♦♦ Amos Vogel’s “Film as a Subversive Art“♦♦
A sensual close up study of an orange as it is peeled and eaten. Shown in Edinburgh and New York Film festivals in 1969 and first prize-winner at the 1970 First International Erotic Film Festival in San Francisco.
Margo is an ex-stripper who meets her long, lost father in Mexico. She looks after him in the waning days of his life, with the help of a traveling projectionist. The father passes away, telling of the loot from a botched bank robbery that he buried years earlier. The two get jobs in town as their relationship grows and they search for the treasure on the weekends. But while the treasure seems to bring them together, it also seems to be tearing them apart.
Jimmy Wing is a Florida journalist and long-time friend of Elmo Bliss, a local businessman and politician involved in real-estate development. Bliss reveals his ruthless side, threatening Wing when the reporter becomes close to the beautiful wildlife conservationist Kat Hubble, one of a group of ecologists that stands in the way of a new landfill. While Wing clashes with Bliss, his life gets even more complicated as his romance with Hubble progresses.
A rich city woman and murder witness on the run from her psychotic husband takes refuge in the barn of a Texas dirt farmer. The farmer is also on the run from the law and has been for years and finally must confront the police when they come for the woman.
♦♦ Amos Vogel’s “Film as a Subversive Art“♦♦
Loosely based on William A. Seiter’s 1948 film One Touch of Venus, Steven Arnold’s first film is a macabre, decadent work presenting mannequins and models that travel through strange universes.
This children’s adventure is set in South Africa and chronicles the bond between a boy and his cheetah. The two have been pals for a long time, so when the cat is taken and placed in a traveling circus, the boy does all he can to free it.
A lawman on the brink of retirement resolves to bring a gang of outlaws to justice first – but the bandits are led by his adoptive father. The townsfolk he protects question where his loyalties lie, and turn to a hired gun to make sure he goes through with the job.
Assemblage is an experimental film that shows Merce Cunningham’s dance company performing in a public square in the San Francisco bay. Through special effects, the bodies of the dancers appear superimposed against the architecture of the plaza. Colorized by artist Charles Atlas and with a soundtrack created by John Cage, David Tudor, and Gordon Mumma, Assemblage is a psychedelic collage of movement, time, and space.
