Warren Sonbert: Music & Montage

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Warren Sonbert: Music & Montage

Beginning with 1989’s FRIENDLY WITNESS, Warren Sonbert once again began using music in his films, thereby fusing the aural style of his early New York works with the polyvalent montage approach he had honed as a silent filmmaker over the past 15 years. 1991’s SHORT FUSE is perhaps the artist’s most intense work — featuring a variegated soundtrack and created shortly following his HIV diagnosis — while his final film, 1995’s WHIPLASH, was completed posthumously.

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Sonbert in the Eighties

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Sonbert in the Eighties

Sonbert continued working in silent polyvalent montage well into the 1980s — a time when many Americans turned to reactionary values under Ronald Reagan’s administration. In spite of the country’s neo-conservative climate, Sonbert’s films did not sacrifice their global purview, intellectual sophistication, or political edge. From 1981’s NOBLESSE OBLIGE to 1983’s A WOMAN’S TOUCH, 1986’s THE CUP AND THE LIP, and 1988’s HONOR AND OBEY, Sonbert explored everything from gender roles to religious organizations, the effect of global institutions of power on the proletariat, and the aftermath of Harvey Milk’s assassination.

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Sonbert in the Seventies

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Sonbert in the Seventies

Beginning in the 1970s, Warren Sonbert moved away from the pop music-inspired, quasi-narrative style of his early New York films towards a more sophisticated, silent filmmaking approach dubbed “polyvalent montage.” In the aftermath of Sixties’ communal hippiedom, which proved ecstatic and tragic in equal measure, many people turned inward and embraced introspection. Sociologists therefore dubbed the Seventies the “Me Decade.” While many artists followed that trend, Sonbert chose to look outward. The triptych of films he made during this enigmatic and politically-fraught decade — 1973’s CARRIAGE TRADE, 1976’s RUDE AWAKENING, and 1978’s DIVIDED LOYALTIES — intricately amalgamate footage from the artist’s many global travels.

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Broughton & Singer

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Broughton & Singer

GME is pleased to present TOGETHER, SONG OF THE GODBODY, HERMES BIRD, DEVOTIONS, and SCATTERED REMAINS in a curated package, titled Broughton & Singer, which is devoted to James Broughton’s and Joel Singer’s personal and creative partnership. SONG OF THE GODBODY was featured in Jon Gartenberg’s program James Broughton, Cinema Poet, which screened at The Museum of Modern Art on July 6 and July 10, 1979.

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James Broughton: The Second Act

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James Broughton: The Second Act

After THE PLEASURE GARDEN was honored at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival, James Broughton was offered a Hollywood movie deal, which he turned down. The artist instead took a 15-year hiatus from filmmaking altogether to focus on his poetry. Upon returning to the medium in 1967, the counterculture was America’s dominant culture, and Broughton’s cinematic comeback met this euphoric and liberating moment.

GME is pleased to present THE BED (1967), THE GOLDEN POSITIONS (1970), and TESTAMENT (1974) in a curated package devoted to the second act — spanning the rise and fall of America’s “hippie” era — in Broughton’s multifaceted career as a filmmaker.

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Early Films by James Broughton

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Early Films by James Broughton

From 1948 to 1953, James Broughton crafted a series of humorous, at times fantastical, and often playfully anti-authoritarian films imbibed with his poetic practice that earned him the reputation of “the father of West Coast experimental cinema.” GME is pleased to present three of those films — Broughton’s solo debut MOTHER’S DAY (1948), 1951’s FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON, and the artist’s crowning achievement from this period, 1953’s THE PLEASURE GARDEN —in the curated package Early Films by James Broughton.

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Big Joy: The Films of James Broughton and Joel Singer

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Big Joy: The Films of James Broughton and Joel Singer

In 1979, while working as a curator and archivist in The Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Film, Jon Gartenberg programmed four films by James Broughton: FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON (1951), THE PLEASURE GARDEN (1953), THE GOLDEN POSITIONS (1970), and SONG OF THE GODBODY (1977) — the lattermost a collaboration between Broughton and his longtime partner, Joel Singer. GME is pleased to welcome a selection of films by Broughton into our collection, including five of his collaborations with Singer, which are now available for rental or purchase by academic and cultural institutions worldwide. 47 years following the aforementioned MoMA program, this acquisition of Broughton’s and Singer’s films represents a full-circle moment in Gartenberg’s curatorial career and his advocacy of these great artists’ work. These films, spanning 1948-1988, are available individually as well as across three packages: Early Films by James Broughton, James Broughton: The Second Act, and Broughton & Singer.

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Defiance and Documentation: Four Films by Roger Jacoby

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Defiance and Documentation: Four Films by Roger Jacoby

Roger Jacoby (1944—1985) was a pioneering experimental filmmaker whose wildly improvisational, hand-processed works showcased a painterly and diaristic approach and, in his last films, a fervent political consciousness. His filmmaking career spanned from 1972 until his untimely death due to complications from AIDS in 1985, during which he completed eight films. Gartenberg Media is pleased to distribute four of these films — 1974’s DREAM SPHINX OPERA, 1976’s L’AMICO FRIED’S GLAMOROUS FRIENDS, 1980’s HOW TO BE A HOMOSEXUAL PART I, and Jacoby’s final film, 1982’s HOW TO BE A HOMOSEXUAL PART II — as Digital Site Licenses to academic and cultural institutions worldwide. These titles were recently restored by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant.

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The Warren Sonbert Collection

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The Warren Sonbert Collection

Warren Sonbert (1947—1995) was one of the seminal figures working in American experimental film. His early films — from 1966’s AMPHETAMINE through to 1973’s CARRIAGE TRADE — are currently available from GME as Digital Site Licenses (DSLs). Sonbert’s montage films will become available from GME later in 2025.

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Alfred Hitchcock: Early British Films

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Alfred Hitchcock: Early British Films

GME is proud to distribute, on DSL, five lesser-known, early films by Alfred Hitchcock, made in his native England prior to his relocation to Hollywood in the early 1940s. These features find the director working in various genres outside of the thriller territory that eventually made him a household name and earned him the moniker “The Master of Suspense.”

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The Pierre Clémenti Collection

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The Pierre Clémenti Collection

Gartenberg Media Enterprises is pleased to announce our distribution of the films of Pierre Clémenti as new 2K digital restorations to North American academic institutions. Though best known as an actor, Clémenti's directorial work constitutes a fascinating and long overlooked chapter in 1960s avant-garde film history.

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Re:voir Collection

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Re:voir Collection

GME presents key works published by RE:VOIR, a label that publishes and distributes classic and contemporary experimental cinema including films from the Dadaist, Surrealist and Letterist movements, films from the American avant-garde, diary films, arthouse features, animated works and hand-painted films.

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Austrian Avant-Garde Film and Video

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Austrian Avant-Garde Film and Video

GME presents key works published by INDEX Edition from the Austrian Avant-Garde (1957-present), including films by Martin Arnold, Kurt Kren, Gustav Deutsch, Valie Export, Peter Tscherkassky, Dieter Brehm, Maria Lassnig and Peter Weibel, among many others; this section also includes representation of selected artists from Eastern European countries.

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Edition Filmmuseum

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Edition Filmmuseum

GME presents key landmark silent, documentary and experimental works published by Edition Filmmuseum – Vienna, including films by James Benning, Martina Kudláček, and Josef von Sternberg (US), Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov (USSR), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand), and others.

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Spanish and Latin American Avant-Garde Film and Animation

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Spanish and Latin American Avant-Garde Film and Animation

GME presents key film and video work published by Cameo Media & Filmoteca de Catalunya covering experimental, avant-garde, animation, documentary and historical films from Spain and Latin America, including films by Val del Omar, Segundo de Chomón, and others who have made their mark in this area.

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