Cecile Starr returns to SMN

Tonight marks the eagerly awaited return of Secret Movie Night's most accomplished guest film curator, Cecile Starr.
Tonight she presents clips from three films about music:
Song of Ceylon
Raga
Jazz on a Summer's Day

I am super excited!

Short and Sweet

This post will be brief as I'm super hungry and need to make dinner.
My point is this. Tomorrow night I'd like to see everyone that's even remotely interested in film at Secret Movie Night.

For (I believe) the third time we will be graced by film writer/author/curator extraordinaire Cecile Starr. In the past she has screened a history of women in film throughout the 20th century and an evening of films about and involving experimental animators.
This time the theme is simple. Her personal favorites. No more no less. And all fantastic. Personally, I can't wait to see what she has for us. Even I don't know yet. So we'll all find out at the same time.
you know the drill.

Experimental Animation and the world of art

"Kinetic Art is the first new category of art since prehistory. It took until this century to discover the art that moves. Had we taken the aesthetic qualities of sound as much for granted as we have taken those of motion, we would not now have music. But now, in kinetic art and animation, we have begun to compose motion. We've all been conditioned to viewing film as an adjunct to drama and literature, as a medium for story-telling. These virtues are absolutely secondary to the kinetic fine-art end of motion composition." -- Len Lye, animator, kinetic sculptor, Figures of Motion, 1964

I'm particularly excited this week about the return of guest curator Cecile Starr. She'll be screening a series of movies featuring various animator. The focus will be on the relationship between animation and the greater art world (graphic arts, sculpture, music, illustration, painting, dance). Through the films we'll see how these artists have found their way into the practice of experimental animation from their respective crafts.

Featured artists will include Lotte Reiniger (know for her amazingly detailed silhouette cutouts); Hans Richter (painter and Dada pioneer); Alexandre Alexeieff; Mary Ellen Bute; Len Lye; Kathy Rose.

Women Behind the Camera

As this Photoplay magazine cover from October 1916 points out, the new "style" in cameramen is women. Or so it seemed. These were the days before Hollywood became the all-profit zero-originality billion dollar mens club that it is today. But what do i know? I'm just a blogging film fan stuck in a small town. Nevertheless, it's my personal mission to seek out the unusual, the obscure, those unfamiliar works from the crevices of cinematic history and present them to my small local audience. All because I love the craft of film and it's a hell of alot of fun to do it.
Not sure how to best format this entry, so i'll just start with a filmmaker and go from there.
Alice Guy-Blaché(1873-1968). that's where we'll begin.
Believed to be the first to direct a narrative film, she began as a secretary for Léon Gaumont, borrowed a camera to make a short film and within a year became head of film production for Gaumont. She had, amazingly, produced over 400 short films by the time she emigrated the the US in 1907. a statistic that makes me feel absurdly lazy and unproductive when it comes to film production.
In America, she formed her own film studio, Solax, where she oversaw production of over 300 films. In other words, she was there from the inception of narrative film, produced a ton of work and no one has heard of her. That's why i'm so excited to have Cecile Starr as a special guest film curator on Tuesday. among other short works (all produced by women), we'll feature Guy-Blaché's A HOUSE DIVIDED(1913), a domestic comedy that deals with the mutual suspicions of unfaithfulness.

Other films will span the history of women making short films, the latest of which will be Deanna Morse's CHARLESTOWN HOME MOVIE (1980).

all presented in beautiful 16mm. Don't miss it.