Lives of Performers
A day after Valentine’s, Early Monthly Segments is delighted to present Yvonne Rainer’s Lives of Performers. Her first feature film revolves around a love affair but offers a formal counterpoint to the narrative conventions of melodrama, while nonetheless allowing us to observe the emotional tumult experienced by the protagonists. Combining rehearsal footage, still photographs, performances, tableaux and descriptive inter-titles with the voices of performers reading their own stories, Rainer invites the viewer to engage with the material on an analytical level. In Lives of Performers the examination of quotidian gestures replaces pathos just as the emotions of the subjects are described from a distance, written and reread rather than acted. Cinematographer Babette Mangolte’s shots of the characters and their stark surroundings chart a graceful unhurried course through the film. This languid pace allows the camera to sometimes leave the subjects altogether to caress the pattern on the textiles or to follow a spotlight that detaches itself from a soloist. Rainer’s lucidity and intelligence are powerfully present in this cinematic essay on work, life, art and love.
Programme:
Lives of Performers, Yvonne Rainer, 1972, 16m, sound, 90 minutes
@ Gladstone Hotel, Ballroom | 1214 Queen Street West
Monday February 15, 2016 | 8:00 PM screening | $5-10 suggested donation
EMS #82 = TBA