Category: Slow Writing

Thom Andersen at Skylight Books

Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema Los Angeles book launch at Skylight Books on 12 October 2017, at 7:30pm. Thom will be present to read from, sign, and discuss the new book with writer and poet Tosh Berman.

Slow Writing is a collection of articles by Thom Andersen that reflect on the avant-garde, Hollywood feature films, and contemporary cinema. His critiques of artists and filmmakers as diverse as Yasujirō Ozu, Nicholas Ray, Andy Warhol, and Christian Marclay locate their work within the broader spheres of popular culture, politics, history, architecture, and the urban landscape. The city of Los Angeles and its relationship to film is a recurrent theme. These writings, which span a period of five decades, demonstrate Andersen’s social consciousness, humour and his genuine appreciation of cinema in its many forms. Thom Andersen’s films include the celebrated documentary essays Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1975), Red Hollywood (1996), Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), and The Thoughts That Once We Had (2015). Of the thirty-four texts included in the book, six are hitherto unpublished; others have been revised or appear in different versions to those previously available.

Thom Andersen has lived in Los Angeles for most of his life. His knowledge of and enthusiasm for the city has deeply informed his work, not least his widely praised study of its representation in movies, Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), which was voted one of the 50 Best Documentaries of All Time in a Sight & Sound critics’ poll. Andersen made his first short films and entered into the city’s film scene as a student of USC and UCLA in the 1960s. His hour-long documentary Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1974) was realised under an AFI scholarship and has lately been restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. His research into the victims of the Hollywood Blacklist, done in collaboration with film theorist Noël Burch, produced the video essay Red Hollywood (1996) and book Les Communistes de Hollywood: Autre chose que des martyrs (1994). Andersen’s recent films include Reconversão (2012) on the work of Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, and The Thoughts That Once We Had (2015), a personal history of cinema loosely inspired by Gilles Deleuze. A published writer since 1966, Andersen has contributed to journals such as Film Comment, Artforum, Sight and Sound and Cinema Scope. He has taught at the California Institute of the Arts since 1987, and was previously on faculty at SUNY Buffalo and Ohio State University. Also a respected film curator, he has acted as programmer for Los Angeles Filmforum and curated thematic retrospectives for the Viennale. Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema is the first collection of his essays. 

Tosh Berman is a writer and poet. His two books are Sparks-Tastic (Rare Bird) and a book of poems, The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding (Penny-Ante Editions). He is also the publisher and editor of his press, TamTam Books, which published the works of Boris Vian, Serge Gainsbourg, Guy Debord, Jacques Mesrine, Ron Mael & Russell Mael (Sparks) Gilles Verlant, and Lun*na Menoh. 

With thanks to David Gonzalez and Skylight Books.

Thom Andersen Retrospective in Vienna

We are very pleased to announce that “Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema” will be launched at the Austrian Film Museum, Vienna, in late September. Thom will be present to introduce a complete retrospective plus additional carte blanche programmes related to the new book. Full schedule below.

Friday 22 September 2017, at 7pm
Thom Andersen, Los Angeles Plays Itself, 2003, 169 min

Saturday 23 September 2017, at 7pm
Vikram Jayanti, The Agony and the Ecstacy of Phil Spector, 2009, 103 min

Saturday 23 September 2017, at 9pm
Thom Andersen, The Thoughts That Once We Had, 2015, 108 min

Sunday 24 September 2017, at 7pm
Joseph H. Lewis, The Big Combo, 1955, 87 min

Sunday 24 September 2017, at 9pm
Thom Andersen & Noël Burch, Red Hollywood, 1996, 118 min

Monday 25 September 2017, at 7pm
Andrew Meyer, An Early Clue to the New Direction, 1966, 28 min
Andrew Meyer, The Match Girl, 1966, 25 min
Warren Sonbert, Hall of Mirrors, 1966, 7 min
David Brooks, Winter, 1964-66, 16 min
Robert Cowan, Rockflow, 1968, 9 min

Monday 25 September 2017, at 9pm
Thom Andersen, Melting, 
1965, 6 min
Thom Andersen, Olivia’s Place, 1966/74, 6 min
Thom Andersen & Malcolm Brodwick, ––– –––––––, 
1967, 11 min
Thom Andersen, Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer, 1974, 59 min

Wednesday 27 September 2017, at 7pm
Ernie Gehr, Autumn, 2017, 30 min
Paul Sharits, Tails, 1976, 5 min
Morgan Fisher, Productions Stills, 1970, 11 min
Morgan Fisher, Picture and Sound Rushes, 1973, 11 min
Morgan Fisher, Cue Rolls, 1974, 6 min
Morgan Fisher, Projection Instructions, 1976, 4 min
James Benning, 9-1-75, 1975, 22 min

Wednesday 27 September 2017, at 9pm
Michael Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story, 2009, 127 min

Thursday 28 September 2017, at 7pm
Thom Andersen, Get Out of the Car, 2010, 34 min
Thom Andersen, The Tony Longo Trilogy, 2014, 14 min
Thom Andersen, Juke: Passages from
 the Films of Spencer Williams, 2015, 29 min
Thom Andersen & Andrew Kim, California Sun, 
2015, 4 min
Thom Andersen, A Train Arrives at the Station, 2016, 16 min

Thursday 28 September 2017, at 9pm
Pedro Costa, 6 Bagatelles, 2001, 18 min
Claire Denis, 35 Rums, 2008, 100 min

Wednesday  4 October 2017, at 7pm
Thom Andersen, Reconversão, 
2013, 68 min
* Please note that Thom Andersen will not attend this final programme

All screenings will take place at the Austrian Film Museum, Augustinerstraße 1, Vienna 1010, Austria.

Thom Andersen Events

Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema

Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema was celebrated at many events beginning in Autumn 2017, and you can browse the archive by selecting a date range below. This page will be updated with any upcoming events.

About the Authors

Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema
Edited by Mark Webber
The Visible Press, September 2017

Thom Andersen has lived in Los Angeles for most of his life. His knowledge of and enthusiasm for the city has deeply informed his work, not least his widely praised study of its representation in movies, Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), which was voted one of the 50 Best Documentaries of All Time in a Sight & Sound critics’ poll. Andersen made his first short films and entered into the city’s film scene as a student of USC and UCLA in the 1960s. His hour-long documentary Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1974) was realised under an AFI scholarship and has lately been restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. His research into the victims of the Hollywood Blacklist, done in collaboration with film theorist Noël Burch, produced the video essay Red Hollywood (1996) and book Les Communistes de Hollywood: Autre chose que des martyrs (1994). Andersen’s recent films include Reconversão (2012) on the work of Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, and The Thoughts That Once We Had (2015), a personal history of cinema loosely inspired by Gilles Deleuze. A published writer since 1966, Andersen has contributed to journals such as Film Comment, Artforum, Sight & Sound and Cinema Scope. He has taught at the California Institute of the Arts since 1987, and was previously on faculty at SUNY Buffalo and Ohio State University. Also distinguished for his skills as a film curator, he has acted as programmer for Los Angeles Filmforum and curated thematic retrospectives for the Viennale. Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema is the first collection of his essays.

Mark Webber is a film curator based in London, who has been responsible for major screening events or touring programmes hosted by institutions such as Tate Modern, LUX and ICA (London), Whitney Museum (New York), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage, IFFR Rotterdam and international festivals, museums and art centres. He was a programmer for the BFI London Film Festival from 2000-12, and is also the editor of Two Films by Owen Land, Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos, Shoot Shoot Shoot: The First Decade of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative 1966-76 and co-editor of Flare Out: Aesthetics 1966–2016. www.markwebber.org.uk

Table of Contents

Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema
Edited by Mark Webber
The Visible Press, September 2017

Introduction
Why I Did Not Become a Film Critic, 2017

Essays
Sex in Limbo, 1966 (on exploitation films)
Camp, Andy Warhol, 1966
Two Films by Andrew Meyer, 1966
Eadweard Muybridge, 1966
De Mille’s Ded Zeppelin, 1978 (on Madam Satan)
What is Wrong with this Picture? Almost Everything, 1978 (on The Desert People)
JB, 1978 (on James Benning)
Twelve Films by Five American Filmmakers, 1979 (on Conner, Sharits, Gehr,
   Brakhage & Fisher)
From the Cloud to the Resistance (Dalla Nube alla Resistenza) by Jean-Marie
   Straub & Danièle Huillet, from two texts by Cesare Pavese, 1981
Reagan at the Movies, 1986 (on Ronald Reagan)
“The Time of the Toad”, 1992 (on the Hollywood Blacklist)
The Misogyny Game, 1993 (on The Crying Game)
Looking Over an Underground, 1994 (on the Los Angeles underground)
The Whole Equation, 2005 (on David Thomson’s The Whole Equation)
The Political Documentary in America Today, 2005
The Sixties Without Compromise: Watching Warhol’s Films, 2005
Painting in the Shadows, 2007 (on Pedro Costa)
Passing Through Twilight, 2007 (on Night on Earth)
Los Angeles: A City on Film, 2008
This Property is Condemned, 2008 (on The Exiles)
Pebbles Left on the Beach: The Films of Morgan Fisher, 2009
Against the Grain, 2009 (on Lorna’s Silence)
A Band of Outsiders, 2010 (on In Vanda’s Room)
Happy Daze, 2010 (on Dusty and Sweets McGee)
The Decade in Review: Sketches of History 2000-2009, 2010
Unchained Melodies: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector and
   It Felt Like a Kiss, 2010
Get Out of the Car: A Commentary, 2011
Random Notes on a Projection of The Clock by Christian Marclay
   at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 4:32 p.m., July 28, 2011
   – 5:02 p.m., July 29, 2011, 2011
Barbarians at the Gate, 2012 (on Los Angeles film culture)
Yasujirō Ozu: The Master of Time, 2012
Too Late to Stop Now, 2013 (on Jean-Marie Straub)
Fire in Every Shot: Wang Bing’s Three Sisters, 2013
The Allure of Failure, 2014 (on Francesco Vezzoli)
500 Words (as told to Travis Diehl), 2016

Images
16 pages of colour and black & white images including film stills and photographs

Thom Andersen Filmography

Thom Andersen Bibliography