Episode #124 - Brian L. Frye (The Hart of London)

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"I'm perhaps not the most typical law professor..."

To suggest that Brian L. Frye has lived an eclectic life would be an understatement. A former experimental filmmaker, a collector of home movies, and a legal scholar of intellectual property among other strange, often quizzical projects at the University of Kentucky. After having Peter on his own podcast, Brian sat down tor return the favor. We discuss his oddball way into filmmaking (including his notorious film, Brian Frye Fails to Masturbate), his collaboration on the most curious documentary about home movies perhaps ever made—Our Nixon—and then look at much of his legal scholarship and the various avenues of exploration that has led him down (including how the defendant of one of the most important cases every 1L learns may have been lying the entire time). The discussion remains quite strange: from the Supreme Court nominee who was squashed by Flaming Creatures to the intellectual property history of the Zapruder film, to why you should plagiarize. Finally, the two discuss The Hart of London, Jack Chambers's amazing experimental film and the failure of words to possibly describe this monumental work.

0:00–5:57 Opening
6:43–1:21:44 Deep Focus — Brian L. Frye
1:22:21–1:27:24 MUBI Sponsorship Section
1:28:34–1:40:16 Double Exposure — The Hart of London (Jack Chambers)
1:40:22–1:41:59 Close 

Episode #111 - Michael Sicinski (Sink or Swim)

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"What is this thing in front of us?...Why would somebody paint on film?...How successful is this 45 minute zoom?"

Given the ever growing plethora of criticism, it makes it more and more difficult to find critics whose every word feels inspired, and more than that, fewer critics who are even given spaces to write on films that create impassioned, reflective, and incisive prose and arguments. Houston-based writer Michael Sicinski is one of the rarities left today. His criticism makes experimental films that might alienate audiences feel accessible and who takes the liberal Hollywood schmaltz and demonstrates how alienating it can be. In this broad ranging interview, Michael takes Peter through his move from art history to cinema, the academic sphere to the internet, and from writing to teaching. The two then dive into Su Friedrich's haunting memory film Sink or Swim, and look at how a work that demonstrates formal rigor at every moment is also imbued with emotion that any audience can feel as well. Plus, Peter checks back in with former guest Eric Allen Hatch and his new non-profit video store in Baltimore, looking at how a seemingly "outdated" model of cinephilia might just save its future.

0:00-3:33  Opening
4:25-15:42 Establishing Shots — Beyond Video with Eric Allen Hatch
16:28-1:24:12 Deep Focus — Michael Sicinski
1:25:25-1:29:50  Sponsorship Section

1:31:05-1:52:43 Double Exposure — Sink or Swim (Su Friedrich)

1:52:48-2:00:37 Close / Outtake

Episode #102 - Antonella Bonfanti (Cabaret)

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"We're format agnostic, but we understand our tradition as a film-on-film distribution."

The avant-garde just doesn't "happen." It has relied on institutional networks that create any sort of art world to help it find its publics. These networks are just as critical as they were 50 years ago, and Antonella Bonfanti works to keep that tradition alive. The director of the San Francisco based Canyon Cinema sits down to discuss how she fell in love with the tactile form of film and found herself working with home movies and other amateur formats before joining the famed distribution company for experimental cinema. She then explains how Canyon continues to operate and its bright future in finding audiences in the digital age. Finally, she and Peter put on their jazz hands to highlight the work of Bob Fosse's Cabaret, which of course turns into what else but a Liza Love Fest.

0:00-3:08  Opening
4:17-11:00 Establishing Shots — New Cinemas Hit Manhattan
11:46-58:53 Deep Focus — Antonella Bonfanti
1:00:05-1:04:18  Sponsorship Section
1:06:05-1:19:15 Double Exposure — Cabaret (Bob Fosse)

1:19:42-1:22:43 Close

Episode #98 - Mark Toscano (Soft Fiction)

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"I never make assumptions about what I'm looking at—I really try and understand something on its terms."

While every single restoration brings unique challenges, Mark Toscano sometimes has to ask a very strange question: did the filmmaker intend that scratch or speck or slice or anything that might appear like a problem or mistake as actually critical to the film? It's questions like these that bring energy to Mark as he works as a film preservationist at the Academy Film Archive, helping preserve and restore hundreds of experimental cinema works. Peter sits down with Mark to discuss his road from the George Eastman house to Canyon Cinema to the Academy, and some of the unique questions and relationships he builds as the canon of experimental cinema continue to expand under his purview. Finally, the two dive into the complex and wondrous world of Chick Strand in Soft Fiction, whose detailing of the sexual experiences and desires of women under her lyrical eye has gained complexity in today's discussions of sex and power.

0:00-3:39  Opening
4:54-12:11  Establishing Shot — UCLA's Recuerdos de un cine en español
12:57-1:25:05  Deep Focus — Mark Toscano
1:26:08-1:29:13  Sponsorship Section
1:30:41-1:51:30  Double Exposure — Soft Fiction (Chick Strand)

1:51:35-1:53:20 Close / Outtake

"But Who Is The Dreamer?" Twin Peaks: The Return

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In a summer where blockbusters felt stale and indie films became rote, cinephilia thrived every Sunday night as David Lynch put on an 18-hour spectacle on primetime television. Twin Peaks: The Return saw the filmmaker behind Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. return to the soap opera that would in part define two decades of serialized television. He created not just a new spin on the story of Dale Cooper and Laura Palmer, but instead delved into a mystery that felt more aesthetically, narratively, and emotionally involved than any other visual story this year. As the boundaries between cinema, television, streaming, and other categories have become less defined, Twin Peaks: The Return lept past these debates to simply create an utterly singular work about the never ending battle between good and evil. To celebrate the show's culmination (and perhaps the capstone of Lynch's career), Peter invites a Roadhouse worthy group of  guests—Alison Herman of The Ringer, Scott Nye of Battleship Pretension and Criterion Cast, and Nate Fisher of Mubi Notebook—to dissect the show's use of nostalgic devices, moral dichotomies, and employment of experimental cinema techniques. Grab a coffee, watch out for the tulpas, and don't give anyone a light, we're all Twin Peaks this week on the podcast.

0:00-4:16 Opening
4:16-46:35 Discussing Twin Peaks: The Return
47:05-49:44 Sponsorship Section
50:36-1:3019 More on The Return

1:31:14-1:34:19 Close / Outtake

Episode #94 - Manohla Dargis (Killer of Sheep)

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"I think you have to pay attention to the object. You have to pay attention to what's in front of your eyes really clearly."

Before anything else, films are objects that present a sensorial experience. To understand how they function—as industrial products, as societal mirrors, as ideological machines—we must understand how they interact with our minds and make us think. For the five year anniversary of The Cinephiliacs, Manohla Dargis joins the cast to talk exactly that. The New York Times critic discusses her childhood movie love of watching objects without inhibition and her writing as a form of translating the way of watching films. She also chats about the past and future of the Times, and how the institutional changes have affected the practice of criticism in a digital age. Finally, Manohla and Peter examine Charles Burnett's independent masterpiece Killer of Sheep, examining how the filmmaker's stark portrayal of impoverished black life resonates to today through poetic realism. Plus, a brief chat with James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir, whose new film, The Republic, is currently streaming on MUBI.

0:00-3:09 Opening
4:23-14:00 Establishing Shots — Five Years of The Cinephiliacs
14:46-47:15 Deep Focus — Manohla Dargis
48:28-1:07:42 Sponsorship Section — An Interview with The Republic team, James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir

1:09:00-1:23:28 Double Exposure — Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett)

1:23:32-1:28:38 Close / Outtake

Episode #85 - Jeff Lambert (Stranger Than Paradise)

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"The things that were not being protected were home movies, industrial films, education films, avant-garde films, and the like—what we now call orphan films."

In our growing and expanding media moment, cinephiles are recognizing more and more that only watching theatrically released feature films limits one's cinematic worldview. Whether it be amateur home movies, the avant-garde, or even instructional demonstrations, these films can both inspire a new way to look at art and history. One organization has helped spearhead this movement: The National Film Preservation Foundation, now led by its Executive Director Jeff Lambert. Jeff joins the show to discuss his first wave of cinephilia at the video store to his eventual job at the NFPF, explaining the various tasks to distribute funding to archives to keep our national history alive. Plus, the two examine the film-digital divide from the archival perspective, the building of an avant-garde canon, and Jeff's predilection for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Finally, the two dive into Stranger Than Paradise, Jim Jarmusch's 1984 film and discuss how the film that birthed hundreds of hipster indies still remains unique to this day.

0:00-3:23 Opening

4:12-9:13 Establishing Shots — Jet Pilot

9:59-48:39 Deep Focus — Jeff Lambert

49:24-51:51 Sponsorship Section

53:32-1:09:21 Double Exposure — Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch)

1:09:25-1:11:04 Close 

Episode #75 - Blake Williams (INLAND EMPIRE)

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"When I'm making work it's very important that me that I'm unsure where it's going"

What does it mean to view a stereoscopic image, to see films in a way that's at once closer to our daily life perception while also expanding it beyond anything we could ever see? Blake Williams is one of many filmmakers working in the avant-garde who has been exploring this question—through filmmaking, criticism, and historical research. Williams joins the podcast to trace his lineage as both a critic and a filmmaker, and the very nature of 3D images that has made this such an exploratory visual medium to work in, using it to explore heady concepts in both literal and theoretical terms. Peter and Blake then turn to a narrative filmmaker who created his own long experimental: David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE. The two debate the use of narrative in the film while also examining the nature of its low-grade digital imagery, which can be sublime or absolutely terrifying.

0:00-3:02 Opening

3:40-11:14 Establishing Shots — The Mermaid and Mountains May Depart

11:59-1:10:24 Deep Focus — Blake Williams
1:11:26-1:15:24 Sponsorship Section
1:16:39-1:39:33 Double Exposure — INLAND EMPIRE (David Lynch)

1:39:36-1:41:14 Close 

Visit Blake's film-viewing blog and his filmmaking website.
Watch the films of Blake Williams, including No Signal, A Cold Compress, Coorow-Latham Road, Depart, Many A Swan, Baby Blue, and Red Capriccio.

Read Blake on Cinema Scope and Ion Cinema.

Episode #59 - Brian Darr (The End)

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"I like being able to walk down the street and see all these hints of a movie that I've loved.'

From the ghostly fog of Vertigo to the vigilante ethos of Dirty Harry to the geometric paranoia of Zodiac, San Francisco has been a curious site for the movies. It's also an amazing land for cinephilia, and Brian Darr, a writer, programmer, and curator of the blog Hell on Frisco Bay, has made it his mission to trace how cinephilia continues to thrive through the city's repertory, experimental cinemas, and beyond. Brian traces his cinephilia from middle America to Thailand and back to San Francisco, slowly expanding his canon along the way. From there, the two discuss the way the city grew as an alternative to Hollywood, its use for both commercial and art filmmakers, and how the city grew such a reputation for celebrating the cinema of yesteryear. Finally, Brian brings in beat poet Christopher MacLaine's 1953 film The End, which presents both an apocalyptic discourse of living at the end of days, but also presents new ways of thinking and watching cinema.

0:00-2:16 Opening

3:02-51:32  Deep Focus -Brian Darr

52:40-54:56 Mubi Sponsorship - Blondes in the Jungle and Once Upon A Time in Anatolia

56:33 -1:15:10 Double Exposure - The End (Christopher MacLaine)

1:15:13-1:16:46 Close

Read Brian Darr at his blog, Hell on Frisco Bay. You can also read him at Senses of Cinema and Keyframe Daily.
Maclaine's The End is available on Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986. You can also watch the first 10 minutes here.

Episode #55 - Jan-Christopher Horak (Her Sister's Secret)

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"Our philosophy here is to try to re-create the original look of the film."

Film, both the art and the physical medium, will only survive as long as there are those willing to protect and restore it. This is the job of Dr. Jan-Christopher Horak, a film scholar and head of the archive at the University of California, Los Angeles, which hosts its 16th Festival of Preservation this month. Dr. Horak discusses his route into the archive, from his graduate work uncovering the genre of German exile filmmakers, to his other historical work on the early American avant-garde and recently on Saul Bass. The discussion then goes into the heart of the archive—its history as an institution, its practices (both film and digital), and most importantly, its exhibition to audiences. Finally, the two look at Edgar Ulmer's Her Sister's Secret, a family melodrama that might not contain the usual German expressionism of the director, but subtly breaks patterns of morality against the conventions of Hollywood.

0:00-2:52 Opening

4:18-11:16 Establishing Shots - Abel Ferrara's Pasolini

12:00-1:00:07 Deep Focus - Jan-Christopher Horak

1:03:22-1:14:12  Double Exposure - Her Sister's Secret (Edgar G. Ulmer)

1:14:15-1:15:56 Close 

The UCLA Festival of Preservation Runs March 5th-March 31st at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles. More information here.
Check out Dr. Horak's books The Lovers of Cinema: The First American Avant-Garde 1919-1945 and Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design. More information on him can be found at his UCLA home page.
Follow the UCLA Film Archive and Dr. Horak on Twitter.
Her Sister's Sister will play at the Billy Wilder Theater March 14th at 3pm on 35mm. It is also available on Amazon Prime. 

Epsiode #30 - Genevieve Yue (Café Lumière)

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"I'm interested in how this condition of how the marginal wraps its way back to the center. Experimental cinema is seen in many ways on the fringes of mainstream filmmaking...but at the same time is about practices, expections, and often the film experience itself."

Between experimental cinema and the mainstream, between academic writing and teaching and mainstream criticism, New School professor and writer Genevieve Yue enjoys crossing the boundaries between the normally concrete lines of contemporary cinema and cinephilia. So in the latest episode, she sits down with Peter to talk about coming to experimental cinema through poetry, finding ways to teach and think about the avant-garde, and the transitional moment of Asian cinema. Plus, the two dive into Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Café Lumière, a film that allows for a cinema set in the spaces "in between" and one filled with layers of the past, whether cinematically or through the film's own narrative secrets. 

0:00-1:34 Opening 

2:24-7:32 Establishing Shots - George Cukor and Sylvia Scarlett / Sponsor

8:17-59:15 Deep Focus - Genevieve Yue

1:00:24-1:19:48 Double Exposure - Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-Hsien)

1:19:52-1:21:31 Close

Visit Genevieve's website for her writing, teaching, talks, and programming.

Follow Genevieve on Twitter.

Special Episode - NYFF's Views from the Avant-Garde (James Hansen)

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With over 200 films spread over 40+ programs, how does one even begin to approach the New York Film Festival's Views from the Avant-Garde, especially someone as novice as Peter? Well, the only way is to dive in head first, as he did this year, and now brings on experimental film expert James Hansen to talk through approaches to these truly unique films. The two dish it out on canonical artists like Luther Price, Peter Hutton, and Nathaniel Dorsky, and rhapsodize about other favorites they've found along the way, including Peter's favorite film of the festival - a stop motion rock opera set to Dark Side of the Moon. Finally, they finish off with an appropriate feature, Stephanie Barber's Daredevils, which engages viewers in how to think about new ways to take risks and see things differently. (Make sure to check the notes below for a handful of excellent links to writings and videos of the various films). 

0:00-8:00 Opening / Approaching the Avant-Garde

9:24-17:49 Luther Price
24:07-32:20 Landscapes, Peter Hutton, and Three Landscapes
32:20-37:52 Nathaniel Dorsky
38:51-48:26 Jodie Mack and Dusty Stacks of Mom
53:26-1:08:25  Stephanie Barber's Daredevils

1:08:27-1:10:24 Close / Outtake 

Read James Hansen's work on Out 1 Film Journal. 

Follow James on Twitter.

Episode #26 - Jordan Cronk (Repo Man)

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"I'm a kind of person who with film and music I'll force myself to listen to something that I don't necessarily think I like, whether its has no sound or has no traditional narrative.  

The city of Los Angeles might be where Hollywood's dreams come true, but for film critic Jordan Cronk, his mind often wanders toward the films of countries far and abroad, reflective works of the most avant-garde order. So when Jordan decided to make a pit stop in New York before heading off to the Toronto Film Festival, Peter had him drop by the studio for some chat on his work as a critic, the state of world cinema, Los Angeles's growing repertory theaters, how to approach music the same way as film, and his slight obsession with actress Shailene Woodley. They then dream of an LA they never knew with Alex Cox's crazy cult classic, Repo Man, whose humor and political allegory is uniquely distinct and worth deconstructing, as well as simply rocking along with. 

0:00-1:01 Opening 

2:09-8:31 Establishing Shots - Twixt / Trivia Round

9:16-51:41 Deep Focus - Jordan Cronk

53:05-1:12:11 Double Exposure - Repo Man (Alex Cox)

1:12:13-1:14:47 Close / Outtake

Visit Jordan's blog, as well as his work for Reverse Shot, Slant Magazine, Fandor, Little White Lies, and Coke Machine Glow. 

Follow Jordan on Twitter.

Episode #19 - David Schwartz (Beauty #2)

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"What a film series does is let you take a critical idea and then put into practice. You say, 'let's look at these films, and what do the actual films on screen show us.'"

Exploring cinema doesn't just end when the final reel spools; it's also about learning the history and future of how moving images play into our daily lives. At the Museum of the Moving Image, David Schwartz programs the films that accompanying and work into the Astoria-based institution dedicated to this mission. In his conversation with Peter, David describes how he originally got hooked into New York's repertory film scene and how it eventually led him to programming. They discuss the importance of exploring new media and the avant-garde, the difficulties and advantages of the digital transition, and working with an ever changing audience. They finish off their conversation with a discussion of Andy Warhol's Beauty #2, an avant-garde work that David argues for the very precise control of the director in this apparently improvised movie. 

0:00-0:57 Opening 

2:03-6:00 Establishing Shots - Harris Savides / Trivia Round

6:45-1:00:42 Deep Focus - David Schwartz

1:02:07-1:25:18 Double Exposure - Beauty #2 (Andy Warhol)

1:25:20-1:27:17 Close / Outtake

Visit the Museum of the Moving Image's website and view upcoming programs. Read David's writing and interviews on Moving Image Source.

Follow David on Twitter.