Tuesday,
October 18
~ Thursday,
October 20
Be
Sand, Not Oil: A Tribute to Amos Vogel
 Born
in Vienna, Austria in 1921, Amos Vogel (born Vogelbaum) narrowly
escaped the horrors of Nazism when he and his parents immigrated
first to Cuba and then to the USA in 1938. With his wife Marcia,
Vogel founded New York’s Cinema 16 in 1947 and became the first
programmer to show the works of such filmmakers as Roman Polanski,
John Cassavetes, Nagisa Oshima, Jacques Rivette and Alain Resnais
to American audiences. In 1963, together with Richard Roud,
he founded the New York Film Festival, and served as its program
director until 1968. In 1973, Vogel started the Annenberg Cinematheque
at the University of Pennsylvania. Author of the landmark book
Film As A Subversive Art (1974), he was eventually
given a Chair for film studies at the Annenberg School of Communications,
where he taught and lectured for two decades. To coincide with
the Penn Cinema and Media Pioneers symposium, we present three
evenings of shorts and features honoring the influential film
curator, author and teacher who invigorated film culture in
America and helped to shape the course of film exhibition and
education in our city.
Click
here to learn more about Penn Film and Media Pioneers.
Tuesday,
October 18 at 7:00pm
Film
As A Subversive Art: Amos Vogel and Cinema 16
dir.
Paul Cronin, UK, 2003, Beta SP, 57 mins, color
Director
Paul Cronin in person
 In
1947, Amos Vogel established Cinema 16 in New York, which would
go on to become the most important and influential film society
in America. Paul Cronin’s documentary is an intimate portrait
of Vogel and tells the story of Cinema 16 through a vivid compilation
of images and sounds that includes newly filmed interviews with
the erudite and charismatic Vogel, as well as material from
his extensive archives and excerpts from films he screened at
Cinema 16.
followed
by
Weegee’s
New York
dir.
Arthur ‘Weegee’ Fellig, USA, 1952, 16mm, 21 mins, color and
b/w
The
infamous press photographer’s legendary impressions of the metropolis,
including his famed candid study of life and love in Coney Island.
Edited by Amos Vogel and premiered at Cinema 16 in fall 1955.
Living
in a Reversed World
dir.
Dr. Pacher, USA, 1956, 16mm, 12 mins, b/w
A
C16 favorite, this fascinating film documents psychological
experiments with subjects who for several weeks wear glasses
reversing right and left.
Cosmic
Ray
dir.
Bruce Conner, USA, 1962, 16mm, 4 mins, b/w
A
daring, hypnotic, visual experience by Bruce Conner.
Wednesday,
October 19 at 7:00pm
Before
the Revolution
dir.
Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy, 1964, 35mm, 115 mins, b/w, Italian
w/ English subtitles
 Bertolucci,
then twenty two, burst onto the film scene with this portrait
of a young bourgeois man's political and sexual coming
of
age. A landmark of Italian New Wave cinema, Bertolucci's most
personal work is also his most sensuous. Considered by Vogel
to be “the most germinal work of the new cinema,”
Before
the Revolution first premiered in America at the 1964
New York Film Festival.
preceded
by
The
New York Film Festival, 1963
USA,
1963, 20 mins, video, b/w
This
recently discovered round table discussion between Amos Vogel,
Richard Roud and directors Joseph Losey (The Servant)
and Aldofos Mekas (Hallelujah the Hills) was filmed
for television and offers a fascinating look into the origins
of
the New York Festival, which remains the most important annual
showcase for international cinema in the United States.
Thursday,
October 20 at 7:00pm
Sources
of the Modern Cinema
 In
Spring of 1985, undergraduates returning to the University of
Pennsylvania were given the opportunity to study with Amos Vogel
in his ‘Sources of the Modern Cinema’ class. Tonight’s program
represents two sections of that course and feature rarely screened
works from Annenberg’s film library; a collection which was
donated to International House Philadelphia in the summer of
2003 for future preservation.
Program
I
Film
as a Visual Art
The
differences between poetic and realist-fictional cinema; the
irreducible or analyzable “mystery” of art; the problem of truth;
the destruction and reconstitution of time and space.
Off/On
dir.
Scott Bartlett, USA, 1968, 16mm, 10 mins, color
Pas
de deux
dir.
Norman McClaren, Canada, 1967, 14 mins, b/w
God
is Dog Spelled Backwards
dir.
Dan Maclaughlin, USA, 1963, 16mm, 4 mins, color
Beauty
Knows No Pain
dir.
Elliot Erwitt, USA, 1971, 16mm, 25 mins, b/w
A
Movie
dir.
Bruce Conner, USA, 1958, 16mm, 12 mins, b/w
Program
II
The
Worldview of the Modern Artist:
New
Values for a Nuclear Age
Modern
art as break-up and re-birth; the end of narrative structures;
the invasion of irrationality; the devaluation of language;
value systems for a nuclear age; cinema as the essence of modern
art.
N.Y.
, N.Y.
dir.
Francis Thompson, USA, 1960, 16mm, 16 mins, b/w
Pasadena
Freeway Stills
dir.
Gary Beydler, USA, 1974, 16mm, 5 mins, color
Orange
dir.
Karen Johnson, USA, 1970, 16mm, 3 mins, color
The
Bed
dir.
James Broughton, USA, 1968, 16mm, 20 mins, color
Kirsa
Nicholina
dir.
Gunvor Nelson & Dorothy Wiley, USA, 1969, 16mm, 16 mins,
color
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