Hello MRCers and welcome back.

Lots of things have been moving and shaking in the Media Center since we shut in December for the long winter's nap.  Ann Moen, long-time MRC operations supervisor, left the library to pursue other wild and wacky pursuits.  We are very pleased to announce the arrival of a new op supe:  Giselle Herrmann.  Giselle formerly worked in the library's technical services department, and she brings with her a great wealth of knowledge about library technologies and operations (plus being a movie fan, of course).  Drop by and say HELLO!

Rooms with a View

Although most of the viewing that goes on in MRC is done at individual viewing carrels, MRC also has facilities for larger group viewing.  Faculty or GSIs may book one of three group viewing rooms in advance for limited-session screening of materials in the MRC collection (the rooms are not intended to serve as general assignment classrooms, or for regularly/frequently occurring events).  Two of the group rooms are in MRC:  Group Room A (up to 15 viewers) and Group Room B (up to 20 viewers).  There is also a larger room (150D Moffitt) in the southwest corner of Moffitt's first floor that can be booked for screenings for groups up to 49 individuals.

Groups of three or more students engaged in course-related viewing may also book group viewing rooms (MRC group rooms A and B only)

For more information about the use of these rooms, See http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/mediacommons.html

Movie Talk 

A Moffitt colleague of ours recently turned us on to Professor Michael Eidenmuller's fabulous Movie Speeches site (part of the larger, even more fabulous American Rhetoric site): "Full text, audio and video database of over 160 Hollywood movie speeches, as selected by the audiences of American Rhetoric.  A new movie speech is added every three weeks.  Included are military movie speeches, sports-oriented movie speeches, forensic movie speeches, and social-political movie speeches, among others."  Definitely worth checking out!

Recent Faves:  Two Films About Movement

The Way Things Go (Der Lauf der Dinge)
1987. 30 min.

In the Way Things Go, Swiss conceptual artists Peter Fischili and David Weiss invoke both the spirit of dada and a panoply of thermodynamic laws to create a truly astounding visual experience. Using scrap wood, old tires, balloons, sundry household goods, industrial castoffs, and a battery of dangerously incendiary chemical solutions, Fischili and Weiss (who have been called “the merry pranksters of contemporary art”) have constructed a huge, lumbering, weirdly beautiful infernal machine, propelled by gravity and chemical reactions alone. The chain-reactive workings of this goofy kinetic sculpture are shot pretty much in real time, and there is no sound other than the hilarious whirring, clanking, fizzing, and groaning of the mechanical beast at work. The proceedings are filled with as much suspense and humor as any film I’ve seen in the past several years, and it’s impossible not to be filled with awe at the perverse genius it took to plan and assemble the contraption. Somewhere in heaven Rube Goldberg, Marcel Duchamp, Isaac Newton, and Leonardo da Vinci are most certainly smiling down beatifically on both artists. (By the way, the last time I looked, some copyright miscreant had put parts of this film on YouTube.

Media Center: DVD 1335

Ballets Russes.
2005. 118 min.

I admit it: until very recently, I was a shamefully hard-core balletophobe. I’ve got to say, however, that screening filmmakers Dayna Goldfine’s and Dan Geller’s delightful history of the several ground-breaking dance troupes performing under the name Ballet Russe, has caused me to do at least a partial pirouette on the subject. Using bountiful archival performance footage and interviews with surviving principle dancers from the company (most in their 80s and 90s at the time of filming), the documentary traces the progress of the group from its founding in Paris in 1909 by dance visionary Sergei Diaghilev, to its resurrection in the 1930s as the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, to its rancorous split in 1937 into two separate, fiercely competing troupes. The real dramatic core of this story, however, lies in the generally fond recollections of the ballerinas and premier danseurs. Seeing the group of elderly performers assembled on stage at a 2005 reunion is like gazing upon the proud inhabitants of a beautiful lost age. In perhaps the most moving sequence of the film, former principles George Zoritch and Nathalie Krassovska gingerly walk through a pas de deux from Giselle, and we can clearly see that the passion, grace, and love of the dance are still there after 70 years.

Media Center:  DVD 6562 

The documentary film form has, in a sense, been setting itself up for the big cinematic pratfall ever since Robert Flaherty pursued Nanook across the northern tundra. Unlike purely fictional movies, which ultimately seek simply to entertain us with good stories, documentaries have historically made loftier claims on our attentions. Documentaries want us to believe in the “truth” or “reality” of what we’re watching, and they ask us to act upon these beliefs in concrete ways. Over the past 75 years, these highfalutin cinematic claims and ambitions, along with the development of distinctive documentarily strategies, styles, and conventions, have made the form ripe for parody and appropriation. Perhaps the earliest poke in the documentary ribs was Jim McBride’s amusing, fake verité riff, David Holzman’s Diary (1968). Rob Reiner upped the ante in 1984 with his mock-rockumentary goof, This Is Spinal Tap. And in the last decade, Christopher Guest has made a career out of gently needling the form in Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best of Show (2000), and A Mighty Wind (2003). While I’m not a huge fan of Reiner or Guest--a little too winky-winky-ain’t-I-cleaver for my taste--I adore the varied and more complex spins and spoofs described below. (For a more extensive listing of mockumentaries and fake documentaries in the Media Resources Center, see http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/mockumentaries.html)

Dark Side of the Moon. 2002. 52 min. Video/C MM393

One small step for man, one giant step for…Stanley Kubrick? Hands-down my favorite fake documentary, William Karel’s hilariously sober-faced film pulls out all the expository-style documentary stops, including disembodied voice-of-God narration, brilliantly edited news footage, completely believable talking-head witnesses and experts, and skillfully doctored photographs to reveal the dark, Nixonian plot to give the nation a vicarious walk on the moon, even if it does take place on a sound stage with Stanley behind the camera.

Forbidden Quest. 1993. 71 min.  DVD 4523

The re-editing and repurposing of existing documentary footage is by no means a new practice. As early as 1927, in her film Fall of the Romanov Dynasty, Russian filmmaker Esther Shub skillfully cut together existing actualities and news footage to glorify the rise of the Soviet state. In Forbidden Quest, Dutch filmmaker Peter Delpeut raises the use of “found” footage to the level of poetry and wonder. Using archival moving images from a number of early arctic expeditions, Delpeut tells the fictional tale of the doomed South Pole expedition of the ship Hollandia (recounted with wonderful gravity and melancholy by Irish actor Joseph O’Connor). It’s difficult to say which is more captivating, the riveting tall tale or the astounding real life images used to illustrate it.

In Search of the Edge.  1990. 26 min.  DVD 3673

Finally, a documentarian brave enough to rip the lid off of several centuries of dangerous scientific disinformation! Scott Barrie has constructed an uproariously funny, BBC-esque historical and scientific inquiry into the tyranny of “globularism”—the widely-held, misbegotten notion that the earth is round. Frighteningly, for hopeless right-brainers such as I, the flurry of charts and animated schema, the copious historical evidence, and the expert scientific testimony begin to make strange sense by the end of the film.

Forgotten Silver. 1995. 55 min.  DVD 3800

D.W. Griffith, Edwin S. Porter, Cecil B. DeMille—roll on over and make room for Collin McKenzie in the cinematic pantheon. Collin who? Aha! Exactly the point of this terrific, affectionate mockdoc send-up of early film history and filmmakers by Peter Jackson (in his pre-Frodo days) and Costa Botes. Forgotten Silver traces the almost completely obscured career of apocryphal New Zealand film pioneer McKenzie, a technical and directorial genius said to have invented everything from the close-up and tracking shot to color film and talkies. Actor Sam Neil, film critic Leonard Maltin, and—God help us!—movie mogul Harvey Weinstein all turn up to bear witness to McKenzie’s greatness.

When most people think of MRC, they think of videos or DVDs.  While moving images are undoubtedly the mainstay and most heavily used part of the MRC collection, they're not the only medium in which we traffick.  MRC also currently owns well over 3,000 audio titles on cassette and CD.  The MRC audio collection mainly comprises spoken word materials, from poetry readings, to interviews of notable people, to famous speeches.  There is also a smattering of music that has been included in the collection because of its political or social significance.  Some of those titles are described below:

American Industrial Ballads (Pete Seeger)Contents: Peg and awl -- The blind fiddler -- The buffalo skinners -- Eight-hour day -- Hard times in the mill -- Roll down the line -- Hayseed like me -- The farmer is the man -- Come all you hardy miners -- He lies in the American land -- Casey Jones -- Let them wear their watches fine -- Cotton mill colic -- Seven cent cotton and forty cent meat -- Mill mother's lament -- Fare ye well, old Ely Branch -- Beans, bacon, and gravy -- The death of Harry Simms -- Winnsboro Cotton Mill blues -- Ballad of Barney Graham -- My children are seven in number -- Raggedy -- Pittsburgh Town -- Sixty per cent. Sound/D 69

Sing for freedom: the story of the civil rights movement through its songs.

We are soldiers in the army -- Keep your hand on the plow -- This little light -- You better leave segregation alone -- Your dog loves my dog -- Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around -- I woke up this morning with my mind on freedom -- Keep your eyes on the prize -- Oh Pritchett, oh Kelly -- Up above my head -- This little light -- Brown baby -- Which side are you on? -- I'm gonna sit at the welcome table -- Mass meeting and prayer -- Guide my feet -- I'm on my way -- Rev. Ralph Abernathy -- Yes, we want our freedom -- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- Ninety-nine-and-a-half won't do -- Get on board -- No danger in the water -- Medgar Evans speaking -- Keep your eyes on the prize -- We shall overcome.  SOUND/D 118

 

The Best of Broadside 1962-1988  : anthems of the American underground from the pages of Broadside magazine

Phil Ochs, Peter La Farge, The Broadside Singers, Pete Seeger, Mark Spoelstra, Jim Page, Malvina Reynolds, Tom Paxton, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, The Freedom Singers, Janis Ian, Len Chandler, El Teatro Campesino, Paul Kaplan, Wes Houston, The New World Singers, Rev. F. D. Kirkpatrick, Jim Collier, Sammy Walker, Peggy Seeger.
Broadside was a small underground magazine filled with new songs by artists too radical for the establishment. These songs tell stories rooted in American history from 1962 through 1988 addressing such issues as warfare, nuclear threat, ethnic conflicts, immigrants' sufferings, unequal treatment of women, ecological devastation and social injustice. This extensively annotated 5 CD set includes 89 songs, some never commercially released, extensive notes, graphics from the original Broadside magazine and more.  SOUND/D 88

 

Project J, Justice: barbed wire and hip-hop

Sei sei doh-doh -- Democracy can be an illusion -- Memoirs of a watchdog -- Our family -- 9-o Double 6 -- Black hair -- One together -- Gambare -- Timeline -- We're dealing with ....
In order to increase teens' awareness of the injustices Japanese Americans faced during the wartime hysteria of WWII, this disc incorporates audio excerpts from the Los Angeles hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) with hip-hop, rap, and jazz music.  SOUND/D 195

 

Don't Mourn, Organize!: Songs of Labor (Joe Hill)

Contents: Joe Hill / Phil Ochs (Billy Bragg) -- Joe Hill's last will / Joe Hill (Utah Phillips) -- Joe Hill's ashes / Mark Levy (Mark Levy) -- The preacher and the slave / Joe Hill ("Haywire Mac" McClintock) -- Joe Hill / Alfred Hayes, Earl Robinson (Paul Robeson) -- Paper heart / Si Kahn, Charlotte Brody (Si Kahn) -- Casey Jones, the union scab / Joe Hill (Pete Seeger and the Song Swappers) -- Mr. Block / Joe Hill (Mats Paulson) -- Joe Hill listens to the praying / Kenneth Patchen (Joe Glazer) -- The tramp / Joe Hill (Cisco Houston) -- Joe Hill / Afred Hayes, Earl Robinson (Earl Robinson) -- The white slave / Joe Hill (Alfred Esteban Cortez) -- Narrative (Elizabeth Gurley Flynn) -- The rebel girl / Joe Hill ; arr. and adapted with original material by Hazel Dickens (Hazel Dickens) -- There is power in a union / Joe Hill (Entertainment Workers IU 630, I.W.W.). Sound/D 71

 

Dust Bowl Ballads (Woody Guthrie)

Contents: The great dust storm (Dust storm disaster) -- Talking dust bowl blues -- Pretty Boy Floyd -- Dusty old dust (so long it's been good to know yuh) -- Dust bowl blues -- Blowin' down the road (I ain't going to be treated this way) -- Tom Joad, Part 1 -- Tom Joad, Part 2 -- Do re mi -- Dust bowl refugee -- I ain't got no home -- Vigilante man -- Dust can't kill me -- Dust pneumonia blues -- Talking dust bowl blues (alternate version). Recorded in New York City, Apr. 26, 1940 and May, 3, 1940. SOUND/D 72

 

Presidential Campaign Songs, 1789-1996

Free elections (In General) (0:27) -- Follow Washington (George Washington) (1:01) -- Adams and liberty (John Adams) (1:36) -- For Jefferson and liberty (Thomas Jefferson) (1:51) -- Huzzah for Madison, huzzah (James Madison) (1:22) -- Monroe is the man (James Monroe) (1:29) -- Little know ye who's coming (John Q. Adams) (1:58) -- Jackson and Kentucky (Andrew Jackson) (2:10) -- Rockabye, baby (Martin Van Buren)(1:24) -- The Harrison yankee doodle (William H. Harrison) (1:12) -- Tippecanoe and Tyler, too (John Tyler) (1:15) -- Jimmy Polk of Tennessee (James K. Polk) (1:37) -- Rumadum dum (Zachary Taylor) (1:19) -- The union wagon (Millard Fillmore) (1:41) -- Pierce and king (Franklin Pierce) (1:36) -- Buchanan and John Breckenridge (James Buchanan) (1:12) -- Lincoln and liberty (Abraham Lincoln) (2:09) -- Just before election, Andy (Ulysses S. Grant) (1:27) -- For Hayes and Wheeler,too (Rutherford Hayes) (1:20) -- If the Johnnies get into power again (James A. Garfield) (1:45) -- Democrats, good Democrats (Grover Cleveland)(1:38) -- He's all right (Benjamin H. Harrison) (1:20) -- Marching with McKinley (William McKinley) (2:04) -- Roosevelt the cry (Teddy Roosevelt) (1:14) -- Get on a raft with Taft (William H. Taft) (1:34) -- Wilson, that's all (Woodrow Wilson) (1:51) -- Harding, you're the man for us (Warren G. Harding) (1:21) -- Keep cool and keep Coolidge (Calvin Coolidge) (2:17) -- If he's good enough for Lindy (Herbert Hoover) (1:35) -- Franklin D. Roosevelt's back again (Franklin D. Roosevelt) (1:49) -- I'm just wild about Harry (Harry S. Truman) (0:47) -- I like Ike (Dwight D. Eisenhower) (0:40) -- Marching down to Washington (John F. Kennedy) (1:03) -- Hello, Lyndon (Lyndon B. Johnson) (1:03) -- Buckle down with Nixon (Richard M. Nixon) (1:17) -- I'm feeling good about America (Gerald R. Ford) (1:22) -- Why not the best? (Jimmy Carter) (2:29) -- California, here we come (Ronald W. Reagan) (0:37) -- This land is your land (George Bush) (1:29) -- Don't stop thinking about tomorrow (William J. Clinton) (2:19) -- The same merry-go-round (Third party) (1:42) -- Song of the presidents (all of them) (4:25).

Oscar Brand, guitar and vocals; John Foley, guitar and vocals; Jordan Brand, bass and vocals; Jonathan Pickow, banjo, synthesizer, and vocals. Sound/D 80

 

 Songs for Political ActionDisc one, The leftist roots of the folk revival. Disc two, Theatre and cabaret performers, 1936-1941.  Sound/D 75-79

 

We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years

Traditional tunes from the "Little Red Songbook," published by the I.W.W. labor union in the early 20th century. Contents: The boss (0:19) -- We have fed you all a thousand years (1:59) -- Sheep and goats (1:02) -- The timberbeast's lament (1:41) -- Dump the bosses off your back (4:15) -- The lumberjack's prayer (1:48) -- Mr. Block (4:27) -- The preacher and the slave (4:12) -- The popular Wobbly (2:04) -- Casey Jones ; the union scab (2:57) -- Where the Fraser River flows (2:53) -- Bread and roses (2:56) -- Joe Hill (4:14) -- Union burying ground (3:31) -- The two bums (1:02) -- Hallelujah, I'm a bum (5:28) -- Solidarity forever (4:19) -- There is power in a union (3:42). Performer: Utah Phillips, vocals and guitar. 1993. Sound/D 100

 

 

 

 

The U.S. Copyright Office has issued a handful of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that may benefit media professors, archivists, and other academics. Under certain circumstances, they will now be allowed to circumvent access-control technologies on various electronic media.

Under one of the six exemptions, all of which will expire after three years, professors of film and media studies can circumvent the access-control technology of DVD's in their libraries to use clips of films more easily in class.

Full Chronicle of Higher Education article 

Podcast of NPR All Things Considered program on the new ruling 

Text of full ruling