The 2014-15 season of the Schnitzer Cinema, curated by Cinema Pacific director Richard Herskowitz, is devoted to American experimental media, with a special emphasis on the history of American avant-garde film. The second screening of the season is Harry Smith's Heaven and Earth Magic: Expanded Cinema Version (62 minutes).
In 1957, Portland-born Harry Smith (legendary producer of the Anthology of American Folk Music) began work on a feature length cut-out animated film he shot entirely alone, in a tiny East Side apartment in New York. Using his own bed as an animation stand, he appropriated images from 19th century sources to tell an eerie, visually austere, surrealistic story about a woman, a watermelon, and a toothache. Film historian Dennis Nyback researched the expanded cinema techniques Harry Smith used in presenting his film in 1961, and will recreate them in real time, moving between multiple film and slide projectors to create a layered image onscreen. The Oregon Cartoon Institute's recreation of Harry Smith’s Heaven And Earth Magic received rave reviews from audiences in Portland, Bellingham, and Seattle over the past year, and we are pleased to bring it to Eugene.
Schnitzer Cinema screenings are free and include free popcorn and soda and are brought to you in partnership with Cinema Pacific and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
Join us the next programs in the series, The Video Art of Julia Oldham on November 19 at 7 pm.
