Framing Media #8 - Jennifer Peterson on Government Sponsored Environmental Awareness Films

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Today's episode features Jennifer Peterson, Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Woodbury University and author of Education in the School of Dreams: Travelogues and Early Nonfiction Film. We discuss her article for the "Medicine on Screen" program for the National Library of Medicine entitled "Darkening Day: Air Pollution Films and Environmental Awareness, 1960–1972." Peterson examines a select series of films from the postwar era, all sponsored by the United States government, that tackled growing concerns about air pollution and other environmental concerns in a world before the Environmental Protection Agency. The two look at unique aspects that make these films shocking today, not just for their strong anti-corporate advocacy but often their aesthetic qualities that reflected the experimental films of the era. But Peterson also acknowledges the limitations they held to advocate for positions by turning away from mass mobilization or community organizing by putting trust in the government, a position hard to rationalize in today's continuing climate emergency.

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 #120 - Alison Kozberg (Nowhere)

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"I think it’s important to remember that the majority of art house cinemas in this country are not in Los Angeles or New York, but are in cities and towns of all sizes where it is incredibly valuable for people to have the opportunity to come together and watch media." 

If cinema enters what might be its 100th identity crisis since its birth, there is at least a more appropriate question to ask: where will cinema take place? As the first guest of 2020, Peter brings in Art House Convergence director Alison Kozberg to tackle how the art house scene has changed less in Los Angeles and New York but instead transformed cities like Tuscon and Charleston. Alison charts her life as a repertory-goer in the 1990s to learning the tricks of programming for both classic Hollywood and experimental works in places like Minneapolis, Boston, and South Carolina. She then looks at the new challenges—but more so, opportunities—for art houses to engage and create new community spaces. Finally, the two dive back into her teen years to examine Gregg Araki's apocalyptic teenage satire Nowhere, which Alison argues as a rare breakthrough film of the time to openly accept queer identities as normative.

0:00–5:06 Opening
5:52–51:11 Deep Focus — Alison Kozberg
52:28–57:34 Sponsorship Section
58:57–1:17:03 Double Exposure — Nowhere (Gregg Araki)
1:17:28–1:19:21 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 #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

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 #42 - J. Hoberman (Poor Little Rich Girl)

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"I was encouraged to be as opinionated and obscure as I wanted."

While his origins as a cinephile are based largely in his interest in the avant-garde, J. Hoberman has become one of the most influential critics through his examinations of Hollywood blockbusters, world cinema, the outer limits of experimental works, and most importantly, film history. In his appearance on the podcast, Hoberman talks to Peter about his adventures as a kid traversing New York City's film culture, his movement through the the city's underground scene, and eventually to his position at The Village Voice and creating a voice that often examined the relationship between politics and cinema. Finally, the two discuss Poor Little Rich Girl, Andy Warhol's out-of-focus and out of this world portraiture of Edie Sedgwick, which Hoberman describes as a work of "pure cinema."

0:00-1:38 Opening 

2:03-10:18 Establishing Shots - 2 Years of Cinephiliacs / Donations and Reviews
11:02-1:09:29 Deep Focus - J. Hoberman

1:12:19-1:28:52 Double Exposure - Poor Little Rich Girl (Andy Warhol)

1:28:57-1:31:32 Close / Outtake

Read J. Hoberman on his website, the New York Times, Artforum, Tablet, and The New York Review of Books. Purchase Hoberman's dozen books on Amazon. 
Watch Poor Little Rich Girl.

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.

Episode #23 - Gina Telaroli (Brigadoon)

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"The way we use cinema is changing, so the way we examine it should 

change to fit that a little bit more."

Many of Peter's guests have expressed their feelings about cinema through words. Gina Telaroli prefers images, both moving and still. The experimental filmmaker, image essay maker, and critic sits down with Peter for a very engaging conversation about her work and passion. The two dive into her frame-by-frame analysis of classic Hollywood films and the "unconscious cinema" she unlocks, as well as her obsession with Hollywood workmen Allan Dwan and William Wellman. Peter also gushes about Gina's films Traveling Light, and asks her numerous questions about what he sees as a spiritual work of cinema. Finally, Gina brings in Vincente Minnelli's Gene Kelly-Scottish set musical Brigadoon, a haunting work that both read as a metaphor for the magic and miracle that is cinema and 35mm.

0:00-1:08 Opening 

1:48-6:50 Establishing Shots - Computer Chess
7:02-9:05 Trivia Round

9:49-1:10:50 Deep Focus - Gina Telaroli

1:12:07-1:32:48 Double Exposure - Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli)

1:32:50-1:34:29 Close

Visit Gina's Tumblr to find her videos, image essays, and writing.