Join us at the January screening for Mills Folly Microcinema, the monthly showcase of experimental film and video presented by Arts + Literature Laboratory.
Mills Folly Microcinema will present Melodrama / Melodiary: Three Videos by George Kuchar, on Thursday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m. Admission $5, or free for Arts + Literature Laboratory members. Seating is limited, and doors open at 7:15 p.m.
Our January screening, Melodrama / Melodiary: Three Videos by George Kuchar, is inspired by the thirtieth anniversary of Kuchar's short diary video, 500 Milibars to Ecstasy, which was completed in 1989 shortly after his campus visit and screenings at the UW-Madison.
George Kuchar (1942-2011) was an influential figure in the underground film scene in the 1960s, first creating 8mm melodramas with his twin brother Mike, then creating his own 16mm classics such as Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966). In his introduction to the Kuchars' memoir Reflections from a Cinematic Cesspool, filmmaker John Waters writes, "George and Mike Kuchar's films were my first inspiration. George's Hold Me While I'm Naked, Mike's Sins of the Fleshapoids--these were the pivotal films of my youth, bigger influences than Warhol, Kenneth Anger, even The Wizard of Oz."
George taught at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1971 to 2011. Several of his films and videos from that period were class projects, including Calling Dr. Petrov (1986), which will be part of our screening. I, An Actress (1977), a film screen test featuring student actress Barbara Lapsely, was selected for the National Film Registry in 2011. Other accolades for Kuchar included the Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video Artists from the American Film Institute in 1992, and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival in 1996.
Kuchar transitioned to video in the 1980s, producing hundreds of personal diaries and portraits, including his Weather Diary series starting in 1986. Discussing Kuchar's video work, critic Gene Youngblood writes, "The diaries are a chronicle of an artist and an art form liberated by video. . .The diaries blend autobiography, portraiture and fiction: scenes from a life, portraits of people and places, fictions constructed by George alone or in collaboration with his friends. Around a central event or set of events in each diary, he sustains an ongoing metanarrative of emptiness and isolation using still photographs, postcards, magazine illustrations, his own paintings and drawings, glimpses of TV programs, clips from Hollywood films, schmaltzy music, voice-over narration, cutaways to other locations, and most notably his asides. The result is a body of work without comparison in the history of cinema." We will screen Weather Diary 3 (1988) which features a young UW-Madison Meteorology and Communication Arts double major, Mike Kuetemeyer, whom we will meet again in 500 Millibars to Ecstasy.
After his death in 2011, Kuchar's films and videos were showcased at the Whitney Biennial, and a retrospective of his work was presented at Anthology Film Archives, both in 2012. In his book A Critical Cinema, Scott MacDonald mentions that Madison, Wisconsin was once the home to the George Kuchar fan club. We hope that these three videos will rekindle local interest in Kuchar and his work.
Title descriptions by George Kuchar, from Video Data Bank.
Calling Dr. Petrov | George Kuchar | USA | 1986 | 19:41
"This video focuses on the troubles at a large hospital beset with calamity and vice. We meet the doctors and nurses and get a glimpse of their personal traumas."
Weather Diary 3 | George Kuchar | USA | 1988 | 25:00
"George goes to Oklahoma, but there's a lull in storm activity. It's spring, and though there's romance in the air, the lightning just doesn’t strike; so George makes his own rain—of sorts. Despite the drought, the videos must go on." Best Documentary, 1989 Atlanta Film/Video Festival; Whitney Biennial 2012.
500 Millibars to Ecstasy | George Kuchar | USA | 1989 | 16:00
"The dark and sloppy side of touring college towns with your work. An internal expose of external secretions that unfortunately make it to the boob tube in full color." Included in "George Kuchar's Video Diaries: Nature All Over The Damn Place," at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany in 2013; 2008 Wisconsin Film Festival.
ABOUT MILLS FOLLY MICROCINEMA
Mills Folly Microcinema is programmed by James Kreul from Madison Film Forum. Mills Folly Microcinema showcases nationally recognized experimental film and video art work from the festival and microcinema circuit. We network with regional filmmakers and organizations to bring filmmakers and guest programmers to Madison for screenings. And we incubate local experimental filmmaking by providing screen time at at Project Projection events.
Mills Folly Microcinema is funded in part by a grant from the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board.
