Friday,
August 10 + Saturday, August 11
Personal
Archive: Maysles Films, Inc.
Co-presented
by The Maysles Institute
Organized
by Michael Chaiken, Curator of Film & New Media, Maysles
Institute and Sean Williams, Chief Archivist, Maysles Films.
 In
2005, Maysles Films began the Herculean task of cataloging and
preserving its vast collection of film, photographic and paper
materials. Some 700 boxes were found to contain everything from
Albert’s earliest days as a traveling cameraman through Russia
and Eastern Europe in the mid-fifties to finished and unfinished
Maysles Bros. projects with The Beatles, Marlon Brando, Carl
Sandburg, Sean O’Casey and The Rolling Stones. Equally
exciting has been the discovery of a handful of “lost” films
by gifted filmmakers and editors who, long ago, apprenticed
with Maysles Films.
For
two nights in August, The Maysles Film Institute, a new nonprofit
established by Maysles Films to preserve the Maysles legacy
and promote new work in the Maysles tradition, is proud to present
with International House the first public screening of some
of these amazing and unique discoveries.
Click
Here for program notes.
Friday,
August 10 at 7pm
An
evening dedicated to filmmakers associated with Maysles Films
whose work has recently been rediscovered within its archives.
Included in this program is a rare Warhol gem previously thought
lost to the ages – a commercial the pop artist directed for
Plaza 8 featuring Factory superstar Mary Woronov and edited
by Dan Williams (who worked with Albert and David on their Beatles
film What’s Happening! ). Also featured will be British
avant-garde filmmaker Simon Hartog’s 1970 documentary If
It Moves Shoot It. Filmed on location around several
American-European co-productions, this documentary includes
fascinating and revealing footage of Francois Truffaut at work
directing Jean-Pierre Leaud in Bed and Board, Robert
Bresson in an interview while shooting his film Une Femme
Douce (A Gentle Woman) and Pierre Clementi on
the set of Franco Brocani’s Necropolis. Noted
still photographer Elliot Erwitt (one of several gifted cinematographers
who worked on Gimme Shelter) is represented by his
staggering documentary portrait of Kilgore College’s legendary
Rangerette cheerleading squad in the masterpiece Beauty
Knows No Pain.
Saturday,
August 11 at 7pm
 A
focus exclusively on the work of Albert and David and featuring
several of their seldom screened “work for hire” projects. Offering
a fascinating alternative look at the Maysles filmography, this
program will present one of the first projects to come through
Maysles Films after it was founded in 1962 — Anastasia,
whose subject is Anastasia Stephens, an American ballerina
in the Bolshoi Ballet at the height of the Cold War.
Other
highlights include two unique projects Albert and David directed
for MGM Studios in 1966. The first, made to help promote the
release of Fantastic Voyage, is a humorous portrait
of Salvador Dali in New York. The second, filled with many enticements
to cineastes, is a 20 minute “showreel” shot in and around London
to help promote forthcoming MGM projects. The film includes
rare footage of Roman Polanski directing wife Sharon Tate in
The Fearless Vampire Killers, Tate dancing with Blow
Up star David Hemmings in a London nightclub and Kier
Dullea discussing Kubrick’s 2001, then in pre-production.
Also in the program will be Albert and David’s rarely screened
Cut Piece, which documents one of
Yoko Ono’s most powerful conceptual pieces as performed by the
artist herself.
Along
with various trims and
outtakes (and other surprises!) from some of the best known
of Maysles’ films, tonight’s program offers a privileged look
inside the working life of one of cinema’s greatest creative
partnerships.
|
