Issued by: Beth Stafford
414-229-4800
bstaff@uwm.edu
Date: July 22, 2003
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Issued by: Beth Stafford Date: July 22, 2003 |
MILWAUKEE
-The Woodland Pattern Experimental Film/Video series shares a classic of 1960s
American underground cinema with the presentation of Ron Rice's "The Queen of
Sheba Meets the Atom Man" on Friday, July 25, at 7 p.m. at Woodland Pattern Book
Center, 720 E. Locust St. Admission is $2. The film is presented by the UWM Film
Department and co-presented by the Milwaukee LGBT Film/Video Festival. The film
offers a narrative cabaret of Beat attitudes, silent movie clowning, and the antic
perversities of the 1960s Underground.
At core, this epic romp charts the give and take between the Atom Man and his foil, the Queen of Sheba. It stars Taylor Mead as the hapless, possibly Chaplinesque Atom Man, and the more-often-than-not undressed Winifred Bryan as the Queen: enormous, indomitable, indifferent.
Capturing the exuberant and spontaneous mode of Ron Rice and his collaboration, Taylor Mead describes the production of the film as follows:
"Ron Rice was a man of action in those days, and the idea was put into motion before my doubts could formulate. We were in a taxi within minutes, off to borrow a camera and then travel Manhattan looking for locations. On Park Avenue around 46th Street we saw a building with a dramatic escalator in the lobby. The guard refused to let us use it. We went next door to the Union Carbide building, and rather than ask permission we went ahead and took shots of their escalator with me ascending and descending it. It became the ending of the film. There was an ‘Atomic Exhibit' going on in the building with huge replicas of atoms and panoramic photographs of New York buildings. I related in a slightly insane mad-scientist way to the atoms and buildings. We decided then and there to call the film The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man. We then rooted out Winifred Bryan and in various apartments and outdoor venues constructed what I think is one of the most beautiful movies ever made." The film also features cameos by kindred spirits Jack Smith, Judith Malina, and Julian Beck. The film was left unfinished at Rice's death at the age of 29. In 1982 Mead restored and completed it.
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