Warren Sonbert with his film camera © The Estate of Warren Sonbert TATE FILM TATE Warren Sonbert Warren TATE FILM Warren Sonbert

WARREN SONBERT WARREN SONBERT: AMPHETAMINE NOBLESSE OBLIGE Retrospective of seminal American Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium Warren Sonbert, USA, 1981 experimental filmmaker Thursday 24 October 2013, 16mm, 25 min Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium 19.00–21.00 24–27 October 2013 My new project, tentatively called Noblesse Adults £5 / concessions £4 AMPHETAMINE Oblige, is about journalism, reportage, Season ticket £30 news events that you might see on the Warren Sonbert & Wendy Appel, USA six o’clock news report, how the news 1966, 16mm, black-and-white, 10 min is created, how it might affect our lives, Warren Sonbert is one of the seminal figures Defined by many contrasting influences from and journalists’ responsibilities. in American experimental film. A precocious rock-and-roll to opera, from Douglas Sirk’s talent, he had his first career retrospective classic Hollywood melodramas to the montage First film, heavily influenced by Godard and Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert before he turned 21 years old, establishing theories of Dziga Vertov, his films constantly Warhol – designed to shock. Lecture, San Francisco Art Institute, his reputation early as a key innovator in question the world around him and positions August 1979’, Film Culture New York’s counter-culture during the 1960s. the minutiae of day-to-day experience in an Warren Sonbert, Warren Sonbert Encouraged to take up filmmaking by Gregory epic, international framework. His complex Retrospective, program notes, Museum The style is relatively unchanged, but the Markopolous, his early works were populated editing style – cutting rapidly between time of Modern Art, Oct 14–18, 1994 images – press conferences, news events, by denizens of Warhol’s scene such as periods, cultures and continents – creates disasters – convey his vision of the world superstar René Ricard and Gerard Malanga, a polyphonic cinema embraced equally by An insidious little film which critic James in a new, direct, political fashion. Featuring as well as art critic Henry Geldzhaler. Often film and by literary circles leading to his close Stoller called ‘a heart stopper’. Loop- startling footage of the City Hall riots after characterised as diaristic, his films pay association with the New York School and like repetitions of adolescent junkies Councilman Dan White received a light close attention to intimate details of his Language Poets from the San Francisco Bay concentrating on their fixes, each caught in prison sentence for slaying San Francisco surroundings and relationships that evolved Area (including Michael Brownstein, Larry similar framing, cut together in jump-cut Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor from his living in New York and San Francisco, Fagin and Anne Waldman as well as Carla fashion, all more or less locked into the Harvey Milk, Noblesse Oblige opens a new but also developed a unique lyrical form Harryman and Charles Bernstein). The first continuous ‘rush’, while, on the soundtrack chapter on Sonbert’s career. that transcends their quotidian detail to complete retrospective of his work in the UK, the Supremes keep asking, ‘Where Did Our explore our individual human position in this series will position newly restored works Love Go’, a powerfully cyclic montage of David Ehrenstein, LA Reader, the world at large. alongside films by his peers such as Stan these adolescent boys fixing, nodding and April 16, 1982 Brakhage, Abigail Child, Nathaniel Dorsky, embracing; the film imparts a feeling of Gerard Malanga, Gregory Markopoulos, Jeff existence replaced. CUT to wedding cake CUT – noblesse oblige Scher, and Andy Warhol, as well as Douglas – let ‘em eat cake. The wedding contrasts Sirk’s feature film Tarnished Angels (1957). Warren Sonbert, Film-Makers’ with the film’s pervasive mourning, Cooperative Catalogue funerals. It’s a slice of life shot (journalists Co-curated by Jon Gartenberg recording, artists transforming), and life’s with Tate Film. a slice of cake. Trouble in paradise already though – an argument at the slicing – Organised by George Clark, disruption already implied amidst Union. A Assistant curator: Film, Tate Modern wrong turn from the work’s possible paths:

like the acrobats later on, starting out on Tate Film is supported by the wrong foot (the marriage happened to Maja Hoffmann / LUMA Foundation last six months). Unlike the thread of the

1967 film still runners – or are they going anywhere.

Warren Sonbert, ‘About Noblesse Oblige’, Warren Sonbert and Wendy Appel, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert Amphetamine typed ms. n.d.

Note: See also entry for October 26 (15:00) screening of Tarnished Angels. TATE FILM ErickaWarren Beckman: Sonbert Image Games

WHIPLASH 2) Mambo West Side Story – Track 6 3/2 WARREN SONBERT: THE TUXEDO THEATRE Warren Sonbert, 1995 (completed mins. – Spain, Dances, Bullfight THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL Warren Sonbert, USA 1968, 16mm, posthumously 1997), 16mm, 20 min colour, 21 min 3) Gotterdamurung Disc 1 Cut 7 at Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium 1:16 – 1 min. Friday 25 October 2013, 19.00–20.30 New York again and some Morocco. First 4) The Sea Hawk Track 1 1 min.: Rousing, sketches of varieties of people, East West explosive

city country, rich poor, old young. Many THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL levels. Less movement but more editing 5) Creedence Track 10 6-7 mins. Grapevine: Warren Sonbert, USA 1967, 16mm, and geometric progressions. It’s over sxy. dance Porn

1995, film still 1995, before you know it. Ariana Jeff + Suzanne colour, 34 min

Whiplash Warren Sonbert, London Film Makers 6) Capriccio Last scene Moonlight Music – A collaborative exercise between the Co-Op Catalogue, 1993 3mins. – Serene couples and myself. Tuxedo Theatre (1969) is Sonbert’s newest Warren Sonbert, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert Warren Sonbert, Typed notes for Warren Sonbert, Film-Makers’ and best work. He has abandoned the soundtrack of Whiplash, n.d. Cooperative Catalogue No. 7, 1989 scores of rock music that accompanied

During the years preceding his death, all the earlier films; and he has clearly Sonbert channeled his energy into I’ve made a new film… It’s a 32 minute placed the perspective in the first person making Whiplash. His vision and motor epic called The Bad and the Beautiful I shot a singular. This film is edited, obviously so. skills impaired, he gave his companion, 3-minute roll on 9 couples at home, in the Yet it preserves in tone and development Ascension Serrano, detailed instructions country, at a horse show, etc. The film is the sense of a diary. The montage about the assembly of specific shots and entirely edited in the camera and it worked creates parallels and illusions (such as the the music to be used as a counterpoint wonderfully I’m happy to say. Reaction to television butterfly cut into the line of sight to the images. Before his death in 1995, it has been very good (although it hasn’t of the young man looking up in the park) he asked filmmaker Jeff Scher (a former been shown publicly yet, just to a huge and above all, radical displacements. For student of Sonbert’s at Bard College) to group of the cast, friends, critics). instance, the film-maker approaches an complete the film. airplane, up the gangplank, there’s a take Warren Sonbert, off (logically of a different craft), a shot Whiplash is a compelling, multilayered Letter to David Curtis, n.d. from inside the flying wing, a landing, portrayal of the filmmaker’s struggle to and we are in a southern climate, perhaps maintain equilibrium in his physical self, his California. Then suddenly after a few shots perceptual reality, and the world of friends we are in a Moorish market, or overlooking

and family around him. In it, Sonbert 1969, a skyline of minarets. So the Tuxedo Theatre articulated the ideas and values by which evolves a juxtaposition of traditional he intended to be remembered. Most cinematic elements. important among these is the theme of love between couples. P. Adams Sitney, Warren Sonbert: Where

TheBad and theBeautiful Did Our Love Go?; Tuxedo Theatre, ‘The Jon Gartenberg, Canyon Cinema Film / Avant garde Film Series at the Jewish Video Catalog, 2000 Museum 1969,’ programme notes, 1969 Sonbert Warren TheEstateof © still film 1) Lawrence – Track 2 – 2 mins.: Jamie on Warren Sonbert, skates, NY Parade. [?] contingent – Scottish POV [?]

Israelis on parade NY, Israelis kissing Torah at Wailing Wall, Parade 4th of July, idiot medals TATE FILM ErickaWarren Beckman: Sonbert Image Games

WARREN SONBERT: of my earlier work & indeed contains POSTCARDS FROM WARREN Lohengrin but a nifty Pique Dame (I’ll POSTCARDS FROM WARREN some similar material that you are already Jeff Scher, USA, 1999, 16mm, 1 min defend Tchaikovsky), so hopefully you’ll familiar with only shifted around – of course be around end of Feb. on my next (fairly Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium placement & length changes an on-going extended) trip in? Debut new MOMA Friday 25 October 2013, time form. Usually each showing entails The postcards in this film were all sent to theater. Hug to S. Best Warren 21.00–22.30 a different version but I’m getting pretty me by my friend and filmmaking mentor, fed up with it and for the past 6 months Warren Sonbert, who died of AIDS in Warren Sonbert, postcard to Jeff Scher, I’ve been shooting footage for an entirely 1995. Warren was a great traveler and November 1982 CARRIAGE TRADE different project which isn’t anywhere postcards were his preferred method of near completed even as far |as filming is communication. Warren Sonbert, USA 1972, 16mm, concerned. colour, 61 min

The images on the cards were picked as Warren Sonbert, Letter to Simon Field carefully as the images in his films, and the and David Curtis, April 14, 1973 amount of space on the back was perfect 1999, for his microscopic handwriting or neat A 16mm 60 minute 6 year compilation typing. He could fit a dozen lines on the of travels, home movies, documents back and give you his enviable itinerary, shown silent. Not strictly involved with a travel anecdote, a terse opera or movie Warren From Postcards

, 1972, plot of morality but rather the language review and a bit of gossip, all for 15 cents of film as regards time, composition, cutting, film still, courtesy artistthestill, film of

postage. In our abrupt internet age the Scher, Jeff light, distance, tension of backgrounds to cards seem almost like Victorian relics, but CarriageTrade foregrounds, what you see and what you in Warren’s hands they were eloquent and don’t, a jig-saw puzzle of postcards to witty windows onto his world. produce varied displaced effects. film still courtesy of Anthology Film Archives Warren Sonbert, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert While assembling these postcards, I almost Contrapuntal textures in using 8 or so felt as though I was making a posthumous different stocks of film – color and B & self-portrait for him. Many of Warren’s films Magnum opus (and my first real silent) W, negative & dyed shots. Film as music were dense montages of footage he shot made up of sections of The Tenth Legion, without music, each shot a cluster of notes on his travels. The films are composed of Truth Serum, Holiday, The Bad and the striking a reaction in viewer. Editing does hundreds of shots, rarely longer than five Beautiful, Ted and Jessica and Connection not quality positions of good or bad; it’s seconds apiece. Each of them was just long (the latter two two-screen films – Chelsea all just there. Although there is both a flow enough ‘not to overstay its welcome and Girls influence). The strategies of combining and a contrast between shots, an image to leave you hungry for more,’ as he used ‘old’ images with recent trips through Asian, may not directly refer to the shot that has to say, which, ironically, also describes his North Africa, Europe and North America. preceded it but rather perhaps to several short but splendid life. shots before. Film takes in the changing Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert relations of the movement of objects, the One of the last things Warren said to me Retrospective’, programme notes, gestures of figures, familiar worldwide was, ‘I’ll send you a postcard.’ Museum of Modern Art, New York, icons, rituals & reactions, rhythm, spacing Oct 14–18, 1994 & density of images. All to pull the carpet Jeff Scher, ‘Postcards from Warren’, out from under you. The New York Times, March 10, 2008 The film I’ve got is called Carriage Trade – Jonas has a study print at the Anthology Warren Sonbert, ‘Whitney Museum of This has been Interlude week with 3 Film Archives of the 1972 edition (approx. American Art New American Filmmakers screenings for friends in 5 days. I think 75 mins.). Series’, program notes, Oct. 11–17, 1973 a film of remarkable depth and subtlety and rather underrated in the standard Since then naturally it has been both Sirk canon. Surely an amazing use of Scope shortened (60 mins. Silent but 24 fps) and – haven’t tired of it yet. Also great traveling augmented (trips to Egypt, Paris, west Melies series – 3 separate showcases coast Bay area etc.) But as yet no print has introduced by his granddaughter. Lots been made…it has been streamlined & of tinted color ones, and for 1907 for so reedited since that print so that it’s quite – surreal, prophetic of much of Keaton, different…Basically it’s in the same tradition Tati et al. A l’Opera a terrible cotton candy TATE FILM Warren Sonbert

WARREN SONBERT: director of the 50’s – not even Hitchcock – WARREN SONBERT: dazed, bleeding man – which is a close-up DOUGLAS SIRK’S TARNISHED ANGELS so ruthlessly exposed the hollow cupidity HONOR AND OBEY of a Cezanne painting being cleaned. The and superficiality of middle class ideals of image of art naturally refers back to the Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium the Eisenhower years in America. These Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium artist-filmmaker, saying that art is both Saturday 26 October 2013, films are perfect time capsules. And yet Saturday 26 October 2013, objective and merciless, the filmmaker 15.00 –17.00 these works are made universal by a 17.00 –18.30 being both callous and opportunistic, sensibility encompassing an acceptance sharing in the guilt, taking advantage just of the varied states of life, by benign as much as the audience of other people’s TARNISHED ANGELS contemplation and awe of the poetry Film images, particularly accompanied by misfortune to build his argument…the the absence of a track, are inextricably Douglas Sirk, USA, 1957, 35mm, 91 min of existence, as well as being viscerally artist is cool and detached, but the reason permeated by an Olympian grace (a linked to language, if not to sound. To be is to shake up and disturb. camera that glides); a Constructivist cinema confronted by a representational form deploying architecture to comment on the evokes words, definitions, associations on a Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert characters’ iconography and their emotive literary level, puns, verbal baggage that are Lecture, San Francisco Art Institute, stances. Take nothing for granted in a Sirk as inescapable in cerebral effect as color, August 1979’, Film Culture film: composition, cutting, color, light, sets light, composition and movement and the (the textural diversity) – the control will kineticism of editing. The image if rendered 1957, 1957, guide you. and the associative juices of objects, verbs, HONOR AND OBEY nouns and adjectives start flowing. This is a Warren Sonbert, USA 1988, Warren Sonbert, ‘Douglas Sirk and the concomitant of figurative images. To slight

Tarnished Angels Melodrama’ program notes, Pacific Film such rich associate tapestries is to drive in colour, 21 min Archive, April 3 – June 12, 1975. low gear.

Douglas Sirk, Sirk, Douglas courtesyRonaldGrant UIP / of Warren Sonbert, ‘About Noblesse Oblige’, Quick editing (two weeks?) of a film on a typed ms., n.d. dare for the NY Film Festival. [In my film Noblesse Oblige, there are] Halloween children in death masks Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert dancing. Halloween children in death DIVIDED LOYALTIES Retrospective’ programme notes, masks dancing, part of Sirk theme the man Warren Sonbert, USA 1978, Museum of Modern Art, New York, interviewed at the end, while The Tarnished colour, 22 min October 14–18, 1994. Angels appears on several video screens. The Tarnished Angels is about a newspaper For Sonbert, one of the goals of the film reporter getting involved with a bunch of Divided Loyalties is about Art and industry was ‘to get a classical balance amid chaos’ inept acrobatic air pilots, flyers. Their leader and contemporary lifestyles like Gays in – to present 276 images that are seductive is an ex-hero (and an aristocrat of the spirit San Francisco, and I think all these things and pleasing to the eye, to arrange them in to Sirk) who dies in the end in a plane come in for a lot of criticism and a lot of patterns that are kinetic or rhymic, but also crash. Much of the evening’s action of that almost scathing mischievous sly treatment. to posit them in ways that suggest chaos film takes place during Mardi Gras with a and disruption. stress on death and masks. Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert Interviewed by David Ehrenstein, ‘I’m one of these independent, Warren Sonbert, ‘About Noblesse Oblige’, December 1978’, Film Culture, 1983 experimental underground film makers typed ms. n.d. who definitely feels [a film] should appeal So, again, the ambition might be seen as to everybody,’ he says, ‘that it should be Sirk, the uprooted émigré, sees the world an attempt to hold finely balanced series immediately gratifying in a sort of very lush and the subjects he undertakes with of tensions in which one can read images a sense: the colors, dynamics, momentum an anguished objectivity; observing, variety of ways, sometimes in contradictory of a film should be very hypnotic and absorbing, and reflecting his material. Like stances so that there are many possibilities luxurious.’ Ozu, Sirk takes on the least facile task of of interaction…there is somehow a link, presenting the present; what is accepted a chain, by the very act of editing, of The other half of that challenge, Sonbert by custom, mores and standards taken putting shots/images next to one another, adds, ‘is to make a disturbing work within for granted, caste rules and stratifications, that says our pleasure is somehow at the that pleasurable context.’ It becomes and qualifies them by his treatment and expense of another’s suffering. This is disturbing, he says, when ‘there’s really eye-of-God attitudes. No other Hollywood emphasized by the next image after the nothing there quite long enough for you TATE FILM Warren Sonbert

to wallow in or luxuriate in. It’s ripped away The first variation is the introduction of WARREN SONBERT: is the nostalgia of the present…for the from you and something which is really men: Singly active as well and intercut WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO? soundtrack I used mostly old rock and roll quite other replaces it’… with women. The men here are initially – the most nostalgic music there is. conceived as threats and tinged with Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium That sense of dislocation, he says, is the negative associative imagery: Men Saturday 26 October 2013, Warren Sonbert, Film-Makers central theme of Honor and Obey: ‘It’s very drinking, men gambling, men ordering, 19.00–21.00 Cooperative Catalogue fragile, the way we look at the world’, he pointing, bossing. There is a very brief says. ‘What we expect from the world can (hence again hopefully disturbing) image Where Did Our Love Go? feels like both a never really be counted on. There’s some of a man sharpening a knife. Other images This programme will be introduced by writer valentine and a farewell to a generation, sort of disillusion built in, some sort of show men carrying guns or dominating Lynne Tillman and followed by a discussion with as well as being simply a portrait which is destruction.’ others within their sphere. After all this, no Tillman, James Boaden and Jon Gartenberg. tender, distant, accurate, somewhat high, wonder the women might prefer to be on and sad. In one brief and emblematic Warren Sonbert, interviewed by Edward their own…Throughout the film there has WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO? image near the end a group of kids huddles Guthmann, ‘Experminetal Artist Warren been a movement toward domestication… happily in a semi-circle on a sofa, neither Sonbert: Honor and Obey Creates Balance In A Woman’s Touch the men have the last Warren Sonbert, USA 1966, 16mm, really touching nor completely apart, and Amid Chaos’, San Francisco Chronicle word from the force built up via montage colour, 15 min you can feel all the ambiguity and the into this last image. The converging lines of uncertain liveliness of the teenyboppers the driveway represent a road, a passage, in the street, the generation probably no A WOMAN’S TOUCH an escape – to free (like the converging one understands but which Sonbert, in Warren Sonbert, USA 1983, lines of the railway station at the beginning a series of tender and moving moments,

of Marnie), but the cul-de-sac at the end 1966, has revealed to us. I could watch this film colour, 22 min of these lines divert/inundate/cancel this a hundred times; it made me feel old, older attempt at escape, at Independence.” than I am, but also it opened my eyes and my heart.

Warren Sonbert, ‘Narrative Concerns’, typed ms., n.d. Wheredid our love go? James Stoller, ‘Films: Where Did Our Love Go’, Village Voice, Nov 10, 1966 1983, film still 1983, film still © The Estate of Warren Sonbert Warren TheEstateof © still film Warren Sonbert, A Woman’s Touch First pleasure romp: along the various 1966, venues of culture, circa 1966, New York. Warren Sonbert, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert Warren Sonbert, Warren Sonbert Retrospective, program notes. Wheredid our love go? Museum of Modern Art, New York, A backslide into earlier ‘personality’ October 14-18, 1994. scheme. film still © The Estate of Warren Sonbert Warren TheEstateof © still film Warhol Factory days…serendipity visits, Warren Sonbert, Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert Janis and Castelli and Bellvue glances… Retrospective’ programme notes, Malanga at work…glances at Le Mepris Museum of Modern Art, New York, and North by Northwest…girl rock groups October 14–18, 1994. and a disco opening…a romp through the Modern. My second film. In my last completed work, A Woman’s Touch (1983)…there is a given and then a Warren Sonbert, Canyon Cinema Film/ series of qualifications, almost like a Theme Video Catalog 7, 1992 and Variations. The initial set is a number of images of women involved in solitary It is…a randomly edited ‘home movie’ action. All is presented positively, benignly, in which the people I care for the most almost too complacently: Women at work, are inextricably linked together, flowing at play, constructing, striving, succeeding from one to another…The film is about – a paean to independence. the glamour of New York…New York TATE FILM Warren Sonbert

HALL OF MIRRORS SCREEN TEST – REEL 3 IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS Warren Sonbert, USA 1966, 16mm, – #10 GERARD MALANGA Gerard Malanga, USA 1967, 16mm, colour, 7 min Andy Warhol, USA 1964, 16mm, 4 min sound 30 min & SCREEN TEST – REEL 8 NYU Editing (Carl Lerner) class spin off of Dear Warren, hi: ‘correcting’ dailies from Michael Gordon’s – #3 CHARLES HENRI FORD Your most recent New York City news- 1947 (my birth year) An Act of Murder Andy Warhol, USA 1966, 16mm, 4 min letter of the week arrived a few days ago, adding sequences (to end term and skip and was like a supershot of methedrine off to Europe) of Rene Ricard at home and dreams, a shock of New York’s gravitational Gerard Malanga amidst Pace Gallery’s and Once Andy asked me to appear in one pull…For me Rome has become a cast of Lucas Samaras’s ‘Hall of Mirrors’ of his movies – as it turned out it was characters, an act of discovery. To express (modestly, the author notes) The 13 Most Rome means to understand and feel it Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert Beautiful Boys. As it turned out, I never was in my eyes, in the beat of my heart, in Retrospective’, program notes. filmed by him, or maybe the movie didn’t my mind, and to simplify it, inescapably Museum of Modern Art, New York, get made, just partially shot. But being drawn into its people. It is the present I am October 14–18, 1994. around Andy was the thrilling collaboration concerned with to see through to the past in any case. in seeing the future. This is the expanding consciousness whose quality of the senses Despite the relentless bad press heaped I will try to achieve in my new film, The on him over the years, about the lives he Recording Zone Operator, as I tried to do destroyed or his callous attitude, Andy in Alla Ricerca del Miracoloso: to express really cared about people. I don’t just mean all things at once and at once. Is not reality his working in soup kitchens on weekends far more fantastic than fiction? during those years when his fame was it is zenith – an admittedly ‘People’ [magazine] Gerard Malanga, ‘A Letter to Warren tidbit that in actuality only publicly Sonbert from Gerard Malanga’ surfaced after his death. Andy was curious, he listened, and he made you the center Warren was a godsend when he helped of your own universe. If you had dreams, out with the cinematography for In Search to say nothing of delusions, he encouraged of the Miraculous. He did all the opening them. Looking at his ‘Disaster’ series of color shots of the schoolchildren and of paintings you realize in fact how deeply he me dancing at the Columbia U. quad; the did feel and, perhaps, how necessary that b&w shots of me in the antiques shoppe, glacial veneer was to his daily equilibrium. and the concluding color shots of me on the Bridge in Central Park. Marie Menken, Whether or not an artist is the salt of the Mario Schifano, Andy Meyer, and Andy earth and a dependable chum is all rather Warhol also made camera contributions. beside the point in any event. Andy Warhol My goal was to extend the possibility and was the greatest artist of our time… range of the ‘film poem’ as first proposed by Cocteau. Best regards, Gerard. Warren Sonbert, ‘Factory Work:

Remember life with Andy, Edie and the Gerard Melanga, e-mail to Warhol ‘Superstars’’, Bay Area Reporter Jon Gartenberg, September 26, 2002 1992, film still 1992, film still Short Fuse Short Fuse Warren Sonbert, Warren Sonbert, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert © The Estate of Warren Sonbert TATE FILM Warren Sonbert

WARREN SONBERT: TRUTH SERUM MING GREEN KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS All the prints of my films (there is only the Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium Gregory Markopoulos, USA, 1966, Kenneth Anger, USA, 16mm, 3 min original of Truth Serum) will be going out to Sunday 27 October 2013, 16mm, silent, 7 min San Francisco and Los Angeles for about a three week tour…There was a very nice 15.00 –17.00 So really film is basically musical: any movie article on Truth Serum in the Village Voice, the week of July 20th, by Jim Stoller...I Sonbert: When I started seeing films it with a soundtrack is already a very mixed- really dislike ‘prints’ now. I’d rather spend was a very exciting period in New York up medium, a hybrid, a bastardization. THE TENTH LEGION the money on another film. And when in the early and mid sixties. People like Of course sound tracks help carry matters Warren Sonbert, USA, 1968, 16mm, the original goes, it goes. So what. I mean Markopoulos, who has since renounced this along, do all the work, as it were. It’s hard scratches and dirt and jump cuts on [the] colour, 30 min country and gone off to Europe; Brakhage to think of Conner or Anger without their original are into a whole other thing. in Colorado, Jack Smith was making films, tracks – but that is exactly the acid test.

Warhol and the Kuchars were working. Now Harry Smith’s Early Abstractions and Late all these people are dispersed… Superimpositions can survive without their Warren Sonbert, Letter to David early Beatles’ goading, but Inauguration and Betty Curtis, ca. July 1967 Ehrenstein: In talking about film-makers of the Pleasure Dome cannot (as witnessed whose concerns are similar to your own, by the recent pulling of the at least exotic 1968, film 1968, still we’ve mentioned Eisenstein, Vertov. Who and idiomatic Janacek Mass in favor of a HOURS FOR JEROME, PART 2 has influenced you on the independent very undistinguished rock track). Brakhage, Nathaniel Dorsky, 16mm, 25 min scene? Menken, Vertov have all shown that to The Tenth Legion TheTenth purely watch the images is a much freer, Sonbert: Certainly Gregory Markopoulos. broader experience than any track would

I was his protégé for awhile and he did add. The film can truly breathe this way – , 1980–2, Warren Sonbert, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert open up the entire new world of films for go many more places than it can anchored me…he is one of the great film-makers to sound. Somewhere along the line the in independent film – really freeing film.” divergent rhythms of film and sound get in Tape Track…Interrelationships, portraits, each other’s way… repetition and identification… Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert 2 Part Jerome, for Hours Interviewed by David Ehrenstein, Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert Warren Sonbert, ‘Lecture Topics’, December 1978’, Film Culture Lecture, San Francisco Art Institute, unpublished typed ms, n.d. August 1979’, Film Culture Nathaniel Dorsky, Dorsky, Nathaniel film still, courtesy Cinemaartist/Canyonthestill, film of An amazingly talented example of the younger generation’s ever mounting TRUTH SERUM Dorsky’s oeuvre brandishes at present a interest in films and filmmaking is versatility not readily available in the current prolific 19 year old Warren Sonbert… Warren Sonbert, USA, 1967, 16mm, 13 min. (Note: sound track missing) avant garde film scene. The mammoth Hours The Tenth Legion is a highly promising for Jerome is a representational montage entry for specialized art houses. Telling work formally and a cinematic textbook no story, having no plot and no dialogue, visually. Sonbert’s 30-minute color film is merely An early teenage weekend film. Some material later incorporate in Carriage Trade. an attempt to capture the spirit, mood, Warren Sonbert, ‘Program Notes for PFA From the rock n roll period: 50s girl groups and activities of his generation. Inspired on Nathaniel Dorsky’, typed ms., n.d. by Otto Preminger’s directorial techniques, and ‘The High & Mighty’ theme. Sonbert’s camera circles, tracks, follows, Hours for Jerome is simply the most Warren Sonbert, Film-Makers’ and observes his characters with a studied beautifully photographed film that I’ve Cooperative Catalogue No. 7 detachment which seem to say: this is us ever seen; here we enter the realm of the and this is how things are. compassionate and the full achievement High spirited glances…at Coney Island, of what film can do cinematographically is Appalachian trail, New Jersey, the Janis The Independent Film Journal, Vol. 59, achieved. It is a privilege to experience the Gallery. No. 7, March 4, 1967. thoughtful unfolding of these images.

Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert Warren Sonbert, Canyon Cinema Film/ Retrospective’, programme notes, Video Catalog, 2000 Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 14–18, 1994 TATE FILM Warren Sonbert

WARREN SONBERT: for a cup of coffee, and his hand goes MOTHLIGHT REASONS TO BE GLAD RUDE AWAKENING in the direction of left to right; then the Stan Brakhage. USA 1963, 16mm, 4 min Jeff Scher, USA 1980, 16mm, 4 min following image would be a plane taking off Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium in that similar direction from left to right. Sunday 27 October 2013, One physical gesture will generate – in a My first night in Budapest as I walked into 17.00 –19.00 widely different time, space, focal length, the only gay bar in town (pop. 2 million!) or exposure situation – something else. So the bouffanted matron pianist immediately there is that kind of continuum as well as careened into a snappy rendition of the contrast. The differences are immediately soundtrack of Reasons To Be Glad. Thought: RUDE AWAKENING obvious – as you say, collisional. The idea is ‘So that’s where it comes from.’ Otherwise 1963, film still 1963, Warren Sonbert, USA 1976, 16mm, to pick up on what is the connecting link. In Budapest reminds me of Ankara - but some cases it could be a geometric shape, colour, 36 min Mothlight without the charm. Stared at I guess for or a color, or a narrative verbal pun. So the being the thinnest person in town – no challenge is to make something which is postcards either. going to pull you from one image to the LUX,London. Courtesy the Estate of Stan Brakhage and Rude Awakening is about Western Stan Brakhage, civilization and its work; activity ethic next one and at the same time be a total Warren Sonbert, postcard to Jeff Scher and the viability of performing functions division, a cutting-off point, a something and Suzanne Fedak, c. 1986 and activities. other. Each shot, obviously, will stand out The great hero in film history is Brakhage, so much more if there is this total contrast, who “liberated” film. He made the tactile Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert if one’s still, one’s moving, one’s dark, one’s qualities the major concern and showed that Lecture, San Francisco Art Institute, light, if one’s a close-up, one’s wide-angle, “mistakes,” errors could have an expressive, if one has characters, people, portraits, and demonic, psychological function. Images

August 1979’, Film Culture. one does not, is more abstract.” could be overexposed (too bright)and Tautening this silent period’s approach. underexposed (too dark). That dirt, splice 1980, Warren Sonbert, ‘Conversation lines, flare-ins and flare-outs, the dots that Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert with Warren Sonbert’ interview end and begin a three-minute roll of rushes, Retrospective’, Museum of Modern Art, by David Simpson all could have a transforming purpose. He Reasons to be Glad be to Reasons New York, October 14–18, 1994. questioned the entire Nineteenth Century sensibility of the composed wide-angle art- courtesyartistthe of Carriage Trade was about comparing WARREN gallery frame-work. He suggested that all Scher, Jeff different places, different people, different Jeff Scher, USA, 1991, 16mm, 3 min budding film-makers take an icepick to their pastimes in different parts of the world, lens to destroy Renaissance perspective. four seasons, four elements – really broad concerns. Rude Awakening continued along Jeff Scher turns the table on his former He also had this near equivalent of Pollock that line with things not working out, teacher and mentor, creates an intimate – these thick overlays of impasto, almost things not materializing, people having dialogue between friends as well as a including the paint-tube caps, with his certain expectations, plans, input, and battle of directorial wills. drawing, painting, scratching on film, those dissolving. What does action mean, scraping away the emulsion, using oil, water, where does it get you? It doesn’t get you Jon Gartenberg, Canyon Cinema Film / ink, magic marker; even, in a film called anywhere. That’s something about that in Video Catalog, 2000 Mothlight, to go so far as to crush the wings the first shot being this archer which is a and bodies of moths and other insects onto pun on the Powell-Pressburger films, and a strip of film. the last shot which is a boy throwing sand in the air which is like the Sandman putting Warren Sonbert, Warren Sonbert Lecture, you to sleep. San Francisco Art Institute, August 1979, Film Culture Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert Interviewed by David Ehrenstein, December 1978’, Film Culture, 1983

In Rude Awakening, I had these series of what I call ‘directional pulls’ in which, let’s say, a character reaches across the screen TATE FILM Warren Sonbert

SURFACE NOISE WARREN SONBERT: SHORT FUSE FRIENDLY WITNESS SHORT FUSE Abigail Child USA, 2000, 16mm, 18 min Sunday 27 October 2013, Warren Sonbert, USA 1989, Warren Sonbert, USA, 1992, 16mm 19.00–21.00 16mm, 22 min colour, 37 min In Surface Noise, cobbled from found footage that Child describes as ‘outtakes of Warren Sonbert’s brilliant Short Fuse outtakes’, is a dense collage of images with THE CUP AND THE LIP expresses growing rage at gay suffering

a John Zorn-like soundtrack. Sometimes Warren Sonbert, USA 1986, 16mm, in the age of AIDS without losing the the images synch with the noise; the colour, 20 min rich seductiveness of sound, image, flailings of a salmon swimming upstream and montage. is coupled with a rimshot, and home film still 1989, movie footage of a man laughing is paired Further distillation (along with Noblesse ‘Avant-Garde Visions’ program notes, with a female opera singer. In most of Oblige) of later manner of editing/ New York Film Festival, 1992 Surface Noise, however, sound and image dislocation approach. Friendly Witness follow their own dialectical paths, creating It was good to speak to you again today, a density which is Child’s tribute (as a Warren Sonbert, ‘Warren Sonbert and to agree that the BFI will distribute Warren Sonbert, dedication at the end of the film makers Retrospective’ program notes, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert your latest film…As agreed, the BFI would clear) to the equally complex films of Museum of Modern Art, New York, like to take on Short Fuse for all UK (and Warren Sonbert. October 14–18, 1994 Republic of Ireland) rights on a theatrical Friendly Witness is comprised of material and non-theatrical basis…As I said, our shot by myself over the last 23 years. The Lux online catalogue My best films are Divided Loyalties, Noblesse first use for the film will be on the London locales include Europe, North Africa, the Oblige, and The Cup and the Lip – complete, Lesbian & Gay Film Festival regional tour, South Pacific, Australia and Asia (including Sonbert was a colleague and friend, arch, succinct, and time proof. Though cases which will play up to 16 venues between those hot spots Iran and Afghanistan). prolific (particularly when diagnosed with could be made for the exhaustiveness of March 1 and the end of June. On the The work is in 5 sections or 2 parts HIV), a companion for movies and the Carriage Trade, the structural grid of Rude matter of the tour, I hope that within the (twice as long as the first part) is the opera he loved. We talked of montage Awakening, the narrative explorations of A week I can give you the information you remaining section. The first part then is intensely and what I admired of his work Woman’s Touch and even the dogged hijinks required on Leeds, Cardiff, etc…Thanks, lighter, gamier, with built in diversion like was not only its richness of color, but its of The Bad and the Beautiful. Warren. I’m glad that we’re going ahead pre-feature genre relations to cartoons, interlocking structure and the way political with this. concerns began to increasingly appear Warren Sonbert, letter to David, trailers, newsreels. This sets off the high seriousness of the grand Weltanschauung in the works. I myself had trouble with January 18, 1988 Mark Finch (Acting head of BFI Film & [worldview] finale and the pairing is the ‘merely beautiful’ and always felt the Video Distribution), Letter to Warren necessary to undercut the masterpiece need in montage to go deeper into the Sonbert, November 3, 1991 syndrome of the conclusion. On the tracks culture – how things mean and affect us as citizens stemming from my college studies the first part is devoted to preintellectual in ethnography or perhaps just coming late 50s/early 60s rock while the world view is buoyed by a classical piece. There

through the 60s. is a darkening then in the tone, mood and Abigail Child, ‘Abigail Child: Films and a subject matter between the frothy first part and the more turbulent second part.

Lecture’, programme notes, Harvard Film 1992, film still Archive, November 1–3, 2007 Spectacle, public domain, objective (god’s eye) point of view is the aesthetic approach with the constant idea that all this activity Short Fuse is perhaps occurring simultaneously. Warren Sonbert, Warren Sonbert, Letter to Sally and Helen, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert August 9, 1989 TATE FILM Warren Sonbert

SCREENING SCHEDULE Postcards from Warren Where Did Our Love Go? WARREN SONBERT: RUDE AWAKENING Jeff Scher, USA, 1999, 16mm, 1 min Warren Sonbert, USA 1966, 16mm, Sunday 27 October 2013, colour, 15 min 17.00–19.00 WARREN SONBERT: AMPHETAMINE

Thursday 24 October 2013, WARREN SONBERT: Hall Of Mirrors Rude Awakening 19.00–21.00 DOUGLAS SIRK’S TARNISHED ANGELS Warren Sonbert, USA 1966, 16mm, Warren Sonbert, USA 1976, 16mm, Saturday 26 October 2013, colour, 7 min colour, 36 min Amphetamine 15.00 –17.00

Warren Sonbert and Wendy Appel, Screen Test – Reel 3 Warren USA 1966, 16mm, – #10 Gerard Malanga Tarnished Angels Jeff Scher, USA, 1991, 16mm, 3 min black-and-white, 10 min Andy Warhol, USA 1964, 16mm, 4 min Douglas Sirk, USA, 1957,

35mm, 91 min Mothlight Noblesse Oblige Screen Test – Reel 8 Stan Brakhage. USA 1963, Warren Sonbert, USA, 1981, – #3 Charles Henri Ford 16mm, 25 min 16mm, 4 min WARREN SONBERT: Andy Warhol, USA 1966, 16mm, 4 min

HONOR AND OBEY Whiplash Reasons to be Glad Saturday 26 October 2013, In Search of the Miraculous Warren Sonbert, 1995 (completed Jeff Scher, USA 1980, 16mm, 4 min 17.00 –18.30 Gerard Malanga, USA 1967, 16mm, posthumously 1997), 16mm, 20 min sound 30 min Surface Noise Divided Loyalties Abigail Child USA, 2000, WARREN SONBERT: Warren Sonbert, USA 1978, WARREN SONBERT: TRUTH SERUM 16mm, 18 min THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL colour, 22 min Sunday 27 October 2013, Friday 25 October 2013, 15.00 –17.00 WARREN SONBERT: SHORT FUSE 19.00–20.30 Honor And Obey Sunday 27 October 2013, Warren Sonbert, USA 1988, 19.00–21.00 colour, 21 min The Tenth Legion The Bad And The Beautiful Warren Sonbert, USA, 1968, 16mm,

Warren Sonbert, USA 1967, 16mm, colour, 30 min A Woman’s Touch The Cup And The Lip colour, 34 min Warren Sonbert, USA 1983, Warren Sonbert, USA 1986, 16mm Ming Green colour, 22 min colour, 20 min The Tuxedo Theatre Gregory Markopoulos, USA, 1966,

Warren Sonbert, USA 1968, 16mm, 16mm silent, 7 min colour, 21 min Friendly Witness WARREN SONBERT: Warren Sonbert, USA 1989, WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO? Kustom Kar Kommandos 16mm, 22 min Saturday 26 October 2013, Kenneth Anger, USA, 16mm, 3 min WARREN SONBERT: 19.00–21.00 POSTCARDS FROM WARREN Short Fuse Truth Serum Friday 25 October 2013, Warren Sonbert, USA, 1992, 16mm Warren Sonbert, USA, 1967, 16mm, 21.00–22.30 colour, 37 min This programme will be introduced by 13 min. (Note: sound track missing) writer Lynne Tillman and followed by a discussion with Tillman, James Boaden Carriage Trade and Jon Gartenberg. Hours for Jerome, Part 2 (1980–82) Warren Sonbert, USA 1972, 16mm Nathaniel Dorsky, 16mm, 25 min colour, 61 min

BIOGRAPHIES WARREN SONBERT Retrospective of seminal American experimental filmmaker James Boaden is a lecturer in the history of art at the 24–27 October 2013 University of York. He is currently working on a book about the circle of Stan Brakhage from 1950-1965. He has curated Co-curated by Jon Gartenberg with Tate Film. film screenings at BFI Southbank, Tate Modern, and La Virreina, Barcelona and has published essays in Art History, Organised by Geroge Clark, Oxford Art Journal, and Little Joe. During 2013 he has been Assistant Curator, Film, Tate Modern writer in residence at LUX: Artists’ Moving Image. Booklet Notes compiled and edited by Jon Gartenberg, Jon Gartenberg is a film archivist, distributor, and from the papers of the Estate of Warren Sonbert (now in programmer. He worked for nearly two decades as the collection of Harvard University). a curator in the Film Department of The Museum of All rights reserved © The Estate of Warren Sonbert. Modern Art, where he initiated the restoration of the films of Andy Warhol and acquired experimental films Editorial collaboration: George Clark for the permanent collection. As Program Director of Film Booklet design: Tate Design Studio Preservation for the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, he oversaw the restoration of the complete oeuvre of Warren The films of Warren Sonbert were preserved through Sonbert, as well as selected films by David Wojnarowicz, the efforts of the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS in Curt McDowell, and Jack Waters. Since 2003 he has cooperation with the Academy Film Archive. Archivist Jon programmed experimental films for the Tribeca Film Gartenberg developed this film preservation initiative with Festival He has also produced short films by Ken Jacobs the support of Ascension Serrano (The Estate of Warren and Jeff Scher. Sonbert) and John Hanhardt (former senior curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum). The prints of Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer and critic Warren Sonbert’s films in this retrospective exhibition are based in New York. Her fifth novel American Genius, A made available through Light Cone (Paris), the European Comedy was published by Soft Skull Press. Other novels distributor of his films. include Haunted Houses and No Lease on Life, a National Book Critics Circle finalist in Fiction. Her most recent With thanks to: David K. Deitch, Alex Westhelle , Martine collection of stories, her fourth, is Someday This Will Be Vigouroux, Jeff Capp (Gartenberg Media Enterprises); Funny. Currently, Tillman writes a bi-monthly column, ‘In MM Serra (The Film-makers’ coop); Stuart Comer (The These Intemperate Times’, for frieze magazine, and is at Museum of Modern Art, New York); Haden Guest, Liz Coffey work on a new novel, Men and Apparitions. In January 2014, (Harvard Film Archive); Emmnanuel Lefrant, Christophe her second essay collection, What Would Lynne Tillman Do? Bichon, Baptiste Degas, Pierre Murillo (Light Cone); Howard will be published by Red Lemonade Press. Tillman is the Mandelbaum (Photofest); John Klacsmann, Wendy Dorsett, guest editor of The Happy Hypocrite – Freedom, issue 6, Robert Haller, John Mhiripiri (Anthology Film Archives); published by Book Works launched in October 2013. Robert Beavers and Ian Wooldridge (Temenos Archive) and Katy Wan (Tate Modern).

Tate Film is supported by Maja Hoffmann / LUMA Foundation Courtesy of Harvard Film Archive © The Estate of Warren Sonbert Warren Courtesy HarvardTheEstateof Archive© of Film Visit tate.org.uk/film @tatefilm facebook.com/tatefilm

Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG Nearest Southwark / Bankside Pier 1966, film still 1966, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert Hall of MirrorsHallof Warren Sonbert,