High Museum Spotlights Independent Cinema With Fall Movie Series

Series will feature rare independent films from The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

ATLANTA, Oct. 4, 2012 – Forget formulaic plot lines and predictable characters. This fall film enthusiasts can enjoy rare independent films from The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), during the High Museum of Art's film series "American Indies from MoMA."

The series features eight truly independent American films, produced outside of traditional avenues by artists who were not afraid to challenge conventions. Each film reflects the personal and social values of the filmmakers through creative narratives, controversial subject matter and experimentation.

"The films in this series underscore the diversity of subject matter, production means and artists inherent in the field of independent cinema," said Virginia Shearer, associate director of public programs. "If you are a movie fan, but tired of seeing the same kind of box-office blockbusters, this series is for you."

From "Brute Force," with Burt Lancaster as an innocent inmate plotting his escape from prison, to "Ten Minutes to Live," one of the first films made specifically for an African American audience, cinema lovers will have the opportunity to view a wide variety of rare yet compelling films.

The opening weekend, presented in conjunction with Culture Shock, kicks off with "Kitchen," a candid look at Andy Warhol's odd cast of friends. There will also be a Happy Horrordays Double Feature on Thanksgiving weekend with back-to-back thrillers "Ganja and Hess" and "Eraserhead."

All films will be shown in the Richard H. Rich Theatre, located in the Memorial Arts Building of the Woodruff Arts Center, adjacent to the High Museum of Art at 1280 Peachtree Street in midtown Atlanta. Below is the full schedule of films:

• Oct.13 at 8 and 10 p.m.: "Kitchen"
  - Presented by Culture Shock—free with Culture Shock ticket
• Oct. 20 at 8 p.m.: "Brute Force"
• Oct. 26 at 8 p.m.: "Shadows"
• Nov. 2 at 8 p.m.: "Lovers and Lollipops"
• Nov. 10 at 8 p.m.: "Ten Minutes to Live"
• Nov. 17 at 8 p.m.: "Decasia: The State of Decay"
• Nov. 24 at 7 and 9:30 p.m.: Culture Shock presents a Happy Horrordays Double Feature with "Ganja and Hess" and "Eraserhead"
  - Two-for one-tickets

Admission prices are $7 for the public and $6 for Museum members, students and seniors. Patron-level members enter free. Tickets may be purchased in advance by visiting the Woodruff Arts Center Box Office, calling 404-733-5000 or going online to www.High.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the door on the night of the screening.

FILM DETAILS:

Kitchen. 1965. Directed by Andy Warhol. Written by Ronald Tavel. With Edie Sedgwick, Roger Trudeau and Electrah Lobel. (67 minutes.)

"Kitchen" was filmed in the New York City kitchen of Bud Wirtschafter, who was the soundman on several early Andy Warhol films. Warhol intended for this film to be the vehicle that would propel Edie Sedgwick into stardom; however, she had difficulty memorizing her lines, and much of her performance is improvised. It is not until the arrival of camp queen Electrah that Edie is seen to perk up. The film spirals into a directionless narrative after Edie burns her hand on the stove.

Brute Force. 1947. Directed by Jules Dassin. Screenplay by Richard Brooks, based on a story by Robert Patterson. With Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn and Yvonne De Carlo. (98 minutes.)

Director Jules Dassin constructs a less-than-typical prison film in this noir drama, in which both prisoners and audience feel the unremitting sense of despair, slow passage of time, injustice and inhumanity. Fed up with the unceasing cruelty, Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) plots an escape with his cellmates. The breakout will be perilous and men will die, but what is the alternative?

Shadows. 1961. Written and directed by John Cassavetes. With Hugh Hurd, Lelia Goldoni and Ben Carruthers. (81 minutes.)

This film tells the story of siblings Hugh, Lelia and Ben, a family of African Americans living in beatnik-influenced Greenwich Village in downtown Manhattan. Much like the jazz score that punctuates the soundtrack, the characters sometimes seem aimless, reactive and on the brink of breakdown. Like a coherent jazz composition that is then pulled apart to reveal its disparate components, the siblings—once a unit—are forced to forge separate lives. Following the 1959 screening of "Shadows," Cassavetes re-edited the film.

Lovers and Lollipops. 1955. Written and directed by Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin. With Lori March, Gerald O'Loughlin and Cathy Dunn. (82 minutes.)

Ann is a young widow living in New York City with her young daughter Peggy. Ann and Peggy have a happy and prosperous life, but Ann believes Peggy needs a father. Partly believing she is doing this for Peggy, Ann begins a relationship with an old friend. When it dawns on Peggy that marriage may be in the future for her mom, she begins to act out, and a three-way battle of wills ensues. Dedicated New Yorker and independent filmmaker Morris Engel and his wife, photographer Ruth Orkin, lovingly capture the sites of New York City. Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, with support from The Film Foundation.

Ten Minutes to Live. 1932. Written directed and story adaptation by Oscar Micheaux. With Lawrence Chenault, Laura Bowman and Willor Lee Guilford. (58 minutes.)

Micheaux was the pioneering director of race films—the popular genre of American films made especially for the African American audience prior to the civil rights movement. "Ten Minutes to Live" is an amalgam of several short stories centering on a Harlem nightclub. Overall, critics judged the film harshly for its rudimentary camera work, implausible script and shoestring production values. However, what "Ten Minutes to Live" may lack in form it more than makes up for by documenting and preserving the music, dances and various music hall acts of early African American performers. Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, with support from the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Fund.

Decasia: The State of Decay. 2001. Directed by Bill Morrison. Music by Michael Gordon. (67 minutes.)

Things fall apart, but rarely with the kind of hallucinatory, violent beauty that Morrison and his brilliant composer Michael Gordon evoke in their celebrated ode to celluloid decay and man's eternal, quixotic quest to transcend materiality, time and space. Sometimes called a dystopian ode to creation, this film tells a mesmerizing story through fragments of decayed and deteriorated film footage culled from private collections and across film archives.

Ganja and Hess. 1973. Written and directed by Bill Gunn. With Duane Jones, Bill Gunn and Marlene Clark. (113 minutes.)

Dr. Hess Green is a wealthy anthropologist who has enlisted the help of museum curator George Meda in the study of an ancient African culture called the Myrthia, which ceased to exist due to a mysterious blood disease. One night George goes berserk and stabs Dr. Green with a dagger containing traces of DNA from the extinct culture, thereby transmitting the disease—an addiction to drinking blood. The current fascination with vampiric narratives renewed interest in "Ganja and Hess," a truly independent film shot on location in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and at the Brooklyn Museum. Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, with support from The Film Foundation.

Eraserhead. 1977. Written and directed by David Lynch. With John Nance, Charlotte Stewart and Allen Joseph. (89 minutes.)

Henry lives in a darkened, buzzing, toxic and depressing world. Isolated from any positive relationships and lacking optimism of any kind, Henry embraces the freedom that death will bring. Filmed over the course of five years as financing and conditions allowed, "Eraserhead" was David Lynch's first feature-length film. It is an intensely felt, deeply troubling view of an eerie world, more nightmare than movie, and one that Lynch steadfastly has refused to clarify or explain since its release nearly thirty years ago. Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, with support from the Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Film Series Organization and Support:
The 35 mm projection facilities in the Richard H. Rich Theatre were provided by a gift from George Lefont.

High Museum of Art
Founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association, the High Museum of Art is the leading art museum in the southeastern U.S. With more than 13,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American and decorative art; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art. The High is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists and is distinguished as the only major museum in North America to have a curatorial department specifically devoted to the field of folk and self-taught art. The High's media arts department produces acclaimed annual film series and festivals of foreign, independent and classic cinema. In November 2005, the High opened three new buildings by architect Renzo Piano that more than doubled the Museum's size, creating a vibrant "village for the arts" at the Woodruff Arts Center in midtown Atlanta. For more information about the High, visit www.High.org.

The Woodruff Arts Center
The Woodruff Arts Center is ranked among the top four arts centers in the nation. The Woodruff is unique in that it combines four visual and performing arts divisions on one campus as one not-for-profit organization. Opened in 1968, the Woodruff Arts Center is home to the Alliance Theatre, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the High Museum of Art and Young Audiences. To learn more about the Woodruff Arts Center visit www.woodruffcenter.org.

# # #

For digital images and more information, please contact:

Kristen Heflin
Manager of Public Relations
E-Mail 
404-733-4423