Reg Hartt: The Cineforum

Twenty-First. Night. Monday

Twenty-first. Night. Monday.
Silhouette of the capitol in darkness.
Some good-for-nothing — who knows why–
made up the tale that love exists on earth.

People believe it, maybe from laziness
or boredom, and live accordingly:
they wait eagerly for meetings, fear parting,
and when they sing, they sing about love.

But the secret reveals itself to some,
and on them silence settles down…
I found this out by accident
and now it seems I’m sick all the time.

Anna Akhmatova

http://www.uvm.edu/~sgutman/Akhmatova.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Akhmatova

It was a cold night in Moscow when Anna Akhmatova wrote that. Stalin had her imprisoned in her small Moscow home. The Russian people loved her so much he, who killed more people than Adolf Hitler did and got away with it, feared to kill her. She had to come to a window twice a day to show she had not killed herself during the night nor fled the country as so many others in Russia had.

How small today the dreams of those who think being a poet means getting laid a lot, making money from sappy poems turned  into songs or receiving a medal from the government.

I have been where Akhmatova was. I am sure many who will read this have as well.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…”

It is very hard to imagine God, any god, loving this world.

“The world is a ball. In a short time there will be terrible fires all over it. Men will be brutal to women everywhere,” the great Sioux Indian Crazy Horse said to his people after his vision quest. He added, “God is coming to judge the world.”

Argue against it all you will but there are today terrible fires over all the world. We have reached a level of brutality towards women that is unparallelled.

Love does exist, however, on earth. I have seen it. Seeing it caused me to have a change of heart completely from who I was to who I could be.

I had pestered my parents into giving me an air rifle for Christmas. I was a boy. I did as boys do.

Two sparrows were sitting on a hydro wire. I shot one. The other flew away.

It returned the next day. It sat on that wire and cried.

For three days it cried.

On the third day I took the air rifle and shot it.

Then I buried it beside its mate.

Then I broke the gun.

I had no idea that something so small could love so much.

Love is allowing our self to be wounded that the person who wounds us can grow.  That and that alone is the meaning of cavalry and the cross.

This was the favorite film of the Queen of Italy who bought her own copy of it. The red/green color process was called Cinecolor. The Max Fleischer Animation Studio used it until they were able to use full color Technicolor (Walt Disney had the process tied up for animation for two years for his films). The 3D backgrounds were created by making table top sets against which the animation was filmed.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/how-3-d-animation-was-made-seventy-years-ago.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVlgy7G-Ms4

Pope Leo XIII had a vision which Satan was given the power by God to destroy the church. What I did not realize (and neither yet has anyone else) the church to be destroyed is the whole church not the Roman Catholic Church alone. That includes Judaism, Buddhism and all other forces that work to make us become the best we can be.

This is the hour when the forces that imprisoned Anna Akhmatova in her home in Moscow rule not only Russia but the entire world.

Take heart. That hour is passing. It is almost over.

http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/2_LeoXIII.pdf

http://www.stjosephschurch.net/leoxiii.htm

http://www.futurerevealed.com/christian/catholic/vision-of-pope.htm

http://nelson-acquilano.suite101.com/the-mystical-ecstasy-of-pope-leo-xiii-a94663

http://www.angelfire.com/music2/fullcircle/PropheciesStudy.html

http://texfiles.com/features/prophecies.htm

http://www.iawwai.com/NorthAmericanProphecies.html

http://www.2012endofdays.org/more/Native-American-prophecy.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1m0nLSOHi4&feature=related

The Dark, Blue Sea

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.-

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin-his control

Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,

When for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields

Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray,

And howling, to his gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls

Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,

And monarchs tremble in their capitals,

The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make

Their clay creator the vain title take

Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,

They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar

Alike the armada’s pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?

Thy waters washed them power while they were free,

And many a tyrant since: their shores obey

The stranger, slave or savage; their decay

Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou,

Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves’ play-

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-

Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving; boundless, endless and sublime-

The image of eternity-the throne

Of the invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone

Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, ocean! And my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy

I wanton’d with thy breakers-they to me

Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

Made them a terror-’twas a pleasing fear,

For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane – as I do here.

by Lord George Gordon Byron.

“Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore;”

Byron in his day saw that our ability to mark the earth with ruin stopped at the shore.

In our day that ability has been extended to the oceans which are now sick unto death.

Not only have we poisoned the lakes, streams, rivers and oceans of the world we have also poisoned the rivers of our bodies with the things we have pumped into the things we eat to make them grow faster.

“I had wonderful teachers in the first and second grades who taught me
everything I know. After that, I’m afraid, the teachers were nice, but
they were dopes…I have a lack of ideology, and not because I have an
animus against any particular ideology; it’s just that they don’t make
sense to me…they get in the way of thinking. I don’t see what use they
are…University and uniformity, as ideals, have subtly influenced how
people thought about education, politics, economics, government,
everything…We are misled by universities and other intellectual
institutions to believe that there are separate fields of knowledge.
But it’s clear there are no separate fields of knowledge. It is a
seamless web.”-Jane Jacobs whose books, from her first, THE DEATH AND
LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN CITIES to her last, DARK AGE AHEAD, are
must reading.

Yes, it is a seamless web like the robe Jesus wore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter’s_vision_of_a_sheet_with_animals

Peter, is his vision, was commanded to take and eat animals he had been taught were common and unclean.

He was told “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common”.

“I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right,” said Peter.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2010&version=NIV

The problem comes with the words, “The one who fears him.”

It conveys the idea we should fear God because he will punish us. And for those who are now saying God is not male, bugger off. The seed comes from the male. It is given to the female. We are the Bride of Christ.

What is lost in the translation is that we are to love God so much we fear hurting him.

I had no fear of hurting sparrows until I saw that I had hurt that tiny creature more than I had dreamed possible.

Today I love not only sparrows but all living things and fear hurting them.

The Greek of THE NEW TESTAMENT was the koine Greek of the ordinary person which is why the Latin version is called the Latin vulgate for it is the vulgar or common Latin of everyday use by ordinary people.

The English of the King James Bible is the High English of the King’s Court.

Its admirers are legion but it is the worst of all translations of THE BIBLE as it uses the high English of the King’s court not the vulgar English of the gutter.

The word “sin” carries an emotional baggage that the idea being expressed does not have. It means “to miss the mark.” Hence the saying, “All men are sinners and miss the mark.”

From:

http://bible.org/article/doctrine-sin

Dr. Charles Ryrie has given a listing of Hebrew and Greek words which describe sin. He says that in the Hebrew there are at least eight basic words: “ra, bad (Genesis 38:7); rasha, wickedness (Exodus 2:13); asham, guilt (Hosea 4:15); chata, sin (Exodus 20:20); avon, iniquity (I Samuel 3:13); shagag, err (Isaiah 28:7); taah, wander away (Ezekiel 48:11); pasha, rebel (I Kings 8:50). The usage of these words leads to certain conclusions about the doctrine of sin in the Old Testament. (1) Sin was conceived of as being fundamentally disobedience to God. (2) While disobedience involved both positive and negative ideas, the emphasis was definitely on the positive commission of wrong and not the negative omission of good. In other words, sin was not simply missing the right mark, but hitting the wrong mark. (3) Sin may take many forms, and the Israelite was aware of the particular form which his sin did take.”

“The New Testament uses twelve basic words to describe sin. They are: Kakos, bad (Romans 13:3); poneros, evil (Matthew 5:45); asebes, godless (Romans 1:18); enochos, guilt (Matthew 5:21); hamartia, sin (I Corinthians 6:18); adikia, unrighteousness (I Corinthians 6:9); anomos, lawlessness (I Timothy 2:9); parabates, transgression (Romans 5:14); agnoein, to be ignorant (Romans 1:13); planan, to go astray (I Corinthians 6:9); paraptomai, to fall away (Galatians 6:1); and hupocrites, hypocrite (I Timothy 4:2). From the uses of these words several conclusions may also be drawn. (1) There is always a clear standard against which sin is committed. (2) Ultimately all sin is a positive rebellion against God and a transgression of His standards. (3) Evil may assume a variety of forms. (4) Man’s responsibility is definite and clearly understood.”

This is a valuable listing of the words and their root meanings; however, I would like to expand one or two of the ideas.

The word that is used most frequently is hamartia, missing the mark. It is the most comprehensive term for explaining sin. Paul used the verb hamartano when he wrote, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God has a high and holy standard of what is right, and so long as man follows the Divine standard he will see himself as he truly exists in God’s eyes. The flat statement of the Almighty is that all men have fallen far short of God’s required standard. It is the popular and common practice of men to create their own standards; however, God has established His standard of perfection for entry into Heaven, and all men have “missed the mark” as an archer’s arrow would fall to the ground because it fell short of its target.

Let no man ever think that he comes anywhere near the standard set by God. God has demanded absolute perfection, and no matter how one measures himself, he falls far short. Some men measure themselves on the basis of human intelligence, some by educational attainment, some by financial success, some by cultural environment, and others by religious performance. But God refuses to accept man on any of these grounds. He has established His perfect standard, and by that standard He measures every man. The Divine verdict in every instance has been the same, “You have come short, you have missed the mark.” And when the best of men have done their best, our Lord would challenge each with the words, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” (Matthew 6:27). However much the difference that is lacking, no man can by himself raise himself to meet God’s moral standard, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Yes, all without exception, for, says God, “We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin” (Romans 3:9); that is, both Jew and Gentile have missed the mark.

====================

The reason all are sinners and miss the mark is that God may have mercy on us all for he is is shepherd who is determined that not one sheep from his flock will be lost. In fact, when a sheep does become lost we are told this shepherd never stops searching until that which is lost is found. When he finds it does he punish it? No. He says to it, “I love you the most.”

Our shepherd will say that to Matthew Shepard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard . To those who teach that one such as he deserves death He will say, “Go away. I never knew you.”

That shepherd will say to those millions who lost their lives persecuted over the centuries in the name of Jesus and in the ovens Hitler built, “You are mine. I love you the most.”

There are, however, sheep that are not of the flock.

We can tell them by their fruits.

They look like the right sheep all right but at heart they are false.

This is the parable of the tares and the wheat:

Matthew 13:24-30

Wycliffe Bible (WYC)

24 Another parable Jesus put forth to them, and said [saying], The kingdom of heavens is made like to a man, that sowed good seed in his field.

25 And when men slept, his enemy came, and sowed above tares in the middle of [the] wheat, and went away.[a]

26 But when the herb was grown [Soothly when the herb had grown], and made fruit, then the tares appeared.

27 And the servants of the husbandman came, and said to him, Lord, whether hast thou not sown good seed in thy field? whereof then hath it tares?

28 And he said to them, An enemy hath done this thing. And the servants said to him, Wilt thou that we go, and gather them?

29 And he said, Nay, lest peradventure ye in gathering [the] tares draw up with them [also] the wheat by the root.[b]

30 Suffer ye them both to wax into reaping time; and in the time of ripe corn I shall say to the reapers, First gather ye together the tares, and bind them together in knitches to be burnt, but gather ye the wheat into my barn.[c]

The word in the Greek is “zinzania” which is a species of darnel farmers of the time called “cheat.” In its early stages it looks so much like wheat even a trained eye is hard put to tell the wheat from the zinzania. We are told that in the last days men will come who look so much like children of God even angels will have a hard time knowing that at heart they are devils.

The last days, of course, began the moment after the resurrection.

So what are we who possess not the wit of angels to do?

What does the farmer say to his servants when they ask, “Shall we gather up the tares?”

He says, “No, lest in rooting out the tares you harm the wheat.”

This is because the roots of the tares entwine, wrap themselves around the roots of the wheat. We cannot root out the tares without also rooting out the wheat.

We are told to wait until the time of the harvest.

At that time the wheat will grow taller than the tares so it will be easy to harvest the wheat while leaving behind the tares.

We are the garden.

In us is planted not only the wheat but also the tares. When we get gulled into believing that we should improve our self, makes ourselves into better people we wind up doing damage to our souls.

Don’t believe you have a soul? Well, you may not. Quite a few do not.

The word soul actually means “self,” “personality.”

Today is the hour of the soulless men who work for corporations. To a man they lack personality. To a man (and a woman) they lack love.

As we rape women the world over and treat them with a brutality that would make Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun weep for shame so too do we rape and treat with that same brutality our mother, the earth.

To these who judge and condemn in this world our Father will say, “As you judged you are judged. As you condemned. You are condemned.”

Don’t blame the young.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2775/are-elephants-in-the-wild-showing-newly-aggressive-behavior-including-rape

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?pagewanted=all

In the documentary film THE COLA WARS the spokesman for Coca Cola says, “We have not achieved the success in Europe we have achieved in America because in Europe we have yet to fracture the family.”

That is one helluva thing to say: “We have yet to fracture the family.”

WHEN THE FATHER IS ABSENT

The missing father is not your or my personal father. He is the absent father of our culture, the viable senex who provides not daily bread but spirit through meaning and order. The missing father is the dead God who offered a focus for spiritual things. Without this focus, we turn to dreams and oracles, rather than to prayer, code, tradition, and ritual. When mother replaces father, magic substitutes for logos, and son-priests contaminate the puer spirit.

Unable to go backward to revive the dead father of tradition, we go downward into the mothers of the collective unconscious, seeking an all-embracing comprehension. We ask for help in getting through the narrow straits without harm; the son wants invulnerability. Grant us protection, foreknowledge; cherish us. Our prayer is to the night for a dream, to a love for understanding, to a little rite or exercise for a moment of wisdom. Above all we want assurance through a vision beforehand that it will all come out all right.

Without the father we lose also that capacity which the Church recognized as “discrimination of the spirits”: the ability to know a call when we hear one and to discriminate between the voices. . . .

The mother encourages her son: go ahead, embrace it all. For her, all equals everything. The father’s instruction, on the contrary, is: all equals nothing—unless the all be precisely discriminated.

JAMES HILLMAN

“All equals nothing—unless the all be precisely discriminated.”

Most translations of the parable of the tares and the wheat use the word “weed” instead of the word “tares” or “cockle.”

The word “weed” is subjective. Roses in a wheat field would be weeds.

The word “zinzania” is specific.

This is what is meant by the all being precisely discriminated.

Once that discrimination is lost chaos follows.

Once that discrimination is re-introduced the chaos ends.

When older adult males were introduced in the herds the young males fell into line. No one had to punish them or threaten them. From the older males they got the wisdom to know how to behave as they should for the good of the whole.

When God comes to judge the world he will not be punishing the children for behaving as they do.

He will punish those who have caused them to behave as they do.

The children, without being told what to do and without being punished, will naturally fall in line.

No one will have to force them to do anything because children are born loving.

It is we who teach them hate.God, do we teach them to hate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSoLN77fBn8&feature=related

My brother, Michael, was told by my parents from the moment he could toddle he was the black sheep.

“Call him that he will become that,” I told them.

“Mind your own business,” they told me.

“I am,” I replied for which I received a beating from my father for being smart assed.

At twenty-four my brother shot himself.  He left behind this note:

To those who judge and condemn in this world our Father will say, “As you judged you are judged. As you condemned. You are condemned.”

What Happened During the Ice Storm
By Jim Heynen

One winter there was a freezing rain. How beautiful! people said when things outside started to shine with ice. But the freezing rain kept coming. Tree branches glistened like glass. Then broke like glass. Ice thickened on the windows until everything outside blurred. Farmers moved their livestock into the barns, and most animals were safe. But not the pheasants. Their eyes froze shut.

Some farmers went ice-skating down the gravel roads with clubs to harvest pheasants that sat helplessly in the roadside ditches. The boys went out into the freezing rain to find pheasants too. They saw dark spots along the fence. Pheasants, all right. Five or six of them. The boys slid their feet along slowly, trying not to break the ice that covered the snow. They slid up close to the pheasants. The pheasants pulled their heads down between their wings. They couldn’t tell how easy it was to see them huddled there.

The boys stood still in the icy rain. Their breath came out in slow puffs of steam. The pheasants’ breath came out in quick little white puffs. One lifted its head and turned it from side to side, but the pheasant was blindfolded with ice and didn’t flush.

The boys had not brought clubs, or sacks, or anything but themselves. They stood over the pheasants, turning their own heads, looking at each other, each expecting the other to do something. To pounce on a pheasant, or to yell Bang! Things around them were shining and dripping with icy rain. The barbed-wire fence. The fence posts. The broken stems of grass. Even the grass seeds. The grass seeds looked like little yolks inside gelatin glazed in egg white. Ice was hardening on the boy’s caps and coats. Soon they would be covered in ice too.

Then one of the boys said, Shh. He was taking off his coat, the thin layer of ice splintering in flakes as he pulled his arms from the sleeves. But the inside of the coat was dry and warm. He covered two of the crouching pheasants with his coat, rounding the back of it over them like a shell. The other boys did the same. They covered all the helpless pheasants. The small gray hens and the larger brown cocks. Now the boys felt the rain soaking through their shirts and freezing. They ran across the slippery fields, unsure of their footing, the ice clinging to their skin as they made their way toward the blurry lights of their house.

Everytime I read this poem I think of what could have have happened had that one lad picked up a club instead of saying, “Shh.”

Thanks to the people who teach the young to hate we have more than enough children using clubs. We need more people teaching them to say, “Shh.”

I have a young male cat living with me who was abused. When I first got him he hissed, bit and clawed whenever I came close. Today he curls up beside me, lies on his back and exposes his belly.

With faith, love and patience nothing is impossible.

There is a hard time coming. It will be the hardest we as a species have yet had to endure. While we pass through it it will seem to be lasting forever.

Afterwards we will realize that the time of trial was not very long at all and that we are better for having passed through the fire.

I learned all this from two sparrows. They taught me about love. To love, to really love, is to consciously choose to allow our heart to be broken.

In this day, in this hour, in this moment, in this second how can anyone who truly loves not have a broken heart?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnOXkyKZiBI

“Ride proud on a poor horse.”–Native American saying.

Conrad Black, it ought to be remembered by those who insist on calling him a criminal, was found not guilty on most of the charges brought against him.

The charges he was found guilty on are minor. His “punishment” is indicative of the American justice system’s desire to destroy.

“Public morality, thy deadly bane!/By tens of thousands hast thou slain!/Vain is the hope of them that trust/In public mercy, truth and justice.”–Robbie Burns.

There is a reason Jesus chose to be hung between two “criminals.”

Black has ridden proud on a very poor horse.

Welcome home Mr. Black.

Benjamin “Ben” Robert McGirr (Date of Birth: Friday, May 31st, 1991. Date of Death: Friday, November 4th, 2011)

It is always a shock when someone much younger than myself dies. It is even more of a shock to discover that that person passed away several months before I became aware of her/his departure.

Ben had one of the sharpest minds I have encountered (and I have encountered some very sharp minds).

I delighted when he told me how infuriated his teacher was when, asked to define Hamlet, Ben said, “He’s a yuppie.”

He came here in the beginning, he later told me, because some people on College Street had decided to open a film screening space like that in The Cineforum but had never been here and did not want to come themselves. They had asked Ben to come down here to spy things out. Then they would create a Cineforum minus Reg Hartt that people like themselves could go to.

Ben found a lot more happening here than movies.

His school work prevented him from coming around as much as he would have liked. He told me he would like to live here. As it chanced that became possible.

He was a delight to live with. I love people who have minds of their own, who can argue their position, listen to counter arguments and accept or refute them. Ben could do that.

He was a vegetarian due to his health problems. He was also a super cook.

He did not stay here long as he felt, shortly after he came on board, that he could not work here because so much is always going on.

I did my best to persuade him to stay because his presence was itself a terrific source of inspiration.

That a fire so bright should last such a short time makes me appreciate and love the wonderful person he was all the more.

His favorite films were  Larry Clarke’s  KIDS and  KEN PARK as well as Bertolucci’s THE DREAMERS. . I scheduled them for him. Few came but Ben was there to see them.  For me that was enough.

I will show them again in June for Ben. If you’re here that will be nice. If no one is here that won’t matter because this is for Ben.

The moment Ben lived here was a magic moment.

Lawrence Richard Rutherford III, a porn star and gifted artist, was living here as artist in residence.

Sami Alwani had come on board from Ottawa. Sami oozed genius.

Bede McMenamin, from New Zealand, who had first come here the day he arrived in Toronto for the LSD talk and the screening of the film of Herman Hesse’s SIDDHARTHA, had returned from traveling across the country.

Their presence combined with the heady mix of talented people who have found a center here (Stedman Pardy, Simon Lulling, Marc Gold, Alexandre Hamel to name just a few) created and maintains a vitality few get to experience once in their life while here it is an everyday thing.

Small wonder he could not find a focus to work.

I wish he had.

He was a joy to know.

Below is the comment he posted on the NOW site a few years back during one of the many times THE CINEFORUM has been under attack:

“There are few individuals, let alone eccentrics, who can accomplish what Reg Hartt has managed to accomplish.

“And what is it that Mr. Hartt has accomplished, pray tell?

“In a word: beauty.

“Forgive me the cliché and the trite sentiment that I’d normally reserve for an impersonal euology, but because Reg has become a dear friend of mine, I mean it completely when I say that what he does is beautiful. He is a creator and a preserver, a guardian of a medium he will readily admit is dying.

“The films Reg shows vary, from the older stock to the newer, slicker attempts.

“Some might misunderstand this to be an indication of indecision, as The Cineforum is renowned for showing Lang’s Metropolis and the censored cartoons in his Sex & Violence Cartoon Festival: should The Cineforum not stick to what is otherwise hard to find, expensive to see, and unaccompanied with insight?

“Of course not, because there is as much to say about Bertolucci’s The Dreamers as there is to say about Murnau’s Nosferatu. That one can enter 463 Bathurst with the expectation of seeing a film for a reasonable price, only to leave later with more than a running time’s worth of thoughts is a testament to the wondrous capability Reg bestows – and it’s also a bargain. Should the viewer actually sit and talk to Reg, or any of the other filmgoers, and they might find themself in the middle of a discussion about the film just shown, or the backstory to Warhol’s movies (which I’m sure Reg will show you at a later date).

“That one can enter The Cineforum at all, without concession stands screaming and ticket-takers barking and previews blaring, is another indication that the experience the viewer might have at The Cineforum is new.

“I believe it’s beautiful, a beautiful experience to sit and watch a film in some semblance of its original glory.

“Reg will point out that, while the massive theatres and orchestras playing scores to accompany the projection have all but disappeared, the thrill of seeing something remains. He is the preserver, and he creates the environment to admire the preserved beauty of film.

“When the Cinémathèque Française was closed in 1968, riots broke out. Film was so important to the viewing public, des voyeurs du cinéma, that protests were staged.

“Who comes now, in 2010, to the aid of Reg Hartt and his own collection, his own attempt to celebrate the medium?

“The people who understand that when Reg says his living-room cinema is a cross between Gertrude Stein’s Salon and Warhol’s Factory, he is talking about more than ambiance and artistic banter.

“Reg is not even talking: he is showing.

“What he is showing is beauty captured and able to be reviewed, re-examined, re-watched and re-enjoyed time and time again.

“The environment it is shown in is secondary, and the public has never stormed the door to see Cocksucker Blues – those who come, come to see the films for their beauty and their purpose.

“They might suggest to their friends that there’s a man showing films in his parlour, they might notice one of the posters hanging about downtown.

“The truth is, however, that not just anyone comes to The Cineforum; although, anyone can, and everyone should. Red tape versus film reels is an unfortunate battle to be fought. Just watch.”

http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=174449

http://obitsforlife.com/obituary/422859/McGirr-Benjamin-Ben.php

People think when they ask me why I do what I do and I reply, “Because of the people I meet,” that I am crazy.

Show me anyone who did anything worthwhile who was not viewed as crazy by those who do things for more mundane reasons.

Twenty years is just not enough. It was, however, all he was given. Good-bye Ben.

In 1980 I was walking my dogs along some old railroad tracks when I stumbled and fell. In that brief moment the entire story of King Arthur and the Knights Of The Round Table flashed before me.

When I got up I found a seat nearby and thought deeply about what had happened.

When I was twelve in New Brunswick my grade six class was taken to the local cinema to see the MGM movie THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE as it was supposed to be based on Sir ThomasMalory’s LE MORTE D’ARTHUR.

I had not then read the Malory version. I had read several others including the four volume set by Howard Pyle which he lavished with his own illustrations.

While the rest of my class enjoyed the film I knew that it fell far below the mark.

Too much was crammed into too little time.

At twelve I determined to one day tell that story right.

All of that came back to me as I sat recovering from my fall.

That summer I found Thomas Berger’s “Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel” which was a terrific read. I found the John Steinbeck version. When I read that I could feel Steinbeck’s heart break when Launcelot and Guenvere fell into each other’s arms. Steinbeck died shortly after he wrote that. I think the heartbreak of that moment killed him.

As a result I went back to the Howard Pyle’s version which I began to read from the start. There, when I read the account of why Launcelot failed to fullfil the grail quest (though we are forgiven for our sins we do have to pay the price of them), I found myself beset with ideas I had never had before.

I got up and walked away from everyone and everything as I began to let these thoughts filter through me. While I was walking around the city I went into a bookstore where I bought the Malory version. I then caught a bus to Hamilton, Ontario where I spent the next few days reading Malory’s LE MORTE D’ARTHUR.

As I reflected on the story I saw that it naturally breaks down into the four seasons;

Part One, Winter: Uther Pendragon, The Lasdy Irgraine, The Birth of Arthur, The Death of Uther, The Sword In The Stone, the wars to consolidate Arthur’s power, the seduction of Arthur by Morgan, King Lot’s wife and Arthur’s sister, that leads to the birth of Mordred, who will kill Arthur. Part one ends with the death of the infants.

Part Two, Spring; The arrival of Launcelot, the romance of Arthur and Guenevere, the story of Merlin and Nimue. Part two ends with Merlin sealed in the earth.

Part Three, Summer; The romance of Tristram and Isolde, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, the love of Guenvere and Launcelot. Part three ends when Launcelot and Guenevere fall into each other’s arms.

Part Four, Fall: Galahad, Percival and the Grail quest. Mordred and the Death of Arthur.

Woven into each part, as Malory wove them into his narrative, are the various stories of the knights of the Round Table.

As I looked at this project I saw that in itself it is good. To build we need a long term plan. I could not have been presented with a better one.

Over the years since 1980 I have had much time to reflect on this story. One day it came to me that it would be interesting to work on this project with people no one else would see value in.

I saw and see the film as an animated painting. Each part is to be roughly four hours with a half hour intermission.

The film is not to be seen as a typical movie but rather more like a special Broadway Theater production at not movie prives but theater prices.

Central to the story of Arthur is Christianity. Jesus, of course, is the stone the builders rejected. It would be central to the core, the heart of this project, to work only with people who conventionally others would reject. It came to me that deaf people see color more fully than we do who have all of our senses. As well, people robbed of the use of their legs see movement with eyes we who take motion for granted never dream of having. Blind people, of course, hear with more depth than do we who are distracted by our eyes. Of course, the world over homosexual people are seen as objects of contempt.

The more I thought about this the more it became clear to me that the only people fit to work on a project of this scope are those whom the world condemns, despises and rejects.

Crazy?  You bet your ass this is one helluva crazy idea.

It is also a damn good one.

God willing it will come to pass.

Those who enter upon this project will, if they do not so at once, gradually come to see that together we are working on something great, like a medieval cathedral, which, because it has meaning for all people and all times, is something that will live for the ages. It is a thing upon which a man or a woman will be proud to have their name remembered by.

That same summer a friend gave me a copy of the Sumerian Epic Of Gilgamesh which is the first recorded piece of literature. Alfred Hitchccock said our first film ought to be a silent film. I thought, why not make my first film not only a silent film but also the first story ever recorded. Again, I see this as an animated film. Not a Disney or a Dreamworks film.

I see it being told in animation the way a child when the child first starts to draw draws.

In 1992 I finally got the poem re-written through the fire of my own experience. The story deals with Gilgamesh who comes to grips with his fate after the death of his lover, Enkidu. Again, because heterosexual north American men are terrified of male/male sexuality I realized I need either a bisexual or homosexual artist to work with me on this project. I need someone who will not pull back out of conventiion and fear which is what every “heterosexual” male who has dealt with stories such as this has done. We have only to look at Wolgang Petersen’s TROY with Brad Pitt minus his lover Patroclus and Oliver Stone’s ALEXANDER in which 11 year old Bagoas, the Persian Boy with whom Alexander fell in love, is depicted as a 24 year old drag queen.

No, all the way through I need those the world damns. Only they will be able to pull up from within themselves what is needed to do this right.

Walt Disney boasted that he never read the books his films were based on.

I did. That is why, for me, Disney (and, by extension, most of Hollywood) has always been second rate.

I want GILGAMESH animated from start to finish by one person. If all that is called for on the screen is a single line that is all that will be there.

That artist must not be afraid of making love or of sexuality for, if they are that fear will be transmitted into the work. I am looking for a very rare person indeed. It is entirely possible that the end result masy be bannned from presentation in America that country founded on liberty and mired in license.

‘Nuff said.

“He who without the Muse’s madness in his soul comes knocking at the door of poesy and thinks that art will make him anything fit to be called a poet, finds that the poetry which he indites in his sober senses is beaten hollow by the poetry of madmen.”-Plato.

“Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.”–Jean Cocteau.

One rainy night in 1968 when the water was falling from the sky in torrents I thought no one in their right mind would be going out.

At the time I had a screening space I called THE PUBLIC ENEMY on the west side of Yonge Street in Toronto across from Yorkville Avenue. This was Yorkville in its full glory sex, drugs and hot music days when the place was the place to go in Toronto. Today it is the place to go if you have wads of money which is not the same thing.

I was scheduled to show the original 1923 Lon Chaney version of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME which is a lousy film of a great book that has only one redeeming feature: the portrayal of Quasimodo by Lon Chaney.

“Well, there might be people there,” I said to myself.

So I headed out into the rain arriving just a few moments late.

Yes, there were people brave or foolish enough to come out in the solid wall of water.

Waiting for me was a man, a woman, two boys and a girl.

It was the family of Robert and Jane Jacobs newly arrived in Toronto.

“Are you Jewish?” I asked when they told me their name.

“No,” said Mrs. Jacobs.

They came every week after that.

“This place is just like Cinema 16 in New York,” said Mrs. Jacobs.

“Why do you post flyers on telephone poles,” a fellow asked Saturday night at 2am in the morning.

Because people like Mrs. Jacobs read them.

“No one reads those,” said an older gay man with a lisp as he saw me posting flyers while walking his poodle.

It was so stereotypical a picture I laughed as the words fell fr0m his mouth.

“You don’t,” I said to myself silently.

Lots of people read them.

“Why don’t you make movies?” people have asked.

Here is why:

“Anyone who wants to make creatively interesting movies in this country today gets stuck in one of three, or at the outside four, ways, all of them too familiar to warrant more than mention. If he works in Hollywood, it is unlikely that he will get more than a fraction of his best ability on to the screen; and that is not to mention the liability of resignation to compromise, and of self-deceit. If he works on his own, he is unlikely to get his films distributed or even sporadically shown; and that is not to mention either the difficulty of getting the money and equipment to make the movies or the liability of self-deceit in the direction of arrogance and artiness—the loss of, and contempt for, audience, which can be just as corrupting as its nominal opposite. If, on the other hand, the would-be artist goes abroad to work, he is likely to find, in future, that the advantages are not so clear by a good deal as they were in the past; and unless he is a very specialized—and perhaps also a very limited—artist indeed, he is certain to suffer as profoundly by a change of country as he would, if he were a writer, by a change of language. The fourth possibility is paralysis, or resignation to the practice of some more feasible art. Either of these is perhaps preferable to literal suicide, but not practically so as far as the movie artist and the movie art are concerned.”

James Agee, Agee on Film, Volume One, page 190.

The only way to work in the medium of motion pictures with the freedom to create is to do as Chaplin did.

He used his own money.

In 1970 I went out to Hollywood at the invitation of a friend. I was 24. I thought I would try to work in the movies.

A chance encounter with a Los Angeles policeman changed that.

“What did you do in Toronto?” he asked.

“I showed films at Rochdale College,” I replied.

“Do you mean Canada’s communist training center,” he said.

In that instant I knew that if the police in Hollywood–the most out of touch place in the world–knew of Rochdale College it had to be the hippest place on earth. I was wasting my time by being anywhere but Rochdale. I determined to get back to Rochdale asap.

When I got home to where I was staying in Hollywood I saw a car in the driveway that had Ontario plates.

Inside I discovered my ride.

Until One Is Committed

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and
creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills
countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves
too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s
favor all manner
of unforeseen incidents and meetings
and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have
come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s
couplets: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. –W. H. Murray, THE
SCOTTISH HIMALYAN EXPEDITION.

Inside I also found a 9X12 inch manila envelope which contained an autographed picture of Mae West from her current film, MYRA BRECKINRIDGE and an invitation to come up and see her.

My first night in Hollywood a fellow who thought himself God said to me, “Know what we gave those two fellows from Texas in their 7-ups? We gave them LSD. Know what we gave you in that sandwich you just ate? We gave you an elephant knock-out pill.”

“What the Christ is that?” I asked.

“Something used to knock out an elephant. In a few moments you won’t be able to move.”

On the way out to Hollywood, by bus, I had taken with me only one book, a small pocket sized copy of THE NEW TESTAMENT I had found at my uncle’s place in Ottawa. My uncle, Douglas Hartt, was Director General of Public Works Canada. Before entering the civil service he had studied to be a priest. He had a unique and particularly powerful translation of The New Testament. I found that out when, years later, I tore it up in front of a Bible idolator.  “You can’t worship this book,” I told him. When I got a new copy I found how far below the mark it fell. They all do/ THEKING JAMES being the worst.

At the end of Mark’s Gospel it is written that if those who have faith are given any deadly thing it will not harm them.

I decided to see if those words were true.

I composed myself, composed a letter to Mae West (who lived down the street from where I was crashing) an walked down to her building where I dropped it off at the front desk.

Then I found a park bench. I spent the night there while the drug passed through me.

In the letter I had said that she was a great revolutionary as anyone who goes to jail for their art is a revolutionary. I added that I was amazed I could get the words on paper as the whole universe was dissolving before me due to the drug I had been given.

Years later I found that Miss West had a horror of people on drugs and that she did nothing unless her psychic advisers told her it was the right thing to do.

I wrote a reply to her invitation in which I thanked her for the picture and told her I could not accept her invitation as I was returning to Toronto to become part of Rochdale College.

Rochdale was the boldest experiment in alternate education ever undertaken.

There were no teachers. Each Rochdalian was called to be their own teacher.

They had brought in people who had achieved success in their field not to be teachers but to be resource people. Rochdalians could go with them to discuss ideas.

“It is good taste not bad taste which is the enemy.”-Salvador Dali.

“The function of the artist is to disturb. His duty is to arouse the
sleeper, to shake the complacent pillars of the world. He reminds the
world of its dark ancestry, and shows the world its present and points
the way to its new birth. He is at once the product and preceptor of
his times.”-Norman Bethune.

“You have no need that any man should teach you.”-1 John 2:27.

“Film students should stay as far away from film schools and film
teachers as possible. The only school for the cinema is the cinema.”-
Bernardo Bertolucci.

“He who without the Muse’s madness in his soul comes knocking at the
door of poesy and thinks that art will make him anything fit to be
called a poet, finds that the poetry which he indites in his sober
senses is beaten hollow by the poetry of madmen.”-Plato.

“We only really learn in conversation after sex.”–Judith Merril.

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of
instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry;
for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly
in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without
fail. It is a very great mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing
and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of
duty.”–Albert Einstein.

“My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be
teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which
infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by
myself.”–George Bernard Shaw.

“Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by
education.” –Bertrand Russell.

“School is an institution built on the axiom that learning is the
result of teaching. And institutional wisdom continues to accept this
axiom, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”–Ivan Illich.

“We get three educations. The first is from our parents; the second is
from our schoolmasters. The third is from life. The last makes liars
of the first two.”–Montesquieu.

“I had wonderful teachers in the first and second grades who taught me
everything I know. After that, I’m afraid, the teachers were nice, but
they were dopes…I have a lack of ideology, and not because I have an
animus against any particular ideology; it’s just that they don’t make
sense to me…they get in the way of thinking. I don’t see what use they
are…University and uniformity, as ideals, have subtly influenced how
people thought about education, politics, economics, government,
everything…We are misled by universities and other intellectual
institutions to believe that there are separate fields of knowledge.
But it’s clear there are no separate fields of knowledge. It is a
seamless web.”-Jane Jacobs.

“Invent nothing. Deny nothing. Stand up. Speak up. Stay out of school.”–David Mamet.

Those are pretty powerful people. Most young people will ignore their words. That is unfortunate.

“Most teachers say you should go to school to get your degree to have
something to fall back on. Aside from being a huge lie, that also
creates a very high level of mediocrity, because nobody who really
believes that is going to take the leap of faith required to be a
serious artist. Stay out of school.”
–Ellis Marsalis to his sons Branford, Delfeayo and Wynton.

What we are seeing is a very high level of mediocrity.

For the young who want to

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.
Marge Piercy (1936-)

Copyright 1982 Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy
Alfred A. Knopf. Notes  M.F.A.’s: Master of Fine Arts degrees.
phlogiston: invisible hypothetical matter or `principle’ thought to
combine with all combustible bodies and be expelled during burning –
a concept popular in the 18th century but abandoned once oxygen was
discovered.

I love these lines:

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Two weeks later I was back in Toronto. I crashed at Judt Merril’s place.

Judy was the mother of modern science fiction. Her story, THAT ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE, revolutionized the genre.

It was through her that I had discovered Rochdale.

Some hippies who came to my program at The Public Enemy were crashers at Rochdale. One, Spock, I fell hopelessly, madly in love with which was a bitch as it was a love that would never be consummated but good because nothing leads us like our cocks.

Sexual desire is the pillar of smoke that leads us by day and the fire that leads us by night.

Spock became a welcome part of my life. He told me of a woman in Rochdale as a resource person named Judith Merril.

The name rang loud and clear. Judy edited THE YEAR’S BEST collections of science fiction.

I was pre-punk punk dressed head to foot in black and filled with passionate intensity.

I had named my space THE PUBLIC ENEMY after the film that had made James Cagney a star and because then as now homosexuals were seen as public enemy number one.

“Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself,” said Jean Cocteau who, when he died, was found to have a picture like this under a book beside his bed:

“What can you do here?” Peter Turner who was then President Of Rochdale. I had met Peter in 1968 when he was going to marry Judy’s daughter, AnnPohl.

“I can give you a film program.”

“Then you are Director of Cinema Studies. We have no money. We can’t give you any?” he said.

“I don’t need money except $10 until Monday,” I told him.

This was a Friday. I used the $10 to print some flyers.

Rochdale had a film program run by the guys who later created Nelvana Animation. They were people who thought themselves intelligent which means they weren’t.

They showed films to get money for dope. They laughed when I brought in THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1919).

“Who wants to see silent films?” they sneered.

Lots of folks, actually.

Jane Jacobs was a regular at my Rochdale screenings.

One day I saw her picture in a newspaper. I discovered that she had written a major book titled: THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES.

I read it. I read it it again and again.

“Everything you say she says,” said a girl who had come over to interview me for the University of Toronto’s student newspaper, THE VARSITY:

People can’t see you on the stage one minute and serving burgers or working as a clerk the next.

Starting in May I am beginning a program titled THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN MOTION PICTURES.

“Reg Hartt teaches like Neal Cassady drove a bus.”—Joe Fiorito, Toronto Star.