Julian Beck

Signals Through the Flames

Sheldon Rochlin

Julian Beck, Judith Malina

Signals Through the Flames is at once a history and a celebration of the Living Theatre. Founded in the late 1940s by husband-and-wife performers Julian Beck and Judith Malina, the Living Theatre was for many years the predominent American outlet for the avant-garde movement. There were occasional self-imposed exiles to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, but the group returned full-force during the Aquarius Age to entertain a new generation of theatregoers.

Oedipus Rex

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Silvana Mangano, Franco Citti

In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Edipo (Oedipus), and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Edipo that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

Ron Rice

Taylor Mead, Winifred Bryan

“New York plays itself, as Taylor Mead and Winifred Bryan regale in pas de deux among the trashcans and the towers. The Studiedly Goofy and the Monumentally Grand are joined in masterly pas de don’t [...] The awed couple do battle with the status quo and teach the world to dance on the head of a bin. Rice detects real dignity in Bryan and amazing grace in Mead as they essay solitary promenades through the parks, subways and streets of a wintery New York landscape. Photographed and directed by Ron Rice, edited and scored by Taylor Mead.” –Edward Leffingwell

Living & Glorious

Alfredo Leonardi

Julian Beck, Judith Malina

Leonardi's film about the Living Theatre is less concerned with a straight documentary presentation of the exile theatre group from New York, but rather is concerned with the specific atmospheric factor which is indicated by their name, and which constitutes the highly suggestive effect of their playing. Cutting, for Leonardi, is the most decisive aesthetic device. The result is a wonderfully composed furioso of pictures. The hand-held camera catches rehearsals, conversations without sound, bits of theatre and daily life actions (which, for Living Theatre people, is very often intermixed).

The Cotton Club

Francis Ford Coppola

Richard Gere, Gregory Hines

Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

Visa de censure n° X

Pierre Clémenti

Barbara Girard, Pierre Clémenti

Shot in 1967 but not released until 1975, actor Pierre Clémenti’s acid-infused experimental whirlwind of colour and music featuring a who’s who of the French 60s underground.

Notes for Jerome

Jonas Mekas

Jerome Hill, Jonas Mekas

During the summer of 1966 Jonas Mekas spent two months in Cassis, as a guest of Jerome Hill. Mekas visited him briefly again in 1967, with P. Adams Sitney. The footage of this film comes from those two visits. Later, after Jerome died, Mekas visited his Cassis home in 1974. Footage of that visit constitutes the epilogue of the film. Other people appear in the film, all friends of Jerome.

Nine 1/2 Weeks

Adrian Lyne

Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger

An erotic story about a woman, the assistant of an art gallery, who gets involved in an impersonal affair with a man. She barely knows about his life, only about the sex games they play, so the relationship begins to get complicated.

Amore e rabbia

Marco Bellocchio, Elda Tattoli

Aldo Puglisi, Julian Beck

Five short stories with contemporary settings. In New York, people are indifferent to derelicts sleeping on sidewalks, to a woman's assault in front of an apartment building, and to a couple injured in a car crash. A man, stripped of his identity, dies in bed with actors expressing his agony. A cheerful, innocent young man walking a city street in a time of war pays a price for this innocence. A couple talks about cinema while it watches another couple talk of love and truth on the eve of one character's return to Cuba. Striking students take over a university classroom; an argument follows about revolution or incremental change.

Amore e rabbia

Marco Bellocchio, Carlo Lizzani

Petra Vogt, Marco Bellocchio

Five short stories with contemporary settings. In New York, people are indifferent to derelicts sleeping on sidewalks, to a woman's assault in front of an apartment building, and to a couple injured in a car crash. A man, stripped of his identity, dies in bed with actors expressing his agony. A cheerful, innocent young man walking a city street in a time of war pays a price for this innocence. A couple talks about cinema while it watches another couple talk of love and truth on the eve of one character's return to Cuba. Striking students take over a university classroom; an argument follows about revolution or incremental change.

Poltergeist II: The Other Side

Brian Gibson

Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams

The Freeling family move in with Diane's mother in an effort to escape the trauma and aftermath of Carol Anne's abduction by the Beast. But the Beast is not to be put off so easily and appears in a ghostly apparition as the Reverend Kane, a religeous zealot responsible for the deaths of his many followers. His goal is simple - he wants the angelic Carol Anne.

Se l'inconscio si ribella

Alfredo Leonardi

Julian Beck, Cathy Berberian

In this film, as in all my previous ones, there is a direct connection between inner urges and cinematic rendering. I tried to visualize my present aspiration to recover, through the various ways taught by one’s experience, the easiness, directness and ripeness proper to children’s relationships and affective life. This film is maybe a track of this path backwards. – A. L.

電子の拓本

Paul Garrin, Nam June Paik

Ryuichi Sakamoto, Allen Ginsberg

A compilation of avant-garde artwork and talent of the mid to late 20th century hosted by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Les Chemins perdus

Philippe Garrel

Keith Moon, John Entwistle

Series of three short 'Pop Films' directed between 1966 - 67 for French television by Philippe Garrel. Includes footage of The Living Theater in rehearsal, interviews with Julian Beck and Judith Malina, Donovan in concert and The Who in the studio recording 'Pictures of Lily'. Re-broadcast on INA in 1984.

Rite of Guerrilla Theater

Julian Beck

Commissioned work by Julian Beck and members of The Living Theatre (featuring Beck and Judith Malina, co-founders of The Living Theatre, in performance) for broadcast on KQED-TV, San Francisco. The Dilexi Series represents a pioneering effort to present works created by artists specifically for broadcast.