A generous benefactor donated to the Echo Park Film Center a large industrial space to use in Atwater Village. Dubbed the Echo Park Film Center Analog Annex, the space is marked for film-only experimentation; an animation stand and a flatbed are there now, with an optical printer and a darkroom to follow. Fortuitously, filmmaker Roger Beebe was in town from Florida to present a number of his works for one or more projectors as the inaugural event. Many of Beebe’s films focus on the signs and structures of capitalism, weaving together images of commercial signs, chain stores, strip malls and casinos with two or three projections side by side. The result is a dense visual montage that draws beauty out of the ubiquitous advertising that surrounds us, while the soundtrack often provides a foil in the form of critical or ironic commentary on the imagery. Perhaps most successful to me was the newest film presented. The film is so new that I am not sure of the name. The film focused on the letter “A”, in both the imagery—comprised mainly of signage utilizing multiple “a”s—and in the sound, which included numerous singers improvising with the letter and phone calls to businesses asking what the “a”s in their names meant. Unlike some of the other films, which offer a more pointed commentary on capitalist culture, this film is more ambiguous. Many of the business owners heard on the soundtrack admit that the extra “a”s at the beginning of their name were added simply to come to the beginning of directories. The film, in its celebration of a senseless commonality due to alphabetized directories, manages to both create a beautiful and abstract aesthetic experience out of its subject matter, while also poking fun at a practice that has littered our landscape with unnecessary and meaningless words and signage.
Sharon Lockhart‘s work Lunch Break is an astonishingly elegant and beautiful work. The conceit of the film is exceedingly simple on the surface; a camera placed on a dolly is pushed down a corridor through a factory while workers are on their lunch break. The footage, which totaled (if I remember rightly) about 12 minutes, was slowed down to 80 minutes; a soundtrack created by filmmaker James Benning and composer Becky Allen accompanies the film, and includes music as well as sounds drawn from the space depicted. The experience of watching the film is astonishing; much to my surprise, the film seemed to speed past me. Objects which lingered in the central field of the image would, before I realize it, have zoomed past the periphery. It was much like flying in an airplane over a mountainous landscape; things moving agonizingly slowly and extremely quickly at the same time. Then there are the workers themselves. Their movements seeming like a choreographed ballet. Accompanying the film was a shorter work (at 40 minutes) called Exit, which is a series of five camera rolls from a fixed location on five different days, looking out the exit of a factory while workers leave at the end of the day. The screening at Redcat was the theatrical premiere of Lunch Break, a fact I find almost outrageous. I cannot imagine how much would be lost from seeing the work in a gallery setting, with people coming and going at will, able to enter at any point in the work.
