WINTER 2006
HARRY SMITH: CONNECTIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS
February 10-12, 2005
Curator: Peter Lucas
Sponsored by Historylink.org, Recording Academy, Pacific Northwest Chapter, Easy Street Records, KEXP 90.3FM
With diverse interests and an appetite for unearthing unseen connections, the great polymath Harry Smith (1923-1991) is best described as a cultural alchemist, a sort of mystic DJ whose paintings, films, and collections fused seemingly disparate elements into dazzling new experiences. Whether transcribing native dialects, translating jazz solos into abstract paintings, or transforming antique illustrations into masterful kinetic works of cinema, Smith dedicated his life to finding parallel patterns and assembling a distinctive unified structure for all of human existence.
Many of Smith's interests and practices were forged in his youth here in the Pacific Northwest. As a young man, he recorded the songs, rituals and dialects of Puget Sound Native Americans and studied anthropology at the University of Washington. He began experimenting with painting directly on film (Smith was one of the first to use this "direct animation" method). And it was here that he began amassing the 78-rpm records that would later comprise the influential collection ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC.
Northwest Film Forum is proud to present a tribute to this important cultural figure and one of the greatest filmmakers to come from the Northwest. The series features screenings of rarely seen Smith films made between 1946 and 1980, including early hand-painted works, collage animations, and the Seattle premiere of the recently restored, multiple-screen masterpiece MAHAGONNY. The series also includes a number of special events illuminating the peculiar brilliance of his work and creative process as well as his early experiences in the Northwest.
Join us in celebrating the remarkable cultural translator and transformer whose magic impacted generations of artists and profoundly affected American culture.
Supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
Thanks to the Harry Smith Archives and The Film-makers' Cooperative
Attend all the events in CONNECTIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS with the Series Pass.
$30/$20 NWFF members.
FEB 10 Fri at 8pm
Early Abstractions, Mirror Animations, & Late Superimpositions
(Harry Smith, 1946-64, 16mm, 45 min.)
Harry Smith Archives Director Rani Singh scheduled to attend!
Beginning in the early 1940s, Smith funneled his interests in abstract painting, Surrealism, Native American rituals jazz music, and ancient mysticism into brilliant fusions of sound and moving image. His early films were screened at the "Art in Cinema" series at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1950 and were among the first American works to be exhibited at the Louvre. This program includes the early hand-painted jazz films (Films #1- 4, 5, 7), the collage film MIRROR ANIMATIONS (Film #17), and the rarely seen LATE SUPERIMPOSITIONS (Film #14).
FEB 11 Sat at 4pm
Early Journeys: Harry Smith in the Northwest
FREE FOR NWFF MEMBERS!
With guest speaker Bill Holm!
Bill Holm, anthropologist and Emeritus Director of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, was Smith's friend when the two were teenagers in the early 1940s. Holm will speak about the young Harry and their first experiences witnessing and recording the ceremonies of Puget Sound Native Americans-early journeys that would prove important in the development of Harry's paintings, films and life-long ethnographic enquiry. $3/Free NWFF members
FEB 11 Sat at 5:30pm
Revisiting the Anthology of American Folk Music
FREE FOR NWFF MEMBERS!
With guest speaker Chuck Pirtle!
"The whole anthology was a collage. I thought of it as an art object...I felt social changes would result from it." -Harry Smith
Released in 1952, THE ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC brought a new perspective on American music and culture. Special guest Chuck Pirtle, writer and contributor to the liner notes of the CD reissue, will discuss how Smith compiled the influential collection, place it in the context of his other work and play excerpts. $3/Free NWFF members
FEB 11 Sat at 8pm
Heaven and Earth Magic
(Harry Smith, 1957-62, 16mm, 66 min.)
LIVE SCORE BY ERIK BLOOD & SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN!
One of the strangest and most fascinating landmarks in the history of cinema, Smith has said that HEAVEN AND EARTH MAGIC (Film #12) was the culmination of nearly 20 years of collecting, planning and animating. In this masterpiece of collage, cut-outs from nineteenth-century catalogues and elocution manuals are meticulously animated to create a hermetic dream depicting initiation, redemption and spiritual transformation. For this special screening, electronic musician Scientific American and multi-instrumentalist Erik Blood (The Turn-ons, sloasians) will create live sound and music to accompany the film.
FEB 12 Sun at 5:30pm
Audio Alchemy Live
FREE FOR NWFF MEMBERS!
With Climax Golden Twins
Throughout his life, Harry Smith collected rare music recordings and made his own recordings of rituals, music, poetry, conversations, and ambient sounds around him. For this special live event, members of Seattle sound ensemble Climax Golden Twins will create a new aural experience that combines samples of sound collected and recorded by Smith, including such diverse elements as Depression-era folk music, Peyote songs of the Kiowa Indians, New York City street ambience and the poetry of Allen Ginsberg. $3/Free NWFF members
FEB 12 Sun at 8pm
Mahagonny
(Harry Smith, 1970-80, 35mm, 141 min.)
SEATTLE PREMIERE!
Never before shown in Seattle, Smith's final masterpiece, MAHAGONNY (Film #18), is an epic, kaleidoscopic transformation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's opera RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY. The ambitious, four-screen film translates the opera into what Smith termed "an occult experience." Shot in the Chelsea Hotel and city streets, the film captures the now vanished New York City of the 70s and includes appearances from such underground icons as Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith and Jonas Mekas. Smith worked on it for over ten years and considered it his magnum opus. We are proud to present the newly restored 35mm version of his most ambitious yet least seen cinematic work.