Pickett's Charge
Thanks to the persistence of filmmaker/writer Dennis Jakob (see our feature article this month), the complete works of a unique American independent filmmaker, John R. McDermott, have been re-discovered. (Regrettably this occurred two months after McDermott's death.) Tonight will be only the second public screening of his earliest film, Pickett's Charge, since the summer of 1958 when it was shown on CBS's “Odyssey” television series devoted to historical subjects. It was then that Pickett's Charge first came to Dennis Jakob's attention: “This film caught the reality of the Civil War more successfully than other more famous works as Red Badge of Courage or Time Out of War. It is a feeling I still hold today....”

• A film by John R. McDermott. (1958, 60 mins, color, Print Courtesy of Mrs. John R. McDermott)

Followed by Dennis Jakob's short film,
The Invaders,
begun as a student film at UCLA Film Graduate School, and completed as a film intern project at the American Film Institute Advanced Study Center at Greystone, Los Angeles, this film is an attempt to bring to life a single photograph taken by one of Matthew Brady's associates, which opens and closes the film, and serves to enclose a “revenger's tragedy” set during the closing days of the Civil War. The film is distinguished by its visual strength and its experiments with montage. Filmmaker Dennis Jakob's most recent screen credit was “Creative Consultant” for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

• Directed, Written and Edited by Dennis C. Jakob. Photographed by John Vicaro. With Joseph Hanwright and Karl Anthony Barsha. (1972, 29 mins, Print Courtesy of Dennis Jakob)