Artists Make Movies: Montage, Collage, Collision

Art and film have always enjoyed a unique aesthetic connection going back to the movies of Man Ray, Fernand Leger and Salvador Dali. More recently, there are many extraordinary examples of creative individuals who consistently use art to inform their motion pictures, like David Lynch, Julian Schnabel, and photographer Larry Clark.

The Pollock-Krasner House celebrates such artists and their work with the series "Artists Make Movies: Montage, Collage, Collision" in four programs at Chancellors Hall, Stony Brook Southampton. The first program will feature shorts by local artists / filmmakers whose movies are as relevant today as they were when they were first created in the 1960s and 1970s. Included will be Stan VanDerBeek's innovative experimental work; it was VanDerBeek who coined the term, "underground," to describe the subsequent cinematic movement, and it is VanDerbeek whose films are in the present Whitney Museum's "Summer of Love" exhibit representing striking tropes existing in virtually every "head" movie of the era.

Juxtaposition of animation with live action, archival footage, TV footage, world events and autobiography sets the scene for our present-day cinema. Award-winning works by embroidery artist Christa Maiwald are also relevant today, her videos mirroring the age-old themes of innocence, adulthood, magic and dreams. While such messages are personal and even autobiographical, Arabs / Angels also delivers a frightening political punch about the threat of Fundamentalism.

Although Gary Beeber's documentary Messenger was made in 2006, it captures the spirit of New York from a 25-year perspective as we follow legendary bike messenger Kamikaze through Manhattan's mean streets. Part rebel, part philosopher, part missionary, our hero never lets anyone or anything thwart his mission to deliver the mail.

Like VanDerBeek's films, Beeber's montage sequences are striking and potent, his editing devices compelling and concise. Jeff Dell's documentaries are also defined by arresting montage / editing techniques, which makes perfect since Dell has won many awards for his TV commercials. But there's nothing "commercial" about his anti-Vietnam film juxtaposing war footage with two American children at play.

Dell's comments on life's passing scenes include a potent look at prostitution in New York and a routine day in the Hamptons. The latter film, On the Bench Inside, is as funny as it is nostalgic. The residents are the real characters and better than most actors we can think of.

- Marion Wolberg Weiss

"Artists Make Movies" will start on Thursday, September 6 at 7p.m. at Chancellors Hall, Stony Brook Southampton. The series will continue every Thursday: Sept. 13, 20, 27. Call The Pollock-Krasner House ( 324-4929 ) for information.

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