The Way of the Termite: The Essay in Cinema

1/22/09 to 4/19/09

An expansive, opinionated selection of essay films, curated by Jean-Pierre Gorin.

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La rabbia di Pasolini, April 18

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Past Films

Sans soleil
Thursday, January 22 7:30 pm
Chris Marker (France, 1982)
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Tire dié
Tuesday, January 27 7:30 pm
Fernando Birri (Argentina, 1958–60). With shorts: A Corner in Wheat (D. W. Griffith, U.S., 1909), Land Without Bread (Luis Buñuel, Spain, 1937), and Isle of Flowers (Jorge Furtado, Brazil, 1990).
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The Man with a Movie Camera
Thursday, January 29 7:30 pm
Dziga Vertov (U.S.S.R., 1929). Judith Rosenberg on piano. With short À propos de Nice (Jean Vigo, France, 1930).
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One Man's War
Friday, January 30 7:30 pm
Edgardo Cozarinsky (Argentina/France, 1981)
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Letter to Jane: An Investigation of a Still
Friday, January 30 9:30 pm
Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin (France, 1972)
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Letter to Jane: An Investigation of a Still
Saturday, January 31 6:00 pm
Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin (France, 1972). With short LBJ (Santiago Alvarez, Cuba, 1968).
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A Diary for Timothy
Tuesday, February 3 7:30 pm
Humphrey Jennings (U.K., 1945). With The Passerby (Donald McWilliams, Canada, 1995).
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Chief!
Thursday, February 5 8:15 pm
Jean-Marie Teno (Cameroon, 1999). With short Les maîtres fous (Jean Rouch, France, 1955).
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Perfumed Nightmare
Tuesday, February 10 7:30 pm
Kidlat Tahimik (Philippines, 1977)
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Trial
Tuesday, February 17 7:30 pm
Moslem Mansouri (Iran/U.S., 2002). With short The House Is Black (Forough Farrokhzad, Iran, 1963).
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Gladio
Tuesday, February 24 7:30 pm
Allan Francovich (U.K., 1998)
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Train of Shadows: The Specter of Le Thuit
Sunday, March 8 2:00 pm
José Luis Guerín (Spain, 1997). With . . . A Valparaíso (Joris Ivens, France, 1963).
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Je tu il elle
Tuesday, March 10 7:30 pm
Chantal Akerman (France, 1974)
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Secret Formula
Wednesday, March 11 7:00 pm
Rubén Gámez (Mexico, 1965). With L'age d'or (Luis Buñuel, France, 1930).
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Two or Three Things I Know About Her
Thursday, March 12 8:35 pm
Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1966). With short We (Arthur Peleshian, U.S.S.R., 1969).
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Les années déclic
Tuesday, March 31 7:30 pm
Raymond Depardon (France, 1976/1985). With The Dream (Mohammad Malas, Syria, 1981).
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Chronicle of a Summer
Sunday, April 5 3:30 pm
Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin (France, 1960–61). With short Toute la mémoire du monde (Alain Resnais, France, 1956).
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The White Castle
Wednesday, April 8 7:00 pm
Johan van der Keuken (The Netherlands, 1973)
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From Today Until Tomorrow
Tuesday, April 14 7:30 pm
Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub (Germany/France, 1997). Introduced by Erik Ulman.
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La rabbia di Pasolini
Saturday, April 18 8:15 pm
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Giuseppe Bertolucci (Italy, 2008). Lecture by Jean-Pierre Gorin.
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Routine Pleasures
Sunday, April 19 2:00 pm
Jean-Pierre Gorin (U.S./U.K./France, 1986). Jean-Pierre Gorin in person.
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The Way of the Termite: The Essay in Cinema

1/22/09 to 4/19/09

The film essay is a strange beast. To simply define it as a form that foregrounds a voice and sketches a persona falls short. At the core of all essays is an interest so intense that it precludes the possibility of naming it simply and efficiently, of filming it in a straight line, so to speak. The essay is rumination in Nietzsche's sense of the word, the meandering of an intelligence that tries to multiply the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or has been elected by). It is surplus, drifts, ruptures, ellipses, and double-backs. It is, in a word, thought, but because it is film it is thought that turns to emotion and back to thought.

The strange thing is that the essay film flirts with genres (documentary, pamphlet, fiction, diary . . . you name them) but never attaches itself to one. It flirts with a range of aesthetics but attaches itself to none. It is, in both form and content, unruliness itself, “termite art” and not “white elephant art.” I am, of course, borrowing from Manny Farber. Farber might be writing about Laurel and Hardy, but the words stick even tighter to the film essayists: “The most inclusive description of [their] art is that, termite-like, it feels its way through walls of particularization, with no sign that the artist has any object in mind other than eating away the immediate boundaries of his art and turning these boundaries into conditions of the next achievement.”

The films in this series are lines of force that crisscross a field. From the push and pull that is curating emerged something as extensive, unruly, and contradictory as the essayistic energy it set out to explore. A proposal for a tussle.

—Jean-Pierre Gorin, Guest Curator

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The Essay in Cinema, curated by Jean-Pierre Gorin, was organized by The Austrian Film Museum and originally presented at the Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival) in October 2007. At PFA, the series is coordinated by Kathy Geritz and presented with the support of the Consortium for the Arts at UC Berkeley and of the French Ministry of Culture, with thanks to Delphine Selles, Christophe Musitelli, and Cecile Hokes. We extend our gratitude to Jean-Pierre Gorin, Alexander Horwath, Hans Hurch, Edith Kramer, Hellmut Goebl, and Regina Schlagnitweit.