AVANT-GARDE FILM & VIDEO CATALOG
Films & Videos by Al Razutis (XAR) - only available on these DVDs
These titles remain available on DVD video as both collectors items and legacy of the migration of 'film' to 'video' to digital media.
A physical 'DVD'is reprentative of these films and their origins. A physical fact, not just a file on a computer screen.
Mastered in their original formats / aspect ratios.
AMERIKA can be projected 'single screen', including a version where films / reels are screened 'in any order', or it can be projected in the director's choice 'three screen version'.
See the available AMERIKA - DVD - Complete film & 3-Screen version
Video excerpts from 3-screen AMERIKA on You Tube
Film is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art - Pompidou.
VISUAL ESSAYS: ORIGINS OF FILM are in individual film reel version and continuous play version of the six visual essays.
This film is in international collections and continues to be screened internationally.
WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE?
A collaborative video installation and film between fine arts painter Anne Popperwell and filmmaker Al Razutis.
This DVD is available as INSTALLATION & SCREENING DVD
This work has been screened internationally and is in permanent collections.
LINKS TO MANY SUBJECTS:
DETAILS CONCERNING THESE FILM WORKS
AMERIKA
Produced and Directed by Al Razutis, 1972-1983
SINGLE SCREEN 170 min. - THREE-SCREEN 56 min.
AMERIKA is a "feature-length experimental film which was created one reel at a time to function as a mosaic that expresses the various sensations, myths, landscapes of the industrialized Western culture (1960's -1980's) through the eyes of media-anarchism and avant-garde film techniques." (AR)
'Amerika' Brings Reality Into Focus - SPECIAL SCREENINGS - November 21, 1988, LA Times "The 'Simulacrum', the 'Spectacle', the 'global village' gone into hyperbole is the 'mediascape' of AMERIKA. Here, the spectacles of ever-changing 'media' employ shifting signifiers (the formal elements) and produce coded and proliferating signifieds (meanings) of consummer truths, world views, historical 'facts', anthropomorphized fears and gratifications.
AMERIKA EXCERPTS CLIPS ON YOU TUBE"The predominant characteristic of the film
is that it draws from existing stock footage archives, the iconography
and `memory bank' of a media excessive culture (one theme being
media 'bank robbery' and anarcho appropriations - interventions),
to locate its `subjects'. The techniques employed in rendering
the various fragments vary from video-synthesis, optical matte
effects, audio-synthesis,time-lapse cinematography, to more
conventional 16 mm forms of representation. It formally references
three decades of underground - avant-garde - experimental -
commercial - documentary cinemas, and the tensions therein."
(A.R.) 'Amerika'
was banned briefly in Canada ( see the article in Opsis 1984 - Regina
vs... ) and has been featured in international retrospectives
in exhibitions and collections in the three-screen format. This
film is a Los Angeles Film Critics Award winner and in
the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Paris - Pompidou. Produced, Directed, Written, Photographed and
Edited by Al Razutis Critical discussions on the film 'AMERIKA'
and filmmaker:
Note: This film contains brief sequences of extreme (stock footage) violence and graphic sexual (stock footage) subject matter. It is assumed you are a consenting adult when you view this film. |
Awards:
Los Angeles Film Critics' Award - 1988
Permanent Collections:
Museum of Modern Art of France (George Pompidou) - Paris (film)
National Library of Australia (VHS, film sections)
Amherst College (DVD)
University of Quebec (Montreal) (DVD)
California Institute of the Arts (VHS)
Simon Fraser University (DVD)
'AMERIKA' - Limited Edition - available on Dual Layer DVD
Visual Essays: Origins of Film
Produced and Directed by Al Razutis, 1973-1984
These six visual
essays on film/image history attempt to reconstruct the vision
of cinematic creation occurring in the minds of cinema's "primitives"
; together they comprise a critical/structural investigation of silent
cinema. "I thought it necessary to engage the original film texts
by creating a process of `discovery' wherein the viewer could partake
in the `myth of creation' without being encumbered by the full questions
of ideological significance, historical placement, and authorship."
(A.R.)
"Both the visual artist and the educator make their appearances throughout
Origins of Film, but it looks to be the poet who has the
final say. Informing the overall shape of the project is an argument
that is presented at a number of levels. Each film is structured around
a distinct set of optical printing and collage techniques [and] ...
embodies a `look' which becomes the film's central strategy and metaphor."
(Peter Chapman, Independent Eye)
In the collections of
National Gallery of Canada (Permanent Collection - film)
Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Spain (DVD)
University library of Lausanne, Switzerland (DVD)
University of Provence, France (DVD)
VISUAL ESSAYS SHORT CLIPS ON YOU TUBE
'Sequels in Transfigured Time' |
|
'Storming the Winter Palace' |
'Visual Essays: Origins of Film' - Limited Edition - available on DVD
IF YOU CANNOT LOCATE A VIDEO TITLE
or looking for short films - videos by Al Razutis no longer in general distribution
VISIT:
'Film - Video Archives'
Why Don't You Just Leave?
Produced and Directed by Anne Popperwell and Al Razutis, 1996
28 min. color, sound
Abstract images, uncompromising text, and the voices of men from the Family Violence Project in Victoria, BC expose the implications of domestic violence towards women.
Created as a video installation piece for a travelling exhibition of paintings by west coast artist Anne Popperwell, 'Why Don't You Just Leave?'
'Why Don't You Just Leave? can be presented in single monitor or video projected in installation or theater. .
This tape explores the various 'languages' of domestic violence by presenting text, voice-over testimonials from men who have engaged in violence. The visuals supply segmented and semi-abstracted images of women's bodies bearing text written upon the physical 'sites' of violence. As analysis of violence, the tape deals with the segmentation of our knowlege of violence and is presented in a poetic (non-didactic) manner for both male and female audiences.
This videotape on DVD continues to be exhibited in a variety of national and international exhibitions.
WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE? CLIPS ON YOU TUBE
'Why Don't You Just Leave?' - available on DVD
For additional DVD SALES information: alrazutis@ymail.com
For additional DVD SALES information: DVD SALES PAGE - LEGACY VIDEO ART TITLES
IF YOU CANNOT LOCATE A VIDEO TITLE
or looking for short films - videos by Al Razutis no longer in general distribution
VISIT:
'Film - Video Archives'