New Hollywood and the Avant-Garde
dal 17/5/2015 al 20/5/2015
Segnalato da
17/5/2015
New Hollywood and the Avant-Garde
The Center for Contemporary Art at the Rachel & Israel Pollak Gallery, Tel Aviv
The series'main aim is to introduce Israeli audiences to filmmakers, some of whom were relegated to the margins of history, as well as to ground-breaking lesser-known cinematic works that have inspired and influenced famous film directors working within the Hollywood system.
Curator: Chen Sheinberg
Funded by the Ostrovsky Family Fund
The tension and conflict between the cinematic medium’s artistic and commercial dimensions date from the very first days of the seventh art. Based on a production line model, Hollywood film industry has always represented the commercial and profit-oriented aspects of this art. On the other hand, the avant-garde movement, based as it is on personal, boundary-breaking endeavor, has always represented its artistic radical aspect.
Other aspects refer to Hollywood-produced films with avant-garde formal and content traits, and former avant-garde and experimental filmmakers working with Hollywood found footage and investigating the cinematic and ideological mechanism underlying the Hollywood system.
The series’ main aim is to introduce Israeli audiences to filmmakers, some of whom were relegated to the margins of history, as well as to ground-breaking lesser-known cinematic works that have inspired and influenced famous film directors working within the Hollywood system.
New Hollywood and the Avant-Garde – Head by Bob Rafelson
May 18, Jerusalem Cinematheque, | May 21, Tel Aviv Cinematheque
Towards the end of the 1960s, a new generation of filmmakers started making films that would appeal to new and younger audiences, which were exposed to films of the French New Wave and the American avant-garde and were weary of the conservative and petrified spectacular films of the studio era. Thus began the era of New Hollywood also known as the “Hollywood renaissance” which Bob Rafelson was part off.
In addition to the new and freer cinematic language, those films presented critically political contents inspired by the protests against the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the student revolt. In terms of form, one of the most radical films that were produced during this revolutionary era is Bob Rafelson’s first film, Head (1968). Based on a television series about a fictional rock ‘n roll group, The Monkees.
The film’s associative, non-linear narrative jumps back and forth illogically and unexpectedly between times, places and genres. Its psychedelic atmosphere and style of editing betray a strong influence of
the 1960s American avant-garde cinema and, especially by Paul Sharits’ 1968 experimental film T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G made on the same year (1968).
Paul Sharits, T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G, 1968. 12 min.
Bob Rafelson, Head, 1968. 82 min.
Total: 94 min.
The Center for Contemporary Art (CCA)
2a Tsadok Hacohen St. (Corner of Kalisher), The Rachel & Israel Pollak Gallery Tel Aviv
Hours:
Monday – Thursday: 2 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Friday, Saturday: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Admission: 10 NIS