Coming back to the world
By Leigh Hyams, May 11, 2007

Film Agnes Martin: With My Back to the World Wed, May 15, 3pm Teatro Santa Ana Biblioteca Publica Insurgentes, 25

Agnes Martin: With My Back to the World is a film about a unique contemporary New York/Taos artist who, while still painting, died in 2004 at the age of 92. The film will be screened at Teatro Santa Ana in the Biblioteca Pública on Wednesday, May 15 at 3pm. Originally from Saskatchewan, Martin was a wild, spirited young painter living in an unfashionable part of Manhattan near friend Jasper Johns and other artists long before fame and the market discovered them. Her paintings eventually found their way into major museums and private collections in many parts of the world. In recent years Pace Wildenstein became her New York dealer. Gallery personnel would fly to Taos to pick up her new paintings which would be sold before they landed back in New York. In my opinion, she is often wrongly labeled a Minimalist painter. The warmth and human feeling expressed in her delicate, gridded drawings and large, deceptively simple canvasses which consist of broad horizontal bands of subtle color, go far beyond Minima lism. They make demands on the viewer. “Oh, they’re just stripes” a visually illiterate person may say. But if we quiet down inside, turn off dismissive judgments and glib conversation in our heads, the paintings lead us into a rich nonverbal world of experience. “My paintings are not about what is seen,” said the artist. “They are about what is known forever in the mind.” Thanks to a mutual friend in Taos, I had lunch with Agnes and visited her studio many times. At our first meeting, however, she was still living in Galesteo, the train stop for Santa Fe, 40 miles away. I was expecting her home to reflect the calm, evocative presence of her paintings which I’d admired for many years. Instead, it was as impersonal inside as a motel room, with a tourist figure of St. Francis sitting on the window sill. But entering her modest adobe studio outside was a breathtaking experience, almost a sacred one, being surrounded by a dozen new 5 x 5 foot canvasses leaning against the adobe walls, silently quivering with color. She took us to lunch that day, driving to the train station restaurant in her incongruous red sports car. When she needed a break from painting, she would leave her car at the station and get on the first train that arrived. If the train was going left, she would ride it to Los Angeles. If it was pointed right, she would go to New York. Either way she would stay on the train until it returned to Galesteo and she was ready to start painting again. In Taos she lived in a retirement center. “It’s perfect for me,” she said. “Now I don’t have to do anything except think about painting.”

When she died, important people in contemporary art flew in from all over the world to attend a three-day memorial conference about her work held at the Harwood Institute, where a handsome suite of her large paintings are permanently installed.

I recommend that you go see this movie. We need to know more about the commitment, courage and original thinking it takes to be an artist involved for an entire lifetime in the profundity of painting.

“Cinemateca Programación para la semana de Mayo 14 al 19 2006”

José Luis Pick’n’tip:

The Picks:

The Butterfly

A wonderful feel-good movie. The story of a young girl and an old man who go butterfly-hunting is an exposé of how friendships are made. The young girl had been abandoned by her mother (temporarily) and the old man took pity on her. Grudgingly, he put up with her, but was not prepared to find her as a stow-away on his butterfly trip. After sitting in the police station for a while in an attempt to return her to her mother, the old man decides to take her with him. Actually, he has no choice, unless he wants to leave her on the street, and she is only 8. How the friendship is formed and how the little girl charms him is delightful to watch.


Silent Waters

This well made, moving film places personal relations in the context of mounting religious extremism. Filmed in Pakistan in spring 2001, the action takes place in a village in 1979. A wonderful film with a great performance from Kiron Kher. Direction was superb. 

Sabiha Sumar’s Silent Waters is an affecting drama. The film achieves its greatest power as it explores the conflicts faced by a woman torn between two worlds, both of which seem bent on denying her very humanity. As the film’s tone shifts from the relative calm and occasional joy of the village before General Zia’s rise to power to the fear and repression that spreads after, it presents an engaging and informative depiction of Pakistan’s tumultuous history from an intimate perspective. Silent Waters, was shown at New Directors/New Films in 2003, is an important and moving film.


The Tip:


Important:

In order to provide the best viewing experience, the show times for some movies may be adjusted to accommodate their length, be sure to check the schedule carefully. I also want to remind you of our new ticket price; 50 pesos and discount cards 12 shows for 450 pesos.

Starting Monday, after noon, buy your tickets in advance for any movie or show of the week. If you have a discount card, collect your pass to assure you get a seat; don’t take the risk of being locked out…. Nos vemos en el Cine….

You want to receive this info by email? Write to José Luis at alephamour@hotmail.com  


Thank you.


The Movies:


The Tunnel (Der Tunnel 2001)
Monday, May 14 at 4pm
Foreign Drama, based on real life, German with English subtitles, 167 minutes. 
Director: Roland Suso Richter
Cast: Heino Ferch, Claudia Michelsen, Nicolette Krebitz, Alexandra Maria Lara
Set in the 1960s, decades before the fall of the infamous Berlin Wall, The Tunnel chronicles one of the most daring escapes to freedom. East German championship swimmer Harry Melchior's (Heino Ferch) defection entailed willpower and a forged passport. But to get his sister Lotte and others out, he has to team up with a motley crew to dig a 145-yard tunnel to East Berlin—and, of course, ferry everyone back to safety.





Agnes Martin: With My Back to the World
Only show: Tuesday, May 15 at noon.
Art Documentary, English, 57 minutes
Produced & Directed by Mary Lance
A groundbreaking documentary on the internationally renowned painter, designated by ART news Magazine one of the world’s top-ten living artists. This documentary was shot over a period of four years, from 1998 through 2002, Agnes Martin’s 90th year. Interviews with Martin are inter-cut with shots at work in her studio in Taos, New Mexico, with photographs and archival footage, and with images of her work from over five decades. It is a venue for Martin to speak about her work, her working methods, her life as an artist, and her views about the creative process. She also discusses her film, “Gabriel” and reads from her poetry and lectures. It was shot in 16mm film by cinematographer Dyanna Taylor and in digital video by producer/director Mary Lance. In keeping with Martin’s chosen life of solitude, she alone appears in the documentary.


The Butterfly (2003)
Tuesday, May 15 at 5pm
Wednesday, May 16 at 7pm
French Drama, French with English subtitles, 80 minutes
Director: Philippe Muyl
Cast: Michel Serrault, Claire Bouanich, Nade Dieu, Helene Hily
All Julien (Michel Serrault) wants to do in his old age is collect and preserve butterflies. But when a woman (Nade Dieu) and her 8-year-old daughter Elsa (Claire Bouanich) take residence in his building, his world opens up for good. Young Elsa befriends Julien and sneakily joins him on a trip to the Alps to find a rare butterfly specimen. During this getaway, their touching intergenerational bond deepens in this family-friendly French film.



Special Vintage Thriller 
Notorious (1946)
Wednesday, May 16 at 5pm
Thursday, May 17 at 5pm
Espionage Thrillers, English, 102 minutes
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Louis Calhern, Madame Konstantin, Claude Rains
This top-notch Hitchcock espionage thriller builds to an incredibly suspenseful climax. Government agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) recruits Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) to spy on her father’s influential Nazi friends. As part of her cover, she marries ringleader Claude Rains, but finds she’s falling in love with Grant. The 360-degree camera pan around a smitten Grant and Bergman ranks as one of the screen’s hottest love scenes.


Silent Waters (Khamosh Pani 2003)
Friday, May 18 at 3pm
Tuesday, May 22 at 3pm
Foreign Drama, Punjabi with English subtitles, 105 minutes
Director: Sabiha Sumar
Cast: Kiron Kher, Aamir Ali Malik, Shilpa Shukla Arsad Mahmud
Religious extremism takes its toll on a small Pakistani village in this drama set in 1979. Now living under martial law, the widow Ayesha (Kiron Kher) struggles to adapt to Muslim rule. Her teen son Saleem (Aamir Malik) resists pressure from his girlfriend (Shilpa Shukla) to get a job and takes up with a group of Muslim fundamentalists. When Sikh pilgrim Jaswant (Navtej Johar) comes to town, Ayesha remembers long-forgotten secrets from her past.


This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)
Friday, May 18 at 5pm
Social & Cultural Documentaires, English, 90 minutes.
Director: Kirby Dick
Cast: Darren Aronofsky, Maria Bello, Matt Stone, Mary Harron, Kimberly Peirce
Kirby Dick’s provocative documentary investigates the secretive and inconsistent process by which the Motion Picture Association of America rates films. Dick questions whether certain studios get preferential treatment, exposes the discrepancies in how the MPAA views sex and violence, and reveals the association’s efforts to control culture. Interviewees include John Waters, Darren Aronofsky, Maria Bello, Atom Egoyan, Kevin Smith and more.



Kids Movie series
Saturday May 19 at noon
Free entrance, theater capacity.


Musical Saturdays:
Will resume in Winter