Alarms from the 60s: Experiments in Political Expression

  • Georg (1964) by Stanton Kaye
  • unc. (1966) by Bruce Lane
  • Georg (1964) by Stanton Kaye
  • unc. (1966) by Bruce Lane
  • And On The Sixth Day (1966) by Christina Hornisher
  • And On The Sixth Day (1966) by Christina Hornisher

    November 20, 2011, 7:30PM
    Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90028

    Stanton Kaye’s legendary, award-winning Georg (1964) is an affecting, formally inventive narrative that follows a German émigré in America seeking to escape the encroaching militarism that threatens his family’s existence. The film unfolds as a series of diaristic sequences supposedly assembled after the protagonist’s death, as a found audiovisual document, a formal approach that was a great influence on Jim McBride’s David Holzman’s Diary, and countless other films that followed.

    In counterpoint to Kaye’s experimental verité-fiction, Bruce Lane’s distilled, three-minute epic unc. (1966) crystallizes a whole generation’s paranoia and disgust at old-fashioned American militarism and patriotism.  Bill Norton's hilarious and unnerving Coming Soon (1966) uses the form of a WWII Hollywood movie trailer to dissect the absurdity and inhumanity of the War in Vietnam.  Christina Hornisher's controversial and intense And On The Sixth Day (1966) cuts harshly to the bone of man's inhumanity in 1960s America.  And Penelope Spheeris brilliantly and soberly suggests the inevitable next step in the government's intensifying lockdown on free expression and socio-political dissension in The National Rehabilitation Center (1969), an early mockumentary that has disturbing connections to the present climate of political imprisonment.

    In person: Stanton Kaye, Bruce Lane, Bill Norton, and Penelope Spheeris!

    Films to be Screened

    • Coming Soon (1966, 16mm, color, sound, 5min.)
      Directed by Bill Norton

    • The National Rehabilitation Center (1969, 16mm, b/w, sound, 12min.)
      Directed by Penelope Spheeris

    • unc. (1966) by Bruce Lane unc. (1966) by Bruce Lane

      unc. (1966, 16mm, color, sound, 3min.)
      Directed by Bruce Lane

      Preservation print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.
    • And On The Sixth Day (1966) by Christina Hornisher And On The Sixth Day (1966) by Christina Hornisher

      And On The Sixth Day (1966, 16mm, b/w, sound, 6min.)
      Directed by Christina Hornisher

    • Georg (1964) by Stanton Kaye Georg (1964) by Stanton Kaye

      Georg (1964, 16mm, b/w, sound, 50min.)
      Directed by Stanton Kaye