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The Flicker 1966
The Flicker continues to be absolutely enthralling. In addition to the subjectivity that each viewer's own senses and mind bring to the experience, there are so many site-specific effects. Both of my earlier viewings of The Flicker were in small gallery areas, where the effect of the flicker pattern bled into the surrounding white walls. This screening was in a properly darkened cinema, which drastically changed the interactions between the screen and the room. The white screen was framed by…
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Safe 1995
Before this screening, the announcer informed the audience that SFMOMA had opened part of its gallery for free admission to the public. The museum is kindly doing this so that people have another place to be in the recycled air, where they can find refuge from the burnt remnants of drought-plagued Northern California that found their way into the SF air.
I still can't tell if she managed to make the connection.
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Serene Velocity 1970
Back in college, I had a regular habit of wandering aimlessly in the late hours of the night. Usually it was 2am and I'd been working on problem sets for hours. Sometimes it was 5am and I'd been working on problem sets for hours before taking a brief nap, confident that sleep would make me want to do more work. I still have a vivid memory from one walk where I turned the corner and saw the Mother Church for…
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The Flicker 1966
At the risk of turning this into an Erowid report... I seem to get a lot of concentric circles and solid bars toward the beginning, usually yellow and blue. At some point it becomes converging lines, like a tunnel or elevator shaft; I've gotten the same pattern from other flicker films before.
The best point was when the shapes became complex enough that they entered a hysteretic state. At the right frequency, I managed to visualize some simple stripe patterns…
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The Apartment 1960
This is definitely one where a rewatch revealed new depths. Wilder puts a shiny veneer over the gaping void in the center of the film. It adds enough sweetness to mask the character's own desperate misdirection. It's a world where the coffee is instant, the parties have grown too loud, your heart and home have been rented out, and your suicide will be set to a nice samba.