8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957)

8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957) is an American experimental film directed by Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean Cocteau released on March 15, 1957 in New York City. It features original music by Robert Abramson, John Gruen and Douglas Townsend.

Described by Richter as "part Freud, part Lewis Carroll," it is a fairy tale for the subconscious based on the game of chess. While living in New York, Hans Richter directed two feature films, Dreams That Money Can Buy and 8x8: A Chess Sonata in collaboration with Max Ernst, Cocteau, Paul Bowles, Fernand Leger, Alexander Calder, Duchamp, and others, which was partially filmed on the lawn of his summer house in Southbury, Connecticut.

EVERYBODY IN THE PLACE An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992

Acid house is often portrayed as a movement that came out of the blue, inspired by little more than a handful of London-based DJs discovering ecstasy on a 1987 holiday to Ibiza. In truth, the explosion of acid house and rave in the UK was a reaction to a much wider and deeper set of fault lines in British culture, stretching from the heart of the city to the furthest reaches of the countryside, cutting across previously impregnable boundaries of class, identity and geography.

With Everybody in the Place, the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller upturns popular notions of rave and acid house, situating them at the very centre of the seismic social changes that reshaped 1980s Britain. Rare and unseen archive materials map the journey from protest movements to abandoned warehouse raves, the white heat of industry bleeding into the chaotic release of the dancefloor.

We join an A-level politics class as they discover these stories for the first time, viewing the story of acid house from the perspective of a generation for whom it is already ancient history. We see how rave culture owes as much to the Battle of Orgreave and the underground gay clubs of Chicago as it does to shifts in musical style: not merely a cultural gesture, but the fulcrum for a generational shift in British identity, linking industrial histories and radical action to the wider expanses of a post-industrial future. 

Derek Jarman - TG - Psychic Rally in Heaven (1981)

From the Super 8 film work of Derek Jarman, T. G. Psychic Rally in Heaven marries abstract images of a performance by Throbbing Gristle with the ferocity and intensity of their music to brilliant effect on both eyes and ears.

Magic Trip (2011)

Magic Trip is a 2011 documentary made from the over 100 hours of 16 mm color film that was shot by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters as they drove a bespoke 1939 Harvester school bus across the United States in 1964. Aboard the bus was a collection of bohemians, drop outs, poets, musicians, a dancer, a philosopher and the famous Neil Cassady, inspiration for Jack Kerouac's 1950s beatnik novel On the Road. Kesey also took a generous supply of the then-legal psychedelic drug LSD, and they reportedly also took 500 Benzedrine pills (speed), and a shoebox full of already-rolled marijuana joints. The bus was wired up with audio recording and broadcasting equipment, and was capable of recording surrounding sounds as well as broadcasting loud music to passersby.

This is the story of this journey, aboard a bus called Futher, and into the collective cultural consciousness of a generation and the world.

Ken Kesey was an early subject for US government sponsored LSD testing. He was actually given it by the US government, and paid to do it. Here are some of the recordings he made while at Palo Alto Veteran's Hospital under the influence of LSD:

The Battle of the Somme (1916 film)

The Battle of the Somme was a documentary film released on August 10th 1916. Until the release of Star Wars, it held the British audience record - 20 million tickets were sold in the first six weeks, from a population at the time of 46 million.

The Battle of the Somme (US title, Kitchener's Great Army in the Battle of the Somme), is a 1916 British documentary and propaganda war film, shot by two official cinematographers, Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell. The film depicts the British Army in the preliminaries and early days of the Battle of the Somme (1 July – 18 November 1916). The film premièred in London on 10 August 1916 and was released generally on 21 August. The film depicts trench warfare, marching infantry, artillery firing on German positions, British troops waiting to attack on 1 July, treatment of wounded British and German soldiers, British and German dead and captured German equipment and positions. A scene during which British troops crouch in a ditch then "go over the top" was staged for the camera behind the lines.

The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme; German: Schlacht an der Somme), also known as the Somme Offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the River Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies and was the largest battle of the First World War on the Western Front. More than three million men fought in the battle and one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history. The Battle of the Somme was fought in the traditional style of World War I battles on the Western Front: trench warfare. The trench warfare gave the Germans an advantage because they dug their trenches deeper than the allied forces which gave them a better line of sight for warfare. The Battle of the Somme also has the distinction of being the first battle fought with tanks. However, the tanks were still in the early stages of development, and as a result, many broke down after maxing out at their top speed of 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h).

This Mark I 'Male' Tank broke down crossing a British trench on its way to attack Thiepval on 25 September 1916.

The French and British had committed themselves to an offensive on the Somme during Allied discussions at Chantilly, Oise, in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the Central Powers in 1916, by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. Initial plans called for the French army to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, supported on the northern flank by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). When the Imperial German Army began the Battle of Verdun on the Meuse on 21 February 1916, French commanders diverted many of the divisions intended for the Somme and the "supporting" attack by the British became the principal effort.

The first day on the Somme (1 July) saw a serious defeat for the German Second Army, which was forced out of its first position by the French Sixth Army, from Foucaucourt-en-Santerre south of the Somme to Maricourt on the north bank, and by the Fourth Army from Maricourt to the vicinity of the Albert–Bapaume road. The first day on the Somme was, in terms of casualties, also the worst day in the history of the British army, which suffered 57,470 casualties. These occurred mainly on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt, where the attack was defeated and few British troops reached the German front line. The British troops on the Somme comprised a mixture of the remains of the pre-war regular army; the Territorial Force; and Kitchener's Army, a force of volunteer recruits including many Pals' Battalions, recruited from the same places and occupations.

The battle is notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank. At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 10 km (6 mi) into German-occupied territory, taking more ground than in any of their offensives since the Battle of the Marne in 1914. The Anglo-French armies failed to capture Péronne and halted 5 km (3 mi) from Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. British attacks in the Ancre valley resumed in January 1917 and forced the Germans into local withdrawals to reserve lines in February, before the scheduled retirement to the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) began in March. Debate continues over the necessity, significance and effect of the battle.

END:CIV

This film examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?” // Franklin López, Canada, 2011, 115' // 

Brian Jones (1942-1969)

Next Tuesday, 3 July it will be 50 years since Brian Jones, dandy, guitarist, sitar player, and much more, died in his swimming pool in Sussex.

In this video The Vinyl Geek dives into the subject of Brian Jones, the enigmatic founder and original leader of The Rolling Stones. His passing at 27 sent shock waves through the world of rock but who really was Brian Jones?

Brian was central to the sound of the early Rolling Stones, with Ruby Tuesday featuring him with recorder, piano and vocal harmony:


Brian only played, recorded and produced his own music once. A Degree of Murder (German: Mord und Totschlag, French: Vivre à tout prix) is a 1967 West German film, starring Anita Pallenberg and directed by Volker Schlöndorff. Brian Jones created the soundtrack to it:

 

The Beatles Let It Be (Original 35mm Widescreen Theatre Print - Stereo Audio)

The filmed account of the Beatles's attempt to recapture their old group spirit by making a back to basics album, which instead drove them further apart.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065976/

Director: Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Stars: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston

The Beatles' final movie, Let It Be, received its U.S. premiere on May 13th, 1970 in New York City theaters. The film, which was shot in January 1969, was originally intended to be a TV special called Get Back featuring the group rehearsing for their first live show in over two years. The early rehearsals captured the group, along with John Lennon's soon-to-be wife Yoko Ono, clearly bored, with only Paul McCartney showing any real enthusiasm for the new material. The first part of the film shows the strain of the early morning sessions held in a cavernous soundstage at London's Twickenham film studios.

Producer George Martin recalled in The Beatles Anthology that the Let It Be project held great promise in the beginning: "They were going through a very, very revolutionary period at that time. And they were trying to think of something new. They did actually come up with a very good idea, which I thought was well worth working on; The wanted to write an album completely and rehearse it and then perform it in front of a large audience -- and for that to be a live album of new material. And we started rehearsing down at Twickenham film studios, and I went along with them."

George Harrison, who was the least invested member of the band in regards to returning to the stage, recalled the band's initial plan: "I think the original idea was to rehearse some new songs, and then we were going to pick a location and record the album of the songs in a concert. I suppose kinda like they do these days on Unplugged, except, y'know, it wasn't to be unplugged. It was to do a live album."

Among the songs featured in the film are "Let It Be," "Get Back," "Don't Let Me Down," "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," "For You Blue," "Octopus' Garden," "I Me Mine," "Across The Universe," and "The Long And Winding Road," and covers of "Besame Mucho," "Shake, Rattle And Roll," and "Kansas City," among many others.

In 1970 John Lennon recalled the nearly month-long film shoot saying: "It was just a dreadful, dreadful feeling being filmed all the time. I just wanted them to go away. And we'd be there at eight in the morning and you couldn't make music at eight in the morning, or 10, or whatever it was . . . in a strange place with people filming you and colored lights."

The tension between the group is palpable, especially during the sequence where Harrison and McCartney argue over Harrison's playing on the song "Two Of Us."

McCartney explained that unconsciously, the Beatles were actually telling the world that they were breaking up: "In fact what happened was when we got in there we showed how the breakup of a group works because we didn't realize that we were actually breaking up, y'know as it was happening."

The movie lightens up considerably during the second half, when the filming moved to the group's new Apple basement studios, with the addition of keyboardist Billy Preston. A major highlight of the film is the final sequence, when the Beatles play in impromptu set on the Apple headquarters rooftop, featuring "Get Back," "Dig A Pony," "I've Got A Feeling," "Don't Let Me Down," and "One After 909." Filmed on January 30th, 1969, it would be the band's final public performance.

Reviews for the film, which was released a month after the group's breakup, were mixed, citing the sluggish and depressing nature of the film, as well as director Michael Lindsay-Hogg's sloppy editorial choices. But across the board, both critics and fans agreed on the power of the group's triumphant rooftop set.

Author Ritchie Unterberger chronicled the prolonged Get Back/Let It Be sessions in his book, titled The Unreleased Beatles: "They had bitten off more than they could chew. Y'know, even before they assembled in January, the idea was, 'Let's get back to playing as a live band' -- pretty good idea. But then it was, 'Let's make it an album and a film, and we're going to make the album a film of us doing a concert of songs we've never recorded before.' It's kind of like trying to do too much at once. And then you're recording it -- the comparison I made in the book is kind of Nixon's 'The Watergate Tapes,' you have no idea that this stuff is going to comeback to haunt you forever."]

Beatlefan magazine's executive editor Al Sussman saw the film within days of its premiere and was left speechless by the group's live swan song: "It was really depressing. But, what made it worthwhile was the rooftop, y'know? Because when I left that theater, I was this far off the ground. Despite the fact that we knew everything that happened afterward. Yeah, that saves the film."

Ken Mansfield, the former U.S. manager of Apple Records was among the handful of insiders present at the rooftop concert that day. He recalled prior to the lunchtime gig walking in on the four Beatles who were using one of the Apple offices as a makeshift dressing room: "It was like walking in on a band, a nervous bunch of guys getting ready to do an audition. I don't know if it's because they hadn't played together, or whether they were trying to put the set together, but it was one of those kind of tense things where they were nervous. When we locked the doors upstairs, and the minute they started playing -- and y'know all the. . . everything that was going down, all the stuff. It's like it all went away and I really believe in my mind that they forgot everything and they were what they were. They were the Beatles."

Let It Be earned the Beatles their only Academy Award, when they won the 1970 Oscar for Best Original Song Score.


Information on this particular release: 
Let It Be is a filmed documentary of the Beatles rehearsing and recording their new album in 1969.  The film culminated with a concert by the group set on the rooftop on their own Apple office building in London's west end.  Paul McCartney's concept for the album and film was that it wasn't going to have studio trickery like overdubs and effects.  It was "back to the roots" with the Beatles performing the songs in a natural way.  The film and it's accompanying soundtrack was delayed while the Beatles recorded and released their final album "Abbey Road".
It was eventually released in 1970 and received an Academy Award for it's title song.

For the Beatles completist and serious fans, the biggest frustration has been in not finding the "Beatles - Let It Be" in a complete, uncropped, great quality version. The reason for this is quite interesting. The original film was shot in 16mm (standard TV 4x3 format).  However, when the film was released, they cropped the 16mm print by chopping off parts of the top and bottom and blew it up to 35mm widescreen. I myself wondered in the 70's why the picture quality was so mediocre right in the movie theatre!  Now we all know why.  So even in the theatre, one did NOT get to see the full picture that was filmed.

Then to add insult to injury, when Let It Be was released in the 1980's on Beta and VHS videotape and on Laserdisc (all in standard TV 4x3 format), the manufacturers did NOT go back to the original 16mm film that was shot in the same format. INSTEAD, they sourced it from the 35mm widescreen theatre print and CHOPPED it AGAIN!, this time from the sides. So anyone purchasing previous Beta, VHS and Laserdisc versions of Let It Be, now got to see even LESS!, since it has now been chopped on all 4 sides.

This recent WIDESCREEN, STEREO import Blu-Ray release rectifies a lot of the problems.  For anyone that saw the film in the theatres in the 70's, it is great now to be able to see the original theatrical release, in stereo AND in much improved quality, including clearer picture and more natural colours, the absolute best version you can find of this release.

Running Length: 80 minutes

Liner Notes for this copy: "This new transfer has been made from an original, undamaged, vhs (or videotape) recording of the BBC2 repeat from May 1982. Unusually, the Beeb screened the widescreen 35mm theatrical print with black bars at the top and bottom. When released on vhs and laserdics, this widescreen version was cropped severely at the sides to produce the full frame image. Here it is presented unaltered.

Although the film was shot at 24 frames per second, BBC2 aired it in PAL format at 25fps. For this disc it has been slowed down to 23.976 fps (my ripped copy says 29.97) and presented in a compatible NTSC format, this preserving the correct speed and pitch of the original. The actual picture has been scaled up to 480 pixels and encoded in anamorphic format so as not to lose any resolution"

Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980)

Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise is a 1980 jazz film by Robert Mugge documenting performances by Sun Ra and his Arkestra in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Baltimore, and also including interviews and rehearsal footage. The Philadelphia performances captured by the film took place at Danny's Hollywood Palace and on the rooftop of the Philadelphia International Center. The Baltimore performance took place in the Famous Ballroom, hosted by the Left Bank Jazz Society.

Sun Ra compositions featured in the film include "Astro Black," "Along Came Ra," "We Travel the Spaceways," and "Requiem for Trevor Johnson."

In 2001, the film was screened as part of Maryland Film Festival in the former Famous Ballroom, now part of the expanded Charles Theatre, where the film's Baltimore performances were shot 

The Falklands War - The Untold Story (Full Documentary) | Timeline

This film really shows the "folly of war" - when fought with universal principles the men fighting it are most often decent, honourable, intelligent, courageous, even compassionate people. The politicians planning it and making it happen are cynical, cunning and mostly cowardly. An example of this is the sinking of General Belgrano (with the lost of 323 lives), which was outside the British-declared total exclusion zone of 370 km (200 nautical miles) radius from the islands. The British Cabinet, and in particular Margaret Thatcher agreed to a request from Admiral Terence Lewin, the Chief of the Defence Staff, to alter without notice the rules of engagement that had already been delivered to the Argentine government. War itself is vicious and terrifying and without victors.