Art from Assassination: 52 Years after JFK
From The Eternal Frame, by T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm, courtesy of Video Data Bank
Sunday November 22, 2015, 7:30 pm
At the Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90028
Featuring two classic works by Bruce Conner, one by Robert Drew, one from Ant Farm, live performance, and more.
On the fifty-second anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas, Filmforum takes a look at some of the artistic responses to the events of that weekend. We start with the somber and beautiful Faces of November by Robert Drew, a classic of cinema vérité filmed at the funeral events of JFK, utilizing the symbols present that day, and traditional ways of conveying grief. Bruce Conner’s classic Report took him four years to figure out how to process the events of that traumatic weekend into a sublime montage, utilizing metaphors of cinema, yet retaining the emotional weight. His Television Assassination took even longer, first distilling the materials as an installation, projected onto a television, screen, deftly laying bare the mediating process of television. He then modified it into a version to be screened theatrically, as we are doing. Mixing pastiche, recreation, and documentary,
T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm’s The Eternal Frame continues the investigation of the different layers of meaning involved in television’s transmittal and packaging of the assassination, and by extension, other major news events, while at the same time presenting a devastating reenactment of the assassination at its original location. Robert Russett’s animated Under the Juggernaut, unseen in Los Angeles for many years, creates a scream of despair at the ongoing violence of the 1960s, and of the litany of political assassination of the 20th century. We’ll conclude with a performance combining text from Don DeLillo’s Underworld with a video – a presentation only done previously at the Telluride Film Festival in 2013. Overall, the show distills the evolution of art and politics in America since that fateful day.
Curated by Adam Hyman
For more event information: www.lafilmforum.org, or 323-377-7238
Tickets: $10 general, $6 students/seniors; free for Filmforum members. Available by credit card in advance from Brown Paper Tickets at http://bpt.me/2450474 or at the door.
Special Thanks to Don DeLillo, the Telluride Film Festival, Chris Robinson, Justin Bradshaw, Tom Luddy, Bruce Conner Estate, Michelle Silva, Jill Drew, Drew Associates, Brian Belovarac, Janus Films, Mark Toscano, Adrian Danks, Bruce Jenkins.
Faces of November, by Robert Drew
Faces of November
By Robert Drew
1964, 16mm, b& w, sound, 11 min.
Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive, by permission of Drew Associates and Janus Films.
Robert Drew’s fourth film on President Kennedy, “Faces of November” is a view of reactions to President Kennedy’s funeral as reflected in the faces of participants and onlookers on November 24-25, 1963. “Faces of November” was the first film to win two first prizes at the Venice Film Festival, one each in the theatrical and television categories. – Drew Associates
Report, by Bruce Conner, Courtesy of the Bruce Conner Estate.
Report
By Bruce Conner
1967, 16mm presented digitally, b&w, sound, 13 min.
Courtesy of the Bruce Conner Estate.
More on Report at http://sensesofcinema.com/2009/cteq/report/
Under the Juggernaut
By Robert Russett
1969, 16mm, color, sound, 9 min.
Music by Richard Landry
Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive
Rarely viewed in years.
Television Assassination, by Bruce Conner, Courtesy of the Bruce Conner Estate.
Television Assassination
By Bruce Conner
1963-1995, USA 16mm, b/w, sound, 14 min.
Filmed from TV set 1963-1964 by Bruce Conner. Patrick Gleeson music: 1995
Courtesy of the Bruce Conner Estate.
The Eternal Frame, by T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm, Courtesy of Video Data Bank
The Eternal Frame
By T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm
T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm: Doug Hall, Chip Lord, Doug Michels, Jody Procter
1975, b&w and color, sound, 23:50 min.
The Eternal Frame is an examination of the role that the media plays in the creation of (post) modern historical myths. For T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm, the iconic event that signified the ultimate collusion of historical spectacle and media image was the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. The work begins with an excerpt from one of the most iconic and significant film documents of the twentieth century: Super-8 footage of the Kennedy assassination shot by Abraham Zapruder, a bystander on the parade route, which is one of the very few filmic records of the event.
Using those infamous few frames of film as their starting point, T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm construct a multilevelled event that is simultaneously a live performance spectacle, a taped re-enactment of the assassination, a mock documentary, and, perhaps most insidiously, a simulation of the Zapruder film itself. Performed in Dealey Plaza in Dallas — the actual site of the assassination — the re-enactment elicits bizarre responses from the spectators, who react to the simulation as though it were the original event.
The Zapruder film, frame 238, by Abraham Zapruder
Underworld and Zapruder
A special final performance merging a spoken performance of text from Don DeLillo's Underworld with an edited version of the Zapruder film, the best document of the assassination of JFK, a regular 8mm film by Abraham Zapruder, with spoken performance. Originally premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2013.