Surrealist Film Shorts - Beyond: A Screening and Discussion with Howard Karren

FORUM 24

Forum 24 celebrates the 75th anniversary of the seminal Forum 49 presentation of emerging modern art - an event that changed the history of art in Provincetown and worldwide. The Provincetown Art Gallery Association will mark the occasion with a summer of events designed to honor the original Forum and illuminate the connections between modern art and the cultural changes and artistic changes that still resonate in the world today.

Surrealist Film Shorts: Beyond. A screening and discussion with Howard Karren.

Surrealist imagery soon entered the realm of mainstream filmmaking, appearing mostly as dreams and sometimes full features. Avant-garde artists began to move beyond. Here are two examples: in “Le Chant du Styrène” (“The Song of Styrene”), French New Wave master Alain Resnais turns plastic into poetry, and in “The Order,” a 31-minute excerpt of his three-hour epic Cremaster 3 (part of the nine-hour-long, five-part Cremaster Cycle), Barney looked to create form beyond biology, “cremaster” being the muscle that raises or lowers the testicles in response to temperature.

The films:

- Le Chant du Styrène (1958), “The Song of Styrene,” directed by Alain Resnais, written by Raymond Queneau, color, 13 min.

- Cremaster 3: The Order (2002), written, directed and starring Matthew Barney, color, 31 min.