Film and Video

In looking forward to the upcoming events of “Expanding the Frame: Journeys,” a parallel revealed itself to me, whether intentional or not. Besides the theme of journeys, another common thread that binds the films and artists together is the persistence of vision. This diligence spans beyond the artistry and transcends to a humanistic plane.  This vision is what takes the artist on the aforementioned journey.

Ellen Kuras, for instance, worked for over two decades documenting the story of The Betrayal. The film was shot in multiple locations and allowed for the characters to grow in age and experience over the course of production.

Similarly, for the film Liverpool , Lisandro Alonso took his time in order for the film to organically reveal itself. Different in approach from The Betrayal, Alonso set out to the location, invested time in understanding the aesthetic and life of the people and place, and then began production nearly a year after his initial visit.  In his process, he was able not only to understand a different way of life but also capture it on film because of his meticulous process.

This persistence of vision, this dedication to the people and craft of documenting, is also beautifully apparent in the work of visiting artist Zhao Liang. In his most recent documentary film, he explores and displays what petitioners in China go through in order to potentially be heard. 

Since 1996, Zhao has filmed the “petitioners” who come to Beijing from all over China to file complaints about abuses and injustices committed by the authorities. He follows the sagas of peasants thrown off their land, workers from liquidated factories, and homeowners who have seen their dwellings demolished but received no compensation. Often living in makeshift shelters around the southern railway station, the complainants wait months or even years for justice and face brutal intimidation.

This to me is the ultimate journey, the epitome of the title, the theme, the reason they are filmmakers. I feel that it is the relation of the human first, the instinctual element that drives them to document the subject in the first place. The artistry either coincides or comes as an afterthought—second nature. Zhao Liang is definitely no exception to this.

Camera Austria recently did a piece on Liang in which he talks about his audience and his subject—a dynamic that when put together completes the cycle of the artist and the persistence of vision.  Below is an excerpt from the interview:

A conversation with Zhao Liang

In summer 2009, following the film festivals in Cannes and Locarno, Zhao Liang also presented his video documentary film “Petition” (2009) during his course at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg. He had been shooting this film for more than ten years, editing 500 hours of footage for one year. The photographer, video artist and documentary film-maker observed and accompanied people from all over China travelling to Beijing, living there in a slum, the “Petitioners’ Village”, to present their case to the Petitions Office, to complain about wrongs done to them at work or in private, and to demand justice, an undertaking that would often last several years. The interview conducted by Hildegund Amanshauser together with Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann focuses on the methodology and historical, social and art historical background of the various productions of the artist, who was born in Dandong in Liaoning province in 1971 and lives in Beijing.

Hildegund Amanshauser: With the aid of the different formats, you reach different audiences, the Chinese and the international public, the film public and the art public. What role do these different audiences play for you?

Zhao Liang: First and foremost, I address the Chinese audience. My work focuses on social reality in China and I would like it to improve something in this society, that’s the crucial thing for me. I hope that the Western public get an idea of circumstances in which people are living at the same time in a different place. I want to make people think. When my work Petition was showing in Songzhuang, the audience was upset, many of them didn’t even know that people lived in such poor conditions in China. But what happened to these people could happen to anyone, everyone has to realise that. The problems I portrayed in Petition are big problems facing Chinese society, problems that will have to be solved in the near future. The important thing for me is that as many people as possible see my film so that they learn the truth. Also, it would be important for “higher levels” to see the film too, maybe it would help them get to know our society better and implement reforms. I even considered sending the film to the chairman or the minister, but I didn’t. I cannot imagine them really watching the film, perhaps they know about the situation and don’t want to change it, or perhaps they can’t. When ordinary people see my film, they find it very exciting, and perhaps that can ultimately sway the government.

 —Hildegund Amanshauser, Camera Austria 108/2009

The full interview can be found in Camera Austria 108/2009.

It is this empathy of the human that makes films real, allows for them to permanently reside in our subconscious and consequently become more aware of the world around us.

Zhao Liang will be at the Walker Friday, January 29 at 7:30pm to introduce Petition, and Saturday January 30 for a gallery talk at 3pm followed later that evening by his film Crime and Punishment. For more details, visit walkerart.org

“I’m very much a visual artist in the way I work. Just that my medium is moving images instead of—let’s say—paints or pencil. I try to find the ways of expression with my medium that will tell the things I want. I do not aim at making a film of a certain length for certain audiences. I don’t have to try to make profit for the production company nor does the script need to be of a certain kind, (but certainly the expenses have to be covered and the wages paid).  I’m allowed to experiment with the medium for a certain extent—meaning that I probably wouldn’t get the money which is earmarked for the real features because my work is too experimental for the larger audiences—or at least that would be the excuse. I don’t think my works are especially painterly—no. What probably comes from the art side is that I trust the audience’s ability to see, hear and think.”

—Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Kopenhagen.dk Interviews

We live in a time characterized by the defining, re-defining, deconstructing, restructuring, blurring, and eliminating of borders, boundaries, and definitions. The Art World is not exempt from this trend, and although we are familiar with the fluidity of its self-described boundaries, it is interesting to note this in relation to the moving image. The shifts between the cinema, the gallery, the television, the internet, and other arenas for time-based work open up many interesting conversations about viewership, spectatorship, sponsorship, and participation. There are many contemporary artists exploring the structure of filmmaking as a way to expand a conceptual framework—Julian Schnabel, Steve McQueen, Shirin Neshat, and Eija-Liisa Ahtila, to name a few, have recently (and some not so recently) stepped into the arena of feature-length filmmaking.

Although ‘film’ and ‘video-art’ have traditionally been separated into two distinct, canonical histories, there have been many crossover projects. We have experienced this at the Walker, with many artists and exhibitions straddling both the Visual Art and Film/Video departments.  With this in mind, Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s upcoming screening of Where is Where? (Missä on missä?), which explores the way children are uniquely situated to absorb and interpret the complexities and absurdities of war, nationalism, and cultural identity, is of great interest. Below is an interview in which she discusses her relationship to the moving image.

Chris Darke: How do you feel as an artist making films for the gallery? Do you have any general thoughts about the way this particular practice has been evolving over the last ten years?

Eija-Liisa Ahtila: I think it’s really obvious what’s going on. The moving image is the medium through which people see what’s happening around them and how they get information about society. It’s the most common way of interpreting our society. It’s no wonder that artists want to make work with moving images. In fact, I’d rather talk about ‘moving images’ than video or film because it’s difficult to talk about ‘video-art’ nowadays.

Is that partly because ‘video-art’ now seems like an historical term that relates to the 1960s and the 1970s and that the digital moment ended ‘video-art’?

Not really, because one way of defining video art has to do with technical things but, on the other hand, there’s a lot of moving image work that really has its roots in ‘video-art’. When I talk about ‘video-art’ I more or less think about the tradition linked to performance and using the camera to record performances. I went to see the Sam Taylor-Wood show (Hayward Gallery, London Spring 2002) and she’s a good example. I could easily link her work to that kind of tradition.

Is there an active relationship between the film and art worlds in Finland?

The film world is pretty conservative. It’s very difficult to convince them that visual artists have anything to contribute. They’re still quite separate.

Why do you think that separation exists?

It has to do with money. It’s a small country and the amount of money that film gets from the state is small. A lot of people want to make films so there’s a lot of competition. What’s really lacking is a forum where these issues can be talked about. Most of the film magazines are really conservative. I hope that’s changing because there are some new festivals now that younger people have started, like Avanto (the Helsinki-based Media Arts Festival).

Do you yourself have references that derive from film-making?

It’s difficult to say. During the 1980s I saw almost all of Fassbinder’s films. Antonioni’s early films also really interest me, particularly his way of using space and architecture, that’s very important for me. Then Bergman and the human dramas, the dialogue and maybe even the characters.

You studied at the London College of Printing and at UCLA in the States.

I was in the UCLA extension programme, an evening school. It was a really important time. My art before that was traditionally conceptually-oriented and I felt that it was extremely important for me to have the possibility to go deeper and study ways of expression in the medium, like cinematography and editing. In LA I studied with a cinematographer and he showed examples of solutions that other cinematographers have had in certain situations and how to create meaning with the medium. What was very important for me was to learn how to tell a story using sound and images, how to break up the story and use a structure that had something to do with the subject matter.

When you watch films or TV now you must notice the increasing use of screens within screens, the fact that the surface is fragmented simply because it’s technically possible. Does this phenomenon interest you?

Personally, I don’t think split-screen works on TV. It’s a gimmick. For me, the split-screen is always a physical experience. If you have it in an installation it has to do with physical presence, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to start to work with the moving image. It is very interesting to work with the medium in such a way that the information is in the sounds, the rhythm and the story and the viewer uses their senses to make the meaning out of these corresponding things.

—Chris Drake, Vertigo Vol 2 Issue 3, Summer 2002

Where is Where? (Missä on missä?) screens Saturday, January 23 and Wednesday, January 27 at 7:30 pm.

To kick off  Expanding the Frame, we’ve invited Chicago-based photographer, curator, and experimental filmmaker Ben Russell to present some of his key works. His works explore the psychedelic, the transcendent and the purely physical, and have been screened in a variety of surprising and unexpected places. In anticipation of his January 21 performance/screening of TRYPPS and The Black and White Gods, we’ve asked him to participate in our Q &A series 8-Ball. Here are his  insightful answers:

1. What was your greatest visual experience?

It’s a three-way tie between hiking the Staircase at the Olympic National Forest on LSD, waking up 1/3rd of the way through Ken Jacobs’ NERVOUS MAGIC LANTERN performance, and watching Bruce Conner’s CROSSROADS for the first time.

2. Given your extensive travel as a filmmaker, where is your favorite, or most inspiring, place?

Easter Island, hands down—you can stand on the shore and see the curve of the Earth, or you can turn around and stand terror/awe-struck in the face of the sublime.

3. If you could collaborate with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

Werner Herzog or Buster Keaton—it’s a 50/50 split.

4. Who is your alter ego?

Sadie, my small Italian Greyhound who peed on my bed 2x a day for the first three years after I adopted her.

5. What are the last three films you’ve seen?

THE FANTASTIC MR.FOX (terrible), WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (fantastic—that dog!), and THE GLEANERS AND I (Agnes Varda, OMG)

6. What have you been listening to lately?

I’ve been going back and forth between ZZ POT and Lil Wayne’s NO CEILINGS mixtape—his Lady Gaga remix (Poke Her Face) is on repeat.

7.  Which artist turned your world upside-down as a teenager?

David Lynch—TWIN PEAKS on TV totally blew my mind.

8.  Fill in the blank: What the world needs now is a 2-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

A collection of clips and trailers for the Expanding the Frame: Journeys program…

An Evening with Ben Russell – 7:30pm, Thursday, January 21, 2010

Though this is not a part of the Walker show, I think this excerpt from a Joe Grimm + Ben Russell collaboration can give a sense of what you can expect from Ben’s performance of The Black and White Gods.

Where is Where? – 7:30pm, Saturday, January 23 and 7:30pm, Wednesday, January 27

Director Eija-Liisa Ahtila discusses her work, including Where is Where?

Zhao Liang: Visiting Artist

Opening of Petition

It Came From Kuchar – 7:30pm, Thursday, February 11

Trailer:

Liverpool - 7:30pm, Friday, February 12

Trailer

Filmmakers in Conversation: Ellen Kuras – February 17-20

Swoon Trailer

The Betrayal Trailer

I Shot Andy Warhol clip

Berlin clip (A spectacular encore featuring Antony Hegarty!)

Sundance ‘08 Meet the Filmmakers segment on Ellen Kuras and Thava Phrasavath

An Evening with Daniel Barrow – 7:30pm, Wednesday, February 24

Though this isn’t a part of the Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry Performance, this Hidden Cameras video gives a good insight into Barrow’s visual style.

Hollis Frampton’s Hapax Legomena – February 27-28

clip from Critical Mass

a rare television interview with Hollis Frampton from 1977

As the person charged with the task of seeking out prints for films screened in the Walker Cinema, I’ve found historically that 35mm prints from the 1980s are the hardest to find. Why this is is anyone’s guess; perhaps films from the 80s aren’t old enough to be considered “classic,” but aren’t recent enough to be still lying around archives. This black-hole-of-a-decade rule has certainly been true of the last several Walker film retrospectives: for the Mike Leigh Regis Dialogue and Retrospective, it was High Hopes (1988) that proved exceeding difficult to locate, and for Joel and Ethan Coen, Blood Simple (1984). For the current series The People’s Republic of Cinema: 60 Years of China on Film, it was the 1984 Chen Kaige film Yellow Earth.

By no means an obscure filmmaker, Chen Kaige is probably best known for his 1993 Oscar-nominated film Farewell My Concubine.  His earlier Yellow Earth announced the arrival of the so-called Fifth Generation Filmmakers in China, and is typically listed in the top five on “Best of” lists for Chinese films ever made. I did not predict that this major work by this well-known filmmaker would be so difficult to secure for the series—but it was.

To give a glimpse into the process by which film exhibitors can go through to screen films, and provide a sense of the rarity of the 35mm medium, I present to you my epic battle for Yellow Earth—in timeline form. My search began on July 1.

• 7/1: I always start with the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). The company credits section for Yellow Earth lists International Film Circuit as the distribution company for the film. I send an inquiry to them. A general Google search for “Yellow Earth” and “screening” lets me know that Harvard Film Archive screened it last spring, so I also email a colleague there and await a response.
• 7/2: International Film Circuit no longer holds the rights or prints of the film, and suggests I contact the British Film Institute (BFI).
• 7/7: BFI informs me that they only have a 16mm print of Yellow Earth.
• 7/14: I retrieve an archived file from the 1993 Regis Dialogue and Retrospective with Chen Kaige, for which we screened Yellow Earth. At that time, we dealt with an L.A-based company called China Film Import & Export Inc. for the print. I shoot off an email to them.
• 7/22: Second email to China Film Import & Export. No response. When I try to phone them, I find the number disconnected.
• 7/25: I email the China Film Archive (in Beijing), inquiring about several titles for the film series.
• 7/28: The China Film Archive indeed has a print! They will look into its availability.
• 7/30: The Harvard Film Archives replies to the Walker Associate Curator that they got the 35mm print from the China Film Archive, but have also heard of a print in Scotland and will inquire on our behalf.
• 7/31: Harvard reports that the Scotland venue is in the process of sending the print to an archive.
• 8/8: Still no word from the China Film Archive. I send a prodding email.
• 8/11: As was suggested by the BFI, I inquire with the Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA)  in England. They ask for a written request.
• 8/17: Bad news. The China Film Archive finally gets back in touch to say that the film is already booked elsewhere–-with the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China looming, many film series are planned around the world.
• I step up my efforts and send a follow up email to the ICA.
• 8/31: Another follow up email to the ICA.
• 9/2: ICA replies to say they no longer have the rights to the film. I call her directly and get a disgruntled response that in the past ICA has had to pay fees when other sites screened the film. I assure her that this would not be the case with us, and finally get her to agree to let me know who now holds the print so we can contact them directly.
• 9/8: More nudging and she sends me to Perivale.
• 9/9: The response: “We do not have a print at Perivale. The only copy on our system is out since Feb 2007 at Filmhouse Edinburgh!” At this point, I have forgotten that Harvard had referred us to Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh back in July. I call Edinburgh only to find out that the print had been sitting at their Cinema for a long time, and when Harvard called them on our behalf it made them think it really should be sent to a European archive for proper storage. It seems that our very inquiry may have made screening the film impossible, as the process of the new archive accepting it, inspecting it and sorting out rights issues will take more time than we have at this point.
• 9/11: Shot-in-the dark query to the Chinese Taipei Film Archive. No dice.
• 9/18: I’m starting to panic. I look up Chen Kaige’s agent on IMDB. The agency refers me to a Moonstone Entertainment, which produced Chen’s The Promise. They tell to contact the director of the company, “Etchie,” to whom I send a rambling email about Yellow Earth. No response.
• 9/24: It’s gut-check time. The brochure for the People’s Republic of Cinema program is due at the printers. We scramble for a screening backup, and the best we can find is a DVD with both English and Japanese subtitles. I cross my fingers, and optimistically keep the 35mm listing in the brochure’s Yellow Earth description.
• 10/8: Our University of Minnesota co-presentation partner Jason McGrath inquires on our behalf on several international listserves (Modern Chinese Literature and Culture and the Chinese Cinema List). A response comes in from someone who had previously worked at the USC School of Cinematic Arts archive, who says they had a print in the Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive. A 35mm print inside the country??? Hurrah! But, this news proves too good to be true. Upon inspection it’s discovered that the print is in such bad shape it’s unscreenable.
• Another response to the listserve: “Have they tried the BFI and the National Film Archive in the UK, or its equivalent in Canberra, Australia?” Well, this was interesting. I looked up the Australian archive and found The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. I send an email.
• 10/9: Success! The NFSA agreed to allow us to screen their print. Finding a print can be only half the battle, as rights must be cleared, and several more frantic emails to the China Film Archive to ascertain the rights holder ensued. In the midst of this, as our screening date creeped closer and closer, I receive a call that an overseas package has arrived…Yellow Earth.

I hope you have the opportunity to enjoy Yellow Earth in glorious 35mm….

Now, on to the next series!

Special thanks to the British Film Institute, Contemporary Films (London), Fortissimo Films (Amsterdam), Celluloid Dreams (Paris), XStream Pictures (Beijing), and filmmaker Ying Liang for providing the films in this series. Very, very special thanks to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

Still from Good Cats (Hao Mao), 2008

As attested by the remarkably choreographed festivities at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese know how to party—and nothing was spared for the recent celebration of the People’s Republic of China 60^th Anniversary party on October 1, with special attention paid to showcasing military strength. This momentous occasion marks the longest Communist party rule in history, and although the last 60 years have been met with much criticism and unease, and marked by intense economic, political, and cultural growing pains, China’s unique blend of communism and capitalism is undeniably large and here to stay. Chinese filmmakers (those both inside and outside of the border) are in a unique position to process and reflect their current cultural moment. Many different Chinese film programs around the world are running this fall to celebrate and recognize these filmmakers and this unique and important time in history, including our own film series, The People’s Republic of Cinema which runs November 4-23.

In the scheme of things, 60 years is a drop in the bucket for China’s immense history as one of the oldest civilizations on the planet, but the transformations the “New China” has undertaken are radical on a global scale. The process of modernizing an ancient culture coupled with an inflexible political climate, an environmental crisis, a growing consumerist culture, the tension between Eastern and Western values, a construction zone taking over every major city, and a new generation striving for individualism and creative freedom present enormous challenges.

I experienced this first hand in 2006 on a study trip through the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Spending time with Beijing and Shanghai art students, hip-hop artists, and filmmakers allowed a privileged glimpse into the tensions they experience and make work about. I met some boys in Shanghai who strongly identified with American hip-hop and had started a group that traveled throughout southern China and rapped in Mandarin, Japanese, and English. (Most of the music they knew about had come through Japan, as the Japanese have an easier time finding American music and have been interested in hip-hop culture and paraphernalia for quite some time now.) The 021Crew, as they call themselves, recognize the challenges referenced in hip-hop music (the struggle for self-expression, distrust of government transparency, freedom, individualism, social and class distinctions, and the tension between generations) as parallel to their own. A few of them had studied abroad in Toronto and London, and were presented with new visions of China then the ones they had grown up with. None of them knew about the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 (it is impossible to find information about this when in China, as it is a restricted online search), nor did they feel comfortable discussing it in public. In fact, after learning about it, they said, “That’s not my China!” And although they felt extreme pride in their country, they longed to experience different freedoms they felt were denied them. Through hip-hop they are able to express themselves and their ideas in ways they couldn’t otherwise. To them, it is a platform of revolution, but the difference is the prescribed action. As language and the written word are the embodiments of knowledge and the foundation of Chinese culture (traditionally, at least), I wonder if in some strange way Chinese hip-hop is an attempt to be a contemporary equivalent.

My Chinese painting professor who led the trip had grown up in a much different China. In fact, as a young boy he had left school to become part of the Red Guard and march all over southern China with other boys his age. The changes he has seen in his lifetime, although subjective and unique, chart the transformations (I struggle to use the word progress) many have experienced on a large scale.

Here is a list of some other festivals celebrating and recognizing the “New China,” and although there probably won’t be fireworks or choreographed parades, I hope you can make it out.

The People’s Republic of Cinema

Walker Art Center

Minneapolis, MN

November 4-23, 2009

http://calendar.walkerart.org/canopy.wac?id=5308

China Independent Film Festival

RCM Museum of Modern Art

Nanjing, China

October 12-16, 2009

http://www.chinaiff.org/html/EN/

LENS ON CHINA

Portland Art Museum Northwest Film Center

Portland, Oregon

September 24-November 5, 2009

http://www.nwfilm.org/screenings/21/207/#1379

NYFF Masterworks: (Re)Inventing China
A New Cinema for a New Society, 1949 – 1966
Film Society of Lincoln Center

New York City

September 26 – October 6, 2009

http://filmlinc.com/nyff/china.html

China Classic Film Festival

Confucius Institute, University of Wales Lampeter

Wales

October 1-31, 2009

http://www.chinaclassicfestival.com/

2009 Tokyo China Film Festival

Tokyo International Film Festival

Tokyo

October 18-25, 2009

http://www.tiff-jp.net/en/lineup/title_24.html

New Zealand Chinese Film Festival

New Zealand’s Pacific Culture and Arts Exchange Center

New Zealand

October 15- November 8, 2009

http://www.nzcta.co.nz/events/

FILMING EAST FESTIVAL

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

UK

October 3-31, 2009

http://www.filmingeast.org/

www.bafta.org/whats-on/global-spotlight-china,828,BA.html

RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

UK-China Film Association (UCFA)

London

October 3-10, 2009

http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/index.php?aid=3797

VISIBLE SECRETS: HONG KONG’S WOMEN FILMMAKERS

Cornerhouse

Manchester, England

October 9 -November 3, 2009

www.cornerhouse.org/visiblesecrets

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Jesikah Ruehle bio:

+Loves being an intern in Film/Video at the Walker

+Graduated last year from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in Fiber and Material Studies and Film/Video

+Loves to ride her bike and experiment in the kitchen

+Is a hairstylist at FIVETWOSIX salon in St. Paul

+Some of her favorite filmmakers are Chris Marker, Shirin Neshat, Doug Aitken, and Stan Brakhage

+Is an escapist and consequently spends a lot of her free time looking up places to travel to

Formally, the film is deep-dish pleasure. Cinematographer Ed Lachman (using the Red camera system) enables Solondz to raise his visual game to a new level; the richly colored compositions are as bold as the dialogue. —Variety

After a four year hiatus from filmmaking, Todd Solondz is back with his latest feature Life During Wartime. Not to be confused with the Talking Heads song, Life During Wartime is an un-sequel (more of a variation to) Happiness because it stands alone as a singular body of work. Solondz (who made quirky indie favorites like Welcome to the Dollhouse, Storytelling, Happiness, and Palindromes), does not stray too far from his prior films in regards to his controversially dark themes (child abuse, suicide, incest, etc), but does in the regard of compassion. The characters in Life During Wartime have undergone life and the most brutal of its hand, and the way in which Solondz depicts them is with utmost honesty. His ability to tactfully comment the less than savory elements of human behavior—although at times uneasy and unsettling in nature—solidifies the understanding of the people in the film, of society’s capacity of growth and compassion.

While it is not necessary to see Happiness before seeing this film, there are subtle and very funny references to the previous film for those who are familiar with this work. The same characters, played by different actors, have moved on. Their lives have changed, but the memory of something terrible from the past lingers as three distant sisters reconnect and create a portrait of those seeking love and rebuilding family, all to the backdrop of mounting fear of terrorists.

The Walker will be hosting a sneak preview of Life During Wartime on Wednesday October 28^th at 7:30 pm.

By Jon Maichel Thomas

In 2003, my wife and I packed up and moved to New York City. She landed a prestigious internship with Pentagram Design and I followed looking for a new opportunity. Exactly one week later, I landed a gig with Big Film Design.

Big Film Design’s founder Randy Balsmeyer is a renowned title designer and his firm created every Coen Brother’s film title sequence since Miller’s Crossing (1990). I was brought on as designer/animator after meeting with one of their designer/directors, a Minneapolis College of Art + Design colleague, J. John Corbett. Big Film Design was a small group of talented, intensely collaborative individuals where everyone was expected to toss out ideas.

As a result of Big Film Design’s collaborative approach, I found myself presenting my design direction for Intolerable Cruelty to Joel and Ethan Coen. Randy briefed us on the film and laid out the basic themes to explore. One concept centered around cupids, an iconic image, nestled in the finished film. I riffed off that and came up with a story based sequence that introduced our audience to a world where mischievous cupids spied on courting couples, mended broken hearts and wrote fail-proof pre-nuptial agreements. As I walked the Coen’s through a simple digital storyboard, they started to chuckle. They loved the pitch, found the irony in the idea, and gave us creative carte blanche to move forward.

The Intolerable Cruelty title sequence was an ambitious design and animation challenge. The sequence was a 2D animated short story; a quirky commentary on the courtship of love, layered with visual and narrative metaphors supported by the Elvis Presley song Suspicious Minds. The world where the story took place was inspired by turn-of-the-century ephemera and postcards that we hand-picked from local flea markets. Our typographic system and framing devices for the credit names were derivative of typography of that same era.

The opening title sequence of a movie is widely considered an art form. A good title sequence will “set a mood” and “capture the audience” before the film begins. The sequence may also extend, clarify or draw out narrative or story themes. Title designers have a very unique role in the filmmaking process. They are in a position where they can creatively affect outcomes, influencing the storyline itself. That said, The Coen’s implicit trust in Randy, after collaborating with him on all of their films, afforded us great latitude – essentially creating a two-and-a-half minute film before the film.

One of my favorite parts of the sequence is when the guy is standing by a tree with his lover. He is carving “WIFE” into the tree. While designing that piece I remember going back and forth about what it should say. I settled on “WIFE” in the end because I thought it was funny as opposed to “Mark + Sally” or “I love you”. Then “WIFE” came up in the client presentation. We paused on the frame. Joel and Ethan once again started to chuckle. “That’s funny” they said, “Back then, that’s what he would probably have called her, ‘WIFE’.”

It was an honor to work on Intolerable Cruelty and I want to thank the Coen’s, Randy and the Big Film Design team for an amazing experience. I was challenged as a designer and animator. It was a blast to work on and what I learned has been invaluable. Joel and Ethan were incredible to work with – I admire them a great deal.

The Intolerable Cruelty Team was:

Randy Balsmeyer – Creative Director

J. John Corbett – Designer/Director

Amit Sethi – Designer/Director

Jon Maichel Thomas – Designer/Animator

Kathy Kelehan – Producer

The sequence won a 2004 Art Directors Club Silver Award.

Intolerable Cruelty screens at the Walker on Saturday, October 3 at 4pm.

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Jon Maichel Thomas is a designer and filmmaker. He lives in Minneapolis and runs a boutique design firm with his wife Alyssa called Studio Collective where they Design, Direct, & Produce Film Titles and projects for Broadcast, New Media, and Print. Jon also blogs.

Jon is currently finishing his first short film Photos & Drawings which he wrote and directed. Jon & Alyssa Thomas are also excited to announce their first published children’s book No Monster Here.

It’s a big film weekend in the Twin Cities. Our Joel and Ethan Coen series continues with screenings of Fargo; Intolerable Cruelty; O Brother, Where Art Thou; No Country for Old Men; and The Ladykillers.

With all of our screenings, we’ve certainly had the newest from the Coens, the locally filmed A Serious Man, on our minds.  That one, a sort of unofficial, off-site appendage to our series, opens exclusively at the Uptown Theater this Friday, October 2.

As if that weren’t enough, if you didn’t catch the screening of No Impact Man at the Walker, it too opens up this Friday, exclusively at the Landmark Lagoon Cinema.

Also, the 10th anniversary Sound Unseen Film Festival continues.

See you at the movies!

While it was not part of the Joel and Ethan Coen: Raising Cain retrospective, the brothers’ newest film, A Serious Man, did screen at the Walker last weekend — as part of a cast-and-crew-only party, an event made it onto the front page of the Star Tribune (along with a rare interview of the directors, by Colin Covert).

Among the cast in attendance was Mike Krug, who also happens to be the brother of Ilene Krug-Mojsilov, the Walker’s Artlab coordinator. He wrote in with this account of an uncanny coincidence he experienced during the audition for extras:

“Authenticity — that’s what the StarTrib suggested the Coen Brothers were seeking for their new movie, A Serious Man. So on a midsummer Sunday afternoon I hurried to a warehouse in Northeast Minneapolis with my three brunette children near the end of the mass ‘open audition.’ We were seeking roles as late 1960’s, atmosphere-authenticating, Twin Cities Jews.

‘Great, you’re an entire brunette family!,’ one of the extras casting staff greeted my brood. The white walls of the warehouse interior were hung with a gallery of actors and actresses, some clearly casted, some in the consideration stage. After completing biographical paperwork, the staffer suggested we look at the wall of 1960’s period photographs across from the wardrobe area, where hung thousands of suits, tight shirts, skinny pants, bullet bras, and women’s jumpers and dresses, circa 1968.

I looked at the first 1960’s photograph and my heart quickened. I recognized members of my Temple of Aaron Synagogue from the ’60s. To my amazement, there, in a group photo of six Temple of Aaron Board Members, was my recently deceased father Murry, with his Brylcreemed, pompadour hairstyle, generous smile and black suit. ‘Oh my goodness,’ I said, not trying to hide my pride, ‘that’s my father.’

And there was my Rabbi, Bernard Raskas, standing proudly next to the Temple of Aaron Confirmation Class of 1968 — among whom was the Walker Art Center’s Art Lab Coordinator Ilene Krug. “You won’t believe it, but that’s my sister!” I said to no one in particular.

The Coen brothers and their staff had clearly done their due diligence, contacting synagogues, obtaining photographs from the Minneapolis/St. Paul Jewish Community, replicating St. Louis Park homes, and locating haute couture.

Each of the four of us was ultimately selected as extras for A Serious Man. For me, unknown to Ethan and Joel Coen, this film is an ode to my father. While standing in the synagogue scene, reciting Kaddish repeatedly during the many takes from a variety of camera angles, it was only natural to feel the loss that the scene aimed to capture.

Whether any of my family ends up in the movie or on the cutting room floor will not be known to me until full movie release this October. Regardless, for me, A Serious Man, captures a personal era.”

A Serious Man opens at the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis on October 2. Hey Mike — write in and tell us if you made the cut!