Cinema Curiosa revives the art flick

Dec. 28, 2005

The lights go down, a digital projector starts to hum and a small screen lights up a room of modest proportions. And for a moment, you can imagine you’re in an art film scene from the ‘60s, checking out the latest French New Wave cinema with your beatnik friends.
But the moment passes -- you’re not an extra in “The Dreamers” -- you’re part of the audience at Cinema Curiosa, the monthly film series in the public meeting room at the Traverse Area District Library.
Cinema Curiosa (that’s “curious cinema” for you culturally-deprived types) offers a potpourri of art films, foreign flicks, experimental noodling, documentaries, and celluloid oddities from the second dimension.
December’s film, for instance, was “DIG!” a rock documentary about the rivalry between the Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, two Portland, Oregon groups engaged in a friendly battle-of-the-bands. If you have a kid dazzled with dreams of becoming a rock star instead of going to dental school, “DIG!” would be a great show to watch: it shows just how futile it is trying to “make it” these days in the music business.
The film is par for Cinema Curiosa’s course. On Jan. 6, the series offers “The Man Who Skied Down Everest,” about adventurer, poet and champion skier Yuichiro Miura who did just that with an army of filmmakers in tow. On Feb. 3, the series offers “Weather Underground,” about the ‘60s radicals who tried to ignite a revolution in response to the Vietnam War.

THE CHALLENGE
“We wanted to challenge the typical idea of a library program with something a bit more edgy and above all something curious or odd and or out of the norm. I feel like we are accomplishing that,” says Aaron Olson, head of the AV “Sight & Sound” department at the library.
Olson and coworker Keith Schwartz find Cinema Curiosa a natural segue to their jobs at the library department which is packed with some 3,000 DVD titles, most of which they have personally selected.
How did they get the idea for the series?
“Library Director Mike McGuire and I were looking for a program that would bring people into the library to find good documentary, foreign and independent film on DVD,” Olson recalls. “We use Cinema Curiosa to highlight new DVD titles added to the library collection. Part of the library’s mission is to help bring education and entertainment to the community, so this felt pretty natural to us.”
Olson and Schwartz kicked off the series in the fall of 2002 with a quirky film called “The Natural History of the Chicken” by Mark Lewis. They’re currently in their third season with a total of 20 screenings to date. So far, some 1,300 film buffs have savored their vision.
The series offers a chance to look beyond Northern Michigan’s narrow horizon.
“I love going to big cities and having that sensation that you were just ‘turned on’ by something you could not find in Northern Michigan,” Olson says. “I have always had an interest in experimental film or film that challenges film itself -- anything that removes the Hollywood cookie-cutter syndrome.”

GENETIC IMPULSE
Film is in Olson’s blood. His grandfather, Waldamar James Olson, owned and operated 13 theaters and drive-ins during the late ‘30s thru the early ‘60s throughout Michigan. He built the Pines Theater in Houghton Lake in 1941. With a seating capacity of 450 people, The Pines remains the only log cabin movie theater in the world. Elvis Presley and Charlton Heston attended the grand opening.
“A family myth is that grandfather lent Walt Disney $1,500 in 1922 when Disney was en route to California,” Olson says. “They were personal friends from WWI.”
That genetic interest in film followed Olson through high school in Suttons Bay. “I would regularly see films like ‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God’ and ‘Das Boot.’ Both of those were films that I took dates to. Now, that is a long way from a good modern date film, like ‘Something About Mary.’”
He also spent the late ‘80s and early ‘90s in California where he was exposed to the broader world of film. “Film like outsider, avant-garde, experimental and political documentaries.”
For the future, Olson would like to see a larger venue for Cinema Curiosa, possibly the State Theatre in downtown TC which lay dormant for years until its revival last summer as part of the Traverse City Film Festival.
“We started communications with the now defunct State Theater Group in the early spring of 2005 and have yet to get any clear information about what type of support we would get from the Traverse City Film Festival if any,” Olson says. “One thing we do know is if we could make a move to the State it’s going to take more than Keith and I to make it work. So all you film lovers out there please log onto our web site and get on the mailing list to get involved.”
‘Nuff said. Check out www.cinemacuriosa.org for updates on the series and your place at the movies. The films run the first Friday of each month from October through March with no charge to attend. Doors open at the library at 7:30 p.m., with showtime at 8. Donations are of course welcome.
Roll ‘em!