Saul Levine spent six years (from 1967-1973) cutting up and re-editing 8mm prints of two Charlie Chaplin shorts, IN THE PARK and EASY STREET, into a dynamic yet dreamy deconstruction of physical and narrative movement. What begins with Chaplin looping around in circular repetitions between a cop and an ominous vagrant becomes more fractured as the film expands. News footage of police arresting protesters (shot from a television screen on black-and-white 8mm film) is cut into the comedy of cops and criminals (a shot of political reality amidst slapstick fantasy) and images are abstracted by rapid-fire cutting. Even the physical cuts on the celluloid become part of the image as Levine chops through the frames themselves, leaving broad gashes on the screen and fracturing images until they overlap with the next shot and the suggestions of narrative are whirled into a frenzy of motion.
The innkeeper Barnabáš and the teacher Isidor Slovíčko succumb to the lure of old Moreles, to whom the young Taussig sends enthusiastic letters from America.
A young bank teller, literally allergic to paper money, becomes the worst nightmare of his best customer, a wealthy butcher who manages his business unscrupulously.
Don Serafin has a complex: to all the beautiful women always seen with a beard. To remove the complex and try to cure him, his friends will lead to Biarritz.
Sandro, a detective, finds his wife strangled. His girl-friend Tiffany, who works as photographer, makes a "Blow up" from a photo, what Sandro finds beside the victim.
In 1913, in Oklahoma, oil derrick owner Lena Doyle, aided by her father and a hobo, is stubbornly drilling for oil despite the pressure from major oil companies to sell her land.
An erotic comedy depicting the sex adventures of young wives living in an apartment complex, that are not satisfied with just having sex with their husbands.
Comments
Have you watched The Big Stick / An Old Reel yet? What did you think about it?
