Microcinema DVDs - Futurist Life Redux

2012-04-02 Educational Media Reviews Online
By Jennifer Dean

Recommended

Performa and Anthology Film Archives, with the help of SFMoma and Portland Green Cultural Projects, commissioned several well known contemporary video artists to create short vignettes based on scenes from Vita Futurista (1916), the only Futurist film created by Arnaldo Ginna and other Futurist artists. During the original screening in 1916 the audience erupted with displeasure at this experimental exploration of what was then a relatively new medium. No copies of the original film survive, only a few stills and written descriptions of scenes. Those written descriptions were sent randomly to each one of the artists participating in Futurist Life Redux, so that they could create video pieces inspired by their designated scene. What results is a delightful mix of clever, thought-provoking and humorous short films each expressing the unique vision of the artist while highlighting different aspects of the Futurist movement. Although a mainstream cinema going audience may have a similar reaction to that of the audience of 1916, having come to expect a straightforward narrative, much of our current culture is used to this kind of post-Warhol – YouTube expression.

According to the curators’ essay which is included in the DVD extras, film was considered by the Futurists to be “the expressive medium most adapted to the complex sensibility of a Futurist artist.” Although this collection is much more than either a simple homage to the Futurist movement or a particularly witty set of YouTube videos, it does address aspects of both. It would be a useful collection not only for art history (exploring the Futurist movement) or film studies (examining the evolution of film as an art form and the inevitable loss of history due to the ephemerality of early film) but also media studies programs. Included in the extras are also some interesting interviews with artists George Kuchar and Lynn Hershman Leeson, Ben Coonly and Shana Moulton, and a synopsis of and stills from the original film Vita Futurista.

2012-01-25 Blog Critics
By Pat Padua

What does an avant-garde cat video have to do with Fascism? The omnibus film Futurist Life Redux, distributed by Microcinema, answers that burning question.
This isn’t the first time Microcinema has brought its viewership the finest in 21st century cat entertainment. But this time the cat comes with a pedigree. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti launched the Futurist movement in 1909 with the publication of a manifesto that dictated his aesthetic concerns: mainly, the past = bad, the young and strong = good. Adherents of Futurism admired violence and Fascism. In 1916, Marinetti , Arnaldo Ginna, and other Futurist-aligned artists made the movement’s only official film, Vita Futurista, which consisted of eleven segments with titles like “How the Futurist Walks,” “How the Futurist Sleeps,” and “The Sentimental Futurist.” But the sole surviving print was lost decades ago, and only stills and a synopsis survive.

The Futurists influenced better known art movements like Dada and Surrealism, but remain fairly obscure today. The non-profit arts organization Performa celebrated the centennial of the birth of Futurism by commissioning eleven artists to recreate “Vita Futurista” for our time. The demographic of the selected artists is primarily female, which seems to fly in the face of the male-centric Futurist ideal. But if the past=bad, then the Futurists should embrace, if hugging is their thing, this more inclusive document, which looks forward and backward at the same time.

If the resulting work seems random, that’s because to a large extent it is. The video and film artists selected were given a challenging assignment: after accepting the commission, they received their instructions: a one sentence description of their randomly assigned segment of the film, along with surviving stills and a four-week deadline. Curated by Lana Wilson with Andrew Lampert, the eleven segments that make up Futurist Life Redux are a mixed bag, but the strongest of them are bursting with the kind of spontaneous inventiveness that you’d hope for from such a project, but seldom achieve.

A segment by the late George Kuchar will be of interest to fans of the legendary underground filmmaker, but the video effects make one long for the black and white film stock of his best known work. Martha Colburn’s "One and One is Life" casts Wonder Woman in a stop-motion paper animation that avoids the cheesy 80s video look of much of the work here for the more subtle look of 16mm film. The super-heroine battles flaming automobiles and civil war soldiers on horseback on a mirrored stage that disorients but also reflects back the vivid imagery in fluid ways that send the action out in all directions.

Ben Coonley is the genius behind the viral video “A Valentine for Perfect Strangers.” In “Why Cecco Beppe Does Not Die,” Coonley takes a similar artificial speech-cum cute cat video approach, using the limitations of commercial video to hilarious advantage. The surviving synopsis of this Futurist segment revolves around smell, and the artist runs with it, praising “the illuminated smells of a new technology” with scratch and sniff ovals “embedded” into the screen. That the Futurist messages are delivered by a cat and a pair of toddlers in skeleton outfits subverts conventional narrative in much the way the Futurists would have liked. But Coonley also pokes fun at the received wisdom of avant-garde film, wondering if an awful smell is “Austria? Hungary? Essential Cinema?” referring to the established canon of experimental films.

Coonley explains as much in one of the DVD extras, which feature chats with several of the participating filmmakers, including Kuchar, Shana Moulton and Lynne Hershman Leeson. Leeson explains that she made her segment, which combines video game footage with fragmented videotaped joggers, in two days, in contrast to a feature film on which she spent 42 years. She is referring to the documentary Women Art Revolution, her recently released survey of feminist art. Leeson’s feature is essential viewing for anybody interested in modern art, particularly the generation of women who paved the way for the artists like Miranda July. Futurist Life Redux is unlikely to add to the canon of essential cinema. But if you add it to your queue, despite some indulgences, there will be a few gems in your future.

The Village Voice
By J. Hoberman

A lot of entertainment value!

Artforum.com
By Ara H. Merjian

Departing from past examples—rather than copying or honoring them—was a key Futurist credo, one these individuals have taken seriously, even as they honor the original film’s quirky sense of humor.