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Cine Salon to present Vintage Found Footage Films by Joseph Cornell

Monday April 5th at 7 PM EDT

Robin Blaetz, Emily Dickinson Professor of Film Studies at Mount Holyoke College, will present several vintage found footage films by the American collage artist Joseph Cornell.

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    Robin Blaetz, Emily Dickinson Professor of Film Studies at Mount Holyoke College

Professor Blaetz will share her interest in Cornell's underappreciated film collages and outline the necessity and value of close readings of Cornell's apparently loosely constructed but in fact meticulous films, using the example of Bookstalls (c. 1938, 9 minutes).

The evening will feature a reading of her essay "Time Traveling in Joseph Cornell's Bookstalls" (Papers on Language and Literature, V. 57, N. 1, 2021) to initiate a close analysis of the short film "reflecting Cornell's Christian Science worldview (which stresses the non-existence of matter) and his appreciation of film's singular capacity to make what is absent present and then erase this presence in a fraction of a second."

She finds Cornell's approach to cinema unique with its intricate interweaving of fragments copied from fascinating sources, such as vintage excerpts of Burton Holmes' 1920-30s travelogues and other rare archival cinema rarities.

 

Meeting ID: 869 7907 4828      Passcode: 069972

FILMS: Bookstalls 9:34'; New Newsreel [The Children's Jury] 9:04'; Unreal News Reels, Nos. 1 & 2 (derived from 1919-1923 Fox comedies, reissued for home use 1926-1928) 8:19'; Thimble Theater (completed by Lawrence Jordan 1968) 6:55'; The Aviary (shot by Rudy Burckhardt) 13:58' All films by Joseph Cornell - begun during the late 1930s, except The Aviary, 1955, but not finished by Cornell during his lifetime. Preserved 1978 by Anthology Film Archives and Lawrence Jordan 1970. Additional films, time permitting: Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) Edwin S. Porter 8:25'; L'Etoile de Mer (1928) Man Ray 16'; Voyage autour d'une étoile (1906) Gaston Valle 6:06. Courtesy Anthology Film Archives, Filmmakers Showcase, Lawrence Jordan, and Museum of Modern Art. TRT 140 minutes.

BIO: ROBIN BLAETZ is Emily Dickinson Professor of Film Studies, Mount Holyoke College, where she chairs the Film Media Theater Department and writes about and teaches experimental cinema.

LINKS: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/people/robin-blaetz

https://www.sfcinematheque.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/Cornellforprint_2007.pdf

https://surrealisms.sched.com/event/FLUP/2b-cinematic-imagination

https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/3117

https://www.mixcloud.com/mountholyokecollegepodcast/robin-blaetz-delivers-talk-on-cinema-and-culture/

CO-SPONSORS:  AVA Gallery and Art Center, CATV, Department of Film and Media Studies Dartmouth College, Filmmakers Showcase, Howe Library, Jones Media Center - Dartmouth Library, VTIFF - Vermont International Film Foundation.