The Cage
“The connections may or may not be rational. In an intentionally realistic work the question of rationality is not a consideration.” – Sidney Peterson
Early Monthly Segments is excited to present three films from the 1940s by West Coast artists James Broughton and Sidney Peterson. Often called “the father of West Coast independent cinema,” Broughton (1913-1999) considered himself a poet first and foremost, and his films are recognized for their lyrical styles and for mixing poetry with film. Peterson (1905-2000) was a sculptor, writer and painter. Both artists taught at the San Francisco Art Institute (at that time the California School of Fine Arts), where Peterson founded the first filmmaking courses. Mother’s Day opens with a startling image, a send-up of the Pieta with a hapless man being cradled by a statue, one of a multiplicity of strange “mothers” in the film. This anti-tribute to Mother envisions Father as mostly a face in a frame, staring blankly, and children as childlike adults, mindlessly playing hopscotch and shooting squirt guns. Peterson describes The Potted Psalm as “Vertical pans, rhythmic movements, fetishes, but more importantly, freedom, the liberty to see what happens… A film that grows organically, without any rational connections, always human… …Something that is perfectly natural, but beyond anatomy.” “In the neosurreal The Cage an artist (played by two different actors) removes his eye in an attempt to stop seeing conventionally…a deranged romp through SF that includes reverse motion, anamorphic squeezing, inanimate objects that move & narrative ruptures.” – Fred Camper.
“These images are meant to play not on our rational senses, but on the infinite universe of ambiguity within us.” – Sidney Peterson
Programme:
The Potted Psalm, Sidney Peterson + James Broughton, 1946, 16mm, 25 min, B&W, silent, USA
The Cage, Sidney Peterson, 1947, 16mm, 25 minutes, B&W, silent, USA
Mother’s Day, James Broughton, 1948, 16mm, 15 min, B&W, USA
@ the Art Bar, Gladstone Hotel | 1214 Queen St West
Monday 21 February 2011 | 7:30 pm screening
Potted Psalm
Mother's Day