Martin Arnold (Austria)

 


Martin Arnold is the guest of honour of this year's film programme. He is renowned for his inimitable style of transforming short, seemingly insignificant scenes from old Hollywood movies into hysterical mechanical ballets.

Arnold’s breakthrough film, pièce touchée, is based on a single 18-second shot from The Human Jungle (dir. Joseph M. Newman, 1954). Woman sitting in a chair. Man enters the room. Man and woman kiss. Exit man.

Diligently edited frame-by-frame over a period of 18 months with a home-made optical printer, the film is an ecstatically jerky and stuttering ”close-reading” of a commonplace mainstream movie scene. The entire soundtrack, too, which sounds like a mixture of looped hip hop beats and vintage Steve Reich, is collaged original material.

In passage à l’acte Arnold ”samples” To Kill a Mockingbird (dir. Robert Mulligan, 1962) with the effect of raising quite a few chuckles in the audience. A nuclear family having breakfast is cruelly interrupted, as the father just cannot seem to get the jam on his toast. Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy is one of the most bizarre musicals ever made. The sad fates of child stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland flow before our eyes as a melancholy tape that keeps stuttering to-and-fro.

Arnold’s films seem to have a straightforward psycho-physical effect on people: many bring up the inexplicable erotic atmosphere they sense. In any case, his works are unusually entertaining experimental films, whose meanings are very ambiguous. For film scholars Arnold’s output has proved a veritable treasure trove. It has been interpreted abundantly in various ways - from feminist gender theory all the way to criticism of American imperialism. MT

pièce touchée (1989), passage à l’acte (1993), and Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998) have won several awards at international festivals. Martin Arnold will be visiting Helsinki November 9-11.

Read our Interview with Martin Arnold >>

Saturday 10.11.2001 - Kiasma Theatre
18:00 - Screening of pièce touchée (1989), passage à l’acte (1993), and Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998)

Sunday 11.11.2001 - Kiasma Theatre
12:00 - Screening of pièce touchée (1989), passage à l’acte (1993), and Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998)