1961-1970

  • Pier Paolo Pasolini – Sopralluoghi in Palestina per il vangelo secondo Matteo (1965)

    1961-1970ArthouseDocumentaryItalyPier Paolo Pasolini

    Synopsis:
    Director Pier Paolo Pasolini visits the original sites of the Gospel: Lake Tiberius, the Jordan River and Jerusalem., looking for the locations for The Gospel According To St. Matthew.Read More »

  • Bruce Baillie – Mass for the Dakota Sioux (1964)

    1961-1970Bruce BaillieExperimentalShort FilmUSA

    Quote:
    Mass for the Dakota Sioux (1964, 20 minutes, 16mm) is dedicated by Baillie to “the religious people who were destroyed by the civilization which evolved the Mass.” It is on one level a “Mass” for the American Indian conquered and displaced by the white American in quest of manifest destiny. A quote from the native American Sitting Bull opens the film,

    No chance for me to live mother
    You might as well mourn

    But this conflict of American history is also an echo of the artist’s own dilemma. Like the Beat Generation poets and writers, Baillie is situated outside the mainstream. He is an outsider looking in. His vision, personal, perceptive, unique and unmitigated by the profit motive defines the role of the contemporary artist.Read More »

  • Bruce Baillie – Here I Am (1962)

    1961-1970Bruce BaillieExperimentalShort FilmUSA

    Quote:
    An early film made for an Oakland school for mentally disturbed children.

    Quote:
    From the 1910s through the 1950s newsreels were a staple of American
    Moviegoing experience. Released nationally to theaters once or twice a week and running about 10 min., newsreels highlighted the events of the day – politics,sports,
    scandals, ceremonies – and generally included at least one human-interest story.
    Sometimes local theaters made their own, thrilling audiences by profiling hometown
    personalities. With Here I Am Bruce Baillie brings this inclusive approach
    to the avant-garde.Read More »

  • Bruce Baillie – To Parsifal (1963)

    1961-1970Bruce BaillieExperimentalShort FilmUSA

    “He who becomes slowly wise.”

    SPOILER.
    The Structure of Lyric:
    Baillie’s to Parsifal
    Alan Williams

    It’s difficult to say exactly where or how To Parsifal is a lyric film and where or how a narrative work. For this reason, ordinary critical vocabularies (based on certain “types” of films) do not apply with much usefulness to Bruce Baillie’s abstractly assembled color images, nor to the nature and functions of his sound track. To get a sense of how this film works it will be necessary first to break it down, outline it, in order to see how the (implied) viewer puts it together.Read More »

  • Jacques Rivette – La religieuse AKA The Nun (1966)

    1961-1970DramaFranceJacques Rivette

    Quote:
    It was Rivette’s second feature, after the puzzling ‘Paris Nous Appartient,’ and eschewed the nouvelle vague in favour of something altogether more structured, indeed rigorously so. “This film is a work of imagination,” the opening caption informs us, “not a portrait of religious institutions, 18th century or other. It should be viewed from a double perspective; history and romance.”Read More »

  • Benito Alazraki – Curse of the Doll people (1961)

    1961-1970Benito AlazrakiHorrorMexico

    Over the years Mexico has gained itself quite a reputation as one of the countries with the strongest traditions in cinematic horror with films like Brainiac (El Baron Del Terror) and Curse of the Doll People proving exactly why. This particular film from the early 60’s is an effective tale of a voodoo curse bringing terror to those who are afflicted by it. It is the usual horror formula of ancient mystical traditions pitted against the modern word of cold hard facts and rational science where there is no room for myth or superstition.Read More »

  • Francis Rigaud – Nous irons à Deauville (1962)

    1961-1970ComedyFranceFrancis Rigaud

    Lucien (Michel Serres) and Dubois (Claude Brasseur), together with their wives go on holiday at the sea in Deauville. But once the trouble starts: rented villa completely destroyed, their luggage sent by train is lost at sea, they meet patron Lucien (Michael Galabryu) and constantly underfoot confused a fussy holidaymaker (Louis de Funes)Read More »

  • Jerry Thorpe – The Venetian Affair (1967)

    1961-1970ActionJerry ThorpeThrillerUSA

    Quote:
    After an American diplomat inexplicably explodes a bomb during an international peace conference in Venice, killing himself and everyone in the room, CIA boss Frank Rosenfeld calls ex-agent Bill Fenner in on the case. Fenner is forced to find his ex-wife and save her from the clutches of both the good guys and the bad guys, while still obtaining the Vaugiroud report and uncovering the bombing conspiracy.Read More »

  • Ken Jacobs – Blonde Cobra (1963)

    1961-1970ExperimentalKen JacobsQueer Cinema(s)Short FilmUSA

    Quote:
    Images gathered by Bob Fleischner, sound-film composed by Ken Jacobs. “Jack says I made the film too heavy. It was his and Bob’s intention to create light monster-movie comedy. Two comedies, actually, two separate stories that were being shot simultaneously until they had a falling-out over who should pay for the raw stock destroyed in a fire started when Jack’s cat knocked over a candle; Jack claimed it was an act of God. In the winter of ’59 Bob showed me the footage. Having no idea of the original story plans I was able to view the material not as the fragments of a failure, of two failures, but as the makings of a new entirety. Bob gave over the footage to me and with it the freedom to develop it as I saw fit.Read More »

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