{"id":2296,"date":"2010-11-02T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T15:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=2296"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:55:34","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:55:34","slug":"knife-4-dvd-no-1-for-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=2296","title":{"rendered":"“Knife” #4: DVD No.1 for label"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA Knife in a Gun Fight\u201d: Al Jarnow Masters Space and Time<\/strong>
\nNumero Group makes documentaries \u2026 without always using cameras<\/p>\n

by Michelle Kaffko<\/em><\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

\u201cA Knife in a Gun Fight\u201d chronicles filmmaker Michelle Kaffko\u2019s journey as she probes the Chicago-area independent scene for indie movie news, releases, and other relevant dirt.<\/em><\/p>\n

The third film on the compilation, CELESTIAL NAVIGATIONS: THE SHORT FILMS OF AL JARNOW<\/strong>, is the one-minute-and-five-second SESAME STREET<\/strong> staple from 1970, \u201cYak.\u201d When I watched it, I suddenly became a five-year-old girl with unruly, curly hair and glasses with the thickest lenses on the block (possibly the whole town) sitting on dark brown carpeting in the family room of my childhood home with my neck craned to the top shelf of the TV cabinet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the letter Y. It is the first letter in the word \u2026 YAK!\u201d<\/em> I haven\u2019t seen this animation since I was five or even thought once about that friendly yak who so dexterously explained the letter \u201cy\u201d to me, but watching it again twentysomething years later (now with unruly, curly hair and contact lenses) I suddenly remembered being that little girl, watching those curtains open with great fanfare and meeting the yak for the first time. I then arrived at a conclusion about \u201cYak\u201d animator Al Jarnow<\/strong>: he has the magical powers to transform space and time, and not just because some of his films spent decades <\/em>via SESAME STREET <\/strong>entertaining children.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chicago<\/strong>-based label Numero Group<\/strong> has done an amazing job collecting, restoring, and presenting select Jarnow films in their DVD anthology, released in February 2010. A trained painter, Jarnow turned to the medium of film animation in the Seventies and created great experimental masterpieces of time-lapse photography, found object animation, and single frame animation drawn on index cards and photographed with a movie camera in a flip book style, much of this before he ever worked with a computer.<\/p>\n

Watching CELESTIAL NAVIGATIONS<\/strong> is a little like reading the journal of some creative master who uses art to explain to himself his own meandering philosophical thoughts on time, space, and memory. Some characters in the films are mere drawings of three-dimensional squares constantly spinning, turning, multiplying, growing, and shrinking. Maybe there is music, maybe there isn\u2019t. Halfway through the collection, you may start to feel like you\u2019re the one turning these objects in your mind, trying desperately to understand spatial dimensions.<\/p>\n

Many years after Jarnow\u2019s earliest experimental films screened in tiny rooms during poetry readings and meetings of obscure art film societies, and several years after the he last made shorts for public television, Chicagoan Michael Slaboch <\/strong>of Numero Group chose 45 Jarnow titles to restore and re-master in High Definition. He and a small crew drove 16 hours from Chicago to Long Island, New York<\/strong>, then camped out in Jarnow\u2019s house for several days while gathering artifacts for the DVD release and interviewing the animator for an accompanying 30-minute documentary, ASYMMETRIC CYCLES: THE WORK OF AL JARNOW<\/strong>, during which he describes the intent and meaning that went into his films. Jarnow is a born storyteller with a demeanor that is friendly yet mixed with a slight Andy Warhol<\/strong>-esque elusiveness, while generous enough to create new animations with Slaboch and friends for the opening sequence to the documentary.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Although this is the first video collection Slaboch and Numero have undertaken, and Slaboch himself will not call himself a filmmaker, they have gone through this painstaking process many times before. The Numero Group is a six-year-old archival record label which releases new vinyl and CD collections of re-mastered music produced by obscure (and usually short-lived) recording studios that they believe shouldn\u2019t disappear and be forgotten. But, this is not just a rescue or salvage operation; it\u2019s much more intense.<\/p>\n

The Numero folks are avid documentarians and make documentary films, without always using film as a medium. Their CDs and LPs feature historical booklets with liner notes, archival photography, interviews with the artists, and more. For instance, their July release Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands<\/strong> features rock artists recorded in a long-gone garage recording studio in Beaumont, Texas<\/strong>. Those musicians created and dissolved bands so many times that the album comes with a giant 12 x 12 inch, fold out \u201cfamily tree\u201d charting the inbred musical history of the town.<\/p>\n

Slaboch exclaims, \u201cBecause the music is amazing!\u201d when I ask him why the hell anyone should care about these extinct, random, small-town Texas bands. \u201cFans are going to love it. I hear this and want to open up the throttle on a boat and start a barbecue \u2026 It takes you on a journey of Beaumont, Texas, in the Seventies.\u201d Their fans do love the label; subscribers pay to have very Numero release sent to them immediately because they know whatever arrives in their mailbox \u2013 soul, folk, jazz, gospel, even Eighties pop \u2013 is not just a collection of music but a well-documented journey to a niche neighborhood in the music world they otherwise never would have known existed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So, even though ASYMMETRIC CYCLES<\/strong> is technically their first documentary film and the CELESTIAL NAVIGATIONS <\/strong>collection is technically their first original DVD release, Numero has been operating as a highly skilled documentary group for years.<\/p>\n

Slaboch shrugs his shoulders in regards to the jump from musicians to filmmakers as subject matter and from LPs to DVDs as the medium. \u201cFor us, it\u2019s just sharing cool stuff with people, that\u2019s really all it is,\u201d he says. The Numero Group\u2019s passion is telling the story of the artists and the mediums are just tools to get the information to their listeners\/viewers. \u201cI used to make mix tapes for people in my bedroom,\u201d Slaboch considers, \u201cand this is just a much better and cooler-looking version of that. It\u2019s way more elaborate and much more beautiful. I\u2019m in awe that I get to make this, show this to people, and meet those people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Numero has been screening the documentary along with several Jarnow shorts at theaters and festivals around the country.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

CELESTIAL NAVIGATIONS: THE SHORT FILMS OF AL JARNOW<\/strong> is a release of The Numero Group produced by Tom Lunt, Rob Sevier, Ken Shipley<\/strong>, and Michael Slaboch. 2010, HD and 16mm, Color\/B&W, appx. 110 minutes.<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

\n

Prior \u201cKnife\u201d<\/a> | Next \u201cKnife\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

Michelle Kaffko is a Chicago resident and life-long Midwesterner with a B.S. in Cinema Studies and film theory. She is an independent filmmaker and photographer. She can be reached at <\/em>michelle [at] findmichelle [dot] com.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cA Knife in a Gun Fight\u201d no. 4 \u00a9 2010 Michelle Kaffko.
\nMichael Slaboch photo @ Slaboch\u2019s office
\n\u00a9 2010 Michelle Kaffko.
\nUsed with permission.<\/p>\n

CUBlog edit \u00a9 2010 Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n

CELESTIAL NAVIGATIONS<\/strong> graphics \u00a9 The Numero Group
\nClick to visit the official site!<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Back to the fore, MacKnife\u2026<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Visit the Column Index<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Return to Home Page<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this edition of \u201cA Knife in a Gun Fight,\u201d author Michelle Kaffko experiences a flashback while watching the DVD collection of Al Jarnow animations, CELESTIAL NAVIGATIONS, compiled and released by the Numero Group of Chicago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,217],"tags":[516,519,517,518,515],"class_list":["post-2296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-knife-in-a-gun-fight","category-column-du-c-u","tag-al-jarnow","tag-celestial-navigations","tag-michael-slaboch","tag-sesame-street","tag-the-numero-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}