Scene from the film I Am Curious — Yellow
Directed by Vilgot Sjöman, 1967
Lecture: Wednesday, 14 March, 18:30
ISP Studio 3
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Film Programme:
Tuesday, 13 March and Wednesday, 14 March
ISP Studio 4
Office for Contemporary Art Norway
Wergelandsveien 17
Oslo
The presentation by OCA's director Marta Kuzma marks an incursion into an expansive research project (and eventual exhibition) that addresses the international perception of Scandinavia as a sexual utopic territory as exemplified in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Kuzma's paper delves into the reasons behind these representations with the aim to investigate their mythical status or rightful claims. In doing so, the author's research leads to the origins of sexual reform initiated by the respective women's movements at the beginning of the 20th century (more notably in the socialist activist movement in Trondheim), through to the radical revisionism in psychoanalysis prevalent in Oslo in the 1930s led by researchers Otto Fenichel and Wilhelm Reich, and eventually into the political thinking of Herbert Marcuse that arose in the 1950s. The presentation takes as its point of departure the Swedish film, I Am Curious Yellow, I Am Curious Blue to incrementally build the logic around how the "sexualization" of Scandinavia was largely a media construct initiated by the West for the purposes of developing a wider pornography industry.
Tuesday, 13 March and Wednesday, 14 March
ISP Studio 4
10:00–20:00 (Tuesday Schedule)
10:00–18:30 (Wednesday Schedule)
Tuesday, Wednesday, 10:00
Sedmikrásky / Daisies
1966 (Czechoslovakia)
Directed by Véra Chytilová
74 min, Czech with English subtitles
Chytilová's heroines rebelliously try to subvert the patriarchal system and gender stereotypes — and fail. Two teenage girls, both named Marie, decide that since the world is spoiled, they will be spoiled as well; accordingly they embark on a series of destructive pranks in which they consume and destroy the world about them. Daisies is a continuation on the part of the Chytilová's inquiry into female representation in film while providing a panorama into Czech culture and society described from an alternative point of view as shared by non-conformists, artists and intellectuals in the country at the time. Czech authorities banned this film immediately after its release in 1966.
Tuesday, Wednesday, 11:30
Flesh
1968 (USA)
Directed by Paul Morrissey
Produced by Andy Warhol
89 min, English
Paul Morrissey's film is the first in an erotically charged Flesh, Trash, Heat trilogy and a decisive homage to the aesthetic that inspired Warhol's first works. Commencing with a prolonged shot of a sleeping Joe Dallesandro (echoing Warhol's six-hour film, Sleep), Flesh launches into a somewhat esoteric plot, following Joe as he starts his day. Joe works as a prostitute to fund an abortion needed by the girlfriend of his lackadaisical wife. Bouncing between seedy encounters with delusional and damaged clients and dates with drag queens and neophyte hustlers, Joe is often the object of sexual attention and obsession as he meanders through his life.
Tuesday, Wednesday, 13:00
W.R.: Misterije Organizma / W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism
1971 (Yugoslavia)
Directed by Dusan Makavejev
80 min, Serbian, German, English with English subtitles
The starting point for Dusan Makavejev's film is William Reich, the Marxist psychoanalyst who preached social improvement through sexual enlightenment. Reich is portrayed as an intellectual, sexual pioneer, and theorist of "orgone energy" but also of "world revolution". By juxtaposing hippie America and Cold War Yugoslavia, the "Black Wave" film director stages an encounter between psychotherapy, marxism, sexual permissiveness and socialism.
Tuesday, 15:00
Wednesday, 16:30
Jag är nyfiken — Gul / I Am Curious — Yellow
1967 (Sweden)
Directed by Vilgot Sjöman
121 min, Swedish with English subtitles
Tuesday Screening only, 17:00
Jag är nyfiken — Blå / I Am Curious — Blue
1968 (Sweden)
Directed by Vilgot Sjöman
97 min, Swedish with English subtitles
A landmark film that helped define the emergent change in Swedish film of the 1960s though it borrowed heavily from the style of Ingmar Bergman. Like a French New Wave film, the movie uses jump cuts and features a story not structured in the usual, Hollywood structure. In one sense, it is a documentary-within-a-movie, but this is complicated by the companion film, I Am Curious — Blue, released in 1968. This second "version" of the movie, that takes place before and after the first movie, has a more somber and bitterly satiric style, and further explication of the framing narrative. Initially, I Am Curious — Blue and I Am Curious — Yellow were meant as one 3½ hour film. The film includes numerous and frank scenes of nudity and staged sexual intercourse. In 1969, the film was banned in the U.S. state of Massachusetts for being pornographic. After three court battles the U.S. Supreme Court, the verdict passed in Byrne v. Karalexis, 401, U.S. 216 (1970), legalized the movie by overturning the state anti-obscenity law that regulated motion pictures.
Tuesday, 18:45, Wednesday, 14:30
Kärlekens språk / The Language of Love
1969 (Sweden)
Directed by Torgny Wickman
102 min, Swedish
A film about sexual education and behaviour based on the clinical research made by reknown American and Swedish doctors. The film centers around a panel; Inge and Sten Hegeler, Maj-Brith Bergström-Walan and Sture Cullhed, all reputable experts, who have devoted their scientific studies to the various fields of sexual life. The film deals with all kinds of problems connected with the sexual relationship of people. While each question posed is discussed by the panel, the film proceeds to illustrate — the difference between male and female sexual organs and their functions, positions whereby a split screen system is used enabling us to see the various reactions in different parts of the body. In connection with this as well as in other parts of the film, diagrams and animations are used to simplify the understanding of the complicated reactions that occur when a person is under sexual stimulus. The panel also discusses the role of sex in society, the question of prejudices and taboos, sex in clothes, sex in art, etc. An international success, the film was seen as a "sexploitation" film of the "white coater" variety (a pornographic film masquerading as a documentary or scientific film).