The Big Combo, Joseph H. Lewis, 1955.

Join me at the Filmarche film school at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday 15.05.2013 for my talk about film noir.

Am Mittwoch, den 15.05.2013 kommt der Peter Bennett in die filmArche, um aus der Perspektive eines professionellen Fotografen über den Film Noir zu sprechen.

Die Mittwochsveranstaltung wird dieses Mal in englischer Sprache abgehalten.

filmArche e.V.
Schlesische Straße 26
10997 Berlin

Telefon: +49 (0) 30 616 26 911
E-Mail: info@filmarche.de

INT. NIGHT – VILLA “RIVERSIDE”:

Film Noir :

From the early 1940s to the late 1950s the American film industry produced hundreds of movies categorized as film noirs. The film noir is seldom considered a genre but rather a series of stylistic conventions and tone that contribute to the mood of the movie and is almost always a crime film. This cycle of films was enormously influential in the development of American and world cinema.

Using movie clips and stills, the seminar will look at:

- the stylistic conventions conventions of film noir.
- a brief history, style and social content, of American crime films.
- the development of noir cinema from German Expressionism (Fritz Lang) to French Poetic Realism (Julien Duvivier) and American proto-noirs of the early 1940s.
- American social, political and censorship conventions that gave rise to both pro-government and “subversive” criticism in film noir.
- the work of the German and Austrian emigre directors in Holywood who made some of the most famous film noirs, including Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Fred Zinnerman and Billy Wilder.
- plot and narrative structures with some emphasis on noir the low-budget B-movies which are considered masterpieces.
- film noir characters: the doomed anti-hero and femme fatalle.
- cinematography and lighting in film noir, including cinematographers who pioneered the noir chiaroscuro look such as John Alton and Nicholas Musuraca.
- a brief look at later neo-noirs that used traditional noir conventions in a new way.
- a brief look at non-American, French and Japanese, film noir.

About the Author:
Peter Bennet is a life-long movie addict currently working in Berlin as a freelance photographer, writer, computer programmer(!) and occasional film maker. An itinerant worker, he has travelled to more than 60 countries around the globe while working on documentary photographic assignments.

Engdaget Legesse, originally from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, has been working as an artist in Berlin for the past 8 years.

In this video he discusses his career and his series of paintings, “Empty Rooms”, which will be exhibited at the Galerie Listros, Berlin, 07.02. – 07.03.2013.

Currently, Engdaget is exhibiting in the group show, “Flying”, at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 09.11. – 16.12.2012.

You can see more photos of Engdaget and his studio here.

Website: www.engdaget.de

Behailu Bezabih, an artist from Ethiopia, recently visited Berlin to complete his masters degree in art. While in the city, he painted and had an exhibition in a Berlin gallery, the Studio am Schloss.

I was recently surprised by a request for some photos of the Canadian/Mexican artist, Arnold Belkin, that I took in Mexico City almost 20 years ago.

Born in Calgary, but raised in Vancouver, in 1947, aged just 18, Belkin decided that following the path of Canadian landscape artists was not for him and headed to Mexico City and its muralists. He quickly established himself as an outstanding artist. By the early 50s he had established a friendship with the painter Siqueiros, working with him on a mural in Mexico City’s Custom hall.

By the middle of that decade Belkin had become an important and sought after artist, completely immersed in the tradition of Mexican art, it’s revolutionary history and muralism. His costume designs graced over 40 Mexican theatre productions.

I spent more than a week with Belkin and his wife and collaborator, Patricia Quijano Ferrer. One afternoon he eagerly brought out large boxes of his drawings and paintings. Belkin’s work has a distinctly leftist identity and each piece: a sketch of Che Guevara laid out in death, or the trials of the peasant in Mexican history, carefully represented his view of the topic. For Belkin, art was about ideas and political liberation.

Belkin, very ill at the time, took me on grand tours of the huge city in his aging and very questionable Beatle. He would remember a mural of his that he thought I might like to see and along the way we would have a meal at one of his haunts, or pop in to see an artist friend for a short chat. Despite his ill-health he had kept his immense energy.

Arnold Belkin is one of Mexico and Latin America’s most famous painters. Though not well known in his native land, he is also regarded as one of Canada’s greatest artists.

Arnold Belkin, a Mexican citizen, died of lung cancer in Mexico City in 1992.

I like to think that he was a friend of mine.

More of Arnold Belkin. View.

More photos from Mexico. View.