Date: 23 October 2011 | Season: London Film Festival 2011 | Tags: London Film Festival
THE PETTIFOGGER
Sunday 23 October 2011, at 7pm
London BFI Southbank NFT3
Lewis Klahr, The Pettifogger, USA, 2011, 65 min
The first feature-length work by Lewis Klahr takes a unique approach to a familiar genre. Ostensibly a thriller that traces events in the life of an American gambler and con man circa 1963, The Pettifogger is described by the filmmaker as ‘an abstract crime film and, like many other crime films involving larceny, a sensorial exploration of the virulence of unfettered capitalism.’ Characters lifted from comic books move through an impressionistic landscape of textures, photographs and drawings, populating a story whose narrative is suggested but not strongly defined. Employing a range of iconography and appropriated audio to expand his signature style of collage animation, Klahr recycles symbols of popular culture to address themes of the loss of innocence and the irresistible allure of wealth.
Screening with
Lewis Klahr, April Snow, USA, 2010, 10 min
A love story about cars and girls, carried away by songs from the Shangri-La’s and The Boss.
Also Screening: Tuesday 25 October 2011, at 7pm, STUDIO
PROGRAMME NOTES
THE PETTIFOGGER
Sunday 23 October 2011, at 7pm
London BFI Southbank NFT3
APRIL SNOW
Lewis Klahr, USA, 2010, video, colour, sound, 10 min
Another ‘couplet’ from my ongoing Prolix Satori series. I thought up the juxtaposition of these two pop songs while creating a mix-tape back in 1988 but never thought I’d work with them as a film soundtrack. Back then the taboo in experimental film circles about using music was so strong it seemed permanent. (Lewis Klahr)
THE PETTIFOGGER
Lewis Klahr, USA, 2011, video, colour, sound, 65 min
pettifogger: 1560s, from petty; the second element possibly from obs. Du. focker, from Flem. Focken ‘to cheat,’ or from cognate M.E. fugger, from Fugger the renowned family of merchants and financiers of 15c.-16c. Augsburg. In German, Flemish and Dutch, the name became a word for ‘monopolist, rich man, usurer’. A ‘petty Fugger’ would mean one who on a small scale practices the dishonourable devices for gain popularly attributed to great financiers; it seems possible that the phrase ‘petty fogger of the law’, applied in this sense to some notorious person, may have caught the popular fancy. (The Etymology Dictionary)
A year in the life of an American gambler and con man circa 1963. A diaristic, first person montage full of glimpses, glances, decaying ephemera and elliptical narrative. An abstract crime film and, like many other crime films involving larceny, a sensorial exploration of the virulence of unfettered capitalism. An impressionistic collage film culled from a wide variety of image and sound sources that fully exploits the hieroglyphic essence of cutouts to ponder what appropriation and stealing have in common. Definitely the longest continuous film I’ve ever completed. (Lewis Klahr)
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