GME News
GME is the proud DVD/Blu-ray distributor in North America of the Ernst Lubitsch film THE LOVES OF PHARAOH which is screening at the Historic Niles Theater, Fremont, CA, sponsored by the American Research Center in Egypt, Northern California (ARCE/NC). Click below for more details from the ARCE/NC:
Gartenberg Media Enterprises is proud to announce the program lineup for the Warren Sonbert Retrospective taking place at The Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio on January 20th & 27th.
Warren Sonbert with his Bolex camera.
From The Wexner Center Website:
"One of the most original and influential figures in American experimental cinema, Warren Sonbert began making films in 1966 as a precocious NYU student who found himself in the midst of Andy Warhol’s Factory. After graduating, he took his Bolex camera on his travels as he perfected a complex style of filming and editing that lyrically transforms mundane-yet-beautiful details into larger emotions, concepts, and visual splendors. Sonbert’s influences ranged from rock-and-roll to opera, from Douglas Sirk to Stan Brakhage. This vital retrospective featuring all newly restored prints cements his reputation as one of the most innovative and notable experimental filmmakers of the last half of the 20th century.
As a testament to his ongoing vitality, the spring 2015 issue of Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media is devoted to Sonbert’s writing. Pick up your copy at the Wexner Center Store."
WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO (1966)
"Following the filmmaker’s death in 1995 of AIDS, Sonbert’s partner, Ascension Serrano, tasked Jon Gartenberg, through the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, with the preservation of Sonbert’s work. Gartenberg first became associated with Sonbert’s films while Gartenberg was a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, during which time he acquired several of Sonbert’s films.
'[Sonbert's] idea was to engage the viewer in an accumulation of different shots that were not specifically narrative, but that were linear and poetic,' Gartenberg said. 'But more than any experimental filmmaker, his work was less about image abstraction and more about an experimental approach to narrative structure, through how he built a montage of images and scenes.'"
For further inquiries about Warren Sonbert’s films, please see:
GME Programming & Curating: Warren Sonbert Retrospective
All Photographs, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert
Michelson Theater, 721 Broadway, 6th Floor
Wednesday, October 28, 6:15 P.M.
Still from Empire II (Amos Poe, 2007)
DESCRIPTION:
Archivist and curator Jon Gartenberg (MA, Cinema Studies) provides an overview of the genre of City Symphony Films produced in New York City, extending from the period of early cinema at the dawn of the 20th century through to the digital works of the first decade of 21st Century, as seen through the lens of independent and experimental filmmakers.
This presentation is based on his article "NY NY: A Century of City Symphony Films” that was recently published in Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media.
PROGRAM:
Interiors, N.Y. Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street (1905, G. W. Bitzer). 5 min.
Empire of Steel: A Story of a Supreme Achievement in Steel Construction (1931, Otis Elevator Co.). 6 min.
The City (1939, Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke). [Sequence: City Life]. 13 min.
New York: A Documentary Film (2001, Ric Burns). [Sequence: Introduction to Episode 7]. 3 min.
The D Train (2011, Jay Rosenblatt). 5 min.
N.Y., N.Y. (1957, Francis Thompson). 15 min.
Block Print (1976, George Griffin). 16 min.
Empire II (2007, Amos Poe),. [Sequence: Main Title Opening]. 5 min.
Native New Yorker (2005, Steve Bilich). 13 min.
NYC Weights and Measures (2006, Jem Cohen). 6 min.
TRT: 87 min.
Jon Gartenberg presenting with Nicola Mazzanti (director of the Royal Belgian Film Archive) on the first night of the Warren Sonbert retrospective as part of the L'Age d'Or Film Festival in Brussels. Below is also an image of Warren Sonbert's film WHIPLASH on the monitor of the festival theater's lobby.
Jon Gartenberg & Nicola Mazzanti
Shot of WHIPLASH on TV monitor.
Gartenberg Media Enterprises is proud to announce the program lineup for the Warren Sonbert Retrospective taking place at the L'Age d'Or Film Festival in Brussels, Belgium from October 4th to 9th. Each program in this series will be introduced by Jon Gartenberg, a noted authority on Sonbert's oeuvre.
Warren Sonbert with his Bolex camera.
"Warren Sonbert was one of the most original and influential figures in American experimental cinema. He began making films in 1966 while studying at the University of New York. Sonbert himself has taught filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute, the Art Institute of Chicago and Bard College. He also wrote critical reviews on opera and film for San Francisco weeklies. His first films, in which he captured the spirit of his generation, were first inspired by academia, later by the figures of the Warhol scene.
THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1967)
In the late 1960s, when Sonbert began to take his Bolex camera with him on travels, his cinematic strategy changes and he begins to weave his travel images together with sequences of previous films. It’s a period during which his work shows the filmmaker’s capacity to turn his first experiences into more accomplished works, using his characteristic ‘polyvalent cutting’, a technique where each sequence ‘can be combined with ambient sequences with, potentially, many dimensions.’ Sonbert drew on his early experiences on camera movement, light and design to create brilliantly cut masterpieces that not only zoom in on his New York environment but also, more generally, on the sphere of human activity. These are films in which he comments on art and industry, news reporting and its effects on our lives, or the interaction between artistic disciplines. His last works culminate in symphonic (silent or sound) arrangements that unite the universal gestures of Men into unique combinations. Over the course of his career, Sonbert made 18 films. Before his death in 1995, he worked on WHIPLASH. This last film was completed by filmmaker Jeff Scher, following Sonberts precise instructions."
WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO (1966)
HONOR AND OBEY (1988)
Copies of "Warren Sonbert: Selected Writings" (published by Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media and guest edited by Jon Gartenberg) will be available for sale at the festival. For more information on the special issue of Framwork click here.
For further inquiries about Warren Sonbert’s films, please see:
GME Programming & Curating: Warren Sonbert Retrospective
Thank you to acclaimed composer William Susman for his featured blog post on Jon Gartenberg's article "NY, NY: A Century of City Symphony Films," which was published in the Fall 2014 issue of Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. William Susman composed music for the film "Native New Yorker," which is part of Jon Gartenberg's traveling exhibition "A Panorama of American Experimental Narratives in the New Millennium."
"Where Did Our Love Go? Films of Warren Sonbert" program at Media City in Toronto, Ontario that played last week. Program was curated by Jeremy Rossen and the films were introduced by Carla Harryman, one of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets with whom Sonbert interacted in his artistic practice.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Sunday, May 10 – Saturday, June 13
Still from Our Nixon, courtesy Penny Lane
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:
An eclectic look at independent artist-made cinema of this century, American Experiments in Narrative includes found footage works, hand-crafted animations, hybrids of fiction and documentary, as well as live-action movies that defy classic conventions. Thematically speaking, the program presents reflections on identity, community, family, political culture, and a variety of social issues. The artists represented are well versed in historic avant-garde technique but are also consciously engaged with the film industry canons — often subverting those traditions with novel storytelling strategies. While the majority of filmmakers may lack the sort of financial backing bestowed by Hollywood, this absence of monetary support actually allows greater freedom of expression. Jon Gartenberg, curator for the series, has worked extensively on the preservation, distribution, and programming of experimental cinema. He introduces the first program.
Gunvor Nelson’s MY NAME IS OONA and MOONS POOL will be screened in Cornell University’s Sage Chapel on Tuesday April 21 at 8pm, accompanied by the music of Powerdove. The artist’s films are distributed by Cornell Alum Jon Gartenberg’s company, GME.
http://cinema.cornell.edu/series_Spring2015/Cornell%20Alums%20Make%20Movies.html
From the Fall 2014 issue of Framework – "NY, NY: A Century Of City Symphony Films" by Jon Gartenberg. This article, "…celebrates the ornate history of how the “city symphony” genre rendered New York from early twentieth-century actualitiés to late century avant-garde…" Available for purchase and through library access.
