of luck. I weep.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I don’t live in L.A. But thank you for posting the link to the “Light is Calling” post! That film was great! Like how I imagine ghosts would ACTUALLY look. If I thought they were real.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:59 am
Jerem, I long for the day we can zip across the world to our heart’s content. BAH!
Chris, I’m dying to see Light Is Calling on the big screen. I can only imagine the detail… Mm!
January 24th, 2009 at 4:28 am
Beautiful…looks like quite a bit of grand & good stuff going on this weekend. Leave it to Zo to find it all…
You really should do a weekly newsletter of all the stuff worth seeing or doing in LA…I’d totally subscribe and possibly even PAY* for such a service.
*Not in actual money mind you but internet related items of value. Like funny pictures of cats or youtube vids.