RPM FEST

AMERICA
FILMS BY BRIAN L. FRYE
SUNDAY, MAY 17TH · 2PM
THE BRATTLE THEATRE

Kaddish
16mm, color and b/w, sound 11 min, 2002

“Here is my covenant with you, says the Lord: My spirit that is upon you, and the words I have put in your mouth, will not depart from your mouth or the mouths of your children or the mouths of your children’s children – the Lord says – from now through all eternity.” – Isaiah 59:21. A fragment of tinted nitrate. An acetate recording of a wedding ceremony. Echoes of the bitter sweetness of the Spirit on the tongue of Man. As Frampton tipped his hat to Gloria, so might I.

Oona’s veil
16 mm, b/w, sound, 9 min, 2002

It explores the only existing screen test of Oona O’Neill Chaplin, which Frye re-photographed, treated with chemicals, and damaged to examine the fleeting nature of her film career. The film is in the Whitney Museum of American Art permanent collection.

America
Films by Brian L. Frye
Sunday, May 17th · 2PM

Across the Rappahannock
16mm, color, silent, 9mins

On December 12, 1863, General Ambrose Burnside’s Army of the Potomac engaged General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Before Burnside’s army could enter the town, Union engineers were forced to lay pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock River under withering fire. Close combat through the streets of Fredericksburg and multiple assaults on the Confederate army entrenched in the heights behind the town resulted in heavy Federal casualties, which forced an eventual withdrawal. In November, 2001, I attended a small and relatively informal reenactment of the battle of Fredericksburg. About a hundred men and women did their best to illustrate the actions of the thousands of young men who offered their lives a century earlier. An air of absurd theater suffused the entire event, which provided the ground for its peculiar truth. Everyone played their part exceedingly honestly and well, and left something on the film I was myself surprised to find there. - BF