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Nov 202013
 

seventeen

Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre bring you the next installment of the underground film series Light and Sound Machine. Thursday’s film is the 1983 documentary Seventeen. See. This. Film!

Here’s what Third Man had to say about it on their YouTube account, accompanying a wonderful new trailer cut by the Belcourt’s Zack Hall and Light and Sound Machine curator James Cathcart:

A character-focused, emotionally driven counterpart to the institutionalism of Fredrick Wiseman’s HIGH SCHOOL, DeMott & Kreines’ SEVENTEEN soars far beyond its initial framing of middle-American slice-of-life filmmaking, offering perhaps the most unflinching and honest examination of the American teenager ever committed to celluloid. Embedded as intimately with its subjects as imaginable, SEVENTEEN gives it’s viewer a teen’s-eye view of the complexities and contradictions of youth, juxtaposing the pot-hazed revelry of underage keggers and sexual discovery with the visceral horrors of small-town racism, the chaos of public education, and that jarring moment when a young person discovers that poor decisions can lead to dire consequences – the cruel demystification of adulthood.

Produced in 1982 for the six-part PBS series MIDDLETOWN, DeMott & Kreines’ accomplished segment would never air – when the series’ corporate sponsor, Xerox, caught wind of the film’s undisparaging depiction of interracial dating, foul language, and substance abuse, pressure was exerted to pull the segment entirely, to which PBS obliged in one of the most disheartening examples of censorship in public television. The effect was only to bolster SEVENTEEN’s reputation as one of the most highly praised, though rarely seen, documentary films ever produced.

Jim Ridley wrote up a great preview over at the Nashville Scene blog Country Life. I’m more excited about this screening than any Light and Sound Machine thus far!

Tickets are $10 at the door or $8 in advance for Belcourt members.

As always, thanks to Ben Swank and James Cathcart for putting this on!

The Light And Sound Machine
Co-presented by Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre
Seventeen
November 21st, 2013, 7pm, $10 ($8 Belcourt members)

@ Third Man Records
623 7th Ave S – Nashville, TN 37203

Aug 222013
 

Antonio das Mortes

Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre bring you the next installment of the experimental film series Light and Sound Machine. Tonight’s film is Antonio das Mortes:

A staple of Brazil’s Cinema Novo movement, this psychedelic interpretation of Leone-styled Spaghetti Westerns is a violent carnival of bursting colors and music (provided by Marlos Nobre and the Folk Group of Minas), as well as a tribute to the enduring class struggles of Latin America.

I pulled that quote from the Belcourt and Third Man sites. Tickets will be available at the Third Man door, but I recommend you buy in advance via the Belcourt website.

As always, thanks to Ben Swank and James Cathcart for putting this on!

The Light And Sound Machine
Co-presented by Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre
Antonio das Mortes
7pm, August 22, 2013, $10  ($8 Belcourt members)
Third Man Records
623 7th Ave S – Nashville, TN 37203

Jul 182013
 

Robert Kramer's ICE 1970

Heads up. The next installment of James Cathcart and Ben Swank‘s Light and Sound Machine experimental film series at Third Man Records is tonight.

Tonight’s film is ICE:

Directed by Robert Kramer, USA, 1970, presented on 16mm film

Guerrilla filmmaking in every sense, Kramer’s independent/underground, cinéma-vérité/science-fiction boundary-crosser used a budget of only $12,000 to produce an ambitious imagining of America in the throes of armed insurrection. The story is set in a vaguely defined future (which, à la Godard’s ALPHVILLE, looks just like the present) in which an unpopular U.S. war in Mexico provokes a left-wing uprising. Concerned with the nuts-and-bolts of revolutionary action and the debilitating effects of infighting among radical groups, ICE is in many ways the fictional equivalent of Chris Marker’s A GRIN WITHOUT A CAT. 16mm. (MR)

I pulled that quote from the Belcourt and Third Man sites. Tickets will be available at the Third Man door, but I recommend you buy in advance via the Belcourt website.

The Light And Sound Machine
Co-presented by Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre
Robert Kramer’s ICE
7pm, July 18th, 2013, $10  ($8 Belcourt members)
Third Man Records
623 7th Ave S – Nashville, TN 37203

Jun 192013
 

Perfumed-Nightmare

James Cathcart and Ben Swank over at the Third Man Records / Belcourt Theatre monthly avant garde film series Light and Sound Machine are on a roll. I’m still thinking about last month’s Nam June Paik retrospective.

This month, they outdo themselves with the first of the series to be screened on glorious 16mm film: Kidlat Tahimik’s Perfumed Nightmare.

This is a RARE opportunity to see this film projected. Do not miss!

Why? This description on the Belcourt and Third Man sites is far better than anything I could write:

Perhaps cinema’s most humorous and poignant essay on the cultural chasm between the First and Third worlds, PERFUMED NIGHTMARE is the quasi-autobiographical account of an acute case of cultural dementia. Kidlat Tahimik, the Pilipino-born, American-educated, German-based filmmaker and global citizen casts himself as Kidlat Tahimik, the primitive naif with an awe-struck enchantment with the wonders of the developed world. The semi fictional Tahimik is a taxi (or “jeepney”) driver by day who clutches his transistor radio by night, religiously tuned-in to Voice of America and forever dreaming of the heavens – he’s the president of a fan club for Werner von Braun, the defected Nazi rocket scientist who pioneered the American space program. His filmic diary is a collage of village anecdotes and imagery, presented with varying degrees of ethnographic exoticism and short wave radio chatter. However, his document is interrupted by the appearance of a comically sinister American businessman, offering Tahimik a new life in France, refilling his company’s gumball machines which conspicuously adorn the Parisian city streets. It is here that Perfumed Nightmare evokes a turn towards magical realism, and the illusion-shattering truths of the technology age transform Tahimik into something new – a once “sleeping typhoon”, now awakened and poised to literally blow away the symbols of Western domination, and himself back to his homeland.

Also check out the wonderful video excerpt below. Tickets will be available at the Third Man door, but I recommend you buy in advance via the Belcourt website.

The Light And Sound Machine
Co-presented by Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre
Kidlat Tahimik’s Perfumed Nightmare
7pm, June 20th, 2013, $10  ($8 Belcourt members)
Third Man Records
623 7th Ave S – Nashville, TN 37203