LECTURE past

Mark Danner
Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence Torture War
Thursday, April 29 5:30p

“Mark Danner is leading journalism's improbable Renaissance -- showing, page after page, that the elegantly reasoned argument, supported by indisputable facts and presented with passion and ingenuity, can still hone ideals into a sharp sword of action.” –Ron Suskind, Pulitzer-prize winner and author

Mark Danner, winner of a National Magazine Award, an Emmy and three Overseas Press Awards, and recipient of a Macarthur “Genius” Award, brings his insights on American foreign policy during a lecture “Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence Torture War.”

Danner’s CCA lecture offers a moral history of American power during the last quarter century, from bloody battleground to dark prison cell to air-conditioned office. Danner will explore the true final years of the American Century, as the United States passed from the violent certainties of the late Cold War, to the ideological confusions of the post-Cold War world, to the pumped up and ongoing evangelism of the War on Terror and the Iraq War, and the ruins they have left behind.

Shamanic Cinema: The Moving Image as Mystical Medium
A Lecture Series With Anthony Buchanan in the CCA Digital Media Lab

$5 suggested donation

Tuesday, Dec 8th at 6.00pm
Weimar Cinema And The Occult

Weimar culture, seething with revolutions in the arts, theatre and decadent culture, merged their fascination with darkness, psychology and heavy occultism with their evolving cinematic language. The early German films, memorable for their deep shadows, heavy iconography and mysterious imagery, are saturated with mystical and Occultist symbolism. For many visionary filmmakers such as F. W. Murnau, his Occultist producer Albin Grau, and theatre director/filmmaker Paul Wegener, the cinema was the ultimate medium for expressing the hidden images of the psyche and a means of carrying on the tradition of secret initiation. Many classic films will be discussed, such as Nosferatu, The Golem, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in connection with the spiritualism that brought them to light.

Sunday, December 13 at 6.00pm
The Shamanic and Kabbalistic films of Harry Smith

Harry Smith, American icon, Hermetic scholar, alchemist, filmmaker and madman, was one of the great eccentrics of the Twentieth century. His obsessions with everything from Native American cosmology to American folk music were already legendary when he began making some of the earliest abstract and hand-crafted films that sparked a revolution in underground film. But Smith’s films, ranging from subliminal color and geometric abstractions to highly symbolic alchemical and religious visions, transcend cinema and become spiritual journeys in themselves. For Smith, filmmaking was the modern equivalent of ancient alchemical practice. His films will be discussed in connection to the Kabbalistic and shamanic visions they represent, but also for the treasures of American culture they have become. Smith’s films live on as some of the most influential images and forms our culture has ever produced.

Sunday, December 20th at 6.00pm
Alejandro Jodorowsky, Spiritualism and the Tarot

One of the greatest living shamans of cinema, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s quirky and eccentric films can be seen as moving Tarot images. Jodorowsky has always treaded the line between avant-garde and tradition, but his highly personal work has transgressed both these categories. Submerged in mythology, psychology and spiritual revelation, the often ridiculous and decadent imagery are a record of Jodorowsky’s spiritual quest for enlightenment throughout his life. Jodorowsky’s early pursuit of Buddhist truth and Nothingness culminated in a lifelong fascination with the Tarot and its insistence on creating personal interpretations of ancient spiritual iconography. Jodorowsky’s life and influence will be discussed alongside clips of his masterpiece of cinematic Tarot, The Holy Mountain. His faith in ancient visual depictions of spiritual states make him an indispensable mythmaker of our time.

* Although relevant clips will be shown from each piece, none of these films will be shown in their entirety. For those who wish to not have the stories spoiled, it is recommended to see the films beforehand or afterwards.