The Visual Language was a series of films screened at Caravaglia Studios in Manhattan during the spring of 2018. Curated by Andrew McCardle and organized by Whitney Browne, the series showcased the evolution of Vertov’s kinography, the lanuage of the eye, pure cinema, etc. Concepts are related by cues embedded in the frame for the eye to recognize and interpret, showcased here beginning with Vertov and finally concluding with 8 1/2. The films were:
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
Persona (1966)
The Passenger (1975)
8 1/2 (1963)
What follows are the flyer announcements detailing the series:
April 3, 2018
Announcement: Movie Nights RETURN April 3rd 2018
Caravaglia Studios Movie Nights RETURN April 3rd 2018 for a spring series on the visual language in cinema. Come out for Dziga Vertov’s groundbreaking picture Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Vertov's experiment is ultimately one of the greatest works in cinema, it is tantamount to any great master work of art that is ultimately about its own process. Yet, Vertov's views are much more than just a film about filmmaking, his work is about what the act of recording even means, so existential are his musings that he brings us closer, not only the experience of watching a film, but the experience of living, of existence in and of itself. The complexity in Vertov's field of view have everything to do with a notion that has overtaken the public consciousness in the 21st century. Where Vertov believed that to become more involved in the moment, the instant and to see the superiority of machine over man as a mechanism of efficiency would eventually benefit humanity, the idea has taken hold in a rabid and overblown obsession of the new century. (1h 8min)
April 24, 2018
Announcement: Movie Nights CONTINUE April 24th 2018
Caravaglia Studios Movie Nights CONTINUE next Tuesday, April 24th, 2018 for our Spring series on the visual language in cinema.
Come out for the screening of Carl T. Dreyer’s Silent, Spiritual Catharsis, The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
One of the most expensive films ever produced in France at the time, on the cusp of the sound era, Dreyer’s film is almost shockingly personal, intimate and bold. A journey of intense emotion conveyed almost solely by the faces of our performers, we barely see the sets at all. A tour-de-force rarely matched in cinema and a perfect example of the language of the screen (1h 21min)
May 8, 2018
Caravaglia Studios Movie Nights CONTINUE next Tuesday, May 8th, 2018 for our Spring series on the visual language in cinema.
Come out for the screening of F.W. Murnau's silent masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Murnau blends the best of both worlds with a romance rich in performance and purely visual expressions of story. Sunrise is cinematically innovative and deeply heartfelt filmmaking. One of the most powerful films of the silent era, and of all time. Hope you can join us for this gorgeous achievement. (1h 34min)
May 15, 2018
Caravaglia Studios Movie Nights CONTINUE next Tuesday, May 15th, 2018 for our Spring series on the visual language in cinema.
Come out for the screening of Alain Resnais' monumental experimentation, Last Year at Marienbad (1961).
A labyrinthine dreamscape of Baroque architecture, geometric pattern and high society. Resnais' stated goal: "For me this film is an attempt, still very crude and very primitive, to approach the complexity of thought, of its processes." A cinematic expression of the mind and of memory; Marienbad speaks the language of the subconscious; a language of half-thoughts, dreams, fantasies and memories. Hope you can join us for this evolution in pure cinema. (1h 34min)
May 22, 2018
Caravaglia Studios Movie Nights CONTINUE next Tuesday, May 22nd, 2018 for our Spring series on the visual language in cinema.
Come out for the screening of Federico Fellini's Delirious Burlesque, Juliet of the Spirits (1965).
It's dizzying, it's mystifying, it's in direct contact with spirits beyond our world. Fellini follows up his explosion of experimentation, 8 1/2, with this carnival of color (his first), casting his wife and frequent leading lady Giulietta Masina in the titular role. Fellini's other-worldy scenarios blend with his free-floating camera for a cinematic dance of pinpoint accurate choreography between performer and lens. The next evolution of the visual language arrived on Italian soil. Hope you can join us for this exhuberant work. (2h 17min)
May 29, 2018
Caravaglia Studios Movie Nights CONTINUE next Tuesday, May 29th, 2018 for our Spring series on the visual language in cinema.
Come out for the screening of Ingmar Bergman's Haunting Mood Piece, Persona (1966).
Disintegrating the fabric of his medium and the human psyche, Bergman breaks new ground with this trenchant abstraction. Featuring knockout performances by his frequent leads Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson, Bergman presents dichotomies in identity and a narrative that seems to relentlessly transform its shape in front of us. Bergman explores the shadows of our mind while Sven Nykvist's photography captures the rich shadows of our interiors in this eerie chamber play. Hope you can join us for this one-of-a-kind masterpiece. (1h 23min)
June 5, 2018
Caravaglia Studios Movie Nights CONTINUE next Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 for our Spring series on the visual language in cinema.
Come out for the screening of Michelangelo Antonioni's Existential Odyssey, The Passenger (1975).
Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider star in Antonioni's third and final english-language film. Meditative as always, Antonioni casts his usual web of intrigue and mystery, this time through the terrains of northern Africa and southern Europe. Antonioni's wandering camera and his pensive long takes, the explorations on identity and the international espionage and mercenaries add up to one of the master's most effective works and a grand summation to his contributions to visual grammar. Hope you can join us for this slow-burn thriller. (1h 58min)
June 12, 2018
Caravaglia Studios Movie Nights CONCLUDE our Spring series on the visual language next Tuesday, June 12th, 2018.
Come out for the screening of Federico Fellini's Exuberant Vision, 8 1/2 (1963).
A testament to working under pressure, Fellini's Otto e Mezzo was born when the director, desperately trying to follow up the success of La Dolce Vita, worked himself into a corner and had to invent a movie out of thin air using the actors and crew he had already booked and assembled for a project that didn't exist. His answer? Extrapolate the experience into the film itself. What results is one of the best cinematic works of all time, a beautiful love letter to life and to the joys and woes of creation. A film that exists in elation and a furious symphony of dreams and waking, of imagining and living. 8 1/2 is the artist's spirit laid bare, the deepest fears and deepest desires; hope you can join for Fellini's masterpiece of masterpieces. (2h 18min)