Sunday January 11, 7.30pm
Jackie Raynal: New Yorker
“New York Story” and “Hotel New York”
admission $6 – artist in person
Image courtesy of Jackie Raynal
We are extremely pleased to welcome French-born filmmaker, editor and curator Jackie Raynal to present a special New York-centered screening of two her early 1980 films “New York Story” and “Hotel New York.” Both of the works feature Raynal playing the main role of Loulou, a French artist who has come to New York – in the former to seek a job as an editor, in the latter to present a film at the Museum of Modern Art – drawn deeper into the tumultuous highs and lows of a foreign artist living in the city and are based on her own life.
“One day, in New York, I drop my laundry at a Chinese laundromat, then I forget about it for a few weeks. When I go back, the laundromat is no longer there, and the building demolished! The idea of my clothes gone for good along with the store haunted me. This experience marked the starting point of Hotel New York’s script.” – Jackie Raynal
The 60 minute Hotel New York, completed in 1984, expanded upon the ideas of the earlier 30-minute New York Story. At the time, the pair of works signified the return as director for the artist, who had arrived in New York in 1974, and may be perhaps considered as a celebration via the cinematic medium of the city. Jackie Raynal began working with film in the 1960s including as an editor for such filmmakers as Eric Rohmer and Barbet Shroeder and as a member of the Zanzibar film group, where she made her directorial feature debut with “Deux Fois” (1968), considered an essential work of the Zanzibar period and in film history.
Noteworthy is the appearance on screen of a young Gary Indiana in both films (as well as his participation as a dialogue co-writer with Raynal for Hotel New York).
Program:
New York Story
Jackie Raynal, 16mm (to digital), col, sound, 1981, 30 minutes
A loosely autobiographical film with Raynal starring as the main character Loulou who looks for a job as a film editor on Broadway, shares a Soho loft and eventually marries a businessman. The work also features Sid Greffen and Gary Indiana.
Hotel New York
Jackie Raynal, 16mm (to digital), col, sound, 1984, 61 minutes
Cast: Sid Geffen (Sid), Gary Indiana (Gary), Jackie Raynal (Loulou), Jim Dratfield, Donna Geffen, Peter Gerard
Screenplay: Suzanne Fenn & Jackie Raynal, Dialog: Gary Indiana & Jackie Raynal
French filmmaker Loulou (Jackie Raynal) is invited to New York by the Museum of Modern Art to show her film. Fascinated by the city, she decides to stay.
(trt: approx. 90 minutes)
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Jackie Raynal lives and works in Paris and New York. Her contribution to film is wide-reaching: Film editor of La Nouvelle Vague, experimental and independent filmmaker, member of the Zanzibar group, film-curator of the New York, Bleecker Street Cinema and Carnegie-Hall Cinema. Raynal began her career in Paris as an editor, working with Eric Rohmer, Barbet Shroeder, and others. Her first film as director was the 1962 short documentary Merce Cunningham, an early look into the artistic process of Cunningham, John Cage, and Robert Rauschenberg. She was a member of the Zanzibar Group, a film collective which included Philippe Garrel, Patrick Deval, Olivier Mosset, Daniel Pommereulle among others and directed her debut feature, Deux Fois in 1968. Since 2000, Raynal has been working with video.
Still from “New York Story” (Jackie Raynal, 1981) / courtesy of Jackie Raynal
