Ray Pride

Vérité, I say unto you. Bryan Kortis and Steven Mudrick's "WTC Uncut," an important historical document, is an unblinking video image of the World Trade Center that runs from moments after the second strike and ends soon after the second collapse. There's a composed soundtrack, busy with reaction, but it's the image that sustains. I've seen this in a gallery and on VHS and can't take my eyes off it; I doubt I could take it sitting in a theater with others on September 11, although you'll have your chance at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Or, you could sample the two programs of short films curated by independent filmmakers Jay Rosenblatt and Caveh Zahedi, who asked over 150 experimental and documentary artists for contributions to a collective project entitled "Underground Zero." The diverse first program includes work by Zahedi, Rosenblatt, Ira Sachs, Frazer Bradshaw, Eva Ilona Brzeski, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, Paul Harrill, David Driver. It includes Robert Edwards' "The Voice of the Prophet," a chilling and sorrowful prediction of the World Trade Center attacks in the form of a 1998 interview with Rick Rescorla, a war veteran and head of security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's WTC offices. Program 2 includes work by Chel White, Mark Street, Cathy Cook, Bushra Azzouz, Barbara Klutinis, Marina Zurkow, Lucas Sabean, Marcia Jarmel, Thad Povey and The Scratch Film Junkies, Dan Weir, Martha Gorzycki and Phil Solomon.

Both programs play Wednesday. (2002-09-04)

Also by Ray Pride

Sex education
Benoît Jacquot packs his serene work with the game of attraction, the tangible qualities of seduction, the sheen of bared skin, the gift of sight. Yet the modesty of "Sade," his latest film, worked against him, as did the existence of a larger-budgeted, more literal-minded film with the Marquis at its center, Philip Kaufman's "Quills."
(2002-08-28)

Tip of the Week
Claude Chabrol at his most elegant and sinister, examining the perversity of evil in pearlescent Swiss surroundings.
(2002-08-21)

Hit or myth
"Simone" is about the ideal of perfection. While writer-director Andrew Niccol's second feature is about female beauty and how our celebrity culture fashions it, it's also about Al Pacino's line readings. Now there's perfection.
(2002-08-21)

Reverse zoom
What kinds of movies are being made at this precise moment? With video ubiquitous in our culture, the ability to go out and make something, to shoot material inexpensively and to edit efficiently is, in theory, more democratic.
(2002-08-21)

Tip of the Week
(2002-08-14)

Victorian Secret
(2002-08-14)

EVERYMAN OF ACTION
(2002-08-07)

TIP OF THE WEEK
(2002-08-07)

OFF CAMERA
(2002-08-07)

TIP OF THE WEEK
(2002-08-01)

CANDID CAMERA
(2002-08-01)

TIP OF THE WEEK
(2002-07-25)

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