From the NYTimes:

“!Women Art Revolution” tells of a raucous, rule-breaking era when female artists, in order to get their message across, protested outside museums and created outlandish performance pieces often involving nudity. But the documentary is basically traditional, with a straightforward, chronological structure. It tells the stories of major figureheads in the feminist art movement like Judy Chicago, Nancy Spero and the Guerrilla Girls collective through a blend of archival footage, artist commentaries gathered by the filmmaker over 35 years and narration by Ms. Hershman Leeson.

Carrie Brownstein, the vocalist and guitarist of the now-defunct indie-rock band Sleater-Kinney, provides the soulful soundtrack.

I hereby claim !Women Art Revolution as an Oregon film on the basis of the contribution made by Oregonian Carrie Brownstein.

“Rock stars have kidnapped my son!”

In Almost Famous, writer-director Cameron Crowe revisits his youthful introduction to the world of rock journalism. Before starting the screenplay, he called a Portland friend who had shared that experience to ask for her blessing. She freely gave it.

Penny Lane, played by Kate Hudson, is based on Pennie Lane Trumbull, who met Cameron Crowe backstage at a rock concert at Portland’s Paramount Theater. A Roosevelt High School student who spent three years traveling with rock and roll bands in the early 1970’s, Trumbull hung up her dancing shoes after that, and got an MBA. She lives in Portland, a marketing consultant with her own wine label.

Kate Hudson’s Oscar nominated performance comes complete with the particulars based on the real Pennie Lane: the blonde ringlets and the carefully curated vintage wardrobe.

Here’s the real Pennie, circa 1973:

Here she is today:

Strange but true: there is a double Portland influence in Kate Hudson’s performance as Penny Lane. Not only is she playing a Portland girl crazy about rock and roll, Kate Hudson herself is the daughter of a Portland rock musician, Bill Hudson.

Here’s Mr. and Mrs. Bill Hudson:

Here’s Goldie Hawn, after becoming single once again, with young Kate:

There must be some cosmic string tying Goldie and Kate to Portland, because Goldie’s next long term relationship would be with Kurt Russell, who used to play for the Portland Mavericks

All of this is true! I swear!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hereby claim Almost Famous as an Oregon film on the basis of the inspiration provided by Oregonian Pennie Lane.

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.

And more verses here.

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

]]> http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2011/04/roll-on-columbia-woody-guthrie-the-columbia-river-songs-mcmenamins-edgefield-power-stationapril-26-630-pm-free/feed/ 0 http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2011/01/jumpers-2005/ http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2011/01/jumpers-2005/#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:27:19 +0000 Anne Richardson http://www.talltalestruetales.com/?p=11698 Click here to view the embedded video.

“I’m not a bird, I’m not a plane.”  Jumpers was the first film collaboration between Portland director Matt McCormick and rocker-writer-actress Carrie Brownstein.

Their second was when McCormick cast Brownstein opposite James Mercer in his debut narrative feature film, Some Days Are Better Than Others (2009).

Some Days Are Better Than Others will make its Portland premiere at the 34th Portland International Film Festival.

I hereby claim Jumpers as an Oregon film, based on location shooting in downtown Portland, and on the Portlander status of the quartet of artists who collaborated on its creation.

I would love to credit the actress who plays the thrifty and ingenious disaffected office worker who defies gravity with envelopes and scotch tape. Clue me in, and I will add her name to the post.

The Portland That Was is a public history/public art project which uses 12 films from Dennis Nyback’s archive to engage the ghosts of collective memory in site specific ways. Mack McFarland and Dennis Nyback collaborated to create twelve short videos, drawing on Dennis’ films. Damon Eckhoff designed an interface which embedded YouTubes in a Google Map, and I produced.

Probably the most satisfying part of the project was the All Night Caravan which had audiences trooping around after Dennis and Mack as they went from site to site in downtown Portland. Shift 2 Bikes’ Ken Southerland helped with this, moving Dennis’ 16mm projector and equipment from place to place sans automobile, as Dennis screened his archival films against buildings, or, in one instance, a moving Max train.

Executed guerrilla style, without permits, and with crowd sizes from 20 to 100, the All Night Caravan was a one time event, which will likely never be repeated.

For the record, it was the college interns who worked on The Portland That Was who insisted on the All Night Caravan. They were adamant, so we complied. Security guards showed up at #4, and cops at #5, but the show went on.

1. Lincoln High School, now Lincoln Hall
Address: Across from 1620 SW Park
Film: THE SCREWDRIVER, 1941
7 minutes, black & white

Mel Blanc invented the voice of Woody Woodpecker while attending Lincoln High School. Blanc provides all the character voices in this early Woody Woodpecker cartoon, which features an unusually psychotic version of the much beloved cartoon character.

2. Keller Fountain
Address: across from 222 SW Clay
Film: WE ARE THE CITY, 1972
15 minutes, color

Portland filmmaker Tom Chamberlin made this educational film for use in classrooms across the country. Two Portland mayors, Terry Shrunk and Neil Goldschmidt, have cameos, as does the Forecourt Fountain, now known as Keller Fountain.

3. Keller Auditorium
Address: across from 222 SW Clay
Film: WILKIE & McNARY KNOW THEIR FARMING, 1940
10 minute, black & white

The Republican Party chose Oregon Senator Charles McNary as the running mate to their 1940 Presidential candidate Wendell Wilkie. A campaign rally was held at the Public Auditorium (the building which preceded the Keller Auditorium). That audience very likely saw this film.

4. Quest Fountain at The Standard
Address: outside 900 SW 5th
Film: THIS IS PORTLAND, 1971
8 minutes, black & white

Portland filmmaker Tim Smith was 15 when he sent up a locally produced television travelogue show “Don & Bettina” in this spoof starring his brother Duncan Smith and future Oregonian columnist Elinor Markgraf.

5. Pioneer Courthouse Square, site of the old Portland Hotel
Address: SW 6th between Yamhill & Taylor
Film: GEORGE OLSEN, 1940’s
10 minutes; black & white
Jazz age superstar George Olsen was born in Portland and played at the Portland Hotel before he was discovered and brought to New York.

6. Former Headquarters of PGE (in the Electric Building)
Address: outside 621 SW Alder
Film: IT CAN BE DONE, 1937
20 minutes, black & white

The employees of Portland General Electric made this short film to encourage Depression Era farmers to electrify.

7. Site of Northwestern, Inc., recording studio
Address: outside 415 SW 13th
Film: WHERE THE ACTION IS, 1965
8 minutes, black & white

Paul Revere and The Raiders recorded “Louie Louie” at Northwestern, Inc. in the spring of 1963. Two years later they were hosts of a daily half hour television show on ABC.

8. Low Brow lounge
Address: outside 1036 NW Hoyt
Film: BLITZ ME!, 1960’s
14 minutes, color and b & w

What may not  be apparent to people visiting The Portland That Was today: Damon Eckhoff designed the YouTube/Google Maps interface from scratch. Google followed suit a month later, making this option available to Everyman. But Damon’s mashup was his own.

Filmmaker Rose Bond helped create this “making of” featurette by serving as the off camera interviewer. Howard Brotine edited it together. Both early, and wonderfully loyal, supporters of the Oregon Cartoon Institute!

Thanks, Howard!

Thanks, Rose!

If you happen to be in LA: On Nov. 13, 2010, Dennis Nyback and I will be giving a talk about The Portland That Was at the Reimagining The Archive conference at UCLA.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The City of Your Final Destination, based on the novel by Peter Cameron, assembles many of the cherished Merchant Ivory values: meticulous writing by the Oscar-winning Ruth Prawer Jhabvala; an expertly drawn cast headed by Merchant Ivory favorite Anthony Hopkins; a languid and literary pace that elevates viewers without ever compromising their intelligence; gorgeous cinematography and art direction; and a cinematic elegance as rare in contemporary films as genuine wit. This is a typical James Ivory work, but more deeply wounding and emotionally involving than most. I was transfixed from beginning to end. Rex Reed

I was too.

The sequence I saw had three strong female performances, which is more than Hollywood usually produces in an entire award season. The film belongs to Laura Linney, who plays a widow who paints, drinks, and fights with her gay brother-in-law (Anthony Hopkins) all the while sharing his home, along with his lover (Hiroyuki Sanada) and her late husband’s mistress (Charlotte Gainsbourg). A young man (Omar Metwally) enters the equation, and the power plays begin.

The conflicts between brother and sister-in-law, widow and the young man, the young man and the brother  – all taking place while the young man was falling in love with the mistress–this quadrangle of conflict would have made a great film without the entry of the fifth character, the young man’s girlfriend, but it is that character which elevated the sequence I saw to genius.

Alexandra Maria Lara plays the young man’s girlfriend, who arrives late on the scene, sees events sprawling out of control, and attempts to step into her boyfriend’s shoes and accomplish his original mission. She is focused, practical and completely out of touch with reality.  Her boyfriend is hopelessly in love with a woman he just met, but she is undeterred.

I have never seen this character on screen before. Ivory is sympathetic to her, while at the same time he thinks she is profoundly absurd — a directorial feat he also pulled off in the character played by Daniel Day Lewis in Room With A View.

This version of Midsummer’s Night Dream takes place in Uruguay.

James Ivory’s and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s creative partnership has produced a steady stream of wonderful female performances. The most famous: Helena Bonham Carter and Maggie Smith in Room With A View,  Joanne Woodward  in Mr. and Mrs. Bridge and Emma Thompson in Howard’s End and The Remains Of The Day.

Here’s some more: Felicity Kendal in Shakespeare Wallah, Jennifer Kendal in Bombay Talkie,  Aparna Sen and Peggy Ashcroft in Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie’s Pictures,  Isabelle Adjani in Quartet, Mary Beth Hurt in The 5:48, Julie Christie in Heat and Dust, Vanessa Redgrave in The Bostonians, Bernadette Peters in Slaves of New York, on and on.

Today’s papers carry news of Belgium’s ban on burqas. “It is necessary that the law forbids the wearing of clothes that totally mask and enclose an individual. Wearing the burqa in public is not compatible with an open, liberal, tolerant society” said  Daniel Bacquelaine, a member of the Reformist Movement party and a Belgium parlimentarian. “If we want to live together in a free society, we need to recognize each other.”

It has been standard practice in Hollywood screenwriting to issue virtual burqas to female characters, sanding down rough edges, forcing characters into conformity with what is perceived will sell the most tickets. James Ivory’s entire career stands in defiance on this practice.

I hereby claim The City Of Your Final Destination as an Oregon film, based on James Ivory’s contribution as director.

News from Northern Ireland – Portland filmmakers Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri have been awarded the Maysles Brothers Documentary Award by the Belfast Film Festival.

From the festival website:

“We couldn’t be more pleased to welcome the 2010 jury’s decision to award the Belfast Film Festival’s Maysles Brothers Award 2010 to Michael and Donal for their magnificent film October Country – a true gem of American cinema that overturns a lot of preconceived notions about an American obsession with violence and its impact on society. It covers some dark subject matter but the film has an intoxicating and dream-like fascination with family, a sense of slow-brewed wisdom and leaves you with a deep respect for the Mosher family and the courage and intelligence of America’s everyman. It’s equally pleasing that it is the first American film to win our Maysles Brothers Award considering it is a fitting tribute to the Maysles’ style of filmmaking, recognising their contribution to American cinema”.  Commented Cian Smyth, the Festival’s Documentary Programmer.

Shot over the course of a year from one Hallowe’en to the next, the film presents three generations of a working class American family in upstate New York. The film details many of the personal trials and tribulations of the Mosher family but, on a universal level, provides an honest insight into what is often too simply described as America’s obsession with violence. Engrossing, rich, multi-layered and stunning to watch, this first feature leaves you feeling like you’ve read a seriously good book.

Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s first feature, a non-fiction portrait of an upstate New York family, was inspired by photographs by Mosher. It won the Grand Jury Award for Best US Feature in the 2009 Silverdocs documentary competition.

Palmieri’s music video clients have included The Strokes, Foo Fighters, Beck, Belle and Sebastian, Tears for Fears and The New Pornographers.

From a review on the film blog Hammer to Nail:

With October Country, Palmieri and Mosher have created a small and quiet masterpiece of transcendent filmmaking. The film is based on Mosher’s essays and photographs of his family and the town in which they reside. Palmieri, as the cinematographer and editor, gorgeously captures the shattered fairytales of Americana and the family unit that is supposed to reside within those fairytales, seemingly waiting for the most highly prismatic light at every moment with which to frame it all. I have seen few other instances where visual, aural and emotional instincts are so delicate and clean and pure. That delicacy and purity is in Palmieri and Mosher’s photography and in their musical score. It is also in their deep sensitivity to the liminal world around them, their subtle innate understanding of human emotional strength, and in their flawless cinematic craftsmanship. I was utterly transported.

Their storytelling partners are the shuttered, yet eloquent Don; the stoic, emotionally resonant Dottie; the wry and weary Donna and her two daughters, pain-filled young mother Daneal, and the young Desi who provides both uproarious comic relief and the wisdom of the ages; Don’s outcast and lonely sister, Denise, our guide into the spirit world (“Every family has its ghosts. You just have to figure out how to live with them.”); and the damaged foster kid, Chris, an outsider’s outsider, shunted aside since he was five by his birth family and out for revenge ever since because of it, even against the people who have shown him nothing but love and forgiveness. It’s quite a crew, and I fell madly in love with every single one of them.

— Pamela Cohn

October Country opens at Fox Tower in Portland on April 2. Filmmakers will be present after the 7:05 PM shows for Q & A on April 2 & 3 (Fri. & Sat.)

I hereby claim October Country as an Oregon film, based on the Portland citizenship of the filmmakers.

Portland filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher received high marks from A. O. Scott in the New York Times

The main strength of “October Country” is that it respects the individuality of its subjects, observing them with detached compassion and allowing each of them plenty of time to talk. They are not treated as case studies in part because they are Donal Mosher’s kin, though the precise nature of the family connection evident in the shared surname is never disclosed on screen. The filmmaker is Don and Dottie’s son — brother, uncle and nephew to the other important figures in the film — but that relationship is never acknowledged or explored.

As a result “October Country” feels at once personal and objective, a fascinating hybrid of two important tendencies in the modern documentary. To the extent that it is a memoir, albeit one marked by an unusual degree of circumspection, it resembles movies like Jonathan Caouette’s “Tarnation” and Doug Block’s “51 Birch Street,” in which the confessional impulses of the filmmakers drive their investigations of family history. But the invisibility of Mr. Mosher and Mr. Palmieri give their movie an ethnographic flavor, making it feel at times like one more chronicle of misery and marginality told from the outside.

How did the filmmakers get that “ethnographic” flavor without alienating the family they were filming? According to an interview with both directors in The Auteurs, they used the simple but always effective technique of giving the family final cut.

Here’s more from that interview:

Q:  When you bring in the supernatural elements and inflect that in the style, some people dismiss it as a kind of aesthetic voodoo that cheapens the film’s content.

PALMIERI: But we like the aesthetic voodoo! It’s the heart of the film. And it’s about acknowledging that no matter how dire the circumstances, things can still be beautiful. I think that’s an important element to understanding that region.

MOSHER: The question of aesthetics is complicated. But I think you can have a dire or unhealthy attitude towards it. At this point, it’s all artifice anyway. If you film something in a straightforward, traditional manner, it’s still an aesthetic choice.

October Country opens at Fox Tower in Portland on April 2. Filmmakers will be present after the 7:05 PM shows for Q & A on April 2 & 3 (Fri. & Sat.)

Screening April 8, 7:00 PM at Whitsell Auditorium. Sponsored by Bitch Media.

BRUTAL BEAUTY: Tales of the Rose City Rollers is a documentary devoted to the story of Portland, Oregon’s Rose City Rollers. Features bout footage from Rose City Roller home games and travel games as well as interviews with many Rose City skaters including Cadillac, Marollin’ Monroe, White Flight, Madam Bumpsalot, Rocket Mean, Angry Wrench, coach Rob Lobster, and more.

From the Rose City Rollers website. Brutal Beauty was directed by Chip Mabry.