Saturday, February 1, 2025 7pm
About this Event
(Jack Smith/Carolee Schneemann/Stan Brakhage, 1962-63/1967/1959, USA, 43/29/6 minutes)
To get a start on February, we have three legendary romantic (?) experimental films running from 16mm prints. First is Stan Brakhage’s six-minute “Cat’s Cradle,” which he described as “Sexual witchcraft involving two couples and a ‘medium’ cat.” Brakhage and his wife Jane play one couple, and Carolee Schneemann and her boyfriend James Tenney the other. Schneemann directed and stars in the second film of the program, “Fuses,” which again co-stars Tenney. “Fuses” seeks to centralize the female experience and female (or is it feline?) gaze in the sex film, which industry was nearing legality and mainstream acceptance when “Fuses” was made. Closing out the program is Jack Smith’s opus of genderfluidity, “Flaming Creatures,” with iconic Warhol Factory superstar Mario Montez, appearing here before any of his work with Warhol. “Flaming Creatures” was busted, seized, secretly screened, canceled, you name it, as it first made the rounds in the 60s experimental film circuit, but watching it now (when you can—it was out of circulation entirely for many years) it is easy to see it as a major antecedent to not only Warhol’s films, but also John Waters’, Todd Haynes’, Guy Maddin’s, and just about every other modern filmmaker who we know and love today.
All films screening from 16mm prints courtesy of Canyon Cinema. “Flaming Creatures” restored and with print courtesy of The Gladstone Gallery.
User Activity
No recent activity