CELLULOID 2001 ARCHIVE

Sunday, February 25, 2001
10 a.m. - 10 p.m. The Historic Lynwood Theatre.
4569 Lynwood Center Road, Bainbridge Island.
Free. Information: (206) 842-7901.

Bainbridge High School photography students Brad Tuffley and Shena Fergusson at work on the short feature, Loser. Photo: Ned Thorne

ENTRY DESCRIPTION

10:10 a.m. Northwest Triathlon 2000:
The Curse of Pele. 2000. VHS. 35 min.

A spirited (in more ways than one) look at a first-timer's inspiration to compete in triathlon. Features several Northwest races and guest appearances by Kona's famed goddess of fire, Madame Pele.

Filmed by Bainbridge Islander Kevin Lynch, of Pro-Motion X5 Films. He published The Island Sportsline on Bainbridge from 1982-84, and has worked in sports media, including radio, TV, and films, for 25 years. Watch for Bainbridge athletes in Northwest Triathlon 2000.

10:50 a.m. Time to Heal. 1993-2000.
Hi-8. 35 min. .

Narrative documentary on the impacts of settlement, agriculture, logging, and other developments on Bainbridge Island's streams since the Island's discovery in the late 18th century, together with recent efforts of landowners, educators, students, and community volunteers to rehabilitate six streams. Features original songs performed by Bainbridge Island residents.

Produced by Bainbridge Islanders Michael Sciacca and Barbara Zimmer. Features interviews with Island residents Wayne Daley, Gail Cool, Al Cooper, Sally Metcalf, John Thorne, and others.

11:30 a.m. Conscience and the Constitution. 2000. VHS. 60 min.

This award-winning and controversial documentary reveals the untold story of the largest organized resistance to the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, and the suppression of that resistance by Japanese-American leaders. An ITVS presentation, Conscience and the Constitution is produced by Seattle filmmaker Frank Abe, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund.

The documentary includes the story of James Omura, who was born on Bainbridge Island. As a Denver based newspaper editor, he was the only journalist to write about the growing draft resistance and offered the resisters veiled advice through his editorials. His support of the Fair Play Committee landed him in court alongside them, charged with conspiracy to counsel draft evasion. He was the only defendant acquitted, on grounds of the First Amendment and freedom of the press. He passed away in Denver in 1994.

12:40 p.m. My Mid-Life Crisis. 2000. VHS. 4 min.

A tongue-in-cheek look at a 40-something woman's struggles to integrate the many facets of her life.

Produced by and "starring" Bainbridge Islander S.K. Spellman.

12:50 p.m. Hobo, Hobo - Where Do You Come From? 1990. VHS. 10 min.

A recording of a modern-day hobo journey around the state of Washington. It includes interviews with hobos and several shots of people hopping freights.

Filmmaker Jack Estes and his wife, Shannon, run a small literary press called Pleasure Boat Studio. They live on Bainbridge Island with two dogs and a sheep named Bart.

1:05 p.m. BBC Plane Crash. 1999. 3 min. VHS.

BBC newscast footage of the Oct. 1, 1999 plane crash on Bainbridge Island involving the Tomorrow's World television crew, filmed by a camera mounted on the plane. You are there, keeping a stiff upper lip with the BBC crew as they plummet through the trees.

It happened here, but made bigger news in England. Celluloid Bainbridge shows this film each year in order to qualify as an "international" film festival.

1:15 p.m. Potion. 2000. VHS. 16 min.

A short film about a man who takes a potion that claims to let him see in the dark. He gives in to the temptation to take too much, disregarding the warning label, and suffers the side effects listed on the label and, perhaps, more.

Filmmaker Karen Perry is a Bainbridge Island poet, photographer, legal assistant, and literary editor of Exhibition journal. The film stars Bainbridge Islander Corey Jurcak, an artist, poet and engineer.

1:35 p.m. The Story of Sidd. 2000. VHS. 10 min.

A modern take-off on Herman Hesse's Siddartha .

Bainbridge High School seniors Sam Cheadle, Ned Thorne, Adam Gunn, Scott Samuels, and Celine Yeager produced this piece as a Humanities assignment. Like much homework, the entire project was done within the last few days before it wad due. Filmed entirely on Bainbridge Island. Note the special effects used to compensate for the windless day.

1:50 p.m. Loser. 2001. VHS. 25 min.

As told from his jail cell, this dramatic story of a simple country folk singer transformed by the machinations of a Hollywood talent agent will speak to anyone who wonders,"Do you really have to sell your soul to be a star?" With original music, dopey dancing, and tragic humor, plus cameo appearances by the Bainbridge Island Police Department, Winslow Way Cafe, hip hop guy MC Mike, and maybe the vice-principal. Soon to be a cult favorite.

Conceived, performed, photographed and directed by Linda Holsman's Photo 3 students Clare Patterson, Matt Luria, Shena Fergusson, Cassie Callan, Travis Guterson, Andreas Lunde, Brad Tuffley, Eliza Cutler, Mike Botefuhr, and occasionally others who wanted to get out of class. Liberally supervised and heavily cajoled by Maria Gargiulo, WSAC Artist in Residence. A Bainbridge Island High School Production with funding support from Bainbridge Arts & Crafts and the Washington State Arts Commission.

2:20 p.m. Preview excerpt. Farewell to Harry. 2000. VHS.

A ten minute sneak preview of scenes from the nearly completed full length feature film, which includes most of Bainbridge Island in the cast or crew.

Written and directed by Bainbridge Islander Garrett Bennett (Lynwood Pictures/Drop of a Hat Productions), who graduated from BHS in 1983. Prior to attending the American Film Institute, Garrett founded The Annex, one of Seattle's leading theatres, where he wrote and directed over 20 shows. Ann Wilkinson, also of Bainbridge Island, is Associate Producer.

2:40 p.m. Digital Movies: Directing, Shooting, and Editing.

Presentation and discussion by Northern California Independent filmmaker Brian George Smith, of Southpaw Digital.

Brian George Smith was the video editor for Sweet Nothings. A principal of Southpaw Digital, he is an 18-year veteran of gorilla filmmaking who makes his living shooting and editing digital video in Northern California.

3 p.m. Sweet Nothings.

This is a documentary-style feature about the disappearance of three girls from Bainbridge Island in 1994 that turns into the last film project of Stephanie Selden, a film major at UCLA. In it, Selden interviews residents who knew the girls as well as the police detective who investigated their disappearance. She also finds an underground bunker at an abandoned military base on the Island that she decides to explore. The music of Kim Angelis, whose music was highlighted during the 2000 Summer Olympics, is featured.

Written and produced by Bainbridge Island screenwriter and independent filmmaker James W. Taylor, and featuring several Bainbridge Islanders in the cast. Filmed at a number of familiar Bainbridge locations.

3:35 p.m. Birth of a Salesman. 1977. 6 min. VHS.

A perennial crowd pleaser, this film enjoyed a fruitful career as a theatrical short and at sales and dental conventions. It was a winner in the 1977 Northwest Film & Video Festival, and played at the Harvard Exit. It went on to surprise audiences at film festivals around the country, and was rejected by some of the nation's finer movie houses. Contains scatological humor

Produced and directed by Bainbridge Islander Scott Taylor. Salesman is an old joke brought to unforgettable new life in 1976 by Taylor and some Bainbridge Island cohorts, and filmed at Fort Ward and the Lynwood Market. The title was the brainstorm of Daphne Enslow Davies. Since then, Taylor reports: "I made a couple of stabs at getting into the movie biz but nothing worked out. Now I chase bugs for a living." Scott and his film team also produced the 1973 cult classic, Frazer's Turn, filmed on Bainbridge

3:45 p.m. Sneeze. 2000. 16 mm. 8 min.

An absurd but sympathetic look at a community of people who eroticize sneezing. The film follows the fetishists as they inhale pepper, record endless Achoos, and surf the web for sneeze sites, in hot pursuit of the "beauty and power of the sneeze."

BHS graduate Jordan Harrison produced this quasi-documentary for a film class at the New School for Social Research, where it was chosen for a selected screening of new student films.

4 p.m. Calling Bobcat. 2000. 35 mm. 91 minutes.

An anti-romantic comedy. Over the course of one wild evening, underachieving college dropout and recently dumped Darrin Marshall employs his two best friends in an all night search for his ex-girlfriend. Stars Jayce Bartok and Wendy Hoopes. Music by Five Inch Fudge Muffin.

Line Producer and Unit Production Manager Anne Childers grew up on Bainbridge Island and graduated from NYU's film program. She has worked as Production Coordinator on several other independent films and currently lives in New York where she is a Production Manager for The History Channel.

5:30 p.m. Biker Dreams. 1998. 73 minutes. VHS.

Part sociological inquiry, part road trip, Biker Dreams is a memorable portrait of people who have found community, independence, and the road to their dreams straddling a motorcycle. Biker Dreams is an award winning, revealing, and funny chronicle of the Harley-Davidson biker subculture in all its diversity. The films takes us to the annual Black Hills Motorcycle Classic in Sturgis, South Dakota, where 250,000 to 300,000 Harley enthusiastsãincluding bankers, artists, outlaws, men and women, young and oldãcome to celebrate the lure of the open road and the power of the icon they ride. Contains rough language, sexual references, and brief nudity.

A graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinema/Television, Biker Dream's director and editor Adam Berman has worked for 14-years in the motion picture industry on 35mm, 16mm, televison, and video originated productions throughout the world. He cut his production teeth on feature films including The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Sleeping With the Enemy, American Heart, and Sleepless in Seattle. He is a principal in Epicenter Films Corporation and Berman Films. LLC, Bainbridge Island based film production companies.

7 p.m. The Last Detail. 1973. 35 mm. 103 min.

" No *#@!!* Navy's going to give some poor **!!@* kid eight years in the #@!* brig without me taking him out for the time of his *#@!!* life." Critically acclaimed and award winning feature starring Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, and Carol King. Two Navy men are assigned to guard a young prisoner in transit to serve out his sentence. Along the way, they get to know each other and the young man, who begins the journey resigned to his fate, then gets a taste of the world and why he might not want to spend his youth behind bars. Rated R for language, sexual situations.

The Last Detail was based on the novel by Bainbridge writer Darryl Ponicsan. The 1973 film Cinderella Liberty was based on another of his novels, and his screenplays and adaptations include the films Random Hearts, Taps, Nuts, and School Ties. He appeared as "Bar Patron #3" in the 1987 film Nuts, starring Barbara Streisand.

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The Classic American Film Festival Schedule

Monday, March 12. 7:30 p.m.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. 1939. B&W. 130 minutes. Starring: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains. Directed by Frank Capra. "You're halfway decent. You don't belong here."

Claude Rains and James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. 1939. Columbia Pictures.

Based on Lewis R. Foster's novel The Gentleman From Montana, and directed by Frank Capra, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a dramatic, political parable about a naive idealist junior senator who confronts and exposes graft and pork-barrel corruption in the US Senate. Patriotic, innocent, principled, and starry-eyed boy scout leader Jefferson Smith (James Stewart) is recruited, appointed, and exploited by crooked fat-cat political strategists as he fills the seat of an expired Senator as their rubber-stamping 'yes' man. On Capitol Hill, Smith joins with savvy secretary Saunders (Jean Arthur) to take a stand against the corrupt, eloquent senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), refusing during a filibuster to submit to underhanded tactics while espousing patriotic American values. Academy Award Nominations: 11, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor--James Stewart, Best Supporting Actor--Harry Carey, Best Supporting Actor--Claude Rains, Best Screenplay. Academy Awards: 1, Best Original Story (Lewis R. Foster).

The films' story of innocence and righteousness triumphant over corruption paints a chilling picture of an ineffectual and venal government fronting for gangsters. Coming at a time when Americans were growing weary (and wary) of the New Deal, it may have caught the public's mood just right. The world was indeed becoming a darker place, as the movie acknowledges by the presence of various representatives of European dictatorships in the Senate gallery.

Because Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was released just after the Nazi invasion of Poland, many powerful individuals in the industry and in politics felt the film's images of social corruption might be misused by the Axis. The other Hollywood studios were so alarmed that they offered Columbia $2,000,000 to "can" the film. Senior Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy urged that the film not be released in Europe because it would "destroy ... morale." Luckily, at Capra's insistence, the film was distributed and became, for the Allies, an image of the success of freedom over oppression. In occupied France one theater chose to show Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for thirty days straight before the film was barred by Nazi control.

Tuesday, March 13. 7:30 p.m.

Rebel without a Cause. 1955. 111 minutes. Starring: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus. Director: Nicholas Ray. "You're tearing me apart!"

Sal Mineo and James Dean in Rebel without a Cause. 1955. Warner Bros.

The classic, melodramatic film that made James Dean an anti-hero icon for generations to come, this was the second of his three films and the best 50s film of its kind regarding the generation gap. It tells the story of rebellion and angst in the life of an unsettled, teenaged, new-kid-in-town Jim Stark (Dean) who crosses paths with two other alienated, misfit youth - Judy (Wood) and Plato (Mineo) - at a police station in the first sequence. The outcast trio of juveniles forms a strong bond against both their insensitive parents (completely unjust, dysfunctional, ineffectual, or callous) and their peers, and search for their identities. After a deadly drag race and a confrontation with his milquetoast father (Backus), Jim spends the night with Judy and Plato in a deserted mansion. The adolescents find refuge and solace in their own company, while moving inevitably towards a tragic finale. Academy Award Nominations: 3, including Best Supporting Actor--Sal Mineo, Best Supporting Actress--Natalie Wood, Best Motion Picture Story.

A truly landmark film, Rebel went where almost no Hollywood film had dared, exposing the anger and discontent beneath the prosperity and confidence of post-war America, and attacking family values that dictated that happiness was best found in the nuclear family's well-appointed suburban home. The alienated kids in Rebel were angry, wounded animals who rejected the very comforts that were supposed to make America superior to the rest of the world. If the notion that comfortable, middle-class white kids could harbor such feelings of anger and nameless yearning wasn't discomforting enough in 1950, even more so was the notion that their parents were ill-equipped to understand or help them. All of the film's parents are seen as people whose conformity to the values of 1950s society masks their own discontent and--in some cases -- underlying deviance. Although the problems of the film's teenagers may seem trifling when compared to those of their modern-day counterparts, Rebel is still a brooding reminder that, beneath complacency, there is chaos trying to break free.

Tuesday, March 13. 7:30 p.m.

The Graduate. 1967. 106 minutes. Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross. Director: Mike Nichols. "Just one word: Plastics."

Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in The Graduate. 1967. MGM/UA.

The Graduate is an acclaimed, satirical romantic drama/comedy about a shy, naive college graduate confronting the real world. In the late '60s, confused, vulnerable college graduate Benjamin Braddock (Hoffman) is uncertain about his future, reacting with passive rebellion. Without ambition or responsibility, he receives career advice from his suburban family's associates - "plastics" - a catchword for an entire generation, just days after receiving his diploma. While seduced by the wife of his father's business partner - a rapacious "Mrs. Robinson" (Bancroft), he falls in love with her engaged daughter (Ross). The influential and popular film, with a hit Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack, became an emotional touchstone for an entire generation. This film established Mike Nichols as a major director and was Hoffman's first major role. Buck Henry, appearing in the film as a hotel clerk, co-wrote the influential screenplay, based on the novel by Charles Webb. Academy Award Nominations: 7, including Best Picture, Best Actor--Dustin Hoffman, Best Actress--Anne Bancroft, Best Supporting Actress-Katharine Ross, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay. Academy Awards: 1, Best Director.

The Graduate is regarded by many critics as one of the most important films of the late 1960's. Through it, Hollywood discovered that the "misunderstood youth" of years past, from the Holden Caulfields to the James Deans, were no longer teenagers. Alienation had gone to college, and for much of the next decade, those who made films about youth in America concerned themselves with the problems and priorities of men and women between the ages of twenty and thirty.

The Graduate was also one of the first American films to capture the new cynicism that arose in 1960's. Dustin Hoffman returns from college to an empty, materialistic, and sexually rapacious culture from which he and Katharine Ross gleefully flee, although, once they are aboard the dirty city bus, they seem reluctant to look at one another or the future they have chosen. It was, moreover, an important film in that some of Nichols' innovations, such as the focus on the new, older youth culture, and the use of pop/rock music on the sound track as commentary on the action, were so successful that they have now become commonplace.

Thursday, March 15. 7:00 p.m.

Pre-film Discussion by Richard T. Jameson
The Truman Show. 1998. 102 minutes.
Strarring: Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Ed Harris. Director: Peter Weir. "The world is watching."

Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. 1998. Paramount.

A comedy-drama, The Truman Show, is a commentary on today's all-pervasive media manipulation. Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is unaware that his entire life is a hugely popular 24-hour-a-day TV series. In this real-time documentary, every moment of Truman's existence is captured by concealed cameras and telecast to a giant global audience. Employed at an insurance company, Truman is married to merry Meryl (Laura Linney), and they live in the cheerful community of Seahaven, an island "paradise" where the weather is always mild and no unpleasantness intrudes. Now, at age 30, he still doesn't know he's a prisoner on an immense domed city-size soundstage, simulating Seahaven. Both the illusion and the ratings will collapse if Truman ever leaves Seahaven. In addition to elaborate events staged to make sure he stays put, Truman is given constant reminders of how wonderful Seahaven is compared to dangers in other parts of the world. However, his growing suspicions make him curious enough to try to leave, and the show's director and master manipulator Christof (Ed Harris) must constantly devise ways to thwart Truman's escape attempts. The Truman Show received Oscar nominations for Director, Screenplay, and Ed Harris's Machiavellian Christof.

Recalling such satires of TV mania as Network (1976) and Real Life (1979), The Truman Show takes aim at the consumers and creators of the ultimate TV celebrity-victim. With the perfection of the Seahaven "set" evincing a Twilight Zone creepiness, Truman's life is both banal family drama and sitcom, yet the slack-jawed viewers never turn it off; TV mastermind Christof is the deity the audience deserves. As Christof struggles to maintain control once Truman figures out the truth, the limits of Truman's life visualize his existential dilemma as a media-made entity -- and a metaphor for American society's own imprisonment in a culture defined by media and consumerism.

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