Film Series continues with March 18 talk

York College’s Humanities Film Series will continue with a talk titled “From the Gallery to the Cinema: Avant-Garde Art and Experimental Film in the 1920s,” at 7 p.m., March 18, in Humanities Center Room 218. The event is open to the public free of charge.

Pamela Hemzik, an associate professor of art at York College, will trace the path taken by Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Paul Strand, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dalí, from the gallery to the cinema during the 1920s, comparing and contrasting famous works of art they created over the course of this pivotal decade with the films that they made concurrently: “Ballet Mécanique,” “Le Retour à la Raison,” “Manhatta,” “Anémic Cinéma,” and “Un Chien Andalou,” among them.  Following her talk, Hemzik will also lead a question-and-answer session focusing on, among other things, the influence that these films continue to have on contemporary world cinema.

According to Hemzik, these men were some of the most important and influential avant-garde artists of the 1920s; their groundbreaking contributions to painting, photography, sculpture, and assemblage helped to define this key era in the history of 20th-century art. Lesser known, however, is the fact that they were also accomplished filmmakers who made equally vital contributions to experimental cinema at the same time.

The Humanities Film Series at York College of Pennsylvania is an interdisciplinary program sponsored by the English & Humanities Department that is designed to promote the humanities on campus and in the surrounding community by encouraging a serious and ongoing examination of and discussion about cinema.  The Humanities Film Series aims to present films in an academic context, one in which students and members of the community will learn about the various aesthetic, industrial, social, and historical dimensions of cinema, while at the same time having the opportunity to enter into meaningful debates about the nature of the medium and its effects.