"Whenever an English artist of any value arises they are seen as Public Enemy Number One."–Henry Miller. "Reg Hartt made me tingle."–Al Aronowitz. "Reg Hartt is a Crazy-Wisdom-Yogin."–Jerzy Zaborski Rinpoche. "The best part of what Reg Hartt offers is what he has to say."–Jane Jacobs (author of THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES, DARK AGE AHEAD). "My mother loved Reg Hartt."–James Jacobs. Reg Hartt is listed as # 50 of the 50 best male speakers of all time. ( https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-male-orators/reference )“Reg Hartt has a feel for film unique in this country…genius level.”—Elwy Yost. “Reg Hartt has had an amazing impact given the size of the venue and the esoteric nature of the programming. He’s had an incredible impact on the city. No one else is doing it. No one else has ever done it.”–Rob Salem. “Reg Hartt teaches like Neal Cassady drove a bus.”—Joe Fiorito, Toronto Star. “REG HARTT is what living in a metropolis is all about. He personifies the city as a meeting place of ideas, as a feast of experience and discussion and debate, as a triumph over the banal and soporific of the original and provoking.”–MICHAEL VALPY, GLOBE AND MAIL. “In Toronto, I discovered by chance, CineForum. Pure chance but a fortunate one. In that small room exhaling culture, passion and dedication, I watched the movie TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, an important historical, political and social document., and real artistic achievement….As a journalist (in Romania) I worked in the cultural field, including film reviews. Therefore I came to the CineForum not just as a movie lover, but as a knowledgeable professional…We live in an era authoritatively dominated by brainwashing and political correctness…I admired Reg Hartt’s courage and passion put on in searching out and defending the human truth, the artistic truth, the historical truth; the Truth and unveiling it…Discovering Reg Hartt and his CineForum was one of the most important events of my visit in Toronto.”– JULIA SCUTARU, retired journalist, Bucharest, Romania, 2000. “What I like about The CineForum and Reg Hartt and what makes him a valuable figure is his belief in cinema as a living, breathing thing, something to be enjoyed and argued about, not genuflected at or framed on a wall and revered at a respected distance. In his presentations he refutes the conventional wisdom that films like THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915), THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925), and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925) are better appreciated as historical artifacts than entertainments. To see KID DRACULA, his show that pairs F. W. Murnau’s NOSFERATU (1922) with Radiohead to surprisingly effective results is to be reminded that the classics were made for the raw public before they were made for cinema studies syllabi. I have rarely felt a film’s greatness in a classroom but I have often felt it at Reg Hartt’s CineForum.”—Will Sloan. “Reg Hartt has devoted his whole life to bringing film classics to the public. He treats animation-cartoons, if you will-as art. He is underfinanced, overworked and snubbed. I think we should pay tribute to him."–David Beard. "GOD led me to Reg Hartt."–WIZTHEMC. "Reg Hartt is the greatest. For confirmation of everything he says read David Mamet's TRUE AND FALSE."–Emo Philips.
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They fuck you up your mom and dad
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August 11, 2019
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“I am a friend of Reg Hartt. So is anyone who can appreciate a man who teaches the way Neal Cassady drove a bus. I mean that, where you have style wrapped around content and tied with a ribbon of beat improvisation, there you have angels. Harvey Pekar was an angel. And I’ve never met anyone with wings who did not have an ego. Nor is this an easy town for a man who is larger than life, and does not suffer fools. You might like to know that the friends of Reg Hartt included the non-fool-suffering Jane Jacobs, who knew a thing or two about what, and who, makes life worth living in the city; that’s good enough for me.” https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2010/09/15/fiorito_we_gotta_have_hartt.html
Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001)
My wonderful friend Martin Winters from Glasgow turned me on to this poem.
I can hear some saying, “Yeah, blame it on the parents.”
When plants in a garden grow up crooked is it the fault of the plants or that of the gardener?
Martin came to The Cineforum a few years back to see my Salvador Dali program. Like many he liked what he saw and became a much valued member of The Cineforum family.
The poet Ranier Maria Rilke’s mother wanted not a son but a daughter. She grew her son’s hair in long golden curls, had him wear dresses and, when he knocked on her door she said, “Is that my naughty Ranier or my lovely Charlotte?”
Like all children eager to please their family he answered, “It is your lovely Charlotte. mother.”
Some time ago I discovered a man who was raised on an army base to be a prostitute.
At ten he was given to police officers, bureaucrats, business people, members of the clergy.
This struck a particular nerve because the man who helped me get my feet on the ground when I arrived in Toronto in the mid 1960s had been similarly raised. His mother was a prostitute. She put him to work at ten fellating her johns to bring in extra money.
He never knew his father except for a photograph.
One night in a park he recognized the man he was fellating for money from the photograph. It was his dad. Of course, the father did not know that.
When the police came here in May last year I showed them the file of the boy raised on the army base. “Why do you have that,” they asked.
I replied, “Research.”
The officer in charge said, “We don’t accept that.”
Nonetheless the law does:No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section if the act that is alleged to constitute an offence
has a legitimate purpose related to the administration of justice or to science, medicine, education or art; and
does not pose an undue risk of harm to persons under the age of eighteen years.
Robert Bly gives that information about Ranier Maria Rilke. Bly states, “With a mother like that we either become a mass murderer or a great poet.”
I grew up in a garden of hate.
One night a few years back when my father was alive and we were both drunk beyond drunk my Dad said, “I have hated you from the moment you were born as in that instant I realized I had to die.”
The next day I was interviewed by one of Canada’s premiere journalists, Michael Valpy.
I told Michael what my Dad had said.
He replied, “First born sons.”
Yes, they fuck us up our parents do.
I grew up in the fires.
So did my brothers and sisters.
So did many of the people who have come into my life.
Michael Valpy wrote in his piece om for THE GLOBE AND MAIL, “Reg Hart is what living in a metropolis is all about. He personifies the city as a meeting place of ideas, as a feast of experience and discussion and debate, as a triumph of the original and provoking over the banal and soporific .”
That’s something we all have to rise over.
Join me 2pm Thursday.
Moses Znaimer never listened to what I have to say nor did he ever say, “Hey, Reg Hartt, you belong on my stage.”
Over a few beers in her home Jane Jacobs suddenly said to me, “The best part of what you have to offer is what you have to say.”
But that was Jane. She was not Moses Znaimer and thank God for that.
