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The Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) @ Laemmle NoHo ~ The World’s Greatest: Photography On and Off Stages.

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The Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) @ Laemmle NoHo

The World’s Greatest: Photography On and Off Stages

Artists: Candace Biggerstaff, Ryder Collins, Thouly Dosios, David Hanes-Gonzalez, Kevin Salk  

Curator: Dr. Rotem Rozental, Executive Director and Chief Curator, LACP

Opening reception: May 29, 6:00 to 8:00 P.M.; walk-through with Candace Biggerstaff, Thouly Dosios, David Hanes-Gonzalez and Dr. Rotem Rozental at 6:30pm. 

Free and open to the public, follow this link to RSVP.

The World’s Greatest: Photography On and Off Stages marks the second collaboration between LACP and the Laemmle Theatres, organizing exhibitions and public programs around photography and visual storytelling.  

Exploring spaces for storytelling and their importance for popular culture in the American west and beyond, this exhibition turns its attention to that as of entertainment that usually remain on the edges of mainstream culture—but that is precisely where they thrive and build micro-communities, formed by shared interests, rituals and creative languages. In that sense, this exhibition is interested in vernacular spaces of entertainment that created, reflected and amplified collective traditions and cultural interests. With particular relevance to the Laemmle Theatres, a beloved space for cultural consumption and production in Los Angeles, this exhibition regards the relationships between communities and their entertainers, traveling forms of spectacle and amazement, and the people who turn such spaces into reality.  

With that in mind, The World’s Greatest is interested in self-proclaimed heroes and beloved underground icons, athletes that drive national passions and seasonal entertainers that have built a loyal fan base for decades. The exhibition is interested in the people that define these communities—both the performers and their audiences–but it also traces the histories of these spaces and the ways in which their past continues to inform their present. 

The participating artists capture the shifts in the lives of the events and the people behind them, focusing on the human experience that defines what live shows, fairs, boxing matches and circus arenas might have in common. These projects also speak about the formation of alternative families and tightknit communities, which would not have existed without performative spaces. Perhaps this is also a way to consider family life as a performative space, which exists in different ways in public and private spaces. These stories, in essence, are stories of belonging. 

Candace Biggerstaff found herself at the circus because of her father-in-law, who was a circus historian. She and her husband traveled with him for two years in the mid 1970s, starting with Circus Vargas when she was 20 years old. In other words, Biggerstaff got to run away with the circus almost every year since she was a very young adult; her adulthood was in fact defined by her relationship with a place that insists on fantasy, magic and the illusions we tend to attach to childhood and early life. That colorful vibrancy came to define both her compositions and outlook on the world. The experience of not only running away with the circus, but also capturing traveling companies became integral to her photographic practice.  The performers became familiar friends, the elephants became cherished beings, and the connections between them and their audience became the focal point of her documentary work. She has been following them ever since, capturing the animals and the humans entrusted with their well-being, witnessing the formation of nontraditional family structures behind the scenes. Biggerstaff’s work begins with life in the circus outside the big top, processing her own views about what a family is, or what it could be. 

For David Hanes-Gonzalez, the discovery of Mexican boxing style became an entry point to his own cultural genealogy; a way to overcome the frustration he felt about his lack of connection to his Mexican roots, as a first generation Mexican American. What began as a short project turned into years-long preoccupation, which also led him to move to Mexico while capturing an intimate story about the prominence of the sport within local culture and its diasporic communities. This is an important point of connections between Mexico and Los Angeles, where a strong tradition of Mexican and American-Mexican boxers who rose to prominence persists. There are rivalries, fans, traditions and legacies that provide a close and intimate connection between communities on both sides of the border; an important point of cultural contact between individuals with complex identities and collective experiences. 

Kevin Salk began documenting punk bands while barely in high school. They were his friends, and they were emerging right in front of him as cultural heroes of the underground scenes in Southern California. Decades later, he picked up his camera again and went back to chronicle the energies, dedication and reach of his friends and their peers in the metal and punk domains of California. His work provides both a glimpse into the origins and a look toward the present and future of these sub-cultures and their veteran protagonists.  

When Ryder Collins documents county fairs in the state of Washington, he observes shifting economic circumstances and the demise of a form of entertainment that was once vital for agricultural communities across the country. County fairs became part of the American landscape in the early eighteenth century, after having emerged as agricultural markets in 1765. In that sense, the fair predates the union. Elkhana Watson from New England is often credited as the “Father of US agricultural fairs,” after introducing a hybrid event: An exhibit of animals that included a competition. Collins’s extended documentary project takes such histories into account, while considering his family’s own agricultural histories and the impact of shifting financial circumstances. 

Thouly Dosios have been capturing the streets of Los Angeles, her adoptive home, for nearly a decade. Taken by the city’s openness and cultural tapestries of traditions, cultures, traditions, approaches and lived experiences, Dosios captures contradictions and the constant pivots that define this place. In that sense, the county fair amalgamates these loose ends into an unexpected meeting point, of performativity and entertainment, collective experiences and individual impressions.  

40th Anniversary Screening of SUBURBIA with Writer-Director Penelope Spheeris in Person Celebrating Art House Theater Day.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 40th anniversary of SUBURBIA (1984), the first narrative feature film of acclaimed writer-director Penelope Spheeris. Co-produced by Roger Corman, with Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in an ensemble cast of mostly non-actors, the film plays one night only: Wednesday, July 24 at 7:30 pm at the Laemmle NoHo as a preview of Art House Theater Day (AHTD, officially July 25). AHTD is a celebration of the contributions that art house theaters and independent films make to the cultural landscape.

SUBURBIA was a follow up to Spheeris’ debut film, the landmark documentary ‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ (1981), which focused on the emerging punk rock/hardcore scene in Southern California in the early 1980’s. While the documentary (and its two sequels) dealt with the bands, SUBURBIA looks at their audiences, displaced and disaffected children of the Baby Boomer generation who rejected the consumerism and conservatism of their parents. The movie follows a group of kids (ranging from ages 6 to 18) who squat in a condemned tract-housing development, forming a family unit of punks who call themselves The TRs (the rejected). Although the TRs commit petty crimes to survive, the ostensible villains of the movie are a pair of gun-toting working men who view them as responsible for every crime imaginable and eventually hunt them down.

Spheeris approached Roger Corman to complete financing for the film. He viewed it as a teen exploitation movie that fit into his wheelhouse of low-budget genre pictures, a formula that worked very well for him for decades. Spheeris, however, saw it as a social statement, and chose to use mostly non-actors along with a few musicians (e.g., Flea) for authenticity, pointing out, “It’s easier to teach punks to be actors than actors to be punks.” Flea now cites the film as “the punk rock bible.”

Perceptive critics of the day supported Spheeris’ vision. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it “a clear-eyed compassionate melodrama…far better than Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Outsiders’ and ‘Rumblefish.’” This view was echoed by Time Out, noting the movie “combines intelligent social comment with the conventions of the teen-in-revolt exploiter to gripping effect. A justifiably angry film, fast and full of violent action, though there’s plenty of humour too; and the lack of originality is amply compensated for by its manifest sincerity.” And Clayton Dillard in Slant said, “In the end, SUBURBIA‘s greatest strength lies in its assertion of youth as a political state of mind.”

Penelope Spheeris is a multitalented film director (SUBURBIA, ‘The Boys Next Door,’ ‘Wayne’s World,’ ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’) producer (‘Real Life’), documentarian (‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ trilogy, ‘We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n Roll’), actress, screenwriter, and videographer. She has enjoyed success in both the independent film and Hollywood studio arenas, collecting numerous honors and currently receiving well-earned lifetime achievement awards. She joins us to introduce SUBURBIA and discuss her five-decade career making cinematic art.

In-Person Wim Wenders Q&A for ANSELM 3D Saturday in Glendale; 2D runs this week at other venues; MUST END SOON!

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If you haven’t yet seen Wim Wenders’ 3D documentary Anselm in Glendale, there’s still time! We’ll have this fascinating portrait of painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer in 3D for at least one more week in the Jewell City and we’ll open 2D engagements this Friday in Santa Monica, Encino, Claremont and Newhall. What’s more the director will participate in an in-person Q&A following the Saturday, January 13 1 pm screening in Glendale. Matt Carey will moderate.

“Anselm offers both a thrilling portrait of the artist at work and, with the aid of terrific archival footage, lets us see what infuses his work with such intensity.” ~ John Powers, NPR

“The director [Wim Wenders] has fashioned a mesmerizing engagement with Kiefer’s art, including just enough face time with the subject to elevate the work’s immersive, bleak majesty, rather than give it an aggrandizing spin.” ~ Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

“This is a superbly controlled and expressed film and its high seriousness about the nature and purpose of art really is invigorating.” Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“The meditative experience is heightened by Wenders’s innovative use of sound: indistinct whispers flutter like bats through the cavernous spaces.” ~ Wendy Ide, Guardian

Now more than ever: Greg Laemmle on singing along to FIDDLER ON THE ROOF in times like these.

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From Greg Laemmle: “I started this as a Christmas Eve event (tradition!) specifically because I wanted to celebrate that as Jews in America, we did not need to hide in our homes. My grandmother hated this time of year because she had memories of her childhood in Tsarist Russia and the frequent episodes of violence (pogroms) against the Jewish communities there around the holiday. The America that I grew up in was open enough that it could accept the diversity of our society, recognizing that Americans of all religious (or non-religious) backgrounds were free to celebrate the end of year period in their own fashion. I’m not sure America is as accepting right now, but I’m not prepared to cede this ground to those pushing for a more restrictive vision of what America is. Now, more than ever, it is important that we not hide.  And now, as much as ever, we need to feel the joy of the free association that is a Constitutional right of living in America. Fiddler on the Roof tells a complicated tale about the fragility of living as a minority in an oppressive state. But it also shows the joy and beauty of life, and hints at the potential of modernity to provide a freer world that does not discriminate based on race, religion or gender. LOVE is the force that truly shakes the foundations of Tevye’s world. And LOVE, not HATE, will save us from our current predicaments.”

JOIN US on DEC. 24th for our umpteenth annual alternative Christmas Eve, the Fiddler on the Roof Sing-a-Long! Screening at 7 o’clock at our Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, NoHo, West L.A. and Encino theaters.

Belt out your holiday spirit … or your holiday frustrations. Either way, you’ll feel better as you croon along to all-time favorites like “TRADITION,” “IF I WERE A RICH MAN,” “TO LIFE,” “SUNRISE SUNSET,” “DO YOU LOVE ME?” and “ANATEVKA,” among many others.

We encourage you to come in costume! Guaranteed fun for all. Children are welcome (Fiddler is rated “G”) though some themes may be challenging for young children.

Prices this year start at $16 for General Admission and $13 for Premiere Card holders. Typically, Fiddler sells out … so don’t miss the buggy!

Originally based on Sholem Aleichem’s short story “Tevye and His Daughters,” Norman Jewison’s adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical is set in a Russian village at the beginning of the twentieth century. Israeli actor Topol repeats his legendary London stage performance as Tevye the milkman, whose equilibrium is constantly being challenged by his poverty, the prejudice of non-Jews, and the romantic entanglements of his five daughters. Fiddler was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Director and Actor, and won three, for Cinematography, Sound and Score (John Williams).

THE LION IN WINTER 55th Anniversary Holiday Season Screening with Author-Historian Jeremy Arnold November 29.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 55th anniversary of The Lion in Winter (1968), the Academy Award-winning historical drama (with comedy undertones) that netted screen legend Katharine Hepburn a third Best Actress Oscar. Hepburn leads a powerhouse cast including acting icon Peter O’Toole, and future major stars Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton in their film debuts. The film plays one night only Wednesday, November 29 at 7:00 PM at the Royal in West Los Angeles, with an introduction by author Jeremy Arnold, who will sign copies of his newly revised book “Christmas in the Movies.”

Set during Christmas 1183, England’s King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) summons a holiday court at Chilon in his continental empire to choose his successor among his three sons: Richard the Lionhearted (Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle), and his favorite, John (Nigel Terry). He releases his wife and the mother of their sons, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) from imprisonment for the occasion. Also in attendance are Henry’s mistress Alais (Jane Merrow), and her brother, the young King Philip of France (Timothy Dalton). As the principals squabble over the succession, intrigue, one-upmanship, and treachery are unleashed in the ensuing power struggle.

Based on a play by James Goldman (a Broadway flop in 1966), the film adaptation by Goldman and director Anthony Harvey, a former film editor (Lolita, Dr. Strangelove) just two years later proved to be a resounding success at both the box office and with critics of the day. Roger Ebert welcomed “a literate script handled intelligently,” while Renata Adler of The New York Times praised the “dramatic and comic energy” on display by the spirited cast. An effusive Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times awarded the film “top honors for the most literate movie of the year, and for the finest and most imaginative and fascinating evocation of an historical time and place.” AMPAS bestowed seven nominations including Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Costume Design, with Oscar wins for Goldman’s screenplay, John Barry’s effective music score, and Hepburn’s Best Actress turn (her third win in an historic tie with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl).

Hepburn recalled what attracted her to the part of Eleanor of Aquitaine, “I think she had what I’ve always held as important: love of life but without sentimentality. She was something I’ve always tried to be–completely authentic.” O’Toole had the unique opportunity to revisit a character he had previously played (a younger Henry II in 1964’s Becket) and triumphed once again. Hepburn would go on to win a fourth Best Actress Oscar in 1981, while O’Toole had to settle for an Honorary Oscar in 2003 among eight nominations. Hopkins would become one of the most acclaimed actors of his generation, winning two Best Actor Oscars in his lengthy career. Dalton enjoyed decades of success and movie immortality when he inherited the role of James Bond in 1987 for two films as Agent 007. In The Lion in Winter all four have a rousing good time, as the Village Voice noted, “scenery chewing has rarely been so artful.”

“Once upon a midnight dreary,” Price, Corman, Karloff & Lorre! THE RAVEN 60th Anniversary Screening October 19.

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Update October 12: This screening has been cancelled.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 60th anniversary of THE RAVEN (1963), the fifth film of Roger Corman’s cinematic adaptations of the works of American literary titan Edgar Allan Poe. The movie, written by acclaimed horror, fantasy, and mystery author Richard Matheson, stars horror icons Vincent Price and Boris Karloff in a rare big screen collaboration, and co-stars Peter Lorre, Hazel Court, and future superstar Jack Nicholson early in his career. The horror comedy plays one night only, Thursday, October 19 at 7 PM at the Royal in West Los Angeles. For added fun there will be a Poe/Corman trivia contest before the movie.

 

Producer-director Roger Corman, who began his career in the 1950s, is one of the most prolific independent filmmakers in movie history. Corman specialized in low budget cinema and is regarded as the “king of the B movie” with a steady diet of exploitation titles that spanned six decades and multiple movie genres. In 1960 he turned to the works of an author he had read and admired growing up, Edgar Allan Poe, the nineteenth century inventor of detective fiction and master of mystery and the macabre, and made a stylish if frugal version of The Fall of the House of Usher, hiring Vincent Price for the lead and acclaimed author Richard Matheson (The Incredible Shrinking Man, I am Legend, Somewhere in Time) to write the screenplay adaptation. The movie’s unexpected critical and commercial success spawned seven more Poe films in five years. The Raven, the fifth film, was released in January 1963 and was the first outright feature-length comic take on Poe’s most celebrated poem. The worldwide reception afforded the poem in 1845 made Poe the most famous American author of the 19th century, and he remains beloved in the 21st century for his pioneering detective fiction, horror tales, and haunting verse.

Matheson’s story lightens considerably the tone of the mesmeric poem, with the invention of sorcerer characters (Price and Karloff) who duel over Price’s wife (Hazel Court). Peter Lorre, transformed by Karloff into a raven, induces Price to help him break the spell and rescue Court. They are aided by Lorre’s son, played by Nicholson. Corman retained venerable cinematographer Floyd Crosby, production designer Daniel Haller, and composer Les Baxter from the prior Poe films to continue the atmospheric style which marks all the films. Matheson’s choice to inject humor throughout the movie led critics to pick up on the tongue-in-cheek tone, with one reviewer calling it “less of a Raven, and more of a lark.” Leonard Maltin found it a “funny horror satire [with the] climactic sorcerers’ duel a highlight.

This would be Matheson’s final Poe adaptation after writing House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), and Tales of Terror (1962). Price would continue as the principal Poe player to the end of the eight-film series with Tomb of Ligeia in 1964. All the Poe/Corman films entrenched Price as a legendary horrormeister, but in The Raven he would demonstrate his comic chops along with unexpected humorous turns from Boris Karloff and an improvising Peter Lorre. A young Jack Nicholson is the bonus in this affectionate, amusing homage to the genius of Edgar Allan Poe.

National Silent Movie Day: See Restored Classic THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD September 27.

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In honor of Silent Movie Day, we are presenting screenings of Irving Cummings’ THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD (1926), a pioneering disaster and special effects movie, starring Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien. A highlight of this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the film has been restored with a lush musical soundtrack by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. We are screening the film September 27 only at our Royal, Glendale, Claremont and Newhall theaters.

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD re-creates one of the greatest disasters in American history, when, in 1889, over 2,000 people in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, lost their lives. In her first major role, Gaynor plays a teenage girl smitten with dashing engineer O’Brien, whose pleadings about the imminent collapse of the local dam are ignored. It’s up to Gaynor to ride through the streets à la Paul Revere to warn the townspeople of the imminent disaster. After 97 years, the movie’s flood sequence is still a pre-CGI marvel of optical effects, matte paintings, and miniatures.

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD has been newly restored in 4K by The Film Preserve, Ltd. and The Maltese Film Works, from 35mm elements preserved at George Eastman Museum. Noted preservationists Robert Harris and James Mockoski (archivist for Francis Ford Coppola) worked on the restoration.

Academy Award winners and film scholars Ben Burtt (sound designer of Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and more) and Craig Barron (visual effects supervisor for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Batman Returns, and more), have recorded a 30-minute illustrated conversation deconstructing the movie’s visual effects, that will be screened following the feature.

SOYLENT GREEN 50th Anniversary Screening September 13 with Special Guest Leigh Taylor-Young.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary of the prophetic sci-fi classic, ‘Soylent Green.’ The sole surviving cast member, Leigh Taylor-Young, will join to share memories of making this powerful movie. This still-timely film, set in New York in 2022, was one of the first to address issues of pollution, global warming, overpopulation, and an epidemic of homelessness. In many ways it predicted the dark future imagined in ‘Blade Runner,’ made a decade later.

The script was adapted by Stanley R. Greenberg from an acclaimed novel, ‘Make Room! Make Room!,’ by Harry Harrison. The director, Richard Fleischer, was no stranger to science fiction, having made the hit movies ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ and ‘Fantastic Voyage,’ along with a wide range of films in many different genres. Charlton Heston portrays a police detective trying to solve the murder of an executive at the mysterious Soylent Corporation, which leads him to uncover a diabolical conspiracy. In addition to Leigh Taylor-Young, the supporting cast includes Chuck Connors, Joseph Cotten, Brock Peters, and Paula Kelly. But the most memorable performance is given by Edward G. Robinson, in his final screen appearance.

The Hollywood Reporter declared that the film “conjures a terrifying vision of the future.” Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called the film “a clever, rough, modestly budgeted but imaginative work.” ‘Soylent Green‘ won the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film of the year.

Actress Leigh Taylor-Young first came to prominence on the popular “Peyton Place” TV series of the 1960s. She made her feature film debut in the hit 1968 comedy, ‘I Love You Alice B. Toklas,’ starring Peter Sellers, written by Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker. Her other film roles include ‘The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,’ which marked one of the first screen roles for Robert De Niro, and ‘Jagged Edge,’ starring Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges. She also co-starred in many popular TV series, including “Dallas” and “Picket Fences,” for which she won an Emmy. In recent years she has also been active in humanitarian and spiritual activities for the United Nations and other organizations.

The movie’s trailer posed the question, “What Is the Secret of Soylent Green?” If you don’t know the answer to that question, be sure to attend our 50th anniversary screening. And even if you do know, you will be startled by the movie’s timeliness and engaged by the conversation with our delightful guest speaker.