Day One - Tuesday 9/16

Cinematexas was nice enough to invite me to their festival this year. I hadn't went to one of their showings since I first arrived in Austin in 1999. The opening night of that festival was presented by the Cinemaker Co-op and I remember I wrote a fairly negative column about it. Still, while much of that evening in 1999 was rather typical and drab, there were some stand- out films by filmmakers like Donald Thalhuber and Justin Hennard. It was also the first time I saw a work by Aaron Valdez (it didn't impress me, but his later stuff sure did). The night also featured an opening piece by Luke Savisky and music by TicToc, two talents that I still look forward to hearing about. (I haven't heard anything about either of them for quite a while, however).

Anyway, you can check out much of my Cinematexas 99 coverage here on the site.

I hadn't went to the festival for a couple of years because they ran it directly after Austin Film Festival, which is just too much film to digest so soon after a mainstream festival. But this year promised to be interesting with a schedule smack dab between Agliff and AFF and director Todd Haynes in town to screen some of his early short films. I was looking forward to Cinematexas 8 in 2003.

I was off from my day gig on Tuesday, the opening day of Cinematexas 8, and spent the afternoon sleeping and then watching a DVD copy of Chris Ohlson's short "The Meat Market," which the filmmaker was nice enough to send me. At about 6 in the evening, I headed over to the Hideout on Congress, which was also doubling as a Cinematexas screening facility and their headquarters, to pick up my press pass and a schedule. I hung out at the box office at the Hideout for a while before someone came and told me the Cinematexas office was upstairs. I forgot that there was also a space upstairs at the Hideout, which is sort of a coffehouse with a screening room and a theater space. I went up and a girl got my press package for me. At first she told me she didn't have anything for "Dodger" and when I explained it was Lodger, with an "L," she found it.. (People usually think it is Roger, anyway). Then when we looked at my badge and it just said "Lodger" on it, she kept telling me we could fix it or write over it and I couldn't understand what she meant. "Why? I asked. "It's right."

I went down to the coffeehouse area and sat around and tried to decide what I was going to do for the night. There was a group of UT shorts at the Alamo at 7pm, but they were documentaries and I hate those. There was something called "Sonic Lights" at the Hideout at the same time and I assumed it would be some sort of pretentious art thing. I also thought about going to the Dobie to see "American Splendor" as I didn't think I would have any time to do so on another day. After much consideration and a glimpse at the program, I decided to check out the "Sonic Lights" showing at 7. It featured some old avant-garde films from the 20's and 30's and I thought it might be interesting. I also thought that maybe there would be some sort of cool projections, like lights used behind on beside the film screen. (There wasn't).

I sat and waited at the Hideout until they opened the doors to the screening room. More and more people showed up and it got closer to 7 but they still didn't open up the screening room. For some reason, 6th street had smelled like fish when I had driven to the Hideout that day and that nauseating smell mixed with the smell of coffee and expresso didn't make me feel very good.

I looked over the program and noted cute guys when they arrived. A really nice looking and scrawny little white college boy sat with a friend at a sofa across from me and they shared some Wendy's fries. I eavesdroped on his conversations and discovered he was a filmmaker, probably from UT, who had a short in the competition but I couldn't figure out which one. At one point, a guy who had made one of the documentaries showing at the Alamo that night stopped and they talked.

I also noted some people coming in with strollers and children. Why? Why the fuck would you take a baby to an avant-garde film screening? How fucking simple-minded and inconsiderate can you possibly be? Dumbasses.

I looked over the program while I waited and recognized the names of Geoff Marslett and Spencer Parsons. I looked for the name Kyle Henry in the index but it wasn't there. I thought about all the interesting filmmakers I knew or knew of in Austin over the past four years, since I moved here, like Henry, Valdez and Ohlson and Kat Candler. Candler is doing a benefit for a movie she is trying to produce at Club Deville on Sunday September 28th, by the way. Also involved is Ryan Cox whose "black-eyed" was shown at Agliff in August (and written up nicely at Film Threat). "black-eyed" stars Oriah Lonsdale, lead singer of Hobble.

It was after 7pm and I was just about to give up and go to the Dobie when they let people in.. The screening started pretty quickly and somebody got up and introduced it. They also introduced some guy (I think he was from the Netherlands) who got up and spoke between every three or four films. Since there was no PA system in use, it was virtually impossible to hear anything they said in the back of the room, where I sat. It didn't really matter that much to me however, because most of the films shown were rather dull and abysmal. Nothing unique was used other than a 16mm film projector. There were no other interesting uses of light or space. All in all it was pretty lame.

Before the program began, a cute guy walked in and I'm almost sure he was this guy who used to play with my friends Patrick and Matt LaComette in The Oblong Boys. This kid is cute as fuck and he came up and sat right in front of me next to some of his friends. When I got bored during some of the film, I contemplated the back of his head, which was much more beautiful and artistic than anything that was shown on the screen that night. Also, there was a rather professional seeming photographer there and I sort of lamented not bringing a camera. But this guy was so obnoxious and so obvious in his work that it was really pretentious. He pissed me off.

There was one interesting film, "Reflektorische Farblichtspiele," which was made in 1966. The film was a documentary in German but it was pretty interesting and easy to understand, and the speaker did manage to establish what it was about for us. The film featured a reconstruction of a machine invented by Kurt Schwerdtfeger and Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack during the time of Bauhaus in Germany in the early 20's. This machine used a system of lights and reflectors, projected through different wood cutouts which were also obscured (sometimes only partially, sometimes fully, sometimes not at all) by moving shutters. After a five or ten minute set-up, with the film showing us the machine and how it worked, we then saw filmed re-enactments of some of the shows that were put on using the machine. Some of these were quite cool and visually gratifying. This film was cool because the documentary helped to put the "light show" that we watched into context for the viewer, even if it was in German.

Some of these Bauhaus "lightshows" were so cinematically cool that I thought it was kind of surprising that no one had used it in a mainstream film. This is the kind of stuff that, by today's standards, would have been co-opted by Hollywood and a company would have been established to do opening title sequences for mainstream films.

Another film that was interesting (but, alas, dull) was "Rhythm in Light" made in 1934 by Mary Ellen Bute. What made it unique was its opening title card which proclaimed that it was meant to be a film about "what happens in one's mind while listening to music." The resulting film, however, using mainly abstract shapes was rather lifeless and boring even with the soundtrack utilizing "Peer Gynt."

The rest of the films were quite dull. Some had sound; some didn't. Many seemed to be films made up of footage taken of different artistic sculptures and "kinetic machine." With no context to understand how the films were made and no knowledge of the filmmakers who had made the films or artists who had made the sculptures, most of these were lost on me. Artist names in the program included Hy Hirsch-Enri, Jud Yalkut, Jackie Cassen, Rudi Stern, and Nicholas Schoffer. (In case they mean anything to you).

There were a couple of interesting films from the 60's, one using a Beatles song, that reflected the acid/pop art of the time it was made (the 60's) but again, without much context, they were only interesting because of their frenetic images of that time period. One also featured an interesting and pretentious poem where the narrator alternated between nervous confusion and cool reaction. He would say things like "I'm lost" in a frantic voice and then move to cool and answer calmly with "jeweled indifference."

"Where am I?"

"Jeweled indifference."

"Who am I?"

"Jeweled indifference."

Etc...

It was cool.

The second to the last film was "Sculptures, projections, peintures" by Jacques Brissol and I thought it might make a cool Tool video. The last film featured music by Pierre Henry that sounded like a soundcheck tape from a 1974 Kraftwerk concert.

And that, in a way, was the most interesting thing about these films. To me, they are background. They need music or narration or drugs or a party or something to make them work. They are quite dull to view with no sound in uncomfortable, old theater chairs with a bunch of pretentious art school wannabees on a Tuesday night in Austin. At best, they seem like the groundwork of modern music videos. I can't imagine much reason for them to be heralded or promoted or anything. Most of them made me want to them show at a club while I played cool industrial dance music.

After a hard to hear Q&A of seemingly no importance at the end of the program, I noticed it was after 9 and I didn't want to stay for the following program of "Sonic Light 2." It was also too late to go over to the Alamo and see the 9 o'clock program of shorts. I went to the Dobie, instead, and saw a real film, "American Splendor." Avant-garde film is a crapshoot and your lucky if you find one thing in a hundred that truly makes you intrigued and challenged. Tonight, I crapped out.

Cinematexas Day Two - Wednesday 9/17

I had to work all day and did not get to go to any showings.

Cinematexas Day Three - Thursday 9/18

I had to work a double at my day job on Wednesday, so I couldn't get to any screenings. On Thursday, I stayed late as we had a party for a co-worker and I didn't get to screen anything until the last show. I headed to the Alamo at around 9 for a screening of the films of Jean Painleve. As usual, I didn't read the program and had no idea of what the films were going to be like.

The Alamo Downtown has just turned into a real hassle. First, since they started charging to park in the gay-rage (the city owned parking garage near all the gay bars, which is also around where the Alamo Downtown is), parking is a nightmare. I drove around for at least 10 minutes, longer than I ever have before, to find a parking space. Luckily, I eventually found one only about five blocks away.

And now when you go to the Alamo, you have to wade through a tide of nasty preppy jerks who are going to all the new trendy clubs and restaurants down near 4th street. It sucks. I actually had to push a slutty secretary in her skimpy evening drag out of my way when I left the Alamo, these bitches had virtually barricaded the street with their bony bodies, with long straight blonde hair and slinky evening gowns flowing, as they stood twenty abreast (20 of these heroin chic whores make about 5 regular people).

The service at the Alamo Downtown has really gotten cruddy too. It took forever to get my second drink. I might have even drank three and tipped more than a dollar if the boy waiting on me had done a better job. At least he was cute.

Someone who did not identify himself got up and introduced the show with a dialogue that was confusing and inept. I couldn't really understand all he was saying except that the filmmaker knew Eisenstein (so I assumed at first that he was Russian when he is, in fact, French) and that he filmed sea creatures, or, to be more precise, that he filmed underwater quite a bit. Anyway, I wasn't sure what to expect after this introduction. The speaker also noted that no one from Cinematexas had seen the films yet, so I was even more confused as to what to expect.

The first film was obviously made in the early days of film. It seemed like it might have even been made in the days of silents and had music and narration added after the fact in the days of sound. It was about seahorses and was, indeed, called "The Seahorse." All of the films that followed, with the exception of the last, had subtitles, had the title of the film translated in subtitled form, and featured narration and music.

Other films followed. One on a sort of vampire bat was called "Vampire." Another featured footage that showed "How Some Jellyfish are Born." We moved into the age of color film and witnessed "The Lovelife of the Octopus" and saw a film about mollusks with a weird flowing cape-like covering called "Acera or The Witches Dance." And finally, in the final film, which had no dialogue and no translated title, we saw liquid crystals being formed. (The Cinematexas Program lists this last film as "Liquid Crystals.")

Painleve's films are, indeed, fascinating and rarely boring. It is just that they might work better if used separately. After 90 minutes or so, the magic of his odd little documents wears off. Still, there is much to enjoy and much to fascinate here. Painleve's "The Seahorse" is filmed beautifully and the oddity of the creature is fully explored. The fact that the male of the species carries the young and delivers them with a seemingly violent contortion is fully covered in the film's footage and narration. No documentary about sea creatures has ever enthralled me as much as this did. The most amazing moment in the film comes with what would now be considered a reprehensible act; Painleve disects a "pregnant" male seahorse to expose how the "sack" which carries the embryos works. There were audible gasps from the modern audience at this seemingly cruel moment in an otherwise artistic and beautiful film.

And Painleve actually stages a brutality in his 1945 film "Vampire." The film seems to enjoy the grotesquery of the vampire bat's appearance and revels in highlighting its mouth, tongue and wings throughout. Painleve even cuts to images from F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" during the presentation. In a reprehensible act to modern audiences, he puts the bat in a cage with a guinea pig so that we may see it feed from the animal. It is not the disgusting mess one might imagine but it is still, nonetheless, repulsive viewing. (It was during this short that the Alamo delivered the hamburger and fries I had ordered, of course).

"The Lovelife of the Octopus" was made in 1965 and Painleve has fun using a score by Pierre Henry that seems lifted straight out of a 50's sci-fi film. Painleve beaches one of the eight-legged creatures before his camera begins to roll and our introduction to the creature finds us watching it slither slowly across a sandy beach trying to find its home. Painleve, as appears to be his wont, focuses on the sexuality of the creature and shows us how the male puts his "special leg" (one of his tentacles) in a respiratory hole in the female to engage in a mating act that can last up to several days. How octopuses are born is also covered and it is indeed quite interesting.

(An interesting note about the music: Henry's music was also used in the 1973 film "Kyldex 1 Projections" by Nicolas Schoffer which was featured in the "Sonic Lights 1" showing that I attended Monday night. This was the music that I likened to a "Kraftwerk sound check circa 1974").

Painleve is indeed a master of images. Imagine if Jacques Cousteau and Jean Cocteau had a bastard child and you have a pretty good idea of what the films here looked like. Painleve is fascinated by his subjects and his intrigue is easily documented by these films. But it is his artistic eye, his ability to make nature seem so stark and beautiful, that really makes his films amazing. often it seems as if he were casting light into the black darkness of the sea so that we might see things that the human eye has never seen before. By far the most beautiful film of the evening featured the most fascinating of creatures, a mollusk called "Acera.' Looking like Tootsie Pops covered with white Kleenex (you know, like the Halloween "ghosts, the treat your mom used to make), only made out of flesh, the Acera is a beautiful creature that puffs out its cape to float in a dance that is angelic and bewitching. (Painleve even cuts for a split second to am actress in a witch's costume running across a stage to highlight this comparison.) The bottom half of its body is encased in a bulb-like shell and the creature weaves and bobs in the deep water of the sea in a movement that is entrancing and simply like nothing you have ever seen before.

Again, Painleve seems to enjoy allowing us entre into the highlighted creature's sexuality and, here, the Acera is also amazing. Bisexual, each of the creatures is able to be either male or female in the mating process. The mollusk fornicates by placing its head up inside the "cape" of another. Even more interestingly, these creatures create chains of lovers who link up one to the other. In the film, a group of three and a group of five are shown.

Of the six films shown, only "How Some Jellyfish Are Born" and "Liquid Crystals" were really somewhat boring. The latter was, as least, in color and featured some interesting music. Painleve is indeed a unique filmmaker and scientist and one whose work should be discovered by a wider audience. Much of this was fascinating. But then again, some of it was as dull as the proverbial dishwater.

Cinematexas Day Four - Friday 9/19

I imagined a bizarre and intriguing "performance art" masquerading as a film lecture while witnessing the amazing trainwreck that was "Manny Farber, Howard Hawks and Me: The Films of Jean-Pierre Gorin." What if you got a pompous windbag, gave him an audience and a screening room and had him stand up and talk about his film, which he egotistically considered a masterwork, for over a half hour. When the audience was nearly bored out of their minds yet also desperate for him to show the film, you begin to screen it.

After 15 minutes or so, he would stop the film and then again begin to ramble for 15 or 20 minutes. He would let the audience in on a little more of what came next in the film then continue to arrogantly and pretentiously describe all his intentions with making the film and expose all his conceits about what "he" thought the film was about. This list of topics and themes would seem endless. Occasionally, he would firmly state, "I am not pretentious" while continuing on a egotistical stream of verbiage about his life and his film's "ideas."

Finally, he would roll the film again and it would begin again from the beginning. The audience would have to see the same 15 or 20 minutes of footage again and after it continued just a little past where it had during the first unspooling, the "filmmaker" would again stop it and again begin to discuss himself and continue listing what the film is "about" and what the "themes" are to him.

This would continue over and over until everyone in the audience got frustrated with the incessant pretentiousness and repetition of film and left. The speaker would continue on and on into the night until the very last person left. It would be the greatest film lecture ever. But your lead actor, the "filmmaker," would have to be brilliant. (And the actual film would have to be boring as fuck).

This is as close as an approximation of Friday evening's presentation at Cinematexas, "Manny Farber, Howard Hawks and Me: The Films of Jean-Pierre Gorin." that I can make for you. Gorin was introduced, again by someone so inept at public speaking that he did not introduce himself. Gorin was considered, by this person, to be someone with brilliant ideas about film and someone who had made the introducer totally rethink his ideas about being a filmmaker. Farber turned out to be a wildly imaginative and pretentious gasbag so in love with the sound of his own mind that he could barely contain his conceit.

His speech, interrupted only occasionally by a few minutes of his boring 1986 film "Routine Pleasures," was sometimes awe-inspiring, sometimes vapid, sometimes genius, sometimes pretentious, sometimes insightful, and sometimes as frustrating as editing videotape with a rusty hacksaw. Gorin might be the most poetic, imaginative, creative, thought-provoking and motivating filmmaker you've ever heard. Then again, he might be the most irritating, dull, laborious and head-hammeringly tormenting person you've ever had to spend five minutes in a room with.

This dichotomy that makes his film, "Routine Pleasures" so fascinating and frustrating, is the same dichotomy that makes Gorin so fascinating and frustrating. Filmmakers must be egotistical. They must be immersed in themselves as much as they are in film or else how can they possibly expect us to be immersed in their films? But Gorin's film, which I only saw about 20 or 30 minutes of, only worked because he was able to tell us all these things he thought it was about BEFORE we saw a single frame of it.

Watching the film, it is quite boring. Gorin injects himself into his documentary film. He's a French expatriate who, in 1986 and perhaps even to this day, feels an outsider in America. He views the American landscape in this way. Gorin explained, in his presentation to us on this night, that the difference between Europe and America is in perspective. Europe is cramped and full of history. One thinks of themselves there chronologically. "I am at this time in history." You can only move backward or forward. America, by contrast, he claimed, is a land of wide open spaces. One does not think of back and forth but rather east, west, north and south. This is a fascinating idea.

So Gorin makes this film as an outsider. He makes a documentary about men who are involved in a model train club who meet every Tuesday evening and run their trains in a huge set-up. They run their trains on a schedule.

In these men, Gorin sees the typical American, one you don't see in movies anymore, he says: Workers. These are men with a function whose hobby, whose joy, comes from a task they perform, much like their jobs. This is quite dull viewing, the kind of stuff that only other model train enthusiasts might be interested in.

Into this documentary, Gorin inserts himself as not only interviewer but also narrator. With his barely intelligible English, thickened by his French accent, Gorin's elongated and nearly indiscernible voiceovers only serve to further frustrate the viewer and bog down the film. And Gorin also inserts himself into the film via his admiration of and friendship with Manny Farber.

An obscure yet well respected American film critic, Farber's writing style was described to the audience by Gorin as being like a skipping stones over celluloid. Rather than being linear and following the rather typical and strident forms of film reviews, Farber's apparently jump from idea to idea in a what Gorin described as a "lateral" motion. Farber is apparently known by many who are students of film although I, myself, have never heard of him. In the Austin Chronicle blurb about Cinematexas, they described Farber as "marvelous." Although Gorin's film (or at least the first twenty minutes of it) reveals little more than the fact that Farber is a film critic and an artist, I am intrigued by all the wonderful words I've heard used to describe him. (When Gorin described his writing on Friday night, I found myself thinking that maybe some of my writing was rather similar in nature). I've got to find out more about Manny Farber.

"Routine Pleasures" was more routine than pleasurable. The typicality of Cinematexas starting the screening more than 30 minutes late was as infuriating as Gorin's incessant yammering. It was as infuriating as his film's revelry in the lackluster nature of American existence. Still, this night was one of the most interesting evenings I've ever spent in Austin. Albeit interesting in the way that a trainwreck is interesting. Interesting in the way that Ed Wood is interesting. Like Wood, Gorin is much more than the sum of his films and to truly appreciate him requires context, background knowledge, text books, biography, a historical knowledge of his genre, and a whole fuckload of patience.

Cinematexas Day Five - Saturday 9/20

I saw Todd Haynes at the Texas Union and his short film "Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud" was screened. The event went rather smoothly as Cinematexas finally figured out how to get a screening to run smoothly: Put an anal gay man in charge. I arrived at the Union a little early, around 7:30pm, because I thought the screening might be a little crowded. There was a UT game that night but Todd Haynes is a pretty big draw! Regardless of all the hubbub (and it really is unimportant), I got in and sat near the front. I also saw local filmmaker Ryan Cox (his film "black-eyed" played at Agliff this year) and said a quick hello. Ryan was pretty much first in line.

Spencer Parsons introduced Haynes (but sadly did not introduce himself) and the director provided a short introduction to his film. He told us he hadn't seen "Assassins" for several years and would probably duck out after a few minutes. The lights dimmed and the film ran. After the film the lights came up and nothing happened and then... the lights dimmed and another film began. It was Haynes 1987 masterpiece "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story." I was shocked! Parsons had mentioned this film at the beginning of the evening and the film had been listed in the Cinematexas program, but I didn't think they would screen it! It was amazing to see it in 16mm (rather than a crappy 5th generation video dub) and the print looked brand spanking new.

After the film, Haynes did a Q&A that went on for at least 40 minutes and during that time all of his films were mentioned (with, for some odd reason, the exception of "Dottie Gets Spanked" which was to screen the next day at 1pm with Haynes also in attendance). Haynes talked a lot about all his films including the two we had screened, "Poison," "Safe," "Velvet Goldmine" and "Far From Heaven."

Ryan Cox asked the first question which really got the ball rolling and that was "What drew you to do a film about Rimbaud." Haynes proved an amiable, open, honest, and insightful speaker. He considered every question thoughtfully and seemed truly interested in talking to the audience. Even when some dumb women went on and on with a discussion about "eating disorders" that almost did not turn into a question. I was laughing at this dumb person while she rambled on and on and said the same things over and over yet Haynes listened intently and answered her question with much consideration. What an amazing person. This was one of the most relaxed, unpretentious, and delightful Q&A's I ever witnessed. Haynes was so at-ease and so open, it almost felt like a discussion with a group of friends or something. It was awesome.

Even when someone asked Haynes, "Who's your favorite glam rocker?" Haynes smiled and answered honestly. The question seemed obvious since his love of Bowie is so apparent in "Velvet Goldmine" but Haynes surprised us in saying that he felt differently about Bowie after having contact with him and meeting him in real life. (I thought Bowie had opted not to have anything to do with "Goldmine" but maybe I'm mistaken. I wish I would have asked more about it.) Haynes said that he loved Roxy Music. (When I went home after the Q&A, "Velvet Goldmine" was showing on Bravo and I watched the first 10 minutes and was in tears. Bowie's music and that time in history is so meaningful to me and Haynes nails it so perfectly. It is like being there. I have ordered the DVD from Amazon even though Haynes said that Mirimax put out the only version with no imput from him and few extras. He told us Criterion was interested in doing a special version of the film for DVD, as is their wont, but that they were afraid of Mirimax. He lamented this fact, in a way.

Haynes told us he was "thinking about a film about Bob Dylan." That would surely be interesting. (imdb.com lists his next film as "I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan" and lists it as "announced" for 2005.)

All in all, it was just a wonderful evening with a filmmaker I really admire and I was so grateful to get to go. I didn't take notes. I didn't try to remember everything said. I just sat back, enjoyed the films and delighted in being 20 feet away from a man I consider one of the best filmmakers working today. Living in Austin is truly awesome and Cinematexas was so wise to pursue Haynes and bring him here to speak. How glorious!

Cinematexas Day Six - Sunday 9/21

I didn't go to Cinematexas today. I went to the Austin City Limits Music Festival and saw Ben Kweller, Yo la tenga, and Ween. It was amazing. More on that in the next Notes from Austin, I guess.

lodger2003@cinematexas2003

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