Oregon Movies, A to Z

You know, and I know, that Miranda July has made a career of questioning the very basis of domestic stability – acceptance of boredom. So choosing to face and confront this obvious discrepancy between her talents and interests, and the third act resolution required by the romantic comedy genre, she has created her own version of a marriage comedy ( OK, its not a romantic comedy if the third member of the love triangle is a cat ) which should be pretty unique.

Here’s the info:

In partnership with Portland State University’s Social Practice MFA program led by Harrell Fletcher and Jen Delos Reyes, and with support from Roadside Attractions, the Hollywood Theatre will host Miranda July on May 6th and 7th, presenting advanced screenings of her latest film “The Future,” as well as a shorts program featuring her early work.

BUY TICKETS @ http://tinyurl.com/3tvgbgx

The shorts program, taking place on May 6th, will be collaboration between Fletcher, Reyes, their Practice MFA students and July, featuring various participatory art projects inspired by July’s work. A limited number of Miranda July prints designed especially for this event will be available for sale throughout the evening. On May 7th, two advanced screenings of “The Future” will take place at 7pm and 9:30pm. July will make appearances at both screenings, participating in an audience Q+A after the first, and introducing the second.

“The Future” stars July, (who also writes, directs) alongside Hamish Linklater in the story of a thirty-something couple who, on deciding to adopt a stray cat, change their perspective on life, literally altering the course of time and testing their faith in each other and themselves. The film opens in theatres on July 29, 2011.

So nice to see Miranda July make the trip from Hollywood to the Hollywood!  Oregon Movies, A to Z salutes Miranda as a  lillypadder, a classification which puts her in excellent company.

Film preservationist Michele Kribs receives a commendation from Thomas Vaughn, former head of the Oregon Historical Society.

Michele Kribs has kept an eye on the Oregon Historical Society’s moving image archive since 1979.  Although the collection is catalogued, she remains the best source of information about what the archive holds and how to find it.

Michele explained to me that Oregon had an early start in the film industry because of three things: the Rose Festival, the Columbia Gorge, and the Pendleton Round Up. These three endlessly fascinating subjects were documented, year after year, for national audiences by silent newsreel photographers. The steadiness of the demand for these three Oregon subjects created enough economic stability for a local film scene.

The coming of sound in 1927 dampened the progress of the local industry. Only Hollywood had the budgets to keep up with the expanded costs brought in by sound. But since the roots of Portland’s film industry were deep, there was never a complete hiatus. Local ad agencies, including one run by Homer Groening, kept skills ( and processing labs)  alive. Then in 1975, after Will Vinton came home with an Oscar,  independent filmmakers in Portland had renewed determination and inspiration.

Michele was not the first preservationist/archivist to work for OHS. That honor goes to the man who trained her: Lewis Clark Cook, a filmmaker-turned-archivist who inspired both Will Vinton and Jim Blashfield ( who in turn inspired, employed and mentored a young, film curious, Gus Van Sant.) For that reason, Lew Cook could reasonably be called the granddaddy of Portland filmmaking today.

Congratulations, Michele Kribs, and thank you for keeping everything in order, including our sense of Portland film history.

I always thought this scene was shot on the Oregon Coast, and wondered where.

Katherine Wilson clears up the mystery, and supplies an exact location.

Not on the Coast!

He was here in Oregon in the 60’s; in the town that Stan Brakage called “the Poetic Cinema Capitol of the World, Eugene, Oregon.” He arrived on the scene like his character in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest:” Randall Patrick McMurphy, to tell us we weren’t crazy, to legitimatize what we were trying to do with our 16mm cameras, and over the years, to help us get a break in the business.

My friend Ron Vidor, a Cinematographer who worked as a cameraman on “Five Easy Pieces” said that in 1969 Jack and the rest of the cast and crew were just traveling through on I-5, when Director Bob Rafelson saw the Eugene Denny’s Restaurant. Within minutes they had permission from the manager to shoot the classic “chicken salad sandwich” scene with Karen Black and Lorna Thayer, the Waitress. More…..

Thanks, Katherine! We needed that.

Now if we can just ascertain if Ron Vidor is related to King Vidor, we’ll be golden.

Animal House? The Goonies? One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest? You think these are the most well loved Oregon films? You’re wrong. At least you’re wrong if you use traffic on Oregon Movies, A to Z as a guide.

What is your favorite Oregon film?

Here are the leading favorites on Oregon Movies, A to Z:

1. Clan of the Cave Bear (1986)

The all time top favorite post on Oregon Movies, A to Z. A testimony to the deep love Jean Auel’s fans have for anything to do with the Earth Children series.

2. Family Dog (1987)

Brad Bird’s first animated film appeared on television as part of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories.

3. Free Willy (1993)

Starring Oregonian Jason James Richter, and set and shot on the Oregon Coast. One of a long line of Oregon animal films.

4. Drum Beat (1954) /Lost film

Set and shot in Modoc country, on the border of Oregon and California, and featuring Charles Bronson’s first lead performance.

5. Vortex 1: A Biodegradeable Festival of Life (2005)

Using home movie footage and the recollections of attendees, Vortex 1 documents a 1970 rock festival organized by state bureaucrats in Salem, and held in McIver Park.

6. Alice In Wonderland (1951)

Marc Davis, the only one of Disney’s Nine Old Men to graduate from Klamath Union High School, was the animation supervisor.

7. Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search For A Kool Place (2010)

Ken Kesey’s first career goal was to become an actor. He never lost his love of movies, and this documentary uses his own home movie footage.

8. MacKenna’s Gold (1969)

Omar Sharif and Gregory Peck look for gold and find Julie Newmar. Partially shot in Oregon.

9. The Great American Cowboy (1973)

Real life Oregonian (and rodeo champion) Larry Mahan was the subject of this Oscar winning documentary.

10. Even Cowgirls Get The Blues (1993)

Tom Robbins’ novel about a gifted hitchhiker was brought to life by Gus Van Sant in his fourth feature film. Shot in Central Oregon with Uma Thurman playing Sissy Hankshaw.

Hmmmmmmmm. Three animal films (Clan of the Cave Bear - which does star Bart the Bear, Family Dog and Free Willy), three drug films (Vortex 1, Alice In Wonderland and Magic Trip) and four  films starring people in cowboy hats (Drum Beat, MacKenna’s Gold, The Last Great American Cowboy and Even Cowgirls Get The Blues.)

I wonder what that means.

Thirty million horsepower!

The narrator cannot make up his mind what this film is about, so he tries to keep up with the rush of onscreen images, covering Indians, Oakies, bears, salmon, orchards, forests, deserts, the War Effort, aluminum, and hydroelectric plants. See if you can keep up with him.

Woody Guthrie was hired by Bonneville Power Authority PR man Steven B. Kahn in 1941 to write songs for a promotional film about dams on the Columbia. WWII delayed production — but you can learn all that from watching the film. You hear Guthrie at times on the soundtrack. He doesn’t appear on screen.

I hereby claim The Columbia as an Oregon film, on the basis of the subject matter and the location shooting.

“This film belongs to you and me.”

Woody Guthrie came to Portland in 1941 and spent a month here writing some of his most beloved songs.

He came to participate in a promotional film planned by Bonneville Power Adminstration. WWII slowed down the production schedule, and the film, titled The Columbia, came out in 1949.

Guthrie spent one month (May, actually) working for the BPA. He wrote 26 songs and was paid $266.

I learned to sing Roll On Columbia, the most famous of Guthrie’s regional anthems, at Blossom Gulch Elementary School in Coos Bay, Oregon. So many Washington State school children were likewise instructed that by 1987 Washington made it their official folk song.

Chorus:

Roll on, Columbia, roll on, roll on, Columbia, roll on

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn

So roll on, Columbia, roll on.

Verses:

Green Douglas-firs where the waters cut through

Down her wild mountains and canyons she flew

Canadian Northwest to the ocean so blue

Roll on Columbia, roll on

Other great rivers add power to you

Yakima, Snake, and the Klickitat, too

Sandy, Willamette and Hood River too

So roll on, Columbia, roll on

And on up the river is Grand Coulee Dam

The biggest thing built by the hand of a man

To run the great factories and water the land

So roll on, Columbia, roll on

And more verses here.

I hereby claim Roll On Columbia: Woody Guthrie & the Columbia River Songs as an Oregon film.

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Mayor Sam Adams added to his collection of original portraits of Portland filmmakers last week, unveiling a brand new painting of Todd Haynes by Jasper Marks.

City Hall custodians grumbled about the amount of work they face – Portland’s active film scene means the entire wall will soon be filled. The Mayor did not announce whether Marks, who moonlights in another profession under the name Steven Cohn, would be asked to paint the entire series. Some people believe Arnold Pander may be approached to help out.

Here are the names of some of the directors who, taken in conglomerate, represent Portland’s cinematic wealth:

Aaron Katz

Brian Lindstrom

Chel White

David Weissman

Donal Mosher

Gus Van Sant

Irene Taylor Brodsky

Jacob & Arnold Pander

James Westby

Jim Blashfield

Joan Gratz

Joanna Priestley

Lance Bangs

Larry Johnson

Marilyn Zornado

Matt McCormick

Michael Palmieri

Mike Shiley

Peter D. Richardson

Rose Bond

Sue Arbuthnot

Vanessa Renwick

Will Vinton

It is because Sam Adams is only Mayor of Portland, and not Governor of the State of Oregon that the following filmmakers will escape inclusion on his Hall of Fame:

Alex Cox

Bruce Campbell

Bill Plympton

Chris Eyre

Matthew Lessner

James Ivory

James Longley

Shelley Jordon

Susan Saladoff

Homer Groening’s success as an independent commercial filmmaker made it possible for him to moonlight as an independent experimental filmmaker.  This 1973 promotional film for Linfield College, his own alma mater,  is one of his commercial jobs.

Here’s part one of A Student’s View of Linfield College. The other two sections of the film are also on Youtube.

Perhaps Homer felt unusually at home on a college campus because his own father, Abram Groening (Matt Groening’s grandfather), taught at Lewis & Clark College in Portland.

I hereby claim A Students’s View Of Linfield College as an Oregon film, based on Homer Groening’s contribution as writer, director, producer, sound recordist, editor and narrator.

While A Year in Mooring is reminiscent of some recent “man-alone” American films, such as Into the Wild and 127 Hours, and the lonely drunken stumbling of the Young Mariner even brings to mind parts of There Will Be Blood. With its slow pace, sparse dialogue, and contemplative photography it’s like the quiet Zen cinema of the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, or the painstaking spiritual fare of Frenchman Robert Bresson.

I hereby claim A Year In Mooring as an Oregon film, based on the contribution of the director, Oregonian Chris Eyre.

Gus Van Sant returns to Festival de Cannes, on the evening of Thursday, May 12, to open the “Un Certain Regard” competition with his latest film, Restless.

Shot in Portland, Restless stars Mia Wasikowska and Henry Hopper.

Here’s Gus Van Sant’s history at Cannes:

Gus Van Sant received the Palme d’or in 2003 for Elephant and the 60th anniversary award for Paranoid Park (2007). His first nomination at the Festival de Cannes was in 1995 for To Die For.

I submit the track record Gus Van Sant (Portland), James Ivory (Klamath Falls) and Bill Plympton (Oregon City) have at Cannes as solid proof all Oregonians are secretly French.