Sunday May 16, 2010, 7:30 pm

At the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood

Los Angeles Filmforum presents

Bodies, Objects, Films: An Yvonne Rainer Retrospective (Part 8 of 8 ) MURDER and murder (1996)

Yvonne Rainer in person in discussion with Catherine Lord!

Over the course of our 2009-2010 seasons, Filmforum is proud to present a full retrospective of the media works of Yvonne Rainer.  One of the most significant artists in dance and film of the last fifty years, One of the most significant artists in dance and film of the last fifty years, this is the first full retrospective of her films in Los Angeles.  Each appearance by Rainer will feature a Q&A led by a different moderator, to discuss with her varying aspects of her approaches to her art and life.  Tonight’s Q&A will be led by Catherine Lord, artist, writer and professor at UC Irvine.  

Tonight we will screen:

MURDER and murder (1996, 16mm, Color, 113 mins)

Winner, Teddy Award, 1997 Berlin Film Festival

Doris and Mildred are in love. Mildred, in her mid 50s, is a tenured professor from upper class origins who has been a lesbian all her life. Doris, in her early 60s, comes from a more modest background, was a single mother, has never held a steady job, and finds herself in love with a woman for the first time.  Mildred shops at Barneys; Doris plunders catalogues and thrift shops. Their new co-habitation is further complicated by the fact

that Doris is diagnosed with breast cancer and must undergo a mastectomy. MURDER and murder is an unflinching look at female aging, lesbian sexuality and breast cancer in an age and culture that glorifies youth and heterosexual romance. In her 7th feature film, director Yvonne Rainer delivers an emotionally courageous, intellectually challenging work that is at once soap opera, black comedy, love story and political meditation.

Advance ticket purchase available soon through Brown Paper Tickets.  Click here to purchase!

About Yvonne Rainer:

When Yvonne Rainer made her first feature-length film in 1972, she had already influenced the world of dance and choreography for nearly a decade. From the beginning of her film career she inspired audiences to think about what they saw, interweaving the real and fictional, the personal and political, the concrete and abstract in imaginative, unpredictable ways. Her bold feminist sensibility and often controversial subject matter, leavened with a quirky humor, has made her, as the Village Voice dubbed her in 1986, “The most influential American avant-garde filmmaker of the past dozen years, with an impact as evident in London or Berlin as in New York.”

Rainer was born in San Francisco in 1934. She trained as a modern dancer in New York from 1957 and began to choreograph her own work in 1960. She was one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater in 1962, the beginning of a movement that proved to be a vital force in modern dance in the following decades. Between 1962 and 1975 she presented her choreography throughout the United States and Europe, notably on Broadway in 1969, in Scandinavia, London, Germany, and Italy between 1964 and 1972, and at the Festival D’Automne in Paris in 1972. In 1968 she began to integrate short films into her live performances, and by 1975 she had made a complete transition to filmmaking.

In 1972 she completed a first feature-length film, LIVES OF PERFORMERS. In all she has completed seven features: FILM ABOUT A WOMAN WHO… (1974), KRISTINA TALKING PICTURES (1976), JOURNEYS FROM BERLIN/1971 (1980, co-produced by the British Film Institute and winner of the Special Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics’ Association), THE MAN WHO ENVIED WOMEN (1985), PRIVILEGE (1990, winner of the Filmmakers’ Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival, Park City. Utah, 1991, and the Geyer Werke Prize at the International Documentary Film Festival in Munich, 1991), and MURDER and murder (1996).

Rainer’s films have been shown extensively in the U.S. and throughout the world, in alternative film exhibition showcases and revival houses (such as the Bleecker St Cinema, Roxy-S.F.; NuArt-L.A; Film Forum-NYC, et al), in museums and in universities. Her films have also been screened at festivals in Los Angeles (Filmex), London, Montreux, Toronto, Edinburgh, Mannheim, Berlin, Locarno, Rotterdam, Creteil, Deauville, Toulon, Montreal, Hamburg, Salsa Majori, Figueira da Foz, Munich, Vienna, Athens (Ohio), Sundance, Hong Kong, Yamagata, and Sydney.

A half-hour video tape entitled YVONNE RAINER: STORY OF A FILMMAKER WHO… was aired on Film and Video Review, WNET-TV in 1980. THE MAN WHO ENVIED WOMEN was aired on Independent Focus, WNET-TV in, 1989, and PRIVILEGE on the same program in 1992 and during the summer of 1994.

In the Spring of 1997—to coincide with the release of MURDER and murder—complete retrospectives of the films of Yvonne Rainer were mounted at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City.

“I love the duality of props, or objects: their usefulness and obstructiveness in relation to the human body. Also the duality of the body: the body as a moving, thinking, decision-making entity and the body as an inert entity, object-like… oddly, the body can become object-like; the human being can be treated as an object, dealt with as an entity without feeling or desire. The body itself can be handled and manipulated as though lacking in the capacity for self-propulsion.” (Rainer, Works 1961-73, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, New York, New York University Press, 1974, p. 134).

About Catherine Lord:

Lord is a visual artist, writer, and curator, who addresses issues of feminism, cultural politics, and colonialism. Her artwork has been exhibited at the New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, La Mama in New York City, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, the DNJ Gallery in Los Angeles, and the Post Gallery in Los Angeles, among other venues. Her books include “Art and Queer Culture, 1885-2005” (forthcoming), “The Summer of Her Baldness: A Cancer Improvisation” (2004), and “Pervert” (1995).  She has organized presentations at venues including the University of California, Irvine Art Gallery, the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, and the Laemmle Theater in Los Angeles. Lord received her M.F.A. from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1983. She is currently a professor of studio art and an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Women’s Studies and Department of Visual Culture at the University of California, Irvine.  Lord is also the recipient of the the 2010 Harvard Arts Medal.)

This screening series is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles.

Additional support is generously provided by the American Cinematheque.