National Poetry Month – Rudy Burckhardt
In recognition of National Poetry Month we present an evening of film and conversation. Photographer and filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt was a fixture in the New York art scene of the 1950s and 1960s. He collaborated with poets, painters and other visual artists, including Edwin Denby, John Ashbery and Joseph Cornell, to create splendid, intimate portraits of city life. This screening presents two later film works by Burckhardt and will be preceded by a conversation between photographer Will Brown, who studied with Burckhardt, and poet Thomas Devaney. Brown and Devaney have recently collaborated on a book combining photography and poetry.
Money
dir. Rudy Burckhardt, US, 1968, 16mm, 45 mins, b/w
A silent screen-style comedy starring Edwin Denby as Hemlock Stinge. “It deals with old Mr Stinge, the unlovable billionaire, and many other characters, rich and poor. It shows the luxury and degradation of New York City and the simple fresh air of Maine. The story can’t resist slowing up to look at a girl; it skips a few logical links when it gets too complicated. It is being told by a hard-drinking farmer to his son to inspire him to become a billionaire too. The photography is masterful and draws no attention to itself. The text by Joe Brainard, ditto. The documentary sequences show people and buildings on the kind of real life day when you keep finding comedy wherever you look. Special to Burckhardt is the light touch. The jokes – small touching ones, others outright gags – are left unexploited and unexplained. The characters are all pretty bad, money is the root of all evil, and they ought not to enjoy themselves but they do anyway. The film is clearly unpretentious, free-wheeling and imaginative.” – Edwin Denby
preceded by
Indelible, Inedible
dir. Rudy Burckhardt, US, 1981, 16mm, 8 mins, color
Images accompany the lines of a poem by John Ashbery. “Rudy Burckhardt’s film is a brilliant extension of my poem, perhaps the film I might have made myself if I were a filmmaker.” – Poet John Ashbery
