Brent Green and Sam Green: Live Cinema
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Brooklyn Academy of Music Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board William I. Campbell, Brent Green and Vice Chairman of the Board Adam E. Max, Sam Green: Vice Chairman of the Board Katy Clark, President Live Cinema Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer DATES: DEC 7—10 at 7:30pm LOCATION: BAM Fisher (Fishman Space) RUN TIME: 1hr 5min, no intermission #BrentGreenSamGreen Season Sponsor: #BAMNextWave BAM Fisher Brent Green and Sam Green: Live Cinema FILMMAKERS Brent Green Sam Green LIGHTING DESIGNER Kathy Kaufmann MUSICIANS Brendan Canty James Canty Rebecca Foon Kate Ryan SOUND ENGINEER Sam Crawford CINEMATOGRAPHERS Pete Sillen Yoni Brook Andy Black Paul Hill Photo: Kate Ryan, Brendan Canty, Brent Green, Sam Green, James Canty, Becky Foon, and Sam Crawford (L—R) by Otis Barthoulameu Live Cinema is co-produced by ArKtype and C41. The “live documentary” form is us now look back at the golden age lecture, a sermon, or a party. Take it ABOUT something we came to separately, but of cinema as a bygone paradise, the as an invitation to think about utopia, Live Cinema both of us see it as an important kick communion of strangers in the dark not only the old ones that might have in the ass to cinema. In an age when with each other, with darkness, with failed, but whatever faint aroma of people are often watching films under light, with story, with enchantment, paradise might arise in a room DIRECTORS’ NOTE: the most diminished conditions—on drawn together to see a flicker of where you hope and think and breathe laptops while checking Facebook, for projected light come to life onscreen. with others. Thank you for being here tonight. Your example—this form is a reminder friends who missed this show will not of the value to be found in unique Were you to ask people if they’d —Brent and Sam Green be able to stream it later on Netflix or experience, in the hand-crafted, the be comfortable sitting in the dark Hulu—this is a never-the-same-way- ephemeral, and things that are never surrounded by strangers from all walks twice program that, after this evening, experienced the same way twice. of life, people would undoubtedly say will live on only in our memories. that sounded scary, but every evening But there’s also a broader politics to all over the world, we pay admission We are at a dizzying moment of live cinema. At this moment when and settle in to do exactly that, and change for cinema. A form that’s been there are so many forces pushing us the audience becomes the Greek relatively stable for a hundred years into private and mediated experiences, chorus of the film, laughing, snickering, is transforming in a million directions. the simple act of getting together with hushing, or fidgeting, instructing each You can now watch 360-degree other people to talk, catch up, drink, other how to see and hear. movies on a headset or you can check and have a collective experience out a seven-hour episodic “movie” on is a radical, and, dare we say, even Television chopped up movies with your laptop, not to mention the fact utopian gesture. commercials and put them in the that you can watch pretty much any middle of domestic distraction, but movie that’s ever been made right now The great writer Rebecca that was nothing compared to this on your phone while riding the subway. Solnit explains: moment when films are on your iPhone and your laptop and in fuzzy The very nature of what makes The word utopia means, literally, no tiny windows on YouTube. The worst a film and what constitutes cinema is place and this is a movie that unlike thing about these new modes of in question. almost all other movies can only be in viewing isn‘t that they diminish cinema one place at a time, this place you‘re as visual and imaginative spectacle. Back in the 1930s, S. Charles Lee, the in now with filmmakers Sam Green, The worst thing is that they’re watched architect of the Fox Wilshire Theatre Brent Green, and musicians. These furtively and alone. Cinema, which in Los Angeles and many of the other live performance films attempt to was once a great banquet in a dream great movie palaces of that era, had embody it by weaving together images palace, is now often a snack devoured a slogan about seeing a film in one of and ideas and spoken words that will absentmindedly in isolation. And only his venues: “The show starts on the never be replicated exactly, a movie in society, only together, do we have sidewalk.” I’ve always been puzzled being born as you see and hear it, as the power to live out those old dreams, that in mainstream cinema the context alive as music. or new ones. of how you see a film is not given more consideration. If you see Avatar in 3D Maybe little utopias are realized all the Utopia is sociable, and Sam and at a huge IMAX theater or if you see time, the utopias of people together Brent Green’s work gives you back the it on a paperback-sized screen while in spirit and in body for a dance or sociability of a movie, the way it was flying from New York to LA, it’s the a protest and everything in between. always about coexisting, by making same film, right? And sometimes we only realize their it as live as a silent movie with an sweetness as they recede. A lot of orchestra, a 19-century Chautaqua Hours, Benjy Ferree), Canty frequently BRENT GREEN composes soundtrack music, primarily REBECCA FOON Filmmaker for Discovery Channel and National Musician Geographic Channel documentaries Working on his farm outside of New Rebecca Foon is a Canadian cellist, Who’s and independent features. In 2004, Paltz, NY, Brent Green is a self-taught vocalist, and composer from Montreal, Canty co-founded the DVD label visual artist and filmmaker. Green’s Quebec. Foon currently records under Trixie to release an ongoing series of films have screened, often with live the alias Saltland and is a member and music-related films entitled Burn To musical accompaniment, in film and co-founder of the Juno Award-winning Shine. The series involves independent Who art settings alike at venues such as modern chamber ensemble Esmerine. bands from a particular city showing MoMA, The Getty, Walker Art Cen- She has also been a member of several up to perform one song each—live, ter, Hammer Museum, The Kitchen, groups associated with the post-rock, without overdubs or corrections in Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Wexner experimental, and chamber music SAM GREEN a condemned house. The films and Center, Indianapolis Museum of Art, scenes in Montreal, including Set Fire Filmmaker performances are urgent and inspired, Rotterdam Film Festival, and Sundance to Flames, A Silver Mt. Zion, and the and the portraits of musicians and Film Festival as well as on rooftops instrumental string/piano/accordion- Sam Green is a New York City-based houses expose the transient nature of and in warehouses and galleries based trio Fifths of Seven. Esmerine’s documentary filmmaker. His recent our world. Trixie has also produced throughout the globe. Often, his sculp- Turkish folk influenced album Dalmak, documentary The Love Song of R. films about Bob Mould, Wilco, Death tural work and large-scale installation released in 2013, was awarded the Buckminster Fuller features a live Cab for Cutie, Eddie Vedder, and the are displayed alongside his animated Juno Award for Instrumental Album score by legendary indie rock band Decemberists. He currently lives films, most recently with solo exhibi- of the Year in 2014. In 2013, she Yo La Tengo and is currently screen- in Washington, DC with his wife and tions at the Arizona State University released her first Saltland album, ing widely. Green’s film The Weather four children. Underground was nominated for an Art Museum, Site Santa Fe, 21c/Art which Exclaim.ca called “a captivating Academy Award in 2004, broadcast Without Walls, Diverseworks Houston, combination of genres from and the Berkeley Art Museum. Green’s dream pop to chamber music to ambi- nationally on PBS, and included in the JAMES CANTY work has been supported by Creative ent and shoegaze.” Whitney Biennial. His other films in- Musician clude The Measure of All Things; Uto- Capital, the Sundance Institute, San pia in Four Movements; lot 63, grave Francisco Film Society, and the MAP James Canty is a Brooklyn-based c; Utopia Part 3: the World’s Largest Fund. His art is in fine public collec- multi-instrumentalist from Washing- KATE RYAN Shopping Mall; The Rainbow Man/John tions including the Hammer Museum, ton, DC. Canty is a member of tons of Musician 3:16; N-Judah 5:30; and Pie Fight MoMA, and the American Folk Art bands: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, ’69. Green received his master’s degree Museum. Green is represented by the Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up, Kate Ryan is a writer and musician in journalism from the University of Andrew Edlin Gallery in NYC. French Toast, All Scars, Kid Congo, from New York City. She works with California, Berkeley, where he studied SAVAK, Georgie James, and Cupid Car Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls to sup- documentary with acclaimed filmmaker Club. Most of Canty’s work has been port girls’ voices in the arts and society, Marlon Riggs. He has received grants BRENDAN CANTY with the bands signed to Dischord Re- and has done live performances at from Creative Capital and the Rock- Musician cords; he has also released music with museums, arts centers, and universi- efeller and Guggenheim Foundations, K Records, Lookout Records, Kill Rock ties across the country.