Drake Stutesman is the Senior Editor of Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. She will be joined by GME President Jon Gartenberg for a discussion of Warren Sonbert’s montage aesthetic coupled with his thematic concerns.

david deitch and jon gartenberg of gme in a scene from *HONOR AND OBEY* (1988, 21 Min.)

Beginning in 1968, with The TUXEDO THEATRE, Sonbert began traveling the world and created tightly edited, silent montage films. He became known as the leading proponent of polyvalent montage, in which, according to Sonbert, his films were “not strictly involved with plot or morality but rather the language of film as regards time, composition, cutting, light, distance, extension of backgrounds to foregrounds, what you see and what you don’t, a jig-saw puzzle of postcards to produce various displace effects.”

Warren Sonbert: Montage and Polyvalence will present two of Sonbert’s most accomplished silent montage films: HONOR AND OBEY (1988) and THE CUP AND THE LIP (1986). HONOR AND OBEY questions all forms of male-dominated authority, particularly familial, religious, political, and military. As for THE CUP AND THE LIP, according to critic Fred Camper: “what is unique about it is… the never consummated state of suspension that Sonbert achieves. In this film’s universe, the cup must never reach the lip, for if it does, the party is over; the cup’s contents, once ingested, are digested, and thus destroyed, never to be seen again.”

This program is in honor of M.M. Serra, former Executive Director of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative.

This screening is a precursor to a major retrospective of Warren Sonbert’s taking place at a major cultural institution in May in New York City.

The Estate of Warren Sonbert has previously named GME as the custodian of the legacy of experimental filmmaker Warren Sonbert (1947-1995). Since his untimely passing, GME has worked on an extensive project to preserve, distribute and curate career retrospectives of his films on an international basis, as well as publish original documents from the paper archive of his writings, which are now housed at Harvard University.

New, 1080p digital versions of HONOR AND OBEY and THE CUP AND THE LIP will be added to GME’s Warren Sonbert Collection in 2023.

News

Warren Sonbert Screening and Conversation with Drake Stutesman and Jon Gartenberg at Film-Makers' Cooperative