Notes on Marie Menken
North American Premiere

Notes on Marie Menken

| Austria | 97 MINUTES | English
Documentary

Martina Kudlacek has made a name for herself creating bio-docs on experimental cinema personalities such as, Maya Deren (In the Mirror of Maya Deren) and Alexander Hammid (Aimless Walk) (TFF 2005). Kudlacek latest brings into focus the underground film icon Marie Menken, best known for her role as a protagonist in Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls. Menken's role in Warhol's underground classic that managed to make it above ground brought her a certain degree of fame as an actress, but people often overlook the fact that she was a talented filmmaker in her own right. Kudlacek's fascinating, filmic diary Notes on Marie Menken follows the reminiscences of her friends and colleagues, among them Gerard Malanga (poet, photographer, and filmmaker) and Jonas Mekas (fellow Lithuanian, artist, and public champion of the avant-garde). Various interviewees recount how the public marital theatrics of Menken and her husband, filmmaker Willard Maas, became the inspiration for the perennial battling older couple in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Beginning with the excavation of Marie's rusty film cans, old photographs, and papers housed in a storage locker, Kudlacek brings Menken vividly back to life. She contrasts her own crisp black-and-white digital cinematography with lush color excerpts from Menken's 16 mm celluloid films. In the film's most compelling sequence, fellow artist Gerard Malanga winds through a rare clip of Marie Menken and Andy Warhol on a New York City rooftop. They seemed to be engaged in an artistic duel, each shooting with their respective 16 mm Bolex cameras. The moviola, through which the film runs, sheds light on an intricately choreographed dance that shines through flickering images of deteriorating film.

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