40 Frames

Bless Their Little Hearts / When It Rains

January 7, 2005 - 7:30PM
Portland Community College, Cascade Campus

Co-presented by Cascade Festival of African Films & Lighthouse Cinema

BLESS THEIR LITTLE HEARTS by Billy Woodberry
(1984, black & white, 80 mins)
An unemployed father cannot accept that his wife supports the household. Dragging on in an attempt to find a hypothetical job, weariness and disillusion end up by forging everyday life, transforming it into a nightmare. It is in the strength of his spouse that the husband will find his courage.

Article about the film:
http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue05/features/black4.htm

Human Rights Watch Festival archive listing:
http://www.hrw.org/iff-97/filmuz/woodbles.html

Billy Woodberry’s BLESS THEIR LITTLE HEARTS, a powerful drama dealing with an African American family in crisis, is one of the classics of the “L.A. School” of black independent film that also includes Charles Burnett’s KILLER OF SHEEP. “[W]hat matters to Woodberry is not the images of urban misery, but the physical presence of human beings: how, for example, sweetness, anger or fatigue are inscribed in the man’s powerful body. What matters is how time passes in the act of filming itself and the intensity brought by the way small moments accumulate within the space of a shot. In the crispness of its b/w images, and the loving, respectful and sensitive gaze it casts on the protagonists, Woodberry’s film is as beautiful as the blues music that permeates its soundtrack.”

(Cahiers du Cinéma)

WHEN IT RAINS by Charles Burnett
(1995, color, 13 mins)
Watts, 1960s. On a mission to save a mother and her children from eviction by the landlord, the main character’s quest for money turns into a superbly comical, outrageous expedition through the lives and attitudes of various characters. A parable on the value of community.

(Milestone Film & Video)

Film Comment editor Armond White on Burnett (Jan/Feb 1997):
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1069/is_n1_v33/ai_19087419

Film & Video Work by Babette Mangolte

January 20-22, 2005

Co-presented by Northwest Film Center & Lighthouse Cinema

Babette Mangolte is well known today as the cinematographer for a number of major avant-garde and art films, including LIVES OF PERFORMERS (Yvonne Rainer, 1972) and JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (Chantal Akerman, 1975)*. But her own films have received, with few exceptions, little critical attention since the late 1970s. This is perhaps because they eschew the forms of American avant-garde film dominant in the 1970s and 1980s, even while they engage with and respond to many of the same concerns as these forms. For scholars and artists interested in finding distinct, original alternatives to the prevailing types of avant-garde filmmaking of this period, Mangolte’s films constitute a compelling candidate.

(Malcolm Turvey, FRAMEWORK, Spring 2004)

*Mangolte has also worked as cinematographers on films by Jackie Raynal, Anthony McCall, Michael Snow, Richard Foreman, Sally Potter, and Jean Pierre Gorin.

THE SKY ON LOCATION
1982, 78 mins, 16mm, color
The film explores the landscape of the American West as if we were looking at it from the perspective of the first emigrants discovering an unknown territory. The landscape is not seen in its postcardish grandeur as captured in the photographs of Ansel Adams, nor through its shapes as in paintings by Cezanne or Constable, but rather the film captures the mood of the landscape as in a Turner painting. The film attempts to construct a geography of the land from North to South, East to West and season to season through colors instead of maps.

(Babette Mangolte)

Program takes place at Lighthouse Cinema January 20

THE MODELS OF PICKPOCKET / LES MODÈLES DE PICKPOCKET
2003, 89 mins, BETA SP 16:9
During a chance encounter at a party, Mangolte recognizes a face she has known most of her life yet never met: that of genetics researcher Pierre Leymarie. As a young man he played a lead role in Robert Bresson’s 1959 film PICKPOCKET. Based on this encounter, Mangolte begins to track down the three lead “models” of Bresson’s film, none of who were professional actors at the time. In discussing their experience as actors for Bresson, it becomes clear that their encounter and work with Bresson during the Summer of 1959 had an impact on their lives far beyond what one might have suspected. A deceptively simple film, it belongs to that rare class of “cineaste” films that take on a subject much larger than cinema: the role of art in people’s lives. It is not about the auteur, but about the effect of the experience on the other people involved. Despite its basis in interviews, THE MODELS OF PICKPOCKET is a very pleasurable film full of tactile impressions and genuine emotion. When Mangolte enters Mexico and finally meets Martin Lassalle, it seems one of cinema’s great discoveries. “The most beautiful of her works I’m familiar with, one that deserves to be called a poetic personal essay as well as a documentary... Mangolte seems to imply that it’s possible to confuse Bresson’s films with life because they’re made up of its very substance.”

(Jonathan Rosenbaum)

Program takes place at Northwest Film Center January 21

EXQUISITE EXPOSURE: THE CINEMATOGRAPHER’S EYE
A workshop with BABETTE MANGOLTE
Saturday, January 22, 10am-4pm
Northwest Film Center’s School of Film (1139 SW 11th)
The Film Center welcomes respected cinematographer, experimental filmmaker and photographer Babette Mangolte for this workshop about the art of conceptualizing and capturing moving images on film or video. Referencing her work as cinematographer for Chantal Akerman, Yvonne Rainer, Michael Snow, Richard Foreman, Trisha Brown and Robert Rauschenberg, among others, as well as her many own works, she will discuss composition and lighting techniques which apply to the many forms of shooting: exterior, interior, on location, as well as documenting stage performance. Drawing on her decades of experience working with others to record their work on film, she will also discuss: the ability of good composition to transcend genre and create a sense of intimacy for the viewer, lighting design and background as lyrical interpretations of the subject, being simultaneously unobtrusive and attentive while shooting, working with existing theatrical lighting design while filming a performance, and establishing trust and gaining access with collaborators. Appropriate for the producer seeking to improve the overall quality of their shooting as well as the enthusiast interested in creative documentation of events and performances.