A BEAT CELEBRATION!

Sun May 9, 2004 at 7:30pm

left: Pull My Daisy

PULL MY DAISY
Robert Frank & Alfred Leslie, U.S., 1958; 30m
followed by
A BUCKET OF BLOOD
Roger Corman, U.S., 1959; 66m
A program of "beat"-flavored entertainment, works that capture the outsider sensibility of the beatnik generation as it came into contact with wider American culture. The classic PULL MY DAISY is perhaps the cinema's finest ode to hanging out, featuring the presence of beat luminaries such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Larry Rivers and the voice of Jack Kerouac. Roger Corman's A BUCKET OF BLOOD features perhaps the quintessential Dick Miller performance as Walter, a busboy in a hip espresso bar who devises a unique method for entering the art scene. The films will be introduced by a trio of film and cultural scholars, each of whom will be signing their new books after these screenings: David Sterritt is film critic of the Christian Science Monitor and film professor at Long Island University and Columbia University. Screening the Beats: Media Culture and the Beat Sensibility (Southern Illinois University Press) contains essays on the intersection of American film and other media with the spontaneity and rebelliousness of the Beat Generation in the 1950s era and beyond. Mikita Brottman is professor of language and literature at the Maryland Institute College of Art and author/editor of many film-related books. Funny Peculiar: Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor (The Analytic Press) explores links among humor, aggression, and sexuality in film and other forms of cultural expression. Krin Gabbard is professor of comparative literature and English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and author of books on jazz and cinema. Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture (Rutgers University Press) addresses films that show a fascination with black music and sexuality even as they preserve old racial hierarchies.



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