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New York Portrait, Chapter I

Hutton's most impressive work ... the filmmaker's style takes on an assertive edge that marks his maturity. The landscape has a majesty that serves to reflect the meditative interiority of the artist independent of any human presence. ... New York is framed in the dark nights of a lonely winter. The pulse of street life finds no role in NEW YORK PORTRAIT; the dense metropolitan population and imposing urban locale disappear before Hutton's concern for the primal force of a universal presence. With an eye for the ordinary, Hutton can point his camera toward the clouds finding flocks of birds, or turn back to the simple objects around his apartment struggling to elicit a personal intuition from their presence. ... Hutton finds a harmonious, if at times melancholy, rapport with the natural elements that retain their grace in spite of the city's artificial environment. The city becomes a ghost town that the filmmaker transforms into a vehicle reflecting his personal mood.

New York Portrait, Chapter I

6.9 1979
The Shilluk of Southern Sudan

This film presents a compelling visual and aural analysis of Shilluk kingship in 1975, and provides a very useful complement to Evans-Pritchard’s 1948 text, The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk. Although the Reth (king) has been reduced to the status of second-class magistrate in dispute settlement by the Sundanese government, he is still the focus of political and national identity for a Shilluk people composed of competing territorial groupings. At the death of the Reth, his spirit passes into the Nile.

The Shilluk of Southern Sudan

NR 1976
The World of Nicolai Gedda

The world of an operatic singer is documented in a film portrait of world-renowned Swedish-born tenor Nicolai Gedda. One of the greatest singers of his day, Gedda has recorded more than 80 record albums of opera, operetta, oratorios, and recitals. The documentary follows Gedda in rehearsals and performances in New York, San Francisco, and in European cities, as he tells about his life as an opera singer, relating the personal satisfactions and frustrations of being an opera star and traveling around the world.

The World of Nicolai Gedda

7.0 1971
Pictures of the Old World

A raw and telling portrait of a people left behind by the modern world, inspired by the work of photographer Martin Martinček - whose pictures of the inhabitants of the Liptov region in central Slovakia, encompassed by the Tatra mountains, distilled entire lifetimes into luminous and intransient images. Dušan Hanák's continuation of these photographs takes the shape of a poetic visual essay, capturing more comprehensive vignettes of their isolated human experiences.

Pictures of the Old World

8.1 1972
Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry

This feature-length Oscar®-nominated documentary focuses on Malcolm Lowry, author of one of the major novels of the 20th century, Under the Volcano. But while Lowry fought a winning battle with words, he lost his battle with alcohol. Shot on location in four countries, the film combines photographs, readings by Richard Burton from the novel and interviews with the people who loved and hated Lowry, to create a vivid portrait of the man.

Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry

5.7 1976
It Is Necessary to Be Among the Peoples of the World to Know Them

The use of any language other than French in Quebec, particularly when separatist fervor is high, often serves to incite protests and even legal action. This French language documentary examines separatist feeling in parts of Quebec, and reviews language grievances. Among the conflicts examined is one with General Motors. It must be stated that the documentarian are clearly in favor of the separatist cause, and are also in favor of Quebec's "encouraging" companies doing business in Quebec to do it (at least officially) in French. From the evidence of this documentary, the attempts of Canadians outside of Quebec to pacify the Quebecois with "bilingualism" seems unlikely to succeed.

It Is Necessary to Be Among the Peoples of the World to Know Them

10.0 1971
The Distant Drummer: Bridge from No Place

This film describes the 1960s drug culture. Addicts discuss their experiences in the United States and in Vietnam. Dr. Stanley Yolles, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), talks about the drug culture and the NIMH role in prevention and treatment. The tape describes growth in the use of marijuana and heroin. In 1966, the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act is the first law to give the addict a choice of treatment or jail. Synanon in California is a private, self-help, residential community that helps people deal with their addictions. New York's Daytop Village works not only with addicts on addictions, but on developing a new lifestyle. Methadone, though still experimental, has proved to be an effective treatment for heroin addiction.

The Distant Drummer: Bridge from No Place

NR 1970
Days of Destruction

The film begins in the early hours of the morning of January 23rd 1973. A mile long fissure had ripped itself open on the outskirt of the fishing village on Heimaey, a small island of the Vestmannaeyjar group, off the South Coast of Iceland. Glowing ash and molten lava was spewed over the sleeping town. We see the evacuation of the 500 inhabitants, both by air and by sea. We witnes unbelievable scenes of bellowing craters, flowing lava, burning and collapsing buildings. We learn of the agony and uncertainty of people made homeless, and of the measures taken by the Civil Defence to deal with a disaster of an enormity rarely faced by so small a nation.

Days of Destruction

NR 1973
Bukowski at Bellevue

In the spring of 1970 Charles Bukowski took his first plane trip for a poetry reading at Bellevue Community College in Washington state. That he was videotaped by two students apparently was later forgotten, but the tapes were recently rediscovered and have been released by Black Sparrow press. "Bukowski at Bellevue" gives us a fascinating glimpse of the man before he had to be concerned with how celebrity and financial security were affecting him. (It is said that this was only his fourth public reading.) This is Bukowski, then about 50, taken straight. No games, no irony, no self-consciousness--just an ordinary-looking guy, maybe hung over, sitting before a small group of students reading his work with gusto, humor and sensitivity. A man who clearly had lived the marginal life he wrote about with passion and at times a lyrical, even mystical beauty.

Bukowski at Bellevue

7.9 1970
Arthur Penn, 1922-: Themes and Variants

This documentary premiered at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival and combines black and white with color photography. Director Arthur Penn is the subject of the film. He is shown being interviewed along with his two children, 12 year old Mathew and 8 year old Molly. Scenes are shown from The Left Handed Gun, The Chase, The Miracle Worker, Bonny and Clyde, Alice's Restaurant and Little Big Man. Penn recalls how Warner Brothers insisted he change the ending for The Left Handed Gun and talks about the violence in Bonny and Clyde. His work from 1958 to 1970 received three Academy Award nominations. The director attended the world premiere of this film at Cannes and was pleased with the final effort.

Arthur Penn, 1922-: Themes and Variants

8.0 1970
Documentation of Osaka Expo '70

The document, which splices together footage from both Osaka and Montreal, offers a rare comparative insight into the two events. It is believed to have been part of a longer documentary made in collaboration with Masuo Ogawa. These "world’s fairs" were colossal events featuring displays from countries and corporations around the world, providing a testing ground for technologies from IMAX screens to security systems. Despite a culture of ambivalence and resistance surrounding Expo ’70, due to its depoliticized celebration of “progress and harmony for mankind” in the era of U.S.-sponsored conflicts in Asia, the pavilions were often run in collaboration with artists.

Documentation of Osaka Expo '70

NR 1970