THE PICTURE RESTART 16MM SERIES! ANIMATED BREAKDOWNS | IN-PERSON (3/15)
THE PICTURE RESTART 16MM SERIES! ANIMATED BREAKDOWNS | IN-PERSON (3/15)
Chicago Filmmakers (map) | Saturday March 15, 2025 | 6:00 PM
Join Chicago Filmmakers for ANIMATED BREAKDOWNS: Six Films Drawn Beyond the Limits of the Frame, the third screening in our PICTURE RESTART SERIES: 16mm FILMS FROM THE PICTURE START COLLECTION!
For the third program in our PICTURE RESTART series, we are showcasing six animated films in which the edges of reality are playfully broken and where the assumptions we make of images are exposed. Sleight of hand pervades the program; illusions abound, reshaping our worlds. Many of these filmmakers would become famous beyond these small films - Karen Kiser worked on the show Gumby before signing with PIXAR and making features with them for over a decade. Carter Burwell is better known for his 40+ year career in scoring films from Fargo to Twilight and everything in between, but made this little homage to a silent film loop before all that. Al Jarnow was an extensive animator for Sesame Street, and Osamu Tezuka made Astro Boy and many other manga classics. These six films have deep thoughts to propose, and even deeper hearts, along their varied journeys into isolated safeties and cosmic reflection.
Note: All content is suitable for children, feel free to bring the kiddos!
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Chicago Filmmakers does not deny admission to those who do not have the ability to make a donation. Please email coop [at] chicagofilmmakers.org to inquire about free admission.
LineUp:
1. Solitaire’s Sanctuary - Karen Kiser, 1987, 4m
To the sounds of an energetic bop, a lone figure wanders around the edges of an empty room only to find themselves slipping out of frame and entering hostile, noisy worlds. Ultimately, they find a way to create a boundary to keep away the outer world and construct a blissful, dancing solitude. Karen Kiser would go on to animate for the classic show Gumby before working as a key animator at Pixar for decades - the film also features an early score from composer Michael Penn (Boogie Nights, Girls).
2. Mirror People - Kathy Rose, 1974, 6m
Every time we look into mirrors, something other than reality looks back, but here that logic is taken to extremes. We start to see fantastical beings, constantly mutating from snake-like fluidity to boxy stacks, contorting and moving to the sounds of a haunted house. Everything changes when they take us into their world, and everything goes upside down.
3. Help I’m Being Crushed to Death By a Black Rectangle - Carter Burwell, 1977, 4m
A gesture towards a simplified cinema of the past, with numerous postmodern flourishes that bring it into the more recent past - Help I’m Being Crushed features a looping scenario in which a bound damsel is repeatedly crushed to death during a shootout between a bandit and a sheriff with slight variations to the details each round. Finally, the artist intervenes so the film can end, but reality is forever shifted. One of two films animated by musician Carter Burwell, six years before he composed the score for Blood Simple.
4. Broken Down Film - Osamu Tezuka, 1985, 5m
Osamu Tekuza builds on the same sets of fascinations that motivated Carter, but with a wider range of strategies to engage the breakdown and disruption of the medium. Don’t worry - the projector is not broken - this film is delicately animated to produce the visual effect of a film running off the track, or being spliced in upside down, or having another film tucked inside of it. A glorious homage to the material endurance of beloved films.
5. Animation - Vince Collins, 1979, 12m
Eye-popping transitions, contorting and distorting shapes and meticulous color are all part of Vince Collins repertoire, but here they are given a kind of meta-positioning as we go beyond witnessing the transformations - we are offered an explanation for how some of the techniques actually work. Dizzying sequences of fireworks, kittens, seahorses, abstract patterns and rapidly shifting colors make for a playful space to flicker, a kaleidoscope of textures.
6. Celestial Navigation - Al Jarnow, 1985, 15m
Mobilized by the same perceptual desires that led to the creation of Stonehenge, Celestial Navigation sees the filmmaker in a room of their own, tracking the passage of light over the course of an entire year to witness the traces of that cosmic dance which even show up in the smallest of places. This is accompanied by reflections on animation and the histories of the stargazers
Total Runtime: 46 Minutes