March 22, Tuesday, 7:30PM, 2005 (Moviehouse II) BIG BALAGAN: Richard Leacock (in person) Balagan is honored to host an evening with Direct Cinema legend Ricky Leacock who will be in person to present and discuss his works. (http://www.richardleacock.com/index.html) Ricky Leacock, "A giant of the Cinema " (LA Times), began his career in 1935 at the age of fourteen with CANARY BANANAS, a depiction of the production of Canary Island bananas on his father's plantation. In 1945 he was the cameraman on Robert Flaherty's final masterpiece, LOUISIANA STORY. As a pioneer and innovator of the documentary film tradition, Leacock was among the first to develop portable 16mm synchronous sound and film cameras. In his own films and in collaboration with Robert Drew, D.A.Pennebaker, Albert Maysles and others Leacock created such classics as PRIMARY, a unique view of Senator Kennedy's election campaign; CRISIS, Kennedy's confrontation with Alabama Governor George Wallace; and LULU IN BERLIN, a rare depiction of Louise Brooks, the reclusive former star of the silent screen. In 1969 Leacock was appointed Professor of Cinema at MIT, where he influenced many notable filmmakers until his relocation to France 1988. With his partner and colleague Valerie Lalonde, Leacock continues to capture the essence of his surroundings, inviting his audience to experience a vision the Village Voice calls "as sensuous as Renoir"

FILMING ORDINARY PEOPLE:

Happy Mother's Day 1963, 26 minutes 16mm B & W
Directed by Richard Leacock and Joyce Chopra

On September 23, 1963, Mary Ann Fischer gave birth to quintuplets in Aberdeen, South Dakota. This exceedingly rare event quickly led to a media swarm that will seem quaint and yet strangely familiar to the modern TV viewer. Through Ricky Leacock's gently observant lens, the family retains remarkable dignity throughout a feverish flurry of press conferences, parades, staged public events, and excessive corporate gift-giving. However, Leacock's sponsor -- the Saturday Evening Post -- felt that his movie "was not the film that they wanted," wrested control of his footage, and re-edited it into a tawdry, sentimental version for public broadcast. Tonight's showing is Leacock's hilarious original edit, which is widely regarded as one of the seminal works of cinema verite. It won Silver Medals at the Venice and Leipzig film festivals and was widely shown on European television, but has never been broadcast in America.

Community of Praise 1981, 60 minutes, 16mm B&W
Directed by Richard Leacock and Marisa Silver

This is a portrait of a fundamentalist Christian family made as part of the Middletown series on life in the American midwest for Public Televison. Leacock will show the original edit of this film that was never aired.

As Leacock describes it in an interview with Chris Buck:

Leacock: "It had to do with belief... My liberal friends didn't like it at all, I was sorely criticized because I didn't trash those beliefs. I don't think they need trashing.

Buck: "Have they seen it? Did they like it?"

Leacock: "Oh yes. I called them up afterwards and the father said, "Hey, we didn't realize we were so funny." I don't get shocked by many things, but during a Christmas shopping they had a prayer meeting in the car, asking for God to find them a parking spot. I thought that was very amusing. We got that on film but we also did a lot of non-filming. We would go days without filming. If you're constantly around them with a camera, you destroy any possibility of a true revelation and you'll miss tons because you have to have a personal relationship, not just one with the camera."

and more...