Author Archives: Cimaxion

Robert Mapplethorpe’s Life Work Given to Los Angeles Museums

by Cimaxion

As I was driving yesterday, I was thinking about my latest film work and muddling through half-formed thoughts about how, whether anyone likes it or not, Los Angeles is the center of art in the United States.  New York has become too much associated with the 20th century’s industrial approach to art.  Los Angeles, it seemed to me inside my comfortable car, is where it’s at.

Today it was announced that the work of American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe has been given in joint trust to the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Well, there you have it.

Enjoy the gift, Los Angeles, because you’ve earned it.

If you want to learn a lot more about Mapplethorpe and an incredible drive for artistic expression, read the National Book Award winning memoir by Patti Smith, Just Kids.

Tokyo Night Trip – A Film by Luciana Botelho

by Cimaxion

Luciana Botelho turns cab rides in Tokyo into a gorgeous abstraction that maintains its romantic atmosphere flawlessly.  What I like about these films is how the filmmaker seems able to surrender herself to a particular time and place over the extended period of time necessary for making the film.  Not an easy thing to do.  I’ve posted about this filmmaker’s work before.

Nightlife in a Puddle – A Film by Fabio Scacchioli

by Cimaxion

Fabio Scacchioli is an Italian filmmaker who turns ordinary shots on Super 8 film and video into magical and mystical pieces about memory and all that it does for us. I am always impressed by his work and how he finds the perfect moments to let glimmer through the haze to catch us unaware. I maintain that as we move further into the 21st century, we are developing a new cinema completely removed from the theatrical aspects of the last century’s cinema. It is filmmakers who do not try to make films that look like American features who will make the new cinema. Filmmakers making films that look like American features are looking at forms as outmoded as 19th century theatrical works were during the age of the early silents. The new cinema is as natural and immediate a form of expression as writing or painting.

I know that Scacchioli is currently working on something new and I’m looking forward to seeing it. I’ve posted about Scacchioli’s work before.

Tribune-American Dream Picture – 1924 Surrealist Film Contest Winner

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

In 1924, the Oakland Tribune and American Theatre held a contest in which people submitted their dreams. The winning dreams got made into films and the dreamers won $25. This surreal piece came from a dream submitted by Mrs. L.L. Nicholson. It more closely resembles a dream than many films since then, including Hitchcock’s Spellbound.  It involves a couple on a trip and a missing baby.