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DENBY, BUILDINGS AND PEOPLE IN THE STREET


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not exactly in the dance film category, recently marketed films by Rudy Burckhardt on DVD include some in which Edwin Denby appears, and even has a bit of a dance riff in "Inside Dope" (1971), which first shows him as sunglasses-wearing drug dealer and ends up with a color sequence of a kind of free for all in which the well known critic lets loose in his elegant way - credits for the large cast many of whom have only brief appearances, include William Dunas, Red Grooms, Mimi Gross, and Larry Rivers, among others.

another film, a 1936 silent, "145 W. 21," shows Denby as a much younger man, and is set in what i take to be his loft/apt. in NYC and also features Aaron Copland as a kind of lout and Virgil Thomson as a beer-swilling audience member in a burlesque theater.

a 3-disc set of Burckhardt films, which date from 1936 to 1999, has released by microcinema and can be found and purchased on www.microcinema.com

a selection of these films was shown last evening in NYC at the loft of Douglas Dunn, where the DVDs and a book of Burckhardt photos were on sale. an 11-min. b&w film called, if mem. serves "Eastside Summer" has Frank O'Hara credited as its pianist.

a 1968 film called "Money" is on the DVD set but was not part of the Dunn showing; it also features Denby according the disc's notes, which describe the work as "a silent screen-type comedy starring Edwin Denby as Hemlock Stinges, the unloveable billionaire. 'The characters are all pretty bad, money is the root of all evil, and they ought not to enjoy themselves but they do anyway.'--Edwin Denby."

again these are not dance films but they record many individuals who were connected directly or indirectly to the dance life of NYC during the later decades of the 20th c.

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Thanks, rg. I'd love to see these. I imagine that among the films shown were "Climate of New York" and "Man in the Woods," which I have seen.

Here, from my public library, are descriptions:

Climate of New York includes Edwin Denby poems (1938-1945) and Rudy Burckhardt photographs and films (1936-1948). In 1935, Rudy Burckhardt moved to New York from Basel, Switzerland with Edwin Denby, who went on to become one of the foremost American dance critics. The Climate of New York (1980) is a collaboration by these two artists: Burckhardt's photographs are displayed onscreen as Denby reads his sonnets.

Man in the woods: More than twenty years after the release of The climate of New York, Checkerboard produced Man in the woods (2003), a retrospective on the life of Rudy Burckhardt, who died in 1999 at the age of 85. Set in Burckhardt's New York studio and his summer home in the woods of Maine, this film examines the artist's work in photography, film and painting. Interviews with painter Yvonne Jacquette and curators Robert Starr and Brian Wallis further illuminate Burckhardt the artist, who appreciated and transformed the chaos he discovered.

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actually, no, neither "Climate of New York" nor "Man in the Woods," was part of the showing and neither is included on the current dvd, which is entitled, as i now see i neglected to note above, RUDY BURCKHARDT: FILMS.

the scan below notes the program of films screened on Sat. eve. (the last two listed for the showing are not included on the DVD, all the others are.)

post-848-0-38614200-1335114928_thumb.jpg

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