GME DVD Distribution – Season in Review

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GME DVD Distribution – Season in Review

During this semester, Gartenberg Media Enterprises has offered an extensive slate of new DVD and Blu-ray publications for distribution to the North American academic community.  These digital editions were selected from film archives and boutique publishers worldwide, and represent the entire breadth and depth of moving image history.   They encompassed trick films by George Méliès, dating from the 1890s, through to 21st Century experimental filmmakers working in both France and the United States, including Jacques Perconte, Jeff Scher, and Robert Todd.

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GME Presents Fall Flashbacks — Fridrikh Ermler’s FRAGMENT OF AN EMPIRE

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GME Presents Fall Flashbacks — Fridrikh Ermler’s FRAGMENT OF AN EMPIRE

FRAGMENT OF AN EMPIRE (1929) was Ermler’s last silent feature and the last of four productively contentious collaborations with the method actor Fiodor Nikitin. He plays a factory worker, Filmonov, who is traumatized by shellshock while serving as a soldier in the Czar’s army during the First World War. He loses his memory and identity for ten years — precisely the period in which the Bolsheviks won their revolution over the Tsarists and began the construction of the new Soviet Union. Ermler’s intention was to show the renewal of the country, the accomplishments of the Soviet system, and the liberation and rebirth of the people through the eyes of Filmanov.

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Mack Sennett at Biograph Films Screening at MOMA March 6th

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Mack Sennett at Biograph Films Screening at MOMA March 6th

Mack Sennett spent his formative years at Biograph, emerging from the ranks of the Griffith stock company to become a regular comic lead and, soon, the primary director of Biograph’s comedy unit. These short, “split-reel” comedies, all from Sennett’s first year as a director, find him developing the broad, frenetic slapstick style that he would bring to his own company, Keystone, in 1912.

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Warren Sonbert’s CARRIAGE TRADE in Anthology Film Archives Essential Cinema series March 1st

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Warren Sonbert’s CARRIAGE TRADE in Anthology Film Archives Essential Cinema series March 1st

“With CARRIAGE TRADE (1973 version, 61 min, 16mm), Sonbert began to challenge the theories espoused by the great Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s; he particularly disliked the ‘knee-jerk’ reaction produced by Eisensteinian montage. In both lectures and writings about his own style of editing, Sonbert described CARRIAGE TRADE as ‘a jig-saw puzzle of postcards to produce varied displaced effects.’ This approach, according to Sonbert, ultimately affords the viewer multi-faceted readings of the connections between shots through the spectator’s assimilation of ‘the changing relations of the movement of objects, the gestures of figures, familiar worldwide icons, rituals and reactions, rhythm, spacing, and density of images.” –Jon Gartenberg

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National Museum of African American History and Culture Acquires Hugh Bell Photographs

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National Museum of African American History and Culture Acquires Hugh Bell Photographs

As Black History Month draws to a close, Gartenberg Media Enterprises (GME) is pleased to announce that the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) has acquired six lifetime silver gelatin prints from the Hugh Bell archive for their permanent collection. Says GME Fine Arts Curator David Deitch, “In preserving the legacy of an artist, there is nothing more gratifying than the prestige that comes from a museum acquiring his work. We are especially pleased that NMAAHC, the premiere international institution dedicated to the history, culture and artistic achievements of the African American community, recognizes the significance of Hugh Bell ‘s photographs within this context.”

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GME Presents DVD Fall Flashbacks - German Expressionism -- Paul Leni and Richard Oswald

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GME Presents DVD Fall Flashbacks - German Expressionism -- Paul Leni and Richard Oswald

The end of the silent era (1928 and 1929) saw an apotheosis of the art and craft of the motion picture, just as the advent of sound was overtaking the motion picture industry. At a time when film theaters were being wired for sound, studios produced “talkies” that were more stage-oriented. The height of artistic achievement in late-era silent films was visually demonstrated in films emanating from France, Germany, the United States, and the Soviet Union; these countries produced masterworks of sweeping camera movement and rapid-fire montage.

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GME Presents Fall Flashbacks - Marcel L’Herbier’s L’ARGENT

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GME Presents Fall Flashbacks - Marcel L’Herbier’s L’ARGENT

The end of the silent era (1928 and 1929) saw an apotheosis of the art and craft of the motion picture, just as the advent of sound was overtaking the film industry. At a time when movie theaters were being wired for sound, studios produced “talkies” that were more stage-oriented. The height of artistic achievement in late-era silent films was visually demonstrated in films emanating from France, Germany, the United States, and the Soviet Union; these countries produced masterworks of sweeping camera movement and rapid-fire montage. GME is therefore pleased to present a group of films from these major motion picture producing countries for academic study and appreciation. From France, L’ARGENT (1928) is Marcel L’Herbier’s silent film swan song, a super-production of epic proportions which combines dizzying camerawork with Soviet-era montage techniques

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‘Mozart in Love’ and the Cinema of Mark Rappaport at Anthology Film Archives through Feb. 18

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‘Mozart in Love’ and the Cinema of Mark Rappaport at Anthology Film Archives through Feb. 18

Rappaport’s visual essay collage films,, ROCK HUDSON’S HOME MOVIES and FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG screen on 2/13 and 2/16 at 7pm and 8:45pm respectively.

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GME Presents DVD Fall Flashbacks - Mark Rappaport’s Fictional Autobiographies of Rock Hudson and Jean Seberg

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GME Presents DVD Fall Flashbacks - Mark Rappaport’s Fictional Autobiographies of Rock Hudson and Jean Seberg

Concurrent with Anthology Film Archive’s retrospective of Mozart in Love and the Cinema of Mark Rappaport, GME is pleased to announce two DVD editions of key films from this filmmaker’s oeuvre:  ROCK HUDSON’S HOME MOVIES  (1992) and FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG (1995).  Mark Rappaport has been one of the most original voices of the modern American independent cinema  movement.

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Man Ray Shorts at The Quad series, “From the Vaults: Cohen Film Collection”

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Man Ray Shorts at The Quad series, “From the Vaults: Cohen Film Collection”

Experimenting with cinematic formality, Dada technique, and Surrealist imagery, the short films of avant-garde artist Man Ray would come to form the foundations of Cinéma pur. His looseness and artistic freedom challenge the audience to watch kinetic fragments and images with a more responsible, arguably more perceptive, eye.

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