Cinema Canada (Oct-Nov 1974)

mionkeus... the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1971. That feature-length documentary focused on the media heroes of the 60’s — Allen Ginsberg, Buckminster Fuller, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Fred Hampton, John Sinclair, William Kunstler, Don Cox, Claes Oldenberg, John Lennon and Timothy Leary. “Making that film was probably the equivalent of doing a post-doctoral thesis in college. I shot something like 65,000 feet of all those people at the peaks of their careers distilling their peak thoughts. I looked at the film God knows how many times on a Steenbeck, over and over again, absorbing everything that was going on. That film can be seen as being self-contradictory, and it is, and that’s part of it. It was an incredible part of my education — I learned a lot.”’ Morley Markson’s previous education included studying at the Institute of Design in Chicago. ‘““‘The New Bauhaus” founded by Moholy-Nagy. He studied two and three-dimensional design as well as photography, art, architecture, technology, mathematics, physics, calculus — “*... a very broad spectrum. I ended up being a designer of objects and products. I designed geodesic domes for Kaiser Aluminum. Then it was industrial design in Toronto, with a lot of photography.” The break came when he was commissioned to design Kaleidoscope for Expo ’67. “‘I developed a series of mirrored theatres and made the movies for them, I loved making movies so much that I didn’t want to do any more designing. Besides, I saw the writing on the wall. I realised we were moving more into communications and less into the creation of objects. Also, the attitude of people towards objects was becoming more and more destructive. Objects were losing their meaning. People, including myself, were looking for more meaning in other things. Perhaps in our lives.” “So I closed my design office, retired to the top floor of my house and started making a bunch of experiments in film. The whole thing developed very gradually, making films economically and simply and slowly working towards a more 1 Louis del Grande 2 Victor Garber and Jim Henshaw 3 Jackie Burroughs and Victor Garber 4 Henri Fiks, John Board and Morley Markson 40 Cinema Canada complicated and expensive thing.” One of Markson’s short films developed into The Tragic Diary of Zero the Fool — his first feature film. Although it was refused entry to the Canadian Film Awards (in fact, the Festival Committee refused to show it to the judges), it won First Prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival of 1970 as well as at six other American film festivals. Then came Breathing Together, followed by a period of “Reading, doing a lot of reading. Doing a lot of thinking. Writing a few scripts. Traveling.” As well as designing two Kaleidoscopic Theatres for Ontario Place and making films for them, Nonetheless, there were two long years in between films. A frustrated and bitter version of Markson cropped up at film gatherings while trying to raise money for another feature. Now, that’s behind him. Originally titled “Killing Time’’, then “Saviours Are Hard to Find’’, and finally Monkeys In the Attic — A Tale of Exploding Dreams — this is Markson’s third feature film. Shot last summer in 35mm as a CFDC low-budget feature, the film has already won the prize of Best Foreign Film at this year’s Toulon Film Festival. What did he learn from making this film? ‘‘I learned ‘craft’ making this one.” It shows. The production value is extremely high, Henri Fiks’ camerawork is magnificent, the acting is excellent. Over-all the ‘craft’ is beautiful. One of the most fascinating elements of the film is the soundtrack by John Wyer and his group — Nexus. “They improvised as we projected the film on the screen, reel by reel. The first time you see it, you don’t know what’s going to happen next. They got a kick out of it.” This sound improvisational technique was originally an experiment Markson had tried in a short film, Our Trip to Miami Beach to Visit Bubie Etta, which has to be the Ultimate Home Movie. Photographed through a fish-eye lens, the film