Tales From The Gimli Hospital (REFRAMED)

[Johann]

I'm pretty excited to be going to the World Premiere of Guy Maddin's Tales from the Gimli Hospital REFRAMED, a multi-media event being held this coming Saturday at the National Arts Centre here in Ottawa.

Actor Udo Kier (he's been in Herzog's Invincible, Trier's Dogville & Manderlay and many other cult hits) will be doing the narration to this cult classic silent, and Mr. Maddin will be on hand to answer questions after the film.
There's going to be Live Foley and Live music too. Should be an incredible night to see one of Canada's best cult films "reframed"...

Guy is a friend on Facebook, and he's already agreed to sign my poster for the event, which I tore off a telephone pole before the rain came.
I'm hoping to get a photo with Udo and Guy as well (I even bought a roll of black and white film for the occasion!).
I'll be sure to post about this Awesome cultural event as soon as I'm able.

Here's a nice link:


www.prairiescene.ca/en/media/details.asp?newsID=76

[oscar jubis]

green with envy

[Johann]

Really stoked for this event.
I'll post about it as soon as it's over- best to do it while my mind is fresh..

[Johann]

Tales From the Gimli Hospital REFRAMED

You couldn't ask for a better night. One of the greatest nights I'll ever bear witness to.

Guy Maddin's brilliant silent Masterpiece was "reframed" with bookended identical images, everything from snowflakes to flowers to 7-11 Big Gulps, (and Big Gulps again later on in the film, cloaked in fishing nets), humourous in-joke edits/cuts. The audience had a special and amazing time. Just a magical experience. Big-screen, full orchestra, and the Legend Udo Kier, as THE VOICE.
I'm blown away.
Not only did Guy sign my Bing Crosby CD- don't ask- and take a photo with me, but he invited me to his after party (I took a shot of the poster- GREAT after-party poster! I only stayed 20 minutes as I wanted to try to remember the events as freshly as possible for posterity. :)

I took a roll of black and white images from the performance. Can't wait to see how they look..
What can I say? The film was a breathtaking experience with all those instruments: violins, violas, cellos, keyboards and bass, along with alto singers, Celestial voices, is about all I can describe them as. Hypnotic. In perfect synco with the film. Every performer had a monitor in front of them so that they could watch the film and play to it. There were live microphones picking up all of the special effect noises and sounds created by Icelandic artists. Bongo drums, Huge bass drums, Udo Kier's flawless vocal performance...all of it was absolutely amazing. A suspension of time. I loved it. Will think about it for a long time to come.

[Johann]

The script was just Post-It notes.
Toronto rejected the film (what else is new? Toronto Film Fest rejects a lot)
In the Q & A after the screening Guy said that he could not make films about Manitoba had he not grown up there.
He said it was a bleak upbringing, lots of time for a kid to think, and silent films are his passion.
He's currently in post-production on Keyhole, a feature with his friend Udo Kier, who is currently in The Borgias, a miniseries by Oliver Hirschbiegel and another Lars von Trier feature: Melancholia, with Kirsten Dunst. Most people know him from the Paul Morrissey cult horror films.

I was in Row CC, seat 2. Dead center of row three in the orchestra pit. Right in front of Udo Kier the whole film.
Magic. Surreal. Just a tremendous Live Cinema Experience.
Guy wants this version of Gimli Hospital to tour cities. And it should. It is an absolute MUST-SEE if you're a film buff.
I'll post more on it later. It's gettin' late and I need to unwind from this mindbender of a night.
I was also given 4 multi-colored buttons promoting the film.

Pickeled herring and Icelandic vodka was served at the after party. I was at a Guy Maddin World Premiere after party...AWESOME.

[Chris Knipp]

what else is new? Toronto Film Fest rejects a lot

which evokes painful personal memories....

[Johann]

We were BOTH stung badly by TIFF. That bad taste is still in my mouth. Rick the fuckin' Temp and Ben "inconsequential" Lyons get accreditation, but a local boy with previous accreditation does not. Something is really fucked in the Big Smoke...

I'll be reviewing the film today. It's taken me a couple days to absorb the Art and Fantasia that was Tales from The Gimli Hospital

[Johann]

Apologies for not giving this event a proper review. Canada just had an election that blew my mind to Jupiter. Get off my back.


Tales From the Gimli Hospital is a surreal film that would frustrate the casual viewer. Very esoteric, very odd, and laced with a sexuality and a violence that gives it an ethereal, otherworldly quality.

Guy Maddin makes Gimli Hospital eerie, and mythic, yet very, very bleak.
Maddin's style is often compared to German expressionism and David Lynch's artistic "visions".
That's definitely true of Tales From the Gimli Hospital, which has elements that definitely reminded me of the detached and artistically bizarre method of David Lynch. (Which means that Maddin has a cinematic style that is interesting and well worth exploring).

Maddin says that he wanted to re-present/re-frame the film with bookend projected Live film shots that make the screen seem like a children's storybook- you know, elaborate borders that "frame" the story. It worked marvelously.
As I said, it was Big Gulp cups, snowflakes, flowers, branches, FISH!, cake, and Udo Kier's face, as he delivers his quiet but profound vocals.
Mr. Kier wore a sharp dark suit with a turtleneck and tight purple leather gloves while seated on a stool.
Two cameramen floated around the stage, giving a Live feed to the big screen whenever the Director wished.
Even though I was right in front of him the whole time, my eyes were drawn to the huge silver screen pretty much the whole time.
I didn't blink too much.

The acoustics in the National Arts Centre are probably the best in this country. The sound seemed to be all around you, above you, below you, EVERYWHERE. And what sounds they were!
Seattle-based experimental sound + art group Aono Jikken Ensemble had live microphones picking up the noises they made: crinkly paper.tin foil? shoes....drums....toys..(old toys- metal ones from my Grandma's youth!), digging sand in a sand box, just all kinds of surreal accoustic touches that made the movie come alive.
Maddin said that he removed the soundtrack from the original film (which was minimal to begin with) and basically worked with Matthew Patton on new music to breathe new life into his first feature film. It worked gloriously. I'm so happy to have been there to witness the World Premiere.
It was really special.

What is the film about?
It's about two characters in Gimli Hospital. LOL
At a time in history when Gimli Manitoba's Icelandic roots were still fresh.
Obviously, the Hospital wasn't quite like the one Maddin gives us. HA HA
I don't even want to describe the film.
Watch it yourself. I don't want to ruin it for anybody.

I'd like to keep it as the dream-state fantasia it was, and lock it away in my cinematic memories forever.

An audience member asked Guy Maddin "What is the meaning of slapping fish?"
Guy replied:
I think you just answered your own question, Sir.
The audience laughed.

[oscar jubis]

I can imagine how this reframed "version" would work given that the film is mostly silent in its original form. Thanks so much for sharing your experience Johann.

[Chris Knipp]

Yeah, J, your method is as unique as Madden's, and therefore appropriate.

[Johann]

Much thanks. It was an amazing experience indeed. We were told as an audience that it will now play in New York, so Chris, maybe you'll get to check it out.

I'll be adding a link to the black and white photos I took of the event soon.

[Chris Knipp]

I'll keep an eye out.

[Johann]

I forgot...you aren't a Guy Maddin fan. "Fey" was the word you described him as, was it not? :)

The roll of black and white photos I took turned out Incredibly well.
Due to an agreement I made, I can't post 'em until next saturday..
But everybody should like them. The one w/Guy and myself is especially cool imho...

[Chris Knipp]

Well now, that review of MY WINNEPEG in which I use the word 'fey' has been used for a video on demand webiste to advertise the film, so to speak.
http://www.movies-on-demand.tv/watch_my-winnipeg-2007/#comment-1271

I may have held onto my reservations about Madden, but I had a lot of time for MY WINNEPEG and said, in conclusion, this is his most autobiographicaland perhaps most accessible and appealing work so far". Somewhat presumptuous, because I haven't seen all his work. But i was going by my own experience and what I had picked up.

Written in a Paris neighborhood Internet cafe where kids come on roller blades to play video games.

[Johann]

Interesting.
I haven't seen all of his films either.
Brand Upon the Brain is an acquired taste. (a Criterion Collection DVD, btw)
My Dad is 100 Years Old is an amazing short film with Isabella Rossellini (who doesn't like her?)- a tribute film to her Father, Roberto.
The Saddest Music in the World is pure fantasy. Also stars Isabella w/ Mark McKinney (of Kids in the Hall Fame). Lady PortHuntley is a dream Goddess with Beer in her legs...
The others I haven't seen yet.
"Keyhole" is slated to open at this year's TIFF.


Mr. Maddin would be an amazing film professor. His knowledge of cinema is Awesome. I learned a lot of obscure films to watch because of his contributions to Film Comment magazine.
One of the photos I took is of the article of Maddin's Hauntings in the Tiff Bell Lightbox's first film guide, along with a shot of Werner Herzog's autograph and the Gimli premiere NAC ticket. turned out Awesome in black and white.

[Chris Knipp]

The Saddest Music in the World bored me silly. That was the turnoff. My Winnipeg pulled me back. I can see what he's doing there and it's very imaginative and evocative.

[Johann]

I can totally accept someone being bored silly by The Saddest Music in the World.
It's one for the die-hard Guy Maddin fans, I guess. The least accessible movie in his canon.
I'm gonna see if I can cheat and put up those Gimli black and white photos...I'm really happy with 'em.
And I heard that Mr. Maddin shaved his beard off. The playoffs aren't over yet, Guy!

He has/had a beard that meant business. Destroys Hemingway's, imho. :)

[Chris Knipp]

Saddest Music was a bad way to begin, and it was worse because I went with a friend who loves music and thought it sounded nice. She is one of those people who don't go to movies often and when they do want to enjoy it, so I felt a bit at fault.

[Johann]

Sometimes the experience of a film can turn a person off, depending on the circumstances.
It's a shame when that happens. Ruins the movie. Lord knows I've made harsh decisions about movies I've seen in bad contexts.
Contact with Jodie Foster is one.
I started drinking whiskey one night and started watching that one. 45 minutes later certain scenes induced power vomiting.
NEVER drink whiskey and watch CONTACT at the same time. NEVER! LOL

[Johann]

Here's some excerpts from the Prairie Scene program from the event:

GUY MADDIN, director

Inspired by the aesthetics and melodramatic flourishes of silent cinema, Central European literature and the desolation of his native Winnipeg, Guy Maddin has fashioned a career like no other. A Super-8 cranking modern-day Eisenstein, filming plots that would make John Waters blush, Maddin embraces a cinema where expressionism, somnambulism, and lurid sexual neuroses unite and conquer!

Biography

Guy Maddin, the world's foremost cineaste planant, was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba: the coldest and most central city in North America. His filmic output to date - 9 feature-length projects and innumerable shorts- is a remarkable canon of fantasia. Viewing a Maddin movie, short- or long-form, it's hard not to conclude that there must have been some strange alchemy on the set- the pictures seem woven and filligreed rather than simply, bluntly "shot" as other movies are; and furthermore must have been magicked together by a team of pillow-sleeved artistes with a rouged, beret-clad Maddin shrieking directions in falsetto from a golden velvet throne floating atop a dais of honeyed mist.

However, he is, in person and on set, quite a normal man.

His first feature, Tales From The Gimli Hospital appeared in 1988, and became a midnight movie classic.
His second, Archangel,won the U.S. National film Critics award for best experimental film.
Since then he has won many other awards- including the Telluride Silver Medal for life achievement in 1995, the San Francisco International Film Festival's prestigious Persistence of Vision award in 2006, and many more- and created dozens of beguiling films in his unique personal style.
These include such celebrated feature works such as The Saddest Music in The World (2003); Brand Upon The Brain! (2006); and My Winnipeg (2007). Maddin is also a writer and teacher, and occupies the position of Distinguished Filmmaker in Residence at the University of Manitoba.

[Johann]

This is the write-up/Copy by Mark Peranson on "TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL", also from the Praire Scene program:
(I'm putting it here in it's entirety for those who want more about the movie than what I wrote)


Guy Maddin's amusingly nonsensical first feature is set sometime in the pre-Confederation past in the idyllic northern Manitoba town of Gimli, as a deadly pestilence rages.

The film chronicles the jealous relationship between the delirious Einar and his rotund hospital-mate, Gunnar; Gunnar entertains the nurses with his good humour while Einar lapses in and out of consciousness. As they undergo unconventional medical treatments involving seagulls, the two discover they have something in common: they both had sexual relations with Gunnar's late wife.

Very, very loosely based on the local Icelandic Gimli Saga (stories about the Icelandic community in Gimli), Maddin's deadpan tone poem traps viewers in a somnambulistic storytelling loop. A series of self-hating Icelandic "heritage moments" filtered through a surrealist sensibility (heavy on the fish) and the entire vocabulary of silent cinema, with references ranging from Busby Berkeley to Erich von Stroheim, this part-talkie is possessed by a pre-Code morality encompassing homoeroticism, necrophilia and a black-faced minstrel.

The film is often underlit and from only one light source.
The camera focuses on unusual body parts such as kneecaps and the space between the eyebrows, establishing Maddin as a primeval fetishist.
And, in a truly odd "Icelandic" wrestling scene- also a nod to Edgar G. Ulmer's The Black Cat (1934)- the camera focuses on the buttocks.

Tales From The Gimli Hospital, made over 18 months with a script jotted down on Post-It notes, was eventually nominated for a Genie.
Notoriously, the film was rejected by the Toronto Film Festival of Festivals' Perspective Canada programming committee, some of whom mistook the highly deliberate, crackling ambient soundtrack as amateurish.
Redemption proved Sweet as Gimli Hospital became a bonafide 80's cult classic, playing packed midnight screenings in New York City for close to a year.
This was thanks to the support of late-night impresario and independent filmmaker Ben Barenholtz, who promoted Maddin's film as the second coming of Eraserhead.
Indeed, this unique feature film might well be unspooling in the mind of Eraserhead's Scandinavian Lady in the Radiator.

[Johann]

photos are up on Facebook. I'll see if I can link to it but it looks like a zillion characters....


www.facebook.com/home.php#!/media/set/?set=a.10150241747320067.362455.622980066