“Do you think this motherf*%#ing country runs on talent?” So asks Clarence (Kene Holliday) toward the end of Craig Zobel’s wonderful independent feature, Great World of Sound. Clarence and his partner, Martin (Pat Healy), are “talent scouts” recruited by a shady record label to seek out new bands and singers hoping to be superstars and sell them phony recording deals. At first oblivious to the scam, Clarence and Martin soon realize that their fly-by-night employers are conning the salesmen as well as the musicians.
The documentaries and features showcased in the Dryden’s 18th Annual Rochester Labor Film Series, including Great World of Sound, answer Clarence’s explosive off-color query with a fairly definitive “no.” In spite of the widely held American dream of fame and fortune, these international selections suggest that the lifeblood of this country-and the world for that matter-consists of working-class men and women, individuals who are often unskilled and too frequently exploited. Some of these films focus on the stories of these workers, like migrant ranch hands in Tommy Lee Jones’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (September 21 & 23); department store clerks in Sam Wood’s classic comedy, The Devil and Miss Jones (screening September 28); illegal Palestinian immigrants who cross the border for Israeli construction jobs in 9 Star Hotel (October 19 & 21); or striking British miners and dockworkers in director Ken Loach’s Which Side Are You On? plus a documentary on Loach, Carry on Ken (both screening October 5).
Speaking of Ken Loach, the screen’s greatest champion of the working class will appear in person on October 10 as a special centerpiece event to this year’s series. Another hero is the legendary Harry Bridges, the outspoken and influential organizer who co-founded the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on the West Coast, played lovingly by Ian Ruskin in From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks. On October 12, Ruskin will also appear in person to introduce this filmed record of his much-heralded one-man show.
Along with these heroes, the working class have also had their martyrs, chief among them Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco. The Italian immigrants and anarchists who were executed in Boston in 1927 are the subjects of a powerful and informative new documentary, Sacco and Vanzetti, which will open the series on September 7.
White-collar work has its pitfalls too, as evidenced in The Method (September 14 & 16). This recent Spanish thriller shows us the nasty final selection process for a corporate position where the ideal candidate is one who can dish out and receive the most humiliation.
Acclaimed at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Great World of Sound closes the series with its first area screenings on October 26 & 28. A unique blend of fiction and documentary techniques, the film will be presented in person (on October 26 only) by leading actor Pat Healy and co-writer/director Craig Zobel, a filmmaker, like the others represented in this series, with no shortage of talent.
(FLANDRES, Bruno Dumont, France 2006, 91 min., French with subtitles, 35mm)
Winner of the jury’s grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the fourth feature from director Dumont (La Vie de Jesus, L’Humanité) tells the story of a simple young farmer in Northern France who goes off to fight a nameless desert war, leaving behind his young and promiscuous girlfriend. Dumont’s patented style alternates serenely beautiful images of nature with shockingly graphic depictions of sex and violence. Urgently provocative and stylistically bold, it’s an anti-war film like no other ever made. No one under 18 admitted.
(MALON 9 KOCHAVIM, Ido Haar, Israel 2007, 78 min., Hebrew and Arabic with subtitles, 35mm)
Thousands of Palestinians have illegally crossed borders into neighboring Israel, seeking work as day laborers in construction. Director Haar follows his subjects closely as a group of nomadic young men flee from police, risk their lives, and sleep in hovels in order to build luxury housing by day. 9 Star Hotel is a devastating documentary portrait of young men caught in an economic and political maelstrom not of their own making- their dreams subsumed by the hard reality of day-to-day survival.
If you can imagine the title for this series as a neon sign in electric-pink cursive, or air-brushed on a loose-fitting tee with a lightning bolt in the background, or “comin’ at ya” off a movie screen in 3-D with a badass accompanying guitar lick, then you know what the 1980s were all about. This fall, the Dryden Theatre pays homage to the sights, sounds, and perms of the ’80s, the only decade with a fanbase so dedicated it approaches religious zealotry.
Partially credited with bringing the disco era to a screeching halt, producer Allan Carr’s glitzy camp classic Can’t Stop the Music (1980) stars the Village People and a roller-skating Steve Guttenberg, and features prophetic lines like, “This is the ’80s, darling…You’ll see a lot of things you’ve never see before.” Little did they know what we were all in for.
Breakdancing broke out of the boroughs, and is captured during its nascent moments in the first hip-hop TV show, Graffiti Rock, and the super-fresh feature, Breakin’ II: Electric Boogaloo. BMX romanced teenage boys coast to coast, and—the ultimate old-school biking film, BMX Bandits, only added to the seduction. Hair metal, in the form of bands like Judas Priest, intoxicated throngs of young Americans, who then compulsively grew mullets and donned acid-wash jeans. The phenomenon is documented in Jeff Krulik’s Heavy Metal Parking Lot, which Krulik will present in person on September 29.
In the ’80s, horror films became hip, irreverent, and culturally relevant. Zombies experienced a resurrection, as seen in many of these selections (Return of the Living Dead, Evil Dead II, Night of the Comet) that make audiences laugh and scream, often at the same time. John Carpenter’s sci-fi/horror/action/comedy They Live took genre-bending to extremes while poking fun at yuppies in the era of “Greed is Good.” They Live might also feature the definitive demonstration of “shade-tippin,’” an odd signifier that became an almost metaphysical gesture, connoting a variety of ’80s-esque attitudes, like “whoa,” “gnarly,” or “check me out.”
Some films, though grounded in trends specific to the decade, transcend that trendiness. River’s Edge, Repo Man, and Stop Making Sense have all survived the jokiness others have become subject to while remaining distinctly ’80s.
One of the problems with ’80s appreciation is that the decade has become a commodity in popular media. Certain television stations (ahem, VH1) have commodified the memes of the 1980s and represent it through excerpts, clips, and soundbites.
So, what you get is a clichéd, watered-down, and revisionist version of the ’80s. For this series, we’ve tried to explore the way it really was—for better or worse, and completely uncut—during the “Me” Decade.
Dude, this is going to be awesome.
Michael Neault, Associate Programmer, Motion Picture Department
Thursday, September 6
Can’t Stop the Music (Nancy Walker, US 1980, 118 min.) Co-presented by ImageOut, the Rochester LGBT Film Festival.
Thursday, September 13
7 p.m. Graffiti Rock (Clark Santee, US 1984, 23 min.) and 8 p.m. Breakin’ II: Electric Boogaloo (Sam Firstenberg, US 1984, 94 min.) Co-presented by Fish & Crown Records (http://fishandcrown.com).
Thursday, September 20
Director Tim Hunter in Person!
River’s Edge (Tim Hunter, US 1986, 99 min.)
Saturday, September 29
Director Jeff Krulik in Person!
Krulik’s films including Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986, 16 min.), King of Porn (1996, 7 min.), I Created Lancelot Link (1999, 15 min.), Obsessed With Jews (2000, 8 min.), Harry Potter Parking Lot (2000, 7 min.), and Hitler’s Hat (2003, 47 min.) Special ticket pricing; no Take-10 tickets or passes. The Experimental Television Center’s Presentation Funds Program is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, a public agency.
Sunday, September 30
7 p.m. Repo Man (Alex Cox, US 1984, 92 min.) Co-presented by Manic Mondays ’80s Dance Party (http://www.myspace.com/manicmondays).
Thursday, October 4
7 p.m. Valley Girl (Martha Coolidge, US 1983, 95 min.) and 9 p.m. Night of the Comet (Thom Eberhart, US 1984, 95 min.) Co-presented by Godiva’s Vintage Clothing.
Thursday, October 11
BMX Bandits (Brian Trenchard-Smith, Australia 1983, 88 min. ) Co-presented by Coalition BMX (www.coalitionbmx.com).
Thursday, October 18
Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme, US 1984, 88 min.) Co-presented by Thursday Night Shakedown. Talking Heads-themed dance party to follow at the Bug Jar, 219 Monroe Avenue, Rochester.
Thursday, October 25
Actor Pat Healy in Person!
“The Art of Shade Tippin’” lecture followed by They Live (John Carpenter, US 1988, 97 min.)
Saturday, October 27
8 p.m. Evil Dead II (Sam Raimi, US 1987, 85 min.) and 9:30 p.m. Return of the Living Dead (Dan O’Bannon, US 1985, 91 min.)
Sunday, October 28
7 p.m. Evil Dead II (Sam Raimi, US 1987, 85 min.) and 8:30 p.m. Return of the Living Dead (Dan O’Bannon, US 1985, 91 min.)
All films will be screened in the Dryden Theatre at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Admission is $6, $5 students, and $4 members.
(D.W. Griffith, US 1920, 148 min., 35mm)
One of Griffith’s supreme masterworks follows the plight of Anna Moore (Lillian Gish in one of her signature roles), a poor country girl deflowered by the slick Lennox (Lowell Sherman) and forced into exile by her shame. Griffith’s dynamic flair for action is demonstrated in the classic climactic sequence on top of breaking ice floes. Live piano by Philip C. Carli.
