In anticipation of our forthcoming issue out mid june focusing on the relation between art and film, we invite you to watch (if not done yet) the great video essay Los Angeles Plays Itself by Thom Andersen.

Finished in 2003, Los Angeles Plays Itself explores the way Los Angeles has been presented in movies. Consisting entirely of clips from other films, it was never released due to rights issues, though can been seen at film festivals and in special presentations by the director. (source Wikipedia)

The year is 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, and a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a short cut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger, thirst and their own lack of faith in each other’s instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as the natural enemy.

Untitled, 2011.

A film created by Alexandra Ruiz and Sandro Santoro for the exhibit

“An Evocation of Japan” at Ra, Antwerp.

Bojangles of Harlem from Swing Time (1936)

Swing Time is considered to be Astaire and Rogers’ best dance musical, featuring four dance routines that are each regarded as masterpieces of their kind. “Bojangles of Harlem” features a two-minute solo of Astaire dancing with his shadows which took three days to shoot. (via wiki)

Excerpt from a scene of Le far west, a movie by Jacques Brel where Brel himself excels at what he is best known for. The movie was selected at the Cannes festival in the year 1973. Archive from INA.