Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives
JACOB BURCKHARDT
January 25 – January 27
FILMMAKER IN PERSON!
This series shines a spotlight on Jacob Burckhardt, whose eclectic, resourceful, and always charming body of work spans fifty years (and counting) and a variety of different formats and genres. Burckhardt has moved back and forth between distinctly different modes throughout his career. A lifelong New Yorker, his films are almost always rooted in the people and (ever-changing) landscapes of the city. Many of them – reflecting the influence of the city symphonies of his father, the photographer and filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt – are impressionistic, lyrical street films. But Jacob has also consistently been drawn to narrative storytelling – both short and feature length – and to a mode that very few underground filmmakers have explored in such depth: a parodic, profoundly playful, sometimes even cartoonish style, replete with handmade sets and props, ingenious camera effects, and artfully constructed soundtracks.
These four programs sample each of Burckhardt’s different modes, with programs devoted to his two feature films, IT DON’T PAY TO BE AN HONEST CITIZEN and LANDLORD BLUES (the latter screening doubling as a kind of follow-up to this past summer’s “Kill Yr Landlords” series); another devoted to his “comedies”; and one focusing on his poetic documentaries.
PROGRAM 1:
IT DON’T PAY TO BE AN HONEST CITIZEN
1985, 78 min, 16mm
Based on Burckhardt’s own absurd experience of being mugged in Red Hook in the late 1970s, IT DON’T PAY TO BE AN HONEST CITIZEN centers on the efforts of Warren (Reed Bye) to retrieve a precious canister of film. Though the muggers (one of whom is played by a then-unknown Vincent D’Onofrio) are caught immediately, the reel remains elusively out of his grasp. To recover it he must spar with the neighborhood’s most illustrious residents – legit and otherwise. Filmed in a (now largely vanished) Red Hook, IT DON’T PAY is populated by a mind-boggling array of countercultural luminaries, including Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Bill Rice, and painter Rackstraw Downes.
Preceded by:
MARTEN’S BAR (1976, 5 min, 16mm. Poem by Edwin Denby.)
Total running time: ca. 85 min.
Sat, Jan 25 at 7:00.
PROGRAM 2:
LANDLORD BLUES
1986, 92 min, 16mm
“Death Penalty to Landlords!” Sometimes in a modern city it’s easier to beat a murder rap than it is to get a new lease. George (Mark Boone Junior) is trying to hold on to his modest bike shop despite the efforts of his slum landlord, Albert Streck (Richard Litt), to terminate his lease on a technicality and evict him. When Streck turns nasty, hiring first a lawyer and then even an arsonist, George turns to his friends, a street-wise crew of Lower East Side loyalists, for help in beating Streck at his own game.
Preceded by:
CONDEMNED (1976, 6 min, 16mm. Co-directed by Geoff Davis.)
Total running time: ca. 100 min.
Sun, Jan 26 at 5:15.
PROGRAM 3: COMEDIES
TOMORROW ALWAYS COMES
2006, 49 min, video. Written, co-directed by, and starring Royston Scott.
A 1940s campy film noir sex romp comedy thriller. Harlem, Chinatown, Park Ave. It’s the same old story. Boy meets girl, boy gets dead, girl gets rich. Real rich. With Bill Rice, George Kuchar, James Tigger! Ferguson, Armen Ra, Mimi Gross, Megan Pearson, Mariana Newhard, Kimberly Lewis, Meghan Love, Jenny Weaver, Amalia Rosa, and Royston Scott. Music by Marc Ribot and Brett Flute.
THE FRANKIE LYMON’S NEPHEW STORY
1991, 34.5 min, digital. Written, co-directed by, and starring Mr. Fashion (Gerard Little).
A graceful cat in a leopard print jacket who lived fast and died slow, Frankie dances, prances, and jives into your heart – only to fall prey to the ills of stardom and nose-dive into the cruel world of drugs and obscurity, leaving several wives to battle over his estate.
With:
HOLD ON, I’M COMING (1984, 3.5 min, video)
CELEBRITY WITH HELEN AND SANDY (1978-2022, 1.5 min, 16mm-to-digital)
Total running time: ca. 90 min.
Sun, Jan 26 at 8:00.
PROGRAM 4: POETIC DOCUMENTARIES
This program comprises eight works that – with the exception of MORIR EN NEW YORK – are being screened publicly for the first time!
UNSAFE FOR MORE THAN 25 MEN (1988-2020, 11 min, 16mm-to-digital)
3 DAYS OF HURRICANE SANDY (2013, 5 min, digital. With music by Marc Ribot.)
CUBA 99 (1999-2008, 6.5 min, 16mm-to-digital)
NEGOMBO (2014-19, 8 min, digital)
JawwZZZ (2024, 15 min, digital. Soundtrack by Lary 7.)
JAPAN 2002, OR WHERE THE F@#K IS FUJI (2002, 11.5 min, 16mm-to-digital. With music by Enomoto Kenichi.)
PORT OF NEWARK (2022, 4 min, digital)
MORIR EN NEW YORK (1975, 19.5 min, 16mm-to-digital)
Total running time: ca. 85 min.
Mon, Jan 27 at 7:30.
