John Cage Movies
- 2010
- Add Margaret Leng Tan: She Herself Alone - The Art of the Toy Piano 2 to Queue Add Margaret Leng Tan: She Herself Alone - The Art of the Toy Piano 2 to top of Queue
Singapore-born Margaret Leng Tan established herself as one of the most unique talents of American avant-garde music, by pioneering compositions on toy-sized instruments, such as miniature pianos, zithers, glockenspiels and music boxes. As performed on these types of instruments, this concert film by Tan features selections including Suite for Toy Piano, Tan's arrangement of John Cage's Dream for toy and grand piano, and Tan's arrangement for voice and toy instruments of a piece by George Crumb. Spanish cinematographer Anton Cabaleiro directs, evoking a unique mood for each piece. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
As mounted by The Dutch National Ballet to commemorate ballet choreographer Hans van Manen's 75th birthday, the aptly-named Hans Van Manen Festival brought together representative dancers from companies around the world, who pay homage to Manen by performing many of his best known and most acclaimed dances onstage. This release features highlights from that festival; performers include Larissa Lezhnina, Tamás Nagy and others from The Dutch National Ballet on Adagio Hammerklavier; Ivan Kozlov and Uliana Lopatkina from The Kirov Ballet on Trois Gnossiennes; and much more. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- 2006
This concert release features a series of piano performances by avant-garde pianist Margaret Leng Tan. Selections include compositions by Ge Gan-Ru, Toby Twining, John Cage and Erik Satie. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Margaret Leng Tan
As helmed by Ross MacGibbon, the performance release Cursive II witnesses an act by the acclaimed Cloud Gate Dancers. Its members are performers uniquely trained in three distinct disciplines - Chi-Kung, martial arts and meditation - with the ability to segue very smoothly between gentle, seductive movements and overwhelming, powerful ones. In this particular release, they dance to the music of avant-garde composer John Cage; onscreen, MacGibbon also adds poetic and lyrical images of "ice crackles from Sung porcelain to accompany and accentuate the music and dancing. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- 2005
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The choreographer behind such acclaimed works as Moon Water and Bamboo Dream returns with a masterful performance-piece inspired by Chinese calligraphy and featuring the highly-praised Cloud Gate dangers. Trained in martial arts, Chi-Kung, and meditation, the Cloud Gate dancers bring Lin Hwai-min's vital piece to life with an irresistible energy that is alternately commanding and seductive. As the music of experimental artist John Cage plays and shimmering images of "ice crackles" from Sung porcelain fill the stage backdrop, mesmerized viewers will bear witness to a spellbinding performance by one of the most talented choreographers of his generation. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- 1994
Geographically speaking, the iconoclastic yet brilliant composer John Cage identified himself primarily with Manhattan, which served as his home for decades. On October 6, 1977, Cage published a unique work of art in Rolling Stone magazine (with the encouragement of Jann Wenner) entitled "49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs," designed to commemorate the magazine's historical relocation from San Francisco to New York City. The painting consisted of 49 multicolored triangles placed atop the Hagstrom map of the Big Apple; in subsequent years, Cage published a score "for performer(s) or listener(s) or record maker(s)," derived from the said map. One of those influenced by the 49 Waltzes was experimental filmmaker Don Gillespie, Cage's longtime friend and associate, who sought to make a filmed adaptation of the 49 Waltzes by videotaping each of the 147 locations denoted in the score; he did so by placing a rotating camera at each location, and chose the duration of each location via the religious text known as the I-Ching. The resultant feature-length film appears in this unique release. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- 1993
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Director Henning Lohner pays tribute to revered avant-garde musician John Cage with this documentary featuring interviews with John Zorn, Frank Zappa, Dennis Hopper, Yoko Ono, Rutger Hauer, Noam Chomsky, Matt Groening, and more. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
With the documentary Sound, the innovative and experimental filmmaker Miroslav Sebestik provides a protracted cinematic exploration of the nature of sound per se. Taking full advantage of film's aural potential, Sebestik not only works in insightful, exploratory interviews with such luminaries as the late John Cage (the creator of the earth-shaking Roaratorio) and sound painter Knud Victor, but presents the audience with such euphonic and seldom-isolated sounds as a rabbit sleeping, the mechanical rhythm of a seabound river tugboat and an experimental symphony inspired by the noises of machine operations - to name only a few among a myriad of haunting examples. The program also explores the questions of how we listen and how we can direct our minds to listen more effectively - more artfully. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
If they've heard of him at all, most people assume that they have heard none of avant-garde musician John Cage's compositions. However, many of his works have been used in film scores, and (in the 1990s) he has even composed directly for films. His music remains uncompromisingly innovative, and is considered avant-garde even today. In this documentary, the composer's longtime collaboration (from 1942 to the 1990s) with the modern dance innovator, choreographer Merce Cunningham, is explored, and between interviews with the principals and with performers in the Cunningham Dance Foundation, samples of their collaborative efforts are shown. As staples on the New York arts scene, they have also collaborated with many well-known modern artists, including Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- 1989
In this documentary, avant-garde filmmaker Emile DeAntonio (1920-1989) discusses filmmaking with his friend, musician John Cage, but chiefly explores the myth and reality of the former Director of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover. During his lifetime, Hoover was idolized as a paragon of decency and someone who unfailingly upheld quintessential American values. After his death, the story that was revealed was considerably darker and more complex. DeAntonio has a lot of harsh things to say about the man and the federal agency he led, and uses as examples his huge (and often silly) F.B.I. files, released under the Freedom Of Information Act. This was DeAntonio's last film. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Emile de Antonio, John Cage, (more)
The first part of this tape consists of an original BBC documentary chronicling the critically acclaimed collaboration between choreographer Merce Cunningham, composer John Cage, and director Elliot Caplan; the second, a performance of Points in Space as performed by Cunningham's dance company. Rounding off the partnership, Points in Space is set to a rendition of "Voiceless Essay," which was composed by Cage. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- Starring:
- Merce Cunningham Dance Company
- 1983
It makes sense that an offbeat director such as Peter Greenaway (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Prospero's Books) would be attracted to a project such as 4 American Composers, a 1983 British television special profiling John Cage, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, and Robert Ashley, four American musical artists who haven't been content simply to entertain, but feel compelled to "push the envelope" of music. This episode centers on a concert performed in England on John Cage's 70th birthday. Featured are partial performances (sometimes overlapping) of a number of pieces, including "Roaratorio" (with Cage as narrator), "Forever and Sunsmell," "Double Music," and others. Highlights include a performance by Marcel Duchamp and interview commentary by Cage and others. ~ Steve Blackburn, Rovi
Director Ron Mann has put together readings by 24 different poets (after filming a total of 60 writers reciting their works), and then has poet and author Charles Bukowski verbalize "everyman's" criticisms of poetry: it is boring, irrelevant, self-indulgent, and does not make much sense. Then he counterpoints these statements with dynamic, entertaining, and inspiring works by poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Leroi Jones, Anne Waldeman, Helen Adams and 20 others. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jim Carroll, Charles Bukowski, (more)
- 1977
The odd slant on life possessed by one of the original surrealists and premiere "constructivist" artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) gives form to this homage to the master of absurdism. Duchamp occasionally used the pseudonym "Rrose Selavy," which, without the extra "r," reads (in French) "Rose, c'est la vie" or "Rose, that's life." In this film, an actor/actress of indeterminate gender, I Sa Lo, travelling as Rrosy Selavy, flies to New York carrying a chessboard, which s/he promptly takes to Duchamp's favored spot in Washington Square. There, s/he interviews all sorts of real-life Greenwich Village weirdos and celebrities, including John Cage. Eventually s/he meets an insane psychiatrist, and from then on her visit goes sour. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- I Sa Lo, Hannah Wilke, (more)
- 1947
Surrealist painter and Dada film-theorist Hans Richter wrote, produced, and directed the experimental exercise Dreams That Money Can Buy, one of the most significant contributions to the 20th-century "avant garde" movement. The project began in 1944, while Richter was director of the Institute of Film Techniques at City College in New York. Combining short scenarios written by such world-renowned artists as Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamps, Man Ray, Alexander Calder and Fernand Leger, Richter came up with a full-color, feature-length study in dreamlike "wish fulfillment." The film's only nod to continuity is the presence of a self-styled heavenly psychiatrist, whose patients purportedly visualize the images which play across the screen. Described by one observer as "surreal yet somewhat Jungian," Dreams That Money Can Buy cost $25,000 and was three years in the making (Richter liked to take his time: his later Dadascope took five years!) Its New York premiere was greeted with a mixture of bravos and bewilderment, especially when the projectionist elected to show the film on the wall and ceiling rather than the screen. One assumes that the projectionist was less capricious when Dreams That Money Can Buy won a special prize at the 1947 Venice Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Max Ernst
- 1944
In this surrealist film, Maya Deren's character rolls up on the beach, backwards. She crawls through a party unnoticed, but ultimately has social encounters with a number of people, and snatches a chess piece from a game in progress, running past at least three of her selves on her way down the beach. She is sucked back into the ocean from whence she came. ~ David Lewis, Rovi
- Starring:
- Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid, (more)
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