GME News
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
"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.
Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media has just released its latest issue devoted entirely to the writings of avant-garde artist Warren Sonbert. The journal features reproductions of Sonbert's original typed, handwritten and published documents. The issue is guest edited by Jon Gartenberg and is organized into sections related to Sonbert's interests in art, music, poetry, travel and film.
Below is an excerpt from Jon Gartenberg's introduction to the issue entitled A Delicate Balance: Warren Sonbert's Creative Legacy:
"For the very first time, a selection of writings by filmmaker Warren Sonbert is assembled together in this special edition of Framework. Although known primarily as an experimental filmmaker, Sonbert and his career extended deeply into other realms of the creative arts. He was an opera, music, and film critic; a kindred spirit to the Language poets; a screenplay author who adapted Strauss’s 1940–41 opera Capriccio; a collaborator on other filmmaker’s productions (Gerard Malanga’s In Search of the Miraculous [US, 1967] and Charles Henri Ford’s Johnny Minotaur [US, 1971]); an essayist on both the fine and performing arts; and a leading theoretician on cinematic montage. The objective of these collected writings, then, is to expand the narrow categorization of Sonbert as a now- deceased, marginalized experimental filmmaker into a broader reconsideration of his entire creative career. This endeavor should serve to reposition his legacy as a truly Renaissance thinker who articulated, in both profound and coherent fashion, how diverse forms of artistic expression can be so deeply connected to the human condition.
Even for students of film history who are familiar with Sonbert’s cinematic output, the texts assembled in this publication are sure to be a revelation. “Film Syntax,” Sonbert’s most renowned essay, which so lucidly articulates his unique theory of montage, has been printed numerous times in various publications. Aside from this text, however, the other articles authored by Sonbert and reproduced herein are from more obscure publications or now defunct journals, including Shiny, Motion Picture, Tikkun, CinemaNews, Spiral, and the NY Film Bulletin. In addition, numerous unpublished notes, reflections, and essays that were authored by Sonbert—both handwritten and typed—have been gathered together to be published for the first time in this journal…
…We have organized Sonbert’s writings into the following broad classifications: art, travel, music, poetry, and film. These are not designed to be rigid categoriza- tions, but rather as points of departure to demonstrate Sonbert’s facility in his dialogue between all the art forms. Our inclusion of the travel category represents the central role Sonbert’s own journeys across time and space—both physical and creative—played in the development of the artist’s own practice of his craft.9 Only in considering Sonbert’s entire creative output as a coherent entity—filmed, written, and spoken, as well as his lived experiences through travel—can we truly appreciate his genius both as an artist and humanist."
GME is the exclusive representative of the estate of Warren Sonbert. For more information on the Warren Sonbert project see our programming page.
Warren Sonbert program at Indiana University's program "An Evening Of Warren Sonbert Short Films", Friday, Nov. 21st at 6:30 pm. Films of Warren Sonbert's to be shown include AMPHETAMINE (1966), NOBLESSE OBLIGE (1981), and WHIPLASH (1997).
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AMPHETAMINE, along with other films by Warren Sonbert, was recently featured in two presentations - one in New York and one in London - each focusing on the works of queer and underground filmmakers.
04/25/2012 •NEW YORK•DIRTY LOOKS
Dirty Looks is a Monthly Platform for
Queer Experimental Film and Video
Bradford Nordeen's April program featured works by
"two key figures in queer and underground film"
Warren Sonbert and Tom Chomont.
The program included Warren Sonbert's
AMPHETAMINE (1966, with Wendy Appel),
DIVIDED LOYALTIES (1975-78) and
HONOR AND OBEY (1987).
04/14/2012 •LONDON• THE LITTLE JOE CLUBHOUSE
The Little Joe Clubhouse is a unique
temporary film space from the creators of
AMPHETAMINE (1966), was presented by Stuart Comer,
Film Curator at London's Tate Modern.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010 at 7pm
Light Industry at ISSUE Project Room:
Two Films by Warren Sonbert
The Old American Can Factory
232 3rd Street
Brooklyn, New York
The Cup and the Lip, Warren Sonbert, 16mm, 1986, 20 mins
Friendly Witness, Warren Sonbert, 16mm, 1989, 32 mins
With readings by Charles Bernstein, Corrine Fitzpatrick, and Carla Harryman.
Though Warren Sonbert has frequently been described as a maker of diary films, the label fails to capture the emotional and formal intricacies at play in his work. In less than twenty films made from 1966 to the mid-90s—his career caught short by his death from AIDS at age 47—Sonbert’s primary method was indeed the creation of dense montages from 16mm shot in the course of daily life. The same images and ideas were often reused in different permutations for new films and, through this process, footage of his friends and colleagues attains an iconic status that transcends its documentary valence, becoming vibrant evocations of Sirkian melodrama. "I think the films I make are, hopefully, a series of arguments,” Sonbert said of his own work, “with each image, shot, a statement to be read and digested in turn." The rich use of color and delicately punctuated editing also point to the influence of his mentor, Gregory Markopoulos, and Sonbert’s love of Hitchcock, Kenneth Anger, and opera.
The Cup and the Lip and Friendly Witness both date from the late 1980s, when Sonbert was refining and deepening his use of montage. Amy Taubin noted that The Cup and the Lip “is so dense it's impossible to apprehend it at a single viewing,” calling it “Sonbert's darkest work." Precisely composed of 645 individual shots over 22 minutes, set to girl-group songs and the overture to Christoph Willibald von Gluck’s 18th-century opera Iphigeneia in Aulis, Friendly Witness was Sonbert’s return to sound after two decades of purely silent films. Tonight’s event pairs Sonbert with readings by three poets—Charles Bernstein, Corrine Fitzpatrick, and Carla Harryman—a testament to the fact that, though long-admired as a filmmaker’s filmmaker, he always worked in conversation with other forms, literary and otherwise.
Charles Bernstein is author of All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010), Blind Witness: Three American Operas (Factory School, 2008); Girly Man (University of Chicago Press, 2006), and My Way: Speeches and Poems (Chicago, 1999). From 1978-1981 he co-edited, with Bruce Andrews L=A=N=G=U=A=G=Emagazine. In the 1990s, he co-founded and directed the Poetics Program at the State University of New York Buffalo. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is co-director of PennSound.
Corrine Fitzpatrick is a Brooklyn-based poet, and former Program Coordinator of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. She is the author of two chapbooks – On Melody Dispatch and Zamboangueña, and her poetry appears in numerous print and online journals. She recently completed the MFA program at Bard College.
Carla Harryman is a poet, essayist, and playwright. Recent books include Adorno's Noise (Essay Press, 2008), Open Box (Belladonna, 2007), Baby (2005), and Gardener of Stars (Atelos, 2001), an experimental novel dedicated to the memory of Warren Sonbert. Forthcoming books include The Wide Road, an erotic picaresque written in collaboration with Lyn Hejinian (Belladonna). She is co-contributor to The Grand Piano, a project that focuses on the emergence of Language Writing, art, politics, and culture of the San Francisco Bay area between 1975-1980. She lives in the Detroit Area and serves on the faculty of the Creative Writing Program at Eastern Michigan University.
Presented as part of Couchsurfing.
Tickets - $7, available at door.
UNIONDOCS • 322 UNION AVE •BROOKLYN, NY 11211
Decasia by Bill Morrison
The Fragile Emulsion curated by Jon Gartenberg
Sunday, December 5th at 7:30pm $9 suggested donation.
Jon Gartenberg in attendance for discussion.
One of the most vital and richly textured art forms threatened with extinction centers around the practice of avant-garde filmmaking, particularly in 16mm format. These filmmakers treat the celluloid film emulsion as a living organism: it is an organic substance, a shimmering silver onto which they directly imprint the delicacy of their emotions. They work in relative isolation, creating their films with the hand of an artist, rather than as products for consumption by a mass audience. The style of their films most frequently challenges the conventions of linear narrative. These filmmakers recognize not only the ephemeral nature of the celluloid film stock, but also the perilous state of human existence in the modern world. They begin with their direct experiences of everyday reality and often move toward a process of abstraction in their films. They filter found objects from the world around them, and through a wide array of filmmaking techniques, including use of outdated film stock, over- and underexposure, scratching directly on the film emulsion, re-photography, and optical printing – articulate distinct, individually defined processes of creation. They evoke spiritual visions of the world in which their own livelihood is inextricably linked to the vibrancy of the film emulsion – both literally and figuratively – as a matter of life and death.
Program Runtime 73 minutes.
In Bill Morrison’s found footage opus, Decasia, decomposition reaches into the farthest corners of the natural and manmade world, penetrating continents, military and religious powers, the entire animal kingdom, architectural constructions as well as the celluloid film stock itself onto which all these delicate images are imprinted.
In Sanctus, Barbara Hammer addresses in compelling fashion the co-fragility of both human existence and the film emulsion, the artist’s raw material onto which she creates images. The filmmaker transforms historic scientific x-ray films into a lyrical journey, reworking this found footage material into a celebration of the body as temple.
In Her Fragrant Emulsion, images of 1960’s B-movie actress Mimsy Farmer float on the surface of the film emulsion, evoking erotic meditations on loves gained and lost. “The images I use are outmoded, and there’s a way that they’re dead. By working with them I’m kind of re-animating them, so I don’t really think of myself as an animator, as much as a re-animator that’s bringing these things back into some kind of life.” – Lewis Klahr
Throughout Hall of Mirrors Sonbert underscores the materiality of film and the self-referential aspect of the filmmaking enterprise. Sonbert incorporates black and white outtakes from a Hollywood movie with new scenes that he photographs in color; the filmmaker works the exposed leader of the film rolls in the fabric of his movie, and captures his own reflected image while shooting one of his protagonists (Warhol superstar Gerard Malanga) in artist Lucas Samaras’ Mirrored Room. Hall of Mirrors begins and ends with the protagonists’ movements enmeshed within multiple reflecting mirrors. The film’s imagery, combined with the rock and roll soundtrack, underscores the sense of visual entrapment of the characters in their respective environments, in a manner that conveys both youthful longing and human vulnerability.
Jeff Scher turns the table on his former teacher and mentor, Warren Sonbert (at a time when Sonbert was secretly afflicted with AIDS), creating an intimate dialogue between friends and colleagues, as well as a tense battle of directorial wills.
Whiplash is a compelling, multilayered portrayal of filmmaker Warren Sonbert’s struggle to maintain equilibrium in his physical self, his perceptual reality, and the world of friends and family around him, as his own mortality pressed upon his psyche. In it, Sonbert articulated the ideas and values by which he intended to be remembered. Most important among these is the theme of love between couples.
Jon Gartenberg is an archivist, distributor, and programmer. He began his career on the curatorial staff of The Museum of Modern Art, followed by jobs in the business sector both at Broadway Video and Golden Books. In 1998, he established Gartenberg Media Enterprises (www.gartenbergmedia.com), a company that is dedicated on the excavation, repurposing, and distribution of library assets in film, television, photographic, and print media.
In terms of experimental cinema, Gartenberg acquired avant-garde movies for the permanent collection of MOMA’s Film Department and restored the films of Andy Warhol. He also initiated a film preservation project with the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, which culminated in the conservation of films by artists Warren Sonbert, David Wojnarowicz, Curt McDowell, and Jack Waters.
Currently, his company distributes avant-garde films on DVD and licenses them as well for documentary film productions. GME also advises and supports cutting edge filmmakers on the economics of experimental film production, distribution and exhibition. Gartenberg has programmed experimental films for the Tribeca Film Festival since 2003.
Presented with
