Ontic Antics Starring Laurel and Hardy; Bye, Molly!

In 2004, when Ken Jacobs was Film Maker in Focus, a live variation on Ontics Antics was presented. The technique of both the performance then and the film now is as ingenious as it is simple. Two projectors show the same film in parallel, in this case Berth Marks (1929) with Laurel en Hardy. The films are slowed down so they can be projected frame-by-frame and evoke hallucinogenic three-dimensional flickering effects. Jacobs about his heroes: ‘Hardy walked a thin line between fatty and heavy. Laurel adopted a retarded squint, with suggestions of an idiot savant. Their characters were at sea, clinging to each other as industrial capitalism was breaking up and sinking. Beautiful losers, they kept it funny, buoying our spirits. Laurel and Hardy… forever.’ Instruction from the master: ‘The last 16 minutes require use of a dark (Pulfrich) filter to see it in 3-D. Place filter before either eye (keep both eyes open). Now the other eye. Something happens.’ This version differs from the live versions because those were hand work, while in this case each image was weighed on the editing table. Prior to the film, Jacobs’ Let There Be Whistleblowers will be screened, a visual composition of old film fragments of riding trains and shunting yards made to the music Drumming by Steve Reich. From very enlarged images, via a realistic shot to purely abstract flickering pictures. (GjZ)