Logan elucidates on Lindsay logic
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So, dearest readers, have you taken some time to look through the new YouTube channel for the New Art Film Festival and watch locally-made movies you may have forgotten about or never seen before? When you do, please notice a front-and-center prompt for a taping of the NAFF XIII talk, “Vachel Lindsay and The Art of the Moving Picture,” in which David Logan addresses the imperfectly prophetic ideas of the Springfield, Illinois-born poet and performer as expressed by his unique treatise published in 1915. Rather than simply describing the films of his day, largely seen as spectacle and novelty by the general public, Lindsay dug in deeper than his contemporaries to imagine the potential value of the cinema as well as predict how it could be used by society to not only entertain and educate but, in so many words, to save its own soul. We are grateful for the contributions by Logan, who drove from southern Illinois to join us on Sunday, October 29, in order to share insight on the book and ahead-of-his-time creator, as well as Andrew Stengele of Forced Perspective Entertainment, who captured the occasion for us at Shatterglass Studios in Champaign. If you have any interest in the dawn of the motion picture trade or the origins of film criticism and analysis, Lindsay’s words and Logan’s insightful, well-reasoned perspective are two key places for you to begin. Today, we’ll cut you slack and embed the recording right here:
The Lindsay/Logan video is the first one ever produced and released by us in our MICRO-FILM/C-U Confidential/NAFF lifetime, believe it or not. We don’t know why it took almost 20 years to lay one down, yet, here it is and we hope you enjoy it enough to warrant future ones under our labels. Please share this with the film instructors, historians, archivists, and preservationists in your circles if you could! (Educators and presenters who might be interested in featuring the video can contact us directly; we will put you in touch with David Logan to gain permission.) In related developments, we are pretty certain the NAFF 2018 show date and Call for Entries open-and-close dates will be revealed exclusively during the Champaign Movie Makers 10th anniversary show at the Art Theater next Monday, June 25. Pay close attention when the CMM on-screen credits begin to crawl, filmmaker friends!
~ Jason Pankoke
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