“From Un Chien Andalou to Hellzapoppin, from Eisenstein to Tati, from The Ladies Man to Tout va bien, comedy and the avant-garde have always had an innate capacity to strike certain chords together, and sometimes to make sexy (if unexpected) matches. Not all the items on this program are equally funny, though. Apart from its title and some isolated gags, much of James Benning's elegant One Way Boogie Woogie gets by on other moods and states of mind. The other three examples are purer: Michael Snow's Breakfast (Table-Top Dolly), a witty short about process, turns a still life of groceries into mucky garbage through the literal violence of an all-seeing, all-battering camera; George Landow's Institutional Quality politicizes the structural film by parodying institutional rhetoric; and the equally anti-educational En Rachachant by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet--derived from a children's book by Marguerite Duras, and filmed in black and white by the incomparable Henri Alekan (Beauty and the Beast, The State of Things)--is like a judicious encounter of Dennis the Menace with Straub, Eraserhead with Huillet.” --Jonathan Rosenbaum

En Rachachant

• Directed and Written by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. Photographed by Henri Alekan. (1982, 10 mins, In French with English titles, 35mm, Print from New Yorker Films)

Institutional Quality

• Directed and Photographed by George Landow. Editorial Assistance by Masako Takahashi. With Meredith Monk. (1969, 5 mins, color, Print from PFA Collection)

Breakfast
(Table-Top Dolly)
• Directed and Photographed by Michael Snow. (1972-76, 15 mins, color, Print from Canyon Cinema Cooperative)

One Way Boogie Woogie

• Directed and Photographed by James Benning. (1977, 60 mins, color, Print from Filmmakers Cooperative)