{film} – Page 192 – { feuilleton }

Animated Self-Portraits

Another animated anthology, this one being a brief collection of self-portraits of around 10 to 20 seconds each. Like yesterday’s short film, Animated Self-Portraits (1989) was produced by David Ehrlich who contributes a portrait of his own. I’m not enough of an aficionado to recognise all the names involved but the contingent from Czechoslovakia (as it was then) includes Jan Švankmajer and Jiří Barta. More of an entertaining piece than Academy Leader Variations even if you aren’t familiar with the animators.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Academy Leader Variations
• 42 One Dream Rush

Academy Leader Variations

Leader is the name for a short piece of film at the beginning or end of a cinema reel. Academy leader is the name for the introductory countdown sequence that was standardised in the 1950s to show a series of numbers (from 11 to 3) marking off each foot of film; the final two feet are always black since these precede the beginning of the film itself.

Academy Leader Variations (1987) is a 6-minute animated film commissioned by ASIFA, the International Animated Film Association, in which a number of animators from different countries produce their own leader countdowns. As with any anthology, the styles are very varied, and some of the contributions are more inventive than others. You also see a couple of pieces using crude computer animation that look a lot more dated than the hand-made offerings.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• 42 One Dream Rush

Weekend links 226

Fly (2012, detail) by Zhao Na.

• This week in psychedelia: the UK now has its own Psychedelic Society (just in time for the mushroom season), and is using some of my psychedelic Wonderland/Looking-Glass artwork for its headers and things. Over at The Quietus John Doran asks what makes music psychedelic in 2014, while a number of the site’s writers offer suggestions for a survey of modern European psychedelia (bonus points for using the alien head from the cover of Heldon 6: Interface at the top of the page).

• Rick Poynor looks at posters by Hans Hillmann for Jean-Luc Godard’s films while at the BFI site four directors pay tribute to Hillmann. “…poster art has stagnated over the last 30 or 40 years,” says Peter Strickland. “It’s an embarrassment for film when one considers how the music industry has completely embraced the graphic form.” Related: lots of Hans Hillmann at Pinterest.

• More psychedelics (and more of the usual suspects), neurologist Andrew Lees on William Burroughs’ experiences with yagé and apomorphine, and DJ Pangburn on a word-search puzzle containing “every word Borges wrote”. The life and work of William Burroughs is celebrated in London next month with a one-day event, Language is a Virus from Outer Space.

• At Dangerous Minds: Kenneth Anger – Magier des Untergrundfilms (1970), a 53-minute documentary by Reinold E. Thiel. The subtitles are obtrusive but the material itself, which includes footage of Anger filming Lucifer Rising, is priceless.

• 73 minutes of Pye Corner Audio playing in Ibiza last month. More electronica: Colm McAuliffe talks to former members of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop.

• The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – August 6th 1983, an excellent story by Hilary Mantel who talks about her own assassination fantasies here.

• Mixes of the week: Cosey Fanni Tutti‘s 2014 Mix for Dazed Digital, and Secret Thirteen Mix 128 by DSCRD.

• Pond i, a video for a new piece of music by Jon Brooks.

• Tomorrow Never Knows (1966) by The Mirage | Tomorrow Never Knows (1976) by 801 | Tomorrow Never Knows (1983) by Monsoon

Salomé and Wilde Salomé

Three years on and Al Pacino’s recent pet projects—Salomé and Wilde Salomé—have yet to be given a general release. Salomé is the one I’m most eager to see, a filmed performance of the Oscar Wilde play with Jessica Chastain in the title role. There is at least a trailer now, which gives an intriguing taste of the production. Like Steven Berkoff, Pacino has opted for modern dress while making some of the details—the moon, Jokanaan’s well—more material. If Wilde’s Symbolist melodrama seems rather effete for a man known for playing gangsters it should be noted that the play features a suicide and two executions, as well as a strong theme of paternal incest and even necrophilia. Herod, of course, is notorious for being a child-murdering king.

Pacino and Jessica Chastain are in London on Sunday at BFI Southbank talking with Stephen Fry about Salomé and the feature-length production documentary, Wilde Salomé. Both films will also receive screenings. Here’s hoping the rest of us won’t have much longer to wait before we can see them.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Oscar Wilde archive
• The Salomé archive

Secret Joy of Falling Angels, a film by Simon Pummell

An animated film from 1991, Secret Joy of Falling Angels layers a variety of ink and paint effects, sketched outlines and a silhouetted bird skeleton. This creates a very different group of animated angels to those in Borowczyk’s Les Jeux des Anges and Bokanowski’s L’Ange although taken together all three films would make for a strange and unique triple-bill. In a previous post I quoted producer Keith Griffiths enthusing about Bokanowski’s masterwork, and Griffiths happens to be the producer of Simon Pummell’s film. Pummell also offers thanks to those regular Griffiths collaborators (and fellow Bokanowski enthusiasts) the Brothers Quay. (Note: the Vimeo page has “Fallen Angels” but the title on the film is “Falling Angels”.)