Saul Levine - New Left Note (1968-1982)

1968-82, R8/16mm, 18fps, 26 min.

Saul Levine incisively distills the whirlwind of domestic protest, social revolution, and increasing public disillusionment over a protracted, bloody, and inextricable Vietnam War that defined the atmosphere of late 60s American culture in his magnum opus, New Left Note, a film inspired in part by his tenure as editor for - and complemented the ideals of - the progressive Students for a Democratic Society publication, New Left Notes. Levine juxtaposes seemingly irresolvable images of inertia and action, isolation and solidarity that reinforce his penchant for aesthetic hyperactivity - rapid intercutting, disorienting quick pans, and looping, reinforcing imagery - with sequences composed of visually longer takes and more stable, implicitly voyeuristic gaze that subvert the stasis of the images (and made all the more jarring in their discontinuity through the visibility of cement splices): initially, of an impromptu, distanciated metafilm (a soundless, low-resolution recording of Richard Nixon televised broadcast speech), then subsequently, an intimate, occasionally unfocused, and borderline transgressive image of the off-screen filmmaker and a resting young woman in varying stages of physical intimacy while traveling on a bus (perhaps returning from a protest march on Washington DC). In contrast to the adrenalized saturation of his autobiographical sketch, Note to ... films, Levine's images in New Left Notes reflect a more deliberate (and deliberative) approach to filmmaking as a tool for social change - a visceral chronicle of creative expression and cultural consciousness.

Saul Levine - New Left Note (1968-1982) 1ª parte

As editor of New Left Notes, the newspaper of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Levine was at the center of multiple radical political movements. For this film, he employs a rapid fire editing style to create a frenetic, kaleidoscopic portrait of the antiwar movement, women's liberation and the Black Panthers.
'New Left Note' is a study of radical politics in radical film form." - Marjorie Keller

Saul Levine - New Left Note (1968-1982) 2ª parte

"The life he records is a jumble of demonstrations, fused with the kaleidoscopic fury of memory; its brief reprises include a catnap in the back of a car and a glimpse of a zoo. His incessant, chaotic outpouring of political energy seems less geared to a naive notion of bettering the world than to a perpetual pressure to keep it from getting worse." - P. Adams Sitney, The Village Voice

Saul Levine - New Left Note (1968-1982) 3ª parte

Más videos de Saul Levine en su canal de youtube y en el DVD editado por TV Eye Video.