David Larcher: Mare’s Tail

Date: 15 January 2017 | Season: Shoot Shoot Shoot 2016 | Tags:

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DAVID LARCHER: MARE’S TRAIL
Sunday 15 January 2017, at 7pm
London Close-Up Film Centre

One of the forgotten masterpieces of British avant-garde cinema. David Larcher’s epic film was assembled from quasi-autobiographical footage, shot over several years, that was processed, manipulated and edited into a dense, durational viewing experience. Generously employing assorted optical and aural trickery, Mare’s Tail unravels into a 2½ hour anarcho-mystical voyage of psychedelic revelation.

“From one flick of the mare’s tail came an unending stream of images out of which was crystallised the milky way.” (David Larcher)

Though made independently of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, the visual ingenuity and ambitious scope of Mare’s Tail made it a key contribution to the UK’s nascent experimental film scene. Containing footage that dates back to Larcher’s time as an RCA student in the mid-1960s, the film was completed some years later with funds provided by producer/patron Alan Power. It received its world premiere at the 1969 Edinburgh Film Festival and was the opening film for the IRAT Cinema at the Robert Street New Arts Lab.

David Larcher, Mare’s Tail, 1969, 16mm, colour, sound, 143 min

This rare 16mm screening is organised by LUX and Close Up to mark the publication of Shoot Shoot Shoot: The First Decade of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative 1966-76, a compendium of texts, interviews, images and documents from the era. 

PROGRAMME NOTES