October 26 2009

MONTHLY READING + DISCUSSION GROUP EXPLORING CINEMA + CINEMATIC PRACTICE THROUGH WRITTEN WORDS

A monthly reading + discussion group, Thought on Film aims to promote critical thought around film product and practice through community-based discussion. Open to the public, Thought on Film fosters the close reading of texts confronting issues in contemporary, cutting-edge cinematic practice and philosophy.

Provoked by the presentation of Kevin Jerome Everson’s work as part of DIM Cinema, October’s meeting will feature a listening exercise in the comedy of Richard Pryor and a selection from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.

Everson’s prolific body of film work engages with and responds to the history and culture of working class Black Americans and people of African decent. His short gestural films confuse simplistic expectations of ethnographic documentary, poetic narrative, or theatrical drama. He stitches archival footage, scripted sequences, verite documents, and abstract aural and visual minutiae into textured portraits of people, places, economics, politics, and ephemera. When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. The comedy of Pryor and an excerpt from the play will be used to question authority, authenticity and the representation and preservation of African American history, calling attention to formal qualities of characterization and informing Everson’s focus on breaking down characterization to pure form.

Experimenting with the form of reading groups and their discussions, this month’s selection will be read out loud by participants. No pre-reading required!

If you have any questions about Thought on Film, please do not hesitate to contact Programs Manager + Curator cheyanne turions at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

THOUGHT ON FILM XXI
reading an excerpt from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and listening to the comedic musings of Richard Pryor
Cineworks [1131 Howe, back lane entrance]
26 October 2009, 6pm
Free