Art cinema goes al fresco with a cowboy and a mastiff muse
The evening will also include a screening of Big Head (2014), by Chilean director Jairo Boisier.
Update: This event was originally scheduled for September 14, but has been postponed (due to inclement weather) to September 18.
On Friday, September 18, in partnership with the International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA), Concordia will host the second in a series of outdoor film screenings in the FOFA Gallery courtyard.
For the evenings’s bill, curator Nicolas Renaud, a part-time instructor in the Faculty of Fine Arts, chose two films on the themes of friendship and painting.
“It’s really about this meeting of the art of filmmaking with other arts. I think these two films are perfect. They’re different examples of what that can be,” Renaud says.
Cowboy and Indian, a 1972 National Film Board of Canada (NFB) documentary by Canadian filmmaker Don Owen, is a portrait of two close friends, Gordon Rayner (the “cowboy”) and Robert Markle (the “Indian”), who came from a family of Mohawk steelworkers. Both were prominent members of Toronto’s buzzing art scene of the 1960s and 70s.
The film is noteworthy, Renaud says, because it represents a particular time when filmmakers working for the NFB were left alone to experiment with their craft.
“We’re in Markle’s house, and people are coming and going, mainly other artists. They jam, they drink, they smoke and they talk. It looks like something that’s totally not serious, made just for the fun of it.”
At the same time, though, Renaud says, the film provides a profound perspective on the nature of the two men’s friendship, and art in general. “How does a particular relationship with someone become part of the creative energy for artists? It’s obvious with Markle and Rayner that they feed each other that way … It’s actually a very rich and complex film.”
The evening will also include a screening of Big Head (2014), by Chilean director Jairo Boisier. In the film, artist Javier Marticorena is commissioned to paint a portrait of Cabezón (“Big Head”), a huge mastiff.
The painter doesn’t seem to be a dog person at all, Renaud says. He struggles to communicate what he needs from his new subject. “Over 25 minutes, we see the relationship evolving, between animal and man. What do you look for when you paint a portrait of someone, or something — in this case, an animal?”
Renaud chose Big Head from among the titles screened during the 33rd edition of FIFA, back in March. He selected Cowboy and Indian from among films he has used in Films on Art, one of the Faculty of Fine Arts’ courses for non–Fine Arts students. In the course, Renaud looks at the representation of art through documentary, experimental and fictional films.
The outdoor screening series is a chance to highlight the potential for festival organizations and Concordia to work together on cultural and academic programming, says Clarence Epstein, senior director of urban and cultural affairs for the university.
“We’re encouraging the university community, new and returning students, and the public walking by on Ste-Catherine St. in the evenings to partake of these free events,” he says.
Currently, Concordia serves as a venue for some of the city’s largest film festivals, including FIFA, the Fantasia International Film Festival, the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), and the Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC).
This past July, Concordia partnered with Fantasia to present its first outdoor screening in the FOFA Gallery courtyard. The 2004 Japanese hit Survive Style 5+ drew quite a crowd, says Epstein, adding that the quirky film speaks to the essence of Fantasia’s genre film programming over the years.
The screening was timed to coincide with part-time instructor Craig Morrison’s summer class on festival culture, another elective for non–Fine Arts students. Marc Lamothe, co-director of Fantasia, addressed the class earlier the same day.
A third outdoor screening will take place later this fall, in partnership with the Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC).
The film screening takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, September 18, in the FOFA Gallery Courtyard, (1515 Ste-Catherine St. W.), Sir George Williams Campus.
Find out more about Concordia’s courses for non-Fine Arts students.