Tag Archives: Los Angeles

It is Not the Same Thing – A Film by Kathy Choi

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

The Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles is posting films made in its youth film class structured around the concept of work. The students made films about how they view jobs and work. It’s a great idea for a film class and throws the students into a very mature thought process. I really like this very fine film by Kathy Choi, Ce N’est Pas La Meme Chose (It Is Not The Same Thing).  She lets a woman from France compare the working life there to the life in America.  There are fascinating and sharp observations made about how the French worker simply wants to be efficient and get the job done within the regular day contrasted with how the American worker is expected to show a willingness to stay longer and ‘look’ more busy or dedicated.

Having closely observed American corporate office life I can attest to the phenomenon that is the actual ruling principal behind the entire American economy: at all costs one must always look busy.

The sad fact of our current jobless recovery is that an enormous percentage – probably in the 50% range – of all corporate American jobs are totally and completely unnecessary and should not exist.  In other words, those jobs should not come back because they are fake.  They are occupied by people spending the vast majority of their time looking busy, talking busy, pretending, and doing next to nothing.

The French view which holds a job to be something limited and something to do efficiently and well, while not allowing it to overwhelm one’s life strikes me as a very mature and reasonable view.

This little film is exceedingly good and reminds me of Godard.

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.

Glass Boulevard

by Cimaxion

Filmed in the dullest imaginable environment of shops along a major Los Angeles street at night when the shops were closed.

My Christmas film.

The music is a public domain recording of Artie Shaw and his orchestra playing ‘There’s Something in the Air’ in 1936. The singer is Peg LaCentra. I found it at the Internet Archive.

Los Angeles in the 1920s

by Cimaxion

This is an old silent film produced by Ford that shows Los Angeles in the twenties. You’d be amazed by how much of old LA you can still find. I’m working on a new film that’s going to be in large part about LA and the way a person perceives the city and self through images that are borrowed and may in fact have very little to do with the actual firm existing place. Finding this little film is part of my digging through material about the real and the fanciful Los Angeles.

MOCA Film on Artist Alexis Smith

by Cimaxion

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is producing a series of short films about LA artists in their studios. They sort of lean toward the cute clever artist in their oh so picturesquely messy work spaces mentality. But sometimes it’s nice to see a little mess and hear a few comments from an artist. I happen to like this one about Alexis Smith. I like her comments about not knowing where her art is going and how she keeps all this stuff around to make it with. I think what she means is that she just digs around in pile of crap and throws a whole bunch of junk together and suddenly goes ‘Oh wow! There it is!’  Of course, to do that you’ve got to have a really fine pile of junk.