Oddball Films welcomes world renowned artist and filmmaker Paul Clipson for our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights. Clipson will be presenting a selection of rare and early works "displaying his unique vision to transform the everyday into phantasmagoric celluloid landscapes." San Francisco-based filmmaker Paul Clipson makes stunning Super 8mm and 16mm films often in collaboration with sound artists and musicians that attempt to suggest the excitement of experience, of taking a walk, going on a trip, freaking out, getting lost or being under the influence of things natural or unnatural, like cities, streams, dreams, neon signs, puddles and spiders, a world theatricalized by our attraction and dread of all things. Clipson's work is based on collaboration, whether with sound artists, musicians, or actors. This evening's program focuses on early sound/music film collaborations made with the band Tarentel, as well a series of short comic experiments made with Adam Heavenrich, all titled Bucky, and finally touches on influences such as Buster Keaton and Maya Deren. Included are the following films, plus a few surprises!: BUCKY (1996-1998) Episodes 1-6, a curious figure navigates the world in an attempt to understand, BIG BLACK SQUARE (2004), an expressionistic view of fear within the spinning zoetrope of an industrial labyrinth, OVER WATER (2005-2006), the light and water of winter-time, viewed at 35,000 feet, over the U.S., somewhere between the East and West coasts, SUN PLACE (2007), a study of relationships between graphic visual forms of nature and the propulsive rhythms of music-making, ECHO PARK (2007), an abstract sci-fi dream of vegetation, narratives and wordless experiences, and WATERCOLOR NIGHT MONTAGE NO.7 (2007), this predominantly night-light filled study of movement and rhythm in neon, concludes at dawn entering the awakening industrial rail yards of Venice, Italy. Plus, two 16mm selections from the archive to round out the evening and foreground Clipson's work: Maya Deren's surreal masterpiece Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)and Lumiere’s First Picture Show (1895-1897), a compilation of the earliest films ever made by French cinema pioneers the Lumière Brothers as well as a vintage look at the Lumières' patented cinematograph, a combination camera, projector, and film printer.
Date: Thursday, September 15th, 2016 at 8:00pm
Featuring:
BUCKY (1996-1998) Episodes 1-6, Super 8mm w/ sound, Paul Clipson and Adam Heavenrich, 12 minutes total
A curious figure navigates the world in an attempt to understand. Based on a series of conversations between Clipson and Heavenrich on subjects such as whether it's really possible to mail a letter, board a train, or cross a street.
BIG BLACK SQUARE (2004) Super 8mm film, color, 6 minutes, music by Tarentel
An expressionistic view of fear within the spinning zoetrope of an industrial labyrinth. Filmed in the industrial landscapes of San Francisco.
OVER WATER (2005-2006) Super 8mm, color, 6 minutes, music by Tarentel
The light and water of winter-time, viewed at 35,000 feet, over the U.S., somewhere between the East and West coasts. Filmed during two separate trips from San Francisco to New York.
SUN PLACE (2007) Super 8mm, color, 7 minutes, music by Tarentel
A study of relationships between graphic visual forms of nature and the propulsive rhythms of music-making.
ECHO PARK (2007) Super 8mm, 9 minutes, music by Tarentel
An abstract sci-fi dream of vegetation, narratives and wordless experiences- sidewalks seen through puddles, cities floating above bar counters and spiders communicating with stars. Filmed in Los Angeles.
Shot while on tour with Tarentel in Italy, this predominantly night-light filled study of movement and rhythm in neon, concludes at dawn entering the awakening industrial rail yards of Venice.
About Paul Clipson
San Francisco-based filmmaker Paul Clipson makes Super 8mm and 16mm films often in collaboration with sound artists and musicians that attempt to suggest the excitement of experience, of taking a walk, going on a trip, freaking out, getting lost or being under the influence of things natural or unnatural, like cities, streams, dreams, neon signs, puddles and spiders, a world theatricalized by our attraction and dread of all things. He wants to make films that astonish, in the Silver Age Jack Kirby sense, as well as in the Cocteau-Orpheus sense of the term. To make films of the poetics of space, the expressionism of a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the camerawork of Orson Welles, or the dance of Maya Deren, Films that exist somewhere between a screen of layered lights, colors, shadows and the imagination. His work has screened around the world in festivals and at sound and film events such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, The New York Film Festival, and the Cinémathèque Française. http://www.withinmirrors.org/
16mm Selections from the Archive:
About Oddball Films
Our screenings are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.