Metro Cinema Society: One American Movie: Robert Kramer’s US Films

One American Movie: Robert Kramer’s US Films

Curated by Jerry White

The films of Robert Kramer are both seminal documents of the 1960s and 70s, and incredibly timely. Kramer was an American filmmaker active in militant politics, especially those surrounding the Vietnam War and American intervention abroad generally. While he was in the States (he moved to Paris in 1980, and died there in 1999), he made films about young people who thought that a total revolution was both inevitable and imminent; of course it didn’t turn out that way at all, and Kramer’s American films become, gradually, more pessimistic and resigned. Kramer has been quoted as saying that “Eventually, all of these movies I make will make up one long film.” That’s certainly true of his American films, which range over a variety of forms (reportage, assembly, essay film, fiction), but have a relentless unity of vision. Robert Kramer made seven films in the United States, but they are really, to borrow the title of Jean-Luc Godard’s unfinished film about the un-begun US revolution, One American Movie. We’re showing five of these seven films, all 16mm prints from the Museum of Modern Art’s Circulating Film Library. None of them are available on video.

Kramer: FALN w/ The People's War

Nov 23 (2008) @ 7pm

These are two short documentaries, comprised of footage shot by many people, including the filmmakers surrounding the radical filmmaking group Newsreel, which Kramer helped to found. FALN deals with Venezuela, detailing the back and forth between left, right and centre... view more

Kramer: Scenes From the Class Struggle in Portugal

Director: Robert Kramer & Philip Spinelli

USA 1977, 85 min, 16mm

Nov 30 (2008) @ 7pm

This is, like FALN and The People’s War, a historical documentary mostly comprised of newsreel-style footage shot by many people. Although the travails of Portugal in the 1970s were of widespread concern, the country seemed to have special importance for... view more

Ice

Director: Robert Kramer

USA 1969, 135 min, 16mm

Dec 7 (2008) @ 7pm

This is a dystopian narrative that visualises the United States as bogged down in an imperialist war with Mexico and aggressively suppressing a serious guerrilla insurrection at home. The film takes the perspective of the American rebels, moving us in... view more

Kramer: Milestones

Director: Robert Kramer

USA 1975, 195 min, 16mm

Dec 14 (2008) @ 7pm

When Milestones was shown in a special screening at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, no less a source than _Vogue France_ wrote about “Robert Kramer’s mythic Milestones, a melancholy evocation of the hangover brought about by the communitarian experiments of... view more