[Frameworks] Jungle scenarios

Mon Apr 29 15:01:02 UTC 2024

Hi Albert, all,

First, I've seen Agnes Martin's Gabriel only once, but fairly recently
(2020), and I remember it being set in high desert & seaside. (Hi Arindam.)

Canyon distributes Richard Myers' Jungle Girl and it was probably the first
film that popped up in your search there. Their blurb (
https://canyoncinema.com/catalog/film/?i=1729) isn't so helpful so I've
OCRed and appended John Schofill's notes from a 1988 Experimental Film
Coalition screening at Chicago's Randolph St Gallery. It's pretty
tangential to your interest, it's a long film (100 minutes), and it's been
36 years since I've seen it, but I believe one continual thread has Myers'
actors re-enacting scenes from the Jungle Girl serial, but obviously far
removed from any jungle, in Ohio. I remember it as being sweet, not campy
or B-movie-esque, with a tinge of what Schofill below calls "Midwest
surrealism".

I'd like to see it (and others of Myers' films) again.

Eric

"
Richard Myers began filmmaking with the 20-minute short, THE PATH
(1960), followed by two more works of that length, the highly-acclaimed
classics FIRST TIME HERE (1964) and CORONATION (1965). Though he
has continued to make shorts and personal documentaries from time
to time, his course was set in the late Sixties with the production
of his first black-and-white feature, AKRAN, an extremely personal,
two-hour dream-scape shot in and about the city of Akron, completed
in 1969. Since then, he has shot four more features, ranging from
60-100 minutes in length, each taking two to four years to complete:
DEATHSTYLES (1971); 37-73 (1974); FLOORSHOW (1978); and JUNGLE GIRL
(1984). But for DEATHSTYLES, his sole extended venture into color,
all are filmed in Myers's characteristic black and white, as is his
newest work-in-progress, MOVING PICTURES (1985- ), which he describes
as a "dream scroll film."

JUNGLE GIRL (1978-84) was last seen in Chicago in its premiere at
the 1984 Chicago Film Festival. Like all of Myers's longer works,
JUNGLE GIRL is based on dreams, memories, and "active imagination"
(to borrow a term from C.G. Jung, one of Myers's influences) rendered
on film in a style that might be identified as "Midwest surrealism".
The specific inspiration for JUNGLE GIRL arose from memories awakened
when Myers, during the filming of his previous feature, FLOORSHOW,
witnessed the demolition of the favorite movie theater of his
childhood in Akron. Later, a chance viewing of a sequence from the
1940's Republic serial, JUNGLE GIRL, that he had seen at the theater
as a boy set him on the course of creative fantasy, toward the
rediscovery and re-creation of a lost love of his youth. The beautiful
and athletic Frances Gifford, star of the JUNGLE GIRL serial, was
that lost love.

The career of Frances Gifford, a rising starlet after the success
of the popular serial in 1941, came to an abrupt and tragic end
when her face was scarred in an automobile accident in 1948. Taking
a rare journey outside the Midwest, Myers sought out Gifford, whom
he found living in seclusion in a small apartment in southern
California. She agreed to meet with the filmmaker for a taped
interview, which is heard on the soundtrack, but would not consent
to [be] filmed. Myers turned to Mary Leed, friend and long-time collaborator
who has appeared in all of Myers's longer films, to take the part
of his childhood heroine. Her husband, Jake Leed, was cast as the
serial's male lead. (Arriving in town for this screening, Myers
noted that Frances Gifford's birthday is December 7, three days
from now.)

Myers writes on JUNGLE GIRL: "If it is true about losing part of
your soul...every time you have your photo taken... then I must own
the souls of Jake and Mary Leed. They have worked in films with me
for almost 20 years. The Leeds are my friends and I thank them for
their time, energy and encouragement. I also thank my family for
their help...my wife Pat, my children Mike, Kelly, and Kerry (Mike
helped with the sets for JUNGLE GIRL and Kelly helped organize a
lot of the 'actors' for the film. I want to thank my mother and
father for being in the film and to the many Kent State students
and faculty for being in the film.

"BLOOD OF A POET by Jean Cocteau was once described as a celebration
of the Mysteries... the mysteries of New York, the mysteries of
Paris...and even the mysteries of China... It was the perils of
Pauline, the adventures of Zorro: masks and revolvers, bloody
battles, bandits and lawmen, kidnappings, disappearances, mistaken
identities, "Whodunits", child rearing, executions and suicides,
keyholes, non-reflecting mirrors...marvels of all sorts.

"The serial JUNGLE GIRL was like this to me as a child. I was
fascinated with it...especially with the leading lady, Frances
Gifford. In her I found a sense of great beauty and strength... and
in the serial there was an unbearable exhilaration for nature and
'objects'...animals and masks, witch-doctors, trap-doors, torture
chambers, and secret rooms.. marvels of all sorts.

"The young actress Frances Gifford appeared in JUNGLE GIRL, a
Republic serial, in 1941. Later...a tragic accident halted her
rising career. My film is a blend of Gifford's story, along with
my own dreams and memories of Gifford and the serial that I saw and
loved as a child. The film is a PERSONAL-EXPERIMENTAL-PORTRAIT of
Gifford... along with my own AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL related images..."

- notes written and edited by John Luther Schofill
"

On Mon, Apr 29, 2024 at 4:01 AM Albert Alcoz <albertalcoz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I am writing this email to ask if you know of experimental films or video
> creation pieces in which the jungle is the main setting. I have been
> searching on the websites of the main distributors but the term "jungle"
> does not give as many results as I expected.
>
> Apart from these five titles, do you have leftover titles of other pieces?
>
> *Timber *(Coldcut & Hextatic, 2000)
> *Travelling Amazonia* (Marine Hugonnier, 2006)
> *16 mm* (Daniel Steegman Mangrané, 2008-2011)
> *Curupira, bicho do mato* (Curupira, Creature of the Woods, Félix Blume,
> 2019)
> *Murmurs of the Jungle *(Sohil Vaidya, 2021)
>
> Any reference will be appreciated.
>
> All the best,
> Albert Alcoz
> --
> http://albertalcoz.com/ <http://www.albertalcoz.com/>
> --
> Frameworks mailing list
> Frameworks at film-gallery.org
> https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org
>
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