Footsteps (2023) First Look 2024

No offense to artist Fiona Tan, I don’t know if this film should be screened as an installation. Watching the film as a straight film I was transported to some place special, some place that isn’t going to be reached by seeing this in a museum with people wandering in and out.

FOOTSTEPS is made up of film shot from 1896 to the 1920'stinted, scored and with occasional letters from the perios being read over the images. It’s a trip back through time and space to a place not so far away.

I was transported. The world fell away and I got lost in the images. It was a magical experience. I’m not certain if being an installation is going to be quite as magical.

That said FOOTSTEPS will be  playing at the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look Festival  so feel free to wander in and take a look

There will be a reception and a Q&A with Fiona Tan on March 15.

Van Gogh The Immersive Experience

 

There are two dueling Van Gogh exhibits in New York. I'm told they are basically the same thing- a lead up to going into a room where they project images on a wall, before they give you crayons and paper in order to color. After that  you then can pay extra cash to use a VR headset  to go on a trip into Van Goghs works. And of course there's a gift shop.

I bought the tickets blind. I didn't know where it was, but I figured it was going to be like the Dali Museum Show  with all orts of screens and stuff. I was wrong.

The one I went to is on the Westside of Manhattan on Vesey right next to the Irish Famine Memorial.

Once the door opened we were sent up stairs-yes we had to go up three floors via stairs- to the exhibit. I found out once I got upstairs there is an elevator but you have to ask, and it dumps you in an odd place in relation to the exhibit. The stair thing kind of had me lost because it was a 95 degree day and I wasn't planning on mountain climbing.

Once you go in there is a lot to read on the walls- what we were going to see, some bits on important people and locations. Little of it ties into anything.

There is a giant vase over which they project various versions of his paintings with flowers.  Down the hall are bad prints of his paintings. The colors are off and you can see the pixels from the images they used to make them. They lost me here because I couldn't believe they were so freaking cheap in creating their props.

Around the corner and we are in a huge two story open space  where they project his paintings and related images on the walls and floor. Some of the images move or some of the things in the images move, the boats sail, trees rock and people bop. There were a couple of moments that were cool, one with sunflowers going all over and another with something unrelated to Van Gogh. I wanted to scream with the dancing trees during Starry Night- it looked like a freaking 2 year old designed it.

The best part of the experience was watching two tiny kids trying to jump on the sunflowers on the floor or to jump into the projected puddles.

I felt ripped off.

This is a small scale museum side exhibition blown way out of proportion and wildly over priced.

Despite the efforts made as we went in there is nothing here but pretty pictures badly utilized. Why couldn't they have gotten some video game programmers to design the show?

I paid 40 bucks for this?

I have seen similar shows, and paid more for it and would gladly go back. Peter Greenaway's Last Supper at the Park Avenue Armory was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. This was purely a cash grab of the worst sort. I mean- why didn't they spend some money to make decent projections and paintings?

I would have been okay with 10 bucks not 40

Avoid this.

Manifesto- The installation at the Park Avenue Armory

I have no idea how to explain MANIFESTO. It is an art film installation that is finishing up a run at the Park Avenue Armory (it plays to midnight tonight and is open tomorrow which is it's last day)  and is being cut together in a linear fashion to play in theaters after it world premieres at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

If I were to attempt a literal explanation I might say:

Cate Blanchett stars in 13 films 12 running just over ten minutes and one just under five. Each film is made up of various manifestos and are performed as if they are the dialog for a film. All the films run on loops and at a certain moment in each the films all come together to create a beautiful harmonic resonance that echoes through the space.

The trouble is that doesn't do the installation justice. It doesn't explain how the sound bouncing around the space effects what you are seeing in anyone place. It doesn't explain the result of seeing pieces out of the corner of your eyes or how looking back at one piece after you've seen the next changes things. You get no sense of being in the space of interacting with the other people - of discussing it with friends or how what you over hear of other people's conversations affect your thoughts. Seeing each piece straight through once and in pieces 13 more times plays with your mind and makes you think about the notion of art, of presentation and how we think about everything.

To be honest I don’t know if MANIFESTO means anything. Certainly the mashing together of all of the manifestos (some 50 in all many of them conflicting with others) alters what each one is saying. If you want all of the pieces together and tried to deduce what it means it would be gibberish because of the conflicting ideas.

You also have to take into account Blanchett’s stellar performances. Playing 13 roles and doing the voice over in the introduction her reading of the texts in various guises turn things on their head. Humor, which many people refused to laugh at, was injected into the proceedings just by her performances. From her wide eyed crazed homeless man in the first, to her tear filled eulogy about wanting to shit colors in a funeral piece on Dada, to the spot on dismantling of TV news, or to her wicked commentary to a class of ten year olds on Dogma 95 there are times when you can’t help but laugh out loud. (I won’t even mention the big dance number that looks like Ridley Scott’s PROMETHEUS sequel might be if it were a musical (thank you Hubert)

The funny thing is that the films are really perfect little films. Yes they work together to form something greater but all of them are about something, all reflect some part of life-the words just happen to be largely position statements. It’s a stunning achievement because in a weird way the shorts could stand alone. I mean watch how the camera work in the family dinner, the puppet artist, the news report or the garbage woman piece play as real films. Just the motion of the characters in the frames and the odd real world bit of dialog give us volumes of information.

But they aren’t just stand alones- and they tie together as the films all sync up every ten minutes to create a magical sing song moment. Its starts in the newscast and travels around the room until all are joined up. The voices then fall away. At first is seems like a mistake but it’s not. Once you get to the second piece you realize that it is intentional. Don’t ask me what it means but the effect was stunning. Hubert Vigilla and I began to try and figure it out as we traveled around. We never worked it out, other than it being a reminder that all the pieces are related but at the same time we both knew that not having in play out in the linear version of MANIFESTO will make it considerably less.

As I said I don’t know what it means or what I’m supposed to get out of it, but frankly the two plus hours traveling around the Park Avenue Armory seeing it all was one of the coolest ways to see a film. It was a glorious way to begin a film year.

I think the best thing that I can say about the installation and films is that it is a perfect explanation of Peter Greenaway’s thought that cinema as we know it is dead. Here is a film that cannot exist as a conventional film but which when screened as intended is a powerful kick ass experience that moves both the head and the heart the way that cinema or film is supposed to.

Should the installation version of MANIFESTO play near you- run, don’t walk to see it…just bring comfortable shoes because it can be a lot of standing

For information on the final two days at the Park Avenue Armory go here.

Kinda like being there: Tribeca (my) Final Day: Storyscapes @ The Bombay House Of Imagination at Dune Studios

A visit to the Bombay Sapphire House of Imagination Storyscapes exhibition Saturday, and not seeing any movies, was a very fitting ending to my stint contributing coverage of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival to Unseen Films. With all of these films vying for space in the my cerebral cortex, it was fun to move around the innovative space, share some movie highlights with other attendees, and take in some thought provoking art installations.

  

Situated in what from the outside looked like a very ordinary office building on the west side of Soho, the layout inside was very engaging. With 2 floors being used to house the various interactive works on display, as well as two theaters and plenty of bars where the folks from Bombay Sapphire and their colorful concoctions made it very easy to have a drink or two…or three, it was not a place that one wanted to leave anytime soon after arriving.

The virtual reality based exhibitions I tried out, Clouds, Rise, and Use of Force were all impressive in their use of the Oculus Rift, a combination of goggles and headphones that leaves the viewer completely focused on what is presented before them (as well as behind and to the side). The technology, already being developed in tandem with gaming software, presents you with a seamless view of a virtual space that changes as you shift your head in any direction. The seated exhibit, Rise, encourages the viewer to explore this feature. Two futuristic figures appear posed in various positions that can only be seen when one scrunches their neck to gaze up or down, or at times rotate one’s head more than 90 degrees. In Clouds one can choose different content to explore by focusing one’s attention on a question appearing amongst intricate patterns of light. It works very intuitively, though the artist statements at the end of each path were a bit difficult to concentrate on in the crowded space.

Use of Force presents a real life incident and allows one to walk about a somewhat open space to get closer or further from the focal point. Again I was impressed at how tilting one’s head smoothly changed the angle at which you could take in the content. While it is a very brief moment you are taking in, Use of Force, along with the other exhibits suggested fascinating possibilities of how this technology could be applied, perhaps in the not too distant future. I could imagine tutorials where the ease of use could make it possible for learners to access information in what they feel is the most practical way. Virtual museum spaces could offer this feature as distraction-less and thoroughly absorbing experiences.

And yet, my personal highlight of Storyscapes was not as technology based, but still very innovative. Writer, performer Nathan Penlington, in collaboration with commercial director Fernando Guitierrez de Jesus presented a part live monologue (performed by Penlington) and part film celebrating, informing about, and pulling the audience into the world of Choose Your Own Adventure, a popular series of books aimed at elementary – high school aged students. It was a significant part of many childhoods, my own included, which allowed readers to be the main character and decide the course of the story. Penlington’s passion for the books became quickly evident as he gave an account of the series’ history that showed how very thoroughly he knew these books. Upon entering, everyone was given a device with 5 buttons so that they could choose from a set of choices, with the majority vote guiding the way. At first it was used to gauge the audience on things like their favorite fatal ending from amongst 5 highlights Penlington culled from the series. Looking back at these as an adult added a whole new level of appreciation for series creator and author Edward Packard’s dry wit, and I would now add Choose Your Adventure as a primary suspect in influencing my future dark sense of humor.     

Things transitioned seamlessly into the real life adventure, in which we voted on the course Penlington pursued in tracking down the one time owner of a complete set of the books he acquired on Ebay. A personal journal found within prompted him to seek out its author who very possibly lived through a troubled past. This course initially lead to a bit of disappointment on my part. I was ready to play the game, apply my skills of reason and guide one or more characters to the most exciting ending of a fictional story possible, and perhaps more importantly stay alive! The fact of this being real past events would indicate that all parts of this story had happened, meaning things did work out the way they did. Perhaps many of the choices were mere distractions and if some things had gone astray, I would assume, there was a way to lead things back on course. However some very intriguing ideas come about over the course of the production.  While being a very revealing look at Penlington’s personality, it also directly takes on the question of when it is appropriate to pursue a story versus respecting a subject’s privacy. One also begins to look at the results of the audience choices with heightened anticipation and at times, the vote is very close. If the results do not in fact have a massive effect on the journey’s outcome, its manner of unfolding, while a bit long in parts, truly gets the audience to suspend disbelief. I could imagine this being a very engaging small theater production, of particular intrigue with chatter of a Choose Your Own Adventure movie being in the early stages of development.

With the various names and none too obvious location, the House of Imagination feature of Tribeca can be somewhat elusive, escaping my notice in previous years. I would definitely want to make it a part of my Tribeca experience from now on.

Peering into the Oculus Rift

Old age & existential death: Mine and the majority's favorite fatal Choose
Your Own Adventure ending in Choose Your Own Documentary

A user's view of Force, shown to people on the outside

A piano triggers various voices in On A Human Scale

Artifacts of an incident in The Use Of Force

Navigating the virtual space of The Use Of Force