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Establishing Shot Indiana University

Remembering Monte Hellman

Posted on by Jack Miller

Monte Hellman with dog
A brilliant original: Monte Hellman (1929-2021)

At the risk of sounding too negative, I’d say that the majority of filmmakers, even some very good ones, are ultimately conventional in that they rely on established forms of film language to communicate with us. Throughout the history of cinema, it has only been a much smaller group of artists who have sought to construct alternative visions and wholly new ways of looking at the world. Among this small group of ferociously idiosyncratic film artists, which would include such figures as Stan Brakhage, Robert Bresson, and Alexander Dovzhenko, one would have to add the recently deceased Monte Hellman (1929-2021), a brilliantly original narrative filmmaker who was one of the greatest figures in American cinema during the last half of the twentieth century. (more…)

A Volunteer Ambassador’s Journey to IU Cinema

Posted on by Establishing Shot

Left to right: Founding Director Jon Vickers, filmmaker John Boorman, Lead House Manager Elizabeth Roell, volunteer ushers Austin Faulds, Jesse Pasternack, and Kathie Durkel, and Technical Coordinator Seth Mutchler during Boorman's 2016 visit to IU Cinema
Left to right: Founding Director Jon Vickers, filmmaker John Boorman, Lead House Manager Elizabeth Roell, volunteer ushers Austin Faulds, Jesse Pasternack, and Kathie Durkel, and Technical Coordinator Seth Mutchler during Boorman’s 2016 visit to IU Cinema

IU Cinema celebrates IU Day 2021 by highlighting the transformative experiences of its patrons over the years, including the Volunteer Ambassadors who have helped make IU Cinema one of the best university cinemas in the country. Below is volunteer Kathie Durkel’s essay on the enriching encounters she has had since discovering the Cinema in 2015.

Going to a movie, catching a flick, or attending the cinema, films have long been a part of my life. When I was growing up in northern Indiana, my small town had the Art Theater, location of my first date. The film was 1960’s Toby Tyler or 10 Weeks with a Circus as I recall, several years out of first run. Who needs romance when you have Mr. Stubbs the Chimp? My dad didn’t care for movies so my mom would tag me to go along with her to the big spectacles she liked, although I do seem to remember A Star is Born in there somewhere. One childhood film that made a great impression on me was The Incredible Shrinking Man (“Help me!”). My younger brother needed a pal for The Sound of Music, so I gladly took him. I traveled to Gary or maybe to Chicago to see Lawrence of Arabia in Panavision 70 on a screen stretched so wide I sat in the balcony to take it all in without having to whip my head from side to side. Next to the clothes dryer, my mother had a stack of semi-salacious movie magazines that she got passed on from her hairdresser, I think. I’d sneak them out to see what that Elizabeth Taylor was up to. I remember seeing a list at St. Bridget’s Church, behind a door in the corner, of films condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency. I don’t know where I would have gone to see those films even if I wanted to, but the list did kind of make me curious. (more…)

Amarcord and the Semi-Autobiographical Childhood Memory Piece

Posted on by Jesse Pasternack

Poster for Amarcord (1973)
Poster for Amarcord (1973)

Federico Fellini is famous for inventing the “self-portrait” genre of filmmaking. His 1961 masterpiece 8 ½, which is about a director modeled on Fellini himself, led other filmmakers to make films about themselves. Examples include but are not limited to Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night (1973), Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz (1979), and Pedro Almodóvar’s more recent film Pain and Glory (2018). But Fellini deserves credit for creating, or at the very least popularizing, another autobiographical genre of cinema. That genre is the semi-autobiographical childhood memory piece, or “memory piece” for short. (more…)

Harold Lloyd’s Love for Love

Posted on by Michaela Owens

Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston
Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston

When I think of Harold Lloyd, that dazzling innovator of silent comedy, I don’t think of the iconic image of him dangling on a clock, high above a bustling city street. I don’t think of him racing a horse-drawn wagon until its wheels pop off or clinging to a girder as its moves through the air of a construction site. No, when I think of Lloyd, I think of him arranging the furniture in a moving truck so he can play house with his amused girlfriend, or sitting in a canoe as he happily sighs over the memory of the pretty girl he met on the train, or his look of heartbreak when he believes his beloved has found someone else. The filmography of Lloyd is a treasure trove of some of cinema’s finest comedic moments, moments that have continued to elicit awe and belly laughs long past their heyday, but to me, the most precious thing about Lloyd is his dreamy-eyed depiction of love. (more…)

An Interview with Jon Vickers Scoring Award-Winning Composer Patrick Holcomb

Posted on by Establishing Shot

Guest post by Alyssa Brooks, IU Cinema’s Marketing and Programming Coordinator.

In 2019, Jacobs School of Music student Patrick Holcomb was awarded the fifth Jon Vickers Scoring Award, a commission to compose a new orchestral score for a silent film. Holcomb’s score for Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life will premiere Saturday, April 17. This year’s program contains several firsts: Grass is the first documentary to be chosen for the annual series; this is the first full-length film score Holcomb has written; while the premiere will happen live, it will be the first to happen in a virtual space; and due to the virtual nature of the performance, the score includes musical elements that would have been logistically impossible to execute in our physical space (more on that later).

Patrick Holcomb became interested in composition as a 12-year-old when he attended a band concert at his future high school. He tells me, “They played something that was totally different than anything I’d ever heard before, and it just blew my mind. My brain expanded 10 times, and I just thought, I have to make someone else feel that same way someday. I have to write something that will make someone else’s brain expand 10 times.” He has since earned a Bachelor of Music in Composition at Ithaca College and is working toward his master’s degree at the Jacobs School of Music. A Scoring for Visual Media class with film composer and Jacobs professor Larry Groupé led him to write and record his entry into the Jon Vickers Scoring Award competition, a five-minute segment of music to accompany the final climactic moments of Grass. (more…)

Monthly Movie Round-Up: March

Posted on by Establishing Shot

Every month, A Place for Film brings you a selection of films from our group of regular bloggers. Even though these films aren’t currently being screened at the IU Cinema, this series reflects the varied programming that can be found at the Cinema and demonstrates the eclectic tastes of the bloggers. Each contributor has picked one film that they saw this month that they couldn’t wait to share with others. Keep reading to find out what discoveries these cinephiles have made, as well as some of the old friends they’ve revisited. (more…)

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