[LuxWeeklyNews] LUX SALON: Power Tripping/ Wednesday 21 March 7pm

[luxweekly at lux.org.uk]

You are invited to

Wednesday 21 March 7pm for 7.30pm start
LUX SALON: Power Tripping

selected by Benjamin Cook. Two underground cult films meditating on  
control and paranoia from the LUX Collection. Scott and Beth B’s  
‘Letters to Dad’ (1979, 13 min, 16mm) superimposes the power  
relations between Jim Jones and his followers onto the parapunk art  
world of 70s New York and Paul Bartel’s ‘Secret Cinema’ (1966,  
30 min, 16mm), a dark/ funny satire on cinematic manipulation from  
the director of Death Race 2000 and Eating Raoul.


LUX Salon takes place at LUX OFFICE, Shacklewell Studios, 18  
Shacklewell Lane, London, E8 2EZ. ADMISSION FREE. Places are  
extremely limited so booking is essential. To book a place send your  
name to salon at lux.org.uk, and please be on time - no late entry.
for directions to LUX see http://www.lux.org.uk/about/index.html

SCOTT B AND BETH B
LETTERS TO DAD
1979, USA, 13 min, super 8 to 16mm
A meditation on authority that superimposes the spectre of Jonestown  
over the relatively fresh faces of the parapunk art world. The B's  
asked two dozen artists and musicians to pick from the letters  
written to Jim Jones by his flock the phrase that he/she could most  
identify with.

PAUL BARTEL
SECRET CINEMA
1966, USA, 30 min, 16mm
"A paranoid fantasy" which hovers in the zone where the cinema merges  
with the subconscious of its audience, telling the harrowing,  
hilarious tale of a woman who believes that her life is secretly  
being filmed and screened to scornful audiences at local movie theaters.

--

Interview with Beth and Scott B by Scott MacDonald [excerpt]
in October no. 24, Spring 1983


MacDonald: I don't know very much about the events at Jonestown, but  
I understand that for Letters to Dad you arranged for the actors to  
read letters written by people who had died there and choose  
sections ...

Scott B: After the suicides we were really interested in the whole  
situation. That one person could have that much control over a  
thousand people! We started collecting all the material we could get,  
with the idea that eventually we'd be able to make a film.

Beth B: It related to material we had been dealing with before that.  
We wanted to take a very different approach, one that would be direct  
and simple, without being sensational.

Scott B: We gathered all the letters we could find (a huge number of  
them actually got published), and we just circled or underlined the  
ones we thought were the best and gave them to the people who ...

MacDonald: The best in what sense?

Scott B: The most characteristic, or the ...

Beth B: The ones that gave the most insight into the writers'  
psychological states. Some of them are just phenomenal, very  
childlike, like confessionals.

Scott B: They felt totally lost on their own and believed Jones had  
the answers.

Beth B: It's religion.

Scott B: We're still very interested in religious cults.... One thing  
that was remarkable about Jonestown was not pointed out, except in  
one article I read. The methods that were used in getting people to  
believe in the structure were classic brainwashing techniques.

Beth B: Torture and brainwashing.

Scott B: Not torture.

Beth B: Torture, come on!

Scott B: Torture was used as a last resort, but it was more the  
classic sort of wearing people down physically by poor food, lack of  
sleep, and a constant battering of ideas that was developed in China  
after the Revolution. I'm not sure, but my guess is that those  
stories are inflated in terms of what actually went on.

Beth B: I doubt it!

Scott B: I think the most insidious and freakiest aspect of the whole  
thing was the practically scientific use of peer pressure. The  
American understanding of that situation is based on Western ideals  
which say essentially that people are individuals who have their own  
opinions which they will maintain, once they've been raised with  
them, for the rest of their lives. The Eastern concept is that the  
community has control over the opinions of each individual.

Beth B: It's also that you're living and working within this  
community, trying to further its ideals for the good of the whole  
community, and, as a result, for your own good. The concept within  
Jonestown was, "We are doing this because the rest of the world is  
evil and bad and our community is good and peace loving" - similar to  
Evangelist philosophy.

Scott B: The lack of understanding in the West of how people can be  
totally changed, in terms of their opinions and beliefs, is one of  
the reasons why I think the whole Jonestown situation was unreal for  
most people who heard about it. Practically anyone who would have  
been there would have ended up the same way. It's not as if those  
people were all crazy; it's the situation that was crazy. And it was  
powerful enough to control them....




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