Tuesday, July 13, 2010

High to Host "Dalí: A Passion for Film" Film Series

The High Museum of Art will present the film series “Dalí: A Passion for Film” from Saturday, August 21, through Saturday, September 11. Featuring films and shorts that showcase Dalí’s fascination with cinema, the series will celebrate the artist’s influence on prolific filmmakers from Walt Disney to Alfred Hitchcock. This series is presented in coordination with “Salvador Dalí: The Late Work,” on display at the High from August 7, 2010, through January 9, 2011.

“Salvador Dalí had a life-long passion for film, both as a viewer and as a creator. Many of the 20 film projects that he pursued were never realized, but the barriers to their completion never diminished his enthusiasm or imagination,” said Linda Dubler, curator of media arts at the High. “Films at the High will present a season of films beginning in August devoted to Dalí’s own creations to the filmmakers who inspired him to his on-screen persona as an artist and a celebrity. With guest speakers such as the exhibition’s curator Elliott King and a festival of fantasy and the surreal in November that focuses on the influence of Surrealism in cinema, this promises to be an eye-opening program of interest to art and film lovers alike.”

The festival opens on Saturday, August 21, with “Dalí the Filmmaker,” featuring a talk and screening with Elliott King, guest curator of “Salvador Dalí: The Late Work” and author of Dalí, Surrealism and Cinema. King will explore Dalí’s interest in the movies and his influence on classic filmmakers such as Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock. Films to be screened include Dalí and Bunuel’s short “An Andalusian Dog,” the restored short of Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney’s collaboration “Destino” and the Dalí-designed dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound.”

On Saturday, August 28, “Dalí’s American Friends” presents Dalí’s admiration of both Walt Disney and Harpo Marx as American Surrealists. In Walt Disney’s classic animated short “Skeleton Dance,” four skeletons dance in various ways and play makeshift musical instruments in a spooky graveyard. The feature-length Marx Brothers’ 1933 classic “Duck Soup” is a Surrealist work and cinematic achievement. Critic Roger Ebert said of the comedy, “To describe the plot [of Duck Soup] would be an exercise in futility, since a Marx Brothers movie exists in moments, bits, sequences, business and dialogue, not in comprehensible stories.”

The Dalí film festival concludes on Saturday, September 11, with “Lights, Camera, Dalí.” This series of three shorts looks at Dalí as a celebrity and an on-screen personality. Shot in New York, Jack Bond’s “Dalí in New York,” Andy Warhol’s “Dalí Screen Tests” and Jonas Mekas’s “New York Encounters with Dalí” explore Dalí’s surreal universe and cinematic fascination.

Film Series Schedule
Unless otherwise noted, all films begin at 8 p.m. and are screened in the Richard H. Rich Theatre. The theatre is located in the Memorial Arts Building, adjacent to the High at Peachtree and 15th Streets in midtown Atlanta (MARTA stop N5).

Dalí the Filmmaker
Saturday, August 21

Dalí’s American Friends
Saturday, August 28

Lights, Camera, Dalí
Saturday, September 11

Tickets
To purchase tickets in advance go to www.High.org, visit the Woodruff Arts Center Box Office or call 404-733-5000. Tickets for all shows are $7 general admission and $6 for students, seniors and Museum members. Patron-level members enter free. Tickets may also be purchased at the door on the night of the screening. Outdoor screenings on the Sifly Piazza are free to the public and begin at 9 p.m. Bring your own blanket or seating, but outside alcohol is prohibited. In the event of rain the film will be moved to the 400-seat Rich Theatre.

The High Museum of Art
The High Museum of Art, founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association, is the leading art museum in the southeastern United States. With more than 12,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American and decorative art; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art. The High is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists and is distinguished as the only major museum in North America to have a curatorial department specifically devoted to the field of folk and self-taught art. The High’s media arts department produces acclaimed annual film series and festivals of foreign, independent and classic cinema. In November 2005, the High opened three new buildings by architect Renzo Piano that more than doubled the Museum’s size, creating a vibrant “village for the arts” at the Woodruff Arts Center in midtown Atlanta. For more information about the High, please visit www.High.org.


The Woodruff Arts Center
The Woodruff Arts Center is ranked among the top four arts centers in the nation. The Woodruff is unique in that it combines four visual and performing arts divisions on one campus as one not-for-profit organization. Opened in 1968, the Woodruff Arts Center is home to the Alliance Theatre, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the High Museum of Art and Young Audiences. To learn more about the Woodruff Arts Center, please visit www.woodruffcenter.org.

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Read our other Arts related blogs:
http://backstagegeorgia.blogspot.com/
http://musicmattersga.blogspot.com/
http://hummingbirdhollowstudio.blogspot.com/
http://georgiaswriter.blogspot.com/
http://artzapalooza.blogspot.com/
http://dancingacrossgeorgia.blogspot.com/
http://gaclicks.blogspot.com/
http://secallsforentries.blogspot.com/
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