In the 1970s as a teenager, I began to attend screenings at the Rice Media Center where we'd smoke pot and then go see French Surrealist films, La Belle et la Bete, Le Sange du Poete and Orphee by Jean Cocteau, Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, Entr'acte by Rene Clair and Francis Picabia. The radio transmissions in Orphee really made an impression and I paid them homage in a couple of sound pieces including "Y-Pool" which used offshore oil rig audio transmissions of 5 digit numeric configurations in Spanish similar to the French number "poems" in Cocteau's film. Around 1977, I went with date to see Tropic of Cancer by Joseph Strick and in 1983, I saw Lucifer Rising which I believe screened with some shorts, and that evening purchased a copy of Hollywood Babylon from Kenneth Anger who very kindly gave my date and I copies of his book & trusted us for future payment, then hounded us mercilessly when he didn't receive it within the next 5 days, and after the post office delivered my check to him, he sent me a lovely note that I keep in his book.
Following are a couple of articles on the Rice Media Center copied from its Rice U website.
"Film at the Rice Media Center-Early Years:
The ideas surrounding the creation of a space like the Rice Media Center
Among those who engaged the Rice community were Colin Young, then Dean of Arts at UCLA, and renowned filmmaker and director of the Italian School, Roberto Rossellini, along with Frantizek Daniel, renowned director of the Prauge Film School, who each visited the Media Center to conduct meetings and workshops periodically in order to engage and introduce students, faculty and community to this new wave of filmmaking. In 1970-1971 David MacDougall, who had studied under Colin Young, came to Rice as an ethnographic filmmaker from UCLA. Additionally, the de Menils also brought a young documentary filmmaker to Houston to co-direct the center, Academy Award nominee James Blue. Blue and MacDougal encouraged students of all disciplines to see themselves as filmmakers, and they brought a regular flow of visiting directors to campus.
Under the co-directorship of Blue and MacDougall, along with Menil support, the Rice Media Center received federal grants to purchase 8mm film and editing equipment with the intent for it to be made available to use by the public. During this period, MacDougall and Blue received a Guggenheim fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to make one of the most well-known ethnographic documentary films entitled Kenya Boran at the Rice Media Center .
Both MacDougall and Blue were Co-Directors of the Media Center until 1975 when MacDougal left to become Director of the Film Unit at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies .
Teaching and fiscal operations of the Media Center became part of the Art and Art History Department soon after this period. Brian Huberman, Associate Professor, was recruited by James Blue from the National Film and Television School, U.K. in 1975. Together Huberman and Blue taught courses in production and collaboratively and independently produced several documentary films until Blue's departure in the late 1970's. Brian Huberman's film work includes To Put Away the Gods (1983), The Making of John Wayne's THE ALAMO (1992) and most recent film The De la Peña Diary (2003) . Huberman's filmmaking and teaching continues to this day for the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts."
Teaching and fiscal operations of the Media Center became part of the Art and Art History Department soon after this period. Brian Huberman, Associate Professor, was recruited by James Blue from the National Film and Television School, U.K. in 1975. Together Huberman and Blue taught courses in production and collaboratively and independently produced several documentary films until Blue's departure in the late 1970's. Brian Huberman's film work includes To Put Away the Gods (1983), The Making of John Wayne's THE ALAMO (1992) and most recent film The De la Peña Diary (2003) . Huberman's filmmaking and teaching continues to this day for the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts."
Rice Media Center held its 25th anniversary (1970-1995) .
"1995 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rice Media Center and "Rice Cinema." An expansion of the university's fine arts department, the Center originated in 1970 through the funding and spirited guidance of benefactors John and Dominque de Menil. Designed by famed Houston architects Howard Barnstone and Eugene Aubrey as a "twin" to the Menil's Institute of the Arts, the two corrugated behemoths on the edge of campus were affectionately dubbed "Art Barn" and "Son of Art Barn." With their unique interior landscapes, the structures were hailed as "the most remarkable buildings to be built at Rice in more than half-a-century," and the sites quickly developed reputations for presenting the most innovative art, photography, and film exhibitions in the city.
Houston's first repertory film program was also instituted, giving local cinephiles the chance to view a blend of arthouse pictures, documentaries, international classics, and hard-to-find films that simply never showed up in theaters outside New York or Los Angeles. John de Menil expressed the goal quite simply: "To bring to Houston the best examples of intellectual cinema." Italian director Roberto Rossellini, a fellow Media Center founder, made the distinction between "films that appeal to man's basic elements--sex, survival, dominance, fear--and those that extend our knowledge of the world and the vast unknown surrounding it. Popular cinema attracts audiences to the former. The challenge is to do the same for the latter."
Under the tenure of the Media Center's first directors, Gerald O'Grady and James Blue, an astonishing number of visiting filmmakers began to appear. French enfant terrible Jean-Luc Godard arrived with his only print of La Chinoise. After a malfunctioning rented projector at an off-campus location atomized great chunks of the film, the director vowed never to return to Houston.
Andy Warhol, accompanied by "superstar" Viva, premiered his notorious, Texas-shot Lonesome Cowboys to the largest audience in Media Center history at the Rice Memorial Center. A vigilant Houston vice squad also attended but, unable to establish the "community standards" of the Rice audience, left without incident. Michelangelo Antonioni, Martin Scorcese, and Milos Forman screened their work;Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas announced their plans to invade Hollywood; and pantheon directors Frank Capra, George Stevens, and King Vidor reflected on a cumulative century-and- a-half in the movie business.
Avant-garde innovators Ed Emschwiller and Stan Vanderbeek projected psychedelic images on Media Center ceilings. Richard Leacock and the Maysles Brothers screened their ground-breaking documentaries, and California experimental film maker Bruce Baillie designed a film course that "would only start with film and move on to just about everything else."
Critics and theorists were also invited: New York film doyenne Pauline Kael; British Film School head Colin Young; founder of the Cinematheque Francaise Henri Langlois; cultural critic for Le Monde Louis Marcorelles.
The late '70s saw the departure of Blue, but the eighties heralded new arrivals. Stories of Dennis Hopper's 1983 visit still circulate. After a free-form "lecture," Hopper invited a sell-out crowd to hop onto rented school buses and join him at the Big H Speedway in northeast Houston, where he immediately proceeded to blow himself up in a dynamite- chair stunt. A sage-like Sam Peckinpah made the last public appearance of his career.
Underground icon Kenneth Anger presented Scorpio Rising--his saga about motorcycle cults--in a scarlet sweater knitted by ladies from his Indiana fan club. Laslo Benedek recalled directing the young Marlon Brando in The Wild One, and Richard Lester reminisced about the Beatles during production of A Hard Day's Night. Dusan Makavejev relished the shock effect WR: Mysteries of the Organism had on local audiences, and Stan Brakhage spoke about experimental film. Following her father's footsteps, Isabella Rossellini arrived in Houston in 1987 for an international symposium on his work.
The 1990s witnessed continued growth and new directions. Ethiopian director Haile Gerima and Brazilian cinema novo founder Nelson Pereira Dos Santos premiered their latest films. American maverick Spike Lee responded to volatile questions after screening Do the Right Thing; Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan premiered Exotica; and Monty Python veteran Eric Idle led an enthusiastic audience through a rousing rendition of "The Philosophers Song."
In the past twenty-five years, the Media Center has screened over 5,000 movies, proving that a loyal audience exists for good films, including many that would not be considered commercially successful. Regulars have consistently used one word to describe what brings them back: VARIETY. As video eats up an increasing chunk of our entertainment dollar, we sometimes forget that "going to the movies" is one of the last communal experiences we share in an increasingly isolated world."
"1995 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rice Media Center and "Rice Cinema." An expansion of the university's fine arts department, the Center originated in 1970 through the funding and spirited guidance of benefactors John and Dominque de Menil. Designed by famed Houston architects Howard Barnstone and Eugene Aubrey as a "twin" to the Menil's Institute of the Arts
Houston's first repertory film program was also instituted, giving local cinephiles the chance to view a blend of arthouse pictures, documentaries, international classics, and hard-to-find films that simply never showed up in theaters outside New York or Los Angeles. John de Menil expressed the goal quite simply: "To bring to Houston the best examples of intellectual cinema." Italian director Roberto Rossellini, a fellow Media Center founder, made the distinction between "films that appeal to man's basic elements--sex, survival, dominance, fear--and those that extend our knowledge of the world and the vast unknown surrounding it. Popular cinema attracts audiences to the former. The challenge is to do the same for the latter."
Under the tenure of the Media Center's first directors, Gerald O'Grady and James Blue, an astonishing number of visiting filmmakers began to appear. French enfant terrible Jean-Luc Godard arrived with his only print of La Chinoise. After a malfunctioning rented projector at an off-campus location atomized great chunks of the film, the director vowed never to return to Houston.
Andy Warhol, accompanied by "superstar" Viva, premiered his notorious, Texas-shot Lonesome Cowboys to the largest audience in Media Center history at the Rice Memorial Center. A vigilant Houston vice squad also attended but, unable to establish the "community standards" of the Rice audience, left without incident. Michelangelo Antonioni, Martin Scorcese, and Milos Forman screened their work;Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas announced their plans to invade Hollywood; and pantheon directors Frank Capra, George Stevens, and King Vidor reflected on a cumulative century-and- a-half in the movie business.
Avant-garde innovators Ed Emschwiller and Stan Vanderbeek projected psychedelic images on Media Center ceilings. Richard Leacock and the Maysles Brothers screened their ground-breaking documentaries, and California experimental film maker Bruce Baillie designed a film course that "would only start with film and move on to just about everything else."
Critics and theorists were also invited: New York film doyenne Pauline Kael; British Film School head Colin Young; founder of the Cinematheque Francaise Henri Langlois; cultural critic for Le Monde Louis Marcorelles.
The late '70s saw the departure of Blue, but the eighties heralded new arrivals. Stories of Dennis Hopper's 1983 visit still circulate. After a free-form "lecture," Hopper invited a sell-out crowd to hop onto rented school buses and join him at the Big H Speedway in northeast Houston, where he immediately proceeded to blow himself up in a dynamite- chair stunt. A sage-like Sam Peckinpah made the last public appearance of his career.
Underground icon Kenneth Anger presented Scorpio Rising--his saga about motorcycle cults--in a scarlet sweater knitted by ladies from his Indiana fan club. Laslo Benedek recalled directing the young Marlon Brando in The Wild One, and Richard Lester reminisced about the Beatles during production of A Hard Day's Night. Dusan Makavejev relished the shock effect WR: Mysteries of the Organism had on local audiences, and Stan Brakhage spoke about experimental film. Following her father's footsteps, Isabella Rossellini arrived in Houston in 1987 for an international symposium on his work.
The 1990s witnessed continued growth and new directions. Ethiopian director Haile Gerima and Brazilian cinema novo founder Nelson Pereira Dos Santos premiered their latest films. American maverick Spike Lee responded to volatile questions after screening Do the Right Thing; Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan premiered Exotica; and Monty Python veteran Eric Idle led an enthusiastic audience through a rousing rendition of "The Philosophers Song."
In the past twenty-five years, the Media Center has screened over 5,000 movies, proving that a loyal audience exists for good films, including many that would not be considered commercially successful. Regulars have consistently used one word to describe what brings them back: VARIETY. As video eats up an increasing chunk of our entertainment dollar, we sometimes forget that "going to the movies" is one of the last communal experiences we share in an increasingly isolated world."
