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Show Park Cily News Thursday, December 30, 1982 Page B5 U.S. Fest. winner Video artist seeks wordless experience by Rick Brough Bill Viola's goal, as a video artist, is to take a commonplace common-place reality and show us the exquisite experience behind it. (One of his videotapes, for example, was a time-lapse view of an ordinary living room through an entire day. It followed the changes and evolution of shadows and light patterns in the room. ) What happens, then, if Viola shows us the common realities of a different culture? cul-ture? Would the feeling still come through? That was his challenge in the tape "Hatsu-Yume (First Dream)," which he made in Japan in 1981. The work will be exhibited at the present the experience un-mediated un-mediated by language. "Some people who have seen the tape feel I'm just illustrating elements of Japanese Ja-panese culture," he said. "But. more than that 'Hatsu Yume' is an awareness that what we call culture is defined by the landscape-by landscape-by the chemistry between human beings and a given landscape." It is a mixture, he said, between traditional Japanese Japan-ese symbolism and his own personal symbolism of the landscape. Creating a video piece, he said, is like throwing your dreams out for others to look at. Especially in his early xThere is a special way the video tube picks up light, like it's a fluid." U.S. Film and Video Festival in Park City, where it has been awarded the Grand Prize for Outstanding A-chievement A-chievement in Video Art. One of Viola's segments in the tape shows the festival of O'bon, which commemorates commemo-rates the return of ancestral spirits. At the climax of the festival, lighted lanterns are sent floating down a stream. They are meant to accompany accom-pany the spirits back to their resting places. "It's a positive, posi-tive, happy kind of time," said Viola, in an interview with the Park City Newspaper. News-paper. His tape explains none of this in words. "At this point in the tape we're moving from daytime to into nighttime," night-time," he said. "People should get a sense, a feeling of 'returning.'" He seeks to days, viewers found meaning mean-ing in the videotapes that he didn't see at first. "To a Hollywood producer, that might be a nightmare, but I found it positive and exciting. excit-ing. I'm interested in other states of consciousness." Viola said he went to Japan in 1980 as part of a cultural-exchange program sponsored by the National Education Association and the Japanese U.S. Friendship Friend-ship Commission. After a year in Japan, Viola proposed to the Sony company com-pany that he work for them as a producer-in-residence. He would create video art works as a way of exploring the capabilities of Sony's equipment. "I would try to do innovative things with equipment like their 1-inch VTR computer editing," he Private eyes and odd couples star in SLC movies If you're looking for a hard-boiled private detective, detec-tive, we got just the man for you: Phillip Marlowe. Raymond Chandler's fictional fic-tional detective has been portrayed by everybody from Bogart to Elliott Gould. The Utah Media Center is featuring a selection of Marlowe mysteries for its weekend film program in January. A second festival of films, centering around "odd couples," will help kick of 1983. (Nope, they haven't got Oscar and Felix but how about Harold and Maude? ) The Marlowe films play at 7:30 on Saturday and Sunday nights. The Odd Couple films will play at 9:30. The movies begin Jan. 1-2 with "Murder My Sweet," the 1945 mystery that not only scored as a melodrama, but helped song-and-dance man Dick Powell change his image. As tough-guy Marlowe, Mar-lowe, he romanced vampy Claire Trevor, and helped a hulking hood (played by ex-wrestler Mike Mazurki) look for a girl named Velma. On the same bill that night is "The African Queen," the classic story of an odd couple sailing down a treacherous African river in a rickety boat to sink a German warship in World War I. The drama in the story came from the script, but the film's comedy sprang from the chemistry between Humphrey Hum-phrey Bogart, as the drunken skipper of the boat, and Katharine Hepburn's prim missionary. "Lady in the Lake" (to be shown Jan. 8-9) starred Robert Montgomery (father of Elizabeth) as Phillip Marlowe. It also featured an unusual gimmick. The audience audi-ence saw everything from the hero's point of view, so that villains were shown "punching" the camera, and the hero was only glimpsed when he stood in front of a mirror. The co-hit, "Harold and Maude" is one of the most popular cult films of the last decade. In Hal Ashby's 1971 film, Bud Cort plays the morose Harold, a rich kid who gets his jollies staging suicide attempts, and Ruth Gordon is the life-loving Maude. The film gets its energy not just from the trendy razzberries they throw at various sacred cows (the military, religion) but the sheer joy of their love affair. On Jan. 15-16, you'll meet the most famous Marlowe of them all, Humphrey Bogart, in "The Big Sleep." He's teamed with leading lady Lauren Bacall, and director Howard Hawks, and the plot of murder and intrigue is so complicated, even the writers had a hard time following the story! The second feature, "A New Leaf" stars Walter Matthau as an aristocratic playboy who has dedicated his life to "maintaining traditions that were dead long before you were born," in his butler's words. But to stave off bankruptcy he must marry a rich wife, and the only candidate is Elaine May, as a myopic, gauche nature-lover. (Her idea of fine wine is Mogen David. ) "The Long Goodbye" (to be shown Jan. 22-23), a 1973 film, was Robert Altman's attempt to update Phillip Marlowe to the 1970s. As played by Elliott Gould, the detective hero is still honorable, honor-able, but he's outdated, and not as shrewd as he used to be. The oddball cast includes Sterling Hayden, David Car-radine, Car-radine, Henry Gibson, and baseball player-author Jim Bouton. The co-hit "The Late Show" is a detective story, too, but it sticks to the Odd Couple theme. Art Carney is a tough-old-bird private eye looking for the men who killed his partner (Howard Duff) and Lily Tomlin is the lady who gets involved in the case after she asks Carney to find out who kidnapped her cat. The last Marlowe film (to be shown Jan. 29-30) returns to the tough-guy mold as Robert Mitchum stars in "Farewell My Lovely" the same story used in "Murder My Sweet. ' ' Charlotte Ramp-ling Ramp-ling is the femme fatale, and one of the mugs is a pre-"Rocky" Sylvester Stallone. Stal-lone. The last odd couple comes to us courtesy of Robert Altman. "A Perfect Couple" stars Paul Dooley as the conservative middle-aged boyfriend of Marta Heflin, who sings with a rock group. Admission is $2.25 for each film, or $3 for the double feature. The Media Center is located at 20 South and W ..-( Temple. For further ink! mation, call 328-4201. w- 1 An image flickers on the screen from Bill Viola's mediation of Japanese culture and landscape, "Hatsu Yume (First Dream)." The tape is the Grand Prize winner for Video Art at the Park City festival. said. "And any ideas I had would be fed back to Sony." As a result, he stayed through the end of 1981. One of his tapes, called "Ancient of Days" utilized very dense, complicated editing. The other work was "Hatsu Yume." At 56 minutes, min-utes, Viola called it his most complex piece, an epic work with segments that fit together to-gether like the movements of a symphony. Video is for Viola a unique form of expression. His tapes, he said, couldn't be made on another medium. "There is a special way the video tube picks up light, like it's a fluid," he said. "This tape shows a relation between be-tween water and light." Viola was barely out of high school before he started working in video. At the art school in Syracuse University, Univer-sity, he worked with both video and avant-garde music. ("Sometimes the music on a tape is more important to me than the image," he said.) Over twelve years, the peripatetic artist has moved from Italy to New York to California ( where he's now based) and he has made some 40 tapes. His next project is for WGBH, the educational station sta-tion in Boston. It consists of 4 tapes done as a "mincro-series" "mincro-series" the next step beyond be-yond a mini-series. The small tapes will be split up into segments only seconds long, and then placed between be-tween PBS programs. Each work would be spread out over a two-week period. One piece deals with mirages. Another sounds like a bizarre bi-zarre cliff-hanger. It's a slow-motion view of a large piece of wood crashing on a picnic table. "Will the punch bowl go tomorrow?" Viola joked. Actually, you're not supposed sup-posed to follow each tape as a story, and you don't have to see all the segments. "It's a cumulative experience," he said. Viola said he hopes to be present at the Park City festival, Jan. 17-23, to accept his Grand Prize. MOUNTAIN FLORA ITI:RI0R)LATCR; I'RIjSI ili.OWTRS WIDDIXGS PllYISl.' Cclll: 801649 6oiO oi I )KK W IMIIi PARK CITY WB0Y 1 Tonight thru Saturday HEW MOON from Colorado featuring former members of Possum Ol v 'ft 1983 NEW YEAR'S EVE PARTY with NEW MOON & 004 Show Starts at 8:00 Complete Buffet featuring Baron of Beef, and Baked Ham, all Set-Ups, Wine & Beer, Champagne at Midnight $35.00 per person Doors open at 4:00 Tickets on sale at the Cowboy Bar Liquor Store COMING ATTRACTIONS January 2-4 Jiff C0LECR0VE TRIO January 5-8 DYNAT0NES January 18 TAJ MAHAL ' January 14 & 15 THE VENTURES 'January 21 &22 NEW RIDERS OP THE PURPLE SAGE Tickets on sale at Cosmic Aeroplane, Smokey's Records, allZCMI stores, Salt Palace & Cowboy Bar Liquor Store. Join us for dinner featuring BBQ ribs, steaks and a great evening's entertainment For dinner reservations and 'nformation please call 649-4146 We specialize in banquets & parties. sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss: 0&r f Tlortersfor your lahj jor your NeW jears celebration. We have orchids, gardenias and roses, for corsages or hairpieces, and fresh flowers for entertaining. 649-4144 We deliver Park City's FLOWER BOX Holiday Village Mall jtuxJUlKI PARK CITY CRIMINAL CODE PROHIBITS OPEN CONTAINERS OF ALCOHOL AND DISTURBANCES ON PUBLIC PROPERTY STRICTLY ENFORCED We cannot forget the shocking poster distributed by the Park City Police last year. As Park City's Main Street becomes increasingly crowded, visitors and residents alike are seeking alternatives for their dining adventures. Recent restrictions prohibiting noise at certain hours, music and alcoholic consumption, make Main Street less desirable than in the past. For a pleasurable dining experience in the beautiful White and Red Pine canyons, the perfect alternative is the Branding Iron restaurant, restau-rant, operated by Wolfgang Sonntagg, past owner of Main Street's Cafe Ritz Restaurant, located at the ParkWest Resort. In addition to a daily German special, the restaurant features a wide selection of entrees, including steaks, teri-yaki teri-yaki chicken, lamb chops and halibut steaks. The authentic chuck wagon salad bar and Branding Iron cheese soup are certain to please. Lunch is served every day from 1 1 :00 to 4:00 and dinner from 6:00 to 10:00. Reservations accepted. Most major credit cards. Reservations for New Years dinner still being accepted. The S randing Iron O Free shuttle bus service available from 6:00 p.m. on. Call 649-1726. PARKWEST A winter & summer resort. |