July 2024 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues
/It may be the dog days of summer, but that hasn’t stopped GME from keeping busy. Today, we reflect on screenings, events, and celebrations from July related to our multifaceted projects. Notably, an archival gem relevant to MoMA’s month-long Powell and Pressburger retrospective was unearthed from GME President Jon Gartenberg’s papers, and a true crime film by James Benning (whose films we exclusively distribute to North American universities) screened at Anthology Film Archives.
AN EXCERPT FROM JON GARTENBERG’S ARTICLE ABOUT MICHAEL POWELL’S PEEPING TOM (1960), PUBLISHED IN THE SPRING 1990 ISSUE OF MoMA’s MEMBERS QUARTERLY.
July 10th — MoMA
On Wednesday, July 10th at 7pm, and Sunday, July 28th at 4pm, Michael Powell’s classic 1960 thriller PEEPING TOM screened at The Museum of Modern Art as part of their month-long retrospective Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger. On the occasion of this celebration of Powell and Pressburger’s collaborations (and of Powell’s PEEPING TOM specifically — a controversial solo effort that horrified British audiences and film censors), GME unearthed an archival gem from Jon Gartenberg’s papers pertaining to Powell’s still-shocking thriller. For the Spring 1990 issue of MoMA’s Members Quarterly, Gartenberg wrote an article that explores the psychological and voyeuristic capacities of the cinematic and photographic mediums as conveyed in both Powell’s PEEPING TOM and Alfred Hitchcock’s beloved 1954 thriller REAR WINDOW. Gartenberg’s article can be read in full by clicking here.
STILL FROM JAMES BENNING’S LANDSCAPE SUICIDE (1986). SOURCE: IMDB.
July 24th — Anthology Film Archives
On July 24th, at 9pm, and August 2nd, at 6:30pm, James Benning’s LANDSCAPE SUICIDE (1986) — which GME distributes to North American universities as both a DVD and DVD/DSL bundle — screens at Anthology Film Archives in the series Verbatim. A preeminent formalist filmmaker whose lengthy and distinguished career dates back to the early 1970s, GME is proud to be the sole distributor of Benning’s films to the North American institutional market. In addition to LANDSCAPE SUICIDE, GME distributes the following Benning titles as both DVDs and DVD/DSL bundles: 11 X 14, ONE WAY BOOGIE WOOGIE, 27 YEARS LATER (1977—2012), GRAND OPERA (1979), AMERICAN DREAMS (LOST & FOUND) (1984), O PANAMA (1985), DESERET (1995), FOUR CORNERS (1997), his CALIFORNIA TRILOGY (1999—2001), CASTING A GLANCE (2007), RR (2007), NATURAL HISTORY (2009), and RUHR (2014).
The above video demonstrates Sonbert’s homage to Powell and Pressburger by fusing the introduction of his film RUDE AWAKENING (1976) with the logo for The Archers.
July 30th — GME
On the occasion of Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger, a month-long retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art showcasing the work of directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GME reflected on Warren Sonbert’s 1976 polyvalent montage film RUDE AWAKENING, which was directly inspired by the legendary British filmmaking duo. Powell and Pressburger — the creative partnership behind such classics as THE RED SHOES (1946) and BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) — produced and distributed their work under their company “The Archers,” which was denoted at the beginning of their films with a logo featuring an arrow landing in the center of a bullseye. Sonbert explicitly echoes Powell and Pressburger’s logo in RUDE AWAKENING by starting the film with a brief shot of a young man shooting a bow and arrow, prior to his montage footage commencing.