The Institute For Cinema Studies

 

This project is currently in develoment.  Anyone interested in supporting the Archive should feel free to contact us.

PROJECT OUTLINE ::

The Haskell Wexler Archive project will make available to emerging filmmakers, artists, educators, and scholars a comprehensive archive of seen and unseen Haskell Wexler footage, so that it can facilitate the production of media dealing with social change, human rights, cultural awareness and political understanding.

With a full living archive available online in Creative Commons licensing, communities internationally will have the ability to remix, sample, and re-contextualize hundreds of hours of high-resolution footage photographed by Wexler over the last forty years of his career as a film artist and social activist, and will examine how the two pursuits have intersected throughout his personal history.

RESOURCES FOR ARTISTS AND FILMMAKERS ::

• Watch Wexler’s films and peruse his photographic collection though the Archive website.  Full audio and text commentary by Wexler and selected creative collaborators will be associated with all films and photographs.
• The ability to download high-resolution digital copies of all Archive assets, including full films, raw footage from the films, and photographs.  Artists and filmmakers can incorporate these assets into new film and art projects using a Creative Commons license.   Larger production companies seeking to use Archive assets for film projects can do so in exchange for a donation to the Institute For Cinema Studies (to be negotiated on a project by project basis).
• Integrated interpretative database to aid in searching the archive for films, footage, and photographs.  The metadata associated with each Archive asset will allow users to create custom searches, playlists, access audio and text commentary in real time while watching films or scanning footage.
• Social networking functionality and online forums on the Archive website for filmmakers and artists to share and discuss works created from Archive assets.
• Live screening and networking events featuring Wexler in-person, in addition to ICS staff and volunteers.  Events will feature and celebrate work created from Archive assets.
• All filmmakers and artists who create new work using Archive assets will have the opportunity to syndicate their work on the Archive website.

RESOURCES FOR EDUCATORS AND SCHOLARS ::

• All the resources and functionality listed above.
• Functionality for teachers to create lesson plans for their classes on the website, and share them with students.
• Ability to integrate Archive resources into college classes on campus or though online classes.
• Students can submit work and communicate with teachers through the website.
• Live events in the form of seminars and workshops, featuring Wexler in-person, in addition to ICS staff and volunteers. 

SAMPLING OF ICS/HASKELL WEXLER FILMS TO BE INCLUDED IN THE ARCHIVE ::

INTRODUCTION TO THE ENEMY (1974) (director/DP)

This documentary was made during the most intense period of fighting in the Vietnam War. U.S. participation in that conflict lasted from 1956 (approximately) until 1975. Here Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden travel to North Vietnam in order to show the North Vietnamese as actual human beings with legitimate needs and concerns. Their suffering from American and allied bombing attacks is clearly shown, along with interviews with Le Duc Tho (a Viet Cong peace negotiator) and others. Fonda was extremely active in the antiwar movement, and organized concerts and films supporting antiwar activities; this documentary was only a small part of her efforts in that period. This film, and the trip which made it possible, earned her the derisive epithet “Hanoi Jane.”

INTERVIEWS WITH MY LAI VETERANS (1971) (DP)

Interviews with five former American soldiers who were present at the March 16, 1968 attack on the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War; they discuss the orders that were issued leading up to the attack, their expectations of what they would find there, and the subsequent massacre of the inhabitants and destruction of the village, as well as possible motivations for the killings and rapes which took place.

CARIFESTA (1979) (director/DP)

A short film showing off the beauty Carnivale in Havana, Cuba in 1979

THE BUS (1965) (director/DP)

The struggle for civil rights has been one of the most important issues of American life for the last fifty years. In August of 1963, groups from all over the country journeyed to Washington D.C. for a massive demonstration, and this film is a fascinating document of this event. Celebrated filmmaker Haskell Wexler (“Medium Cool”) traveled with the San Francisco delegation, photographing and conversing candidly with the participants. He has succeeded admirably in capturing the significance and drama of this historic trip.

THE BUS II (1983) (director/DP)

There was a large disarmament demonstration in Manhattan near the UN headquarters on June 12, 1982 and that moment is probably the only interesting segment in this long, 82-minute documentary on a busload of ordinary demonstrators who take too long a ride from Los Angeles to New York for the event.

THE BUS RIDERS UNION (1999) (director/DP)

A documentary about the pathetic state of L.A.’s public transportation system. Recalling his first film, The Bus (1965), Wexler focuses on the city’s appallingly overbudgeted — and largely useless — subway project, as well as its underfunded bus service. The film follows a small band of activists who lobby the city government to purchase more buses and pay bus drivers a higher salary.

FIVE DAYS IN MARCH (2000) (director/DP)

A documentary about the five days leading up to a benefit rock concert in Havana, Cuba featuring Woody Harrelson, Bonnie Raitt, and more.

A RIGHT TO BE MERRY (1982) (director/DP)

An unprecedented look into cloistered convent and the nuns who live there: Monestary Of The Poor Clares in Roswell, New Mexico

WHO NEEDS SLEEP? (2005) (director/DP)

In 1997, Brent Hershman had spent 19 hours hard at work as a camera assistant on the set of the film Pleasantville one day before he was allowed to go home. The exhausted Hershman fell asleep at the wheel of his car shortly afterward, and died in an auto accident. The event sent shock waves through the entertainment industry, and led a number of union representatives in the film and television community to demand “twelve on, twelve off” regulations, in which crew members would not be allowed to work more than 12 hours at a stretch, with a 12-hour break following. However, many studios and producers have bristled at this suggestion, believing the long hours on a film set are an economic necessity. Haskell Wexler, a veteran filmmaker, cinematographer, union representative and political activist, is an active supporter of the “twelve on, twelve off” proposal, believing long hours are not only dangerous for the health and personal lives of workers, but they result in sloppy, poorly focused work that causes more problems than it solves. Who Needs Sleep? is an activist documentary produced and directed by Wexler which examines the dangers of sleep deprivation, the risks it can pose for workers, and the need for humane worker protection legislation in the entertainment industry (as well as other businesses). Who Needs Sleep? includes interviews with filmmakers Richard Donner, John Sayles, andRichard D. Zanuck, cameramen Vilmos Zsigmond, Conrad L. Hall, and Roger Deakins, and actors Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Annette Bening, and Tyne Daly.

LATINO (1985) (director/DP)

The fighting between the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the Contra rebels backed by U.S. money and expertise is the focus of this pro-Sandinista film by Haskell Wexler. The appropriately named Eddie Guerrero (translation Eddie “Warrior”) is a Vietnam War veteran sent to help out the U.S. Special Forces as they train and abet the Contras in their forays across the border from Honduras into Nicaragua. Eddie becomes romantically involved with Marlena (Annette Cardona), and at first they see eye-to-eye on politics and the need to overthrow the Sandinistas. Then the excesses of the Contras in their raids across the border are brought home to Eddie, while Marlena sees that the new Nicaraguan society is not what Contra propaganda claims. For some viewers, the couple’s eventual conversion to supporting the Nicaraguan government may seem like one more cog in an anti-Contra diatribe, which is regrettable since Wexler could have given this film enough nuances to present the subtleties of the conflict and still prove his point.