A Brief History Of Street  Postering In Toronto

The late Jane Jacobs saw street posters as the newspaper of the streets.

The Supreme Court of Canada, in a ruling that outraged more people than it pleased, declared that posting flyers on the street is legal under freedom of speech.

Last week I received this from folks who think Toronto would be a far better place if I were not in it:

Good Day Mr. Hartt,

Your Street SPAM litterbug sign information was reported to the
Toronto Advertising Hall of Shame and posted at:
http://www.torontoadvertisinghallofshame.org/blog.html

and reported to Councilor Howard Moscoe and Toronto Municipal
Licensing and Standards.

–
Help stop STREET SPAM

Robert du Ville
Ville Probre De Toronto
Torononto Advertising Hall of Shame
www.torontoadvertisinghallofshame.org
torontoadvertisinghallofshame@gmail.com

The following is posted on their site:

February 28, 2010

M.S. has provided contact inforamtion for Mr. Hartt. Please call or email him about the littering of our Toronto neighbourhoods.

Reg Hartt: 416-603-6643. Email: rHartt4363@rogers.com

463 Bathhurst Street.

______________________________

February 26, 2010

I am surprised that Reg Hartt and his inane movie posters are not on your hall of shame. This man has been polluting downtown pylons and construction fences for over twenty years that I know of. He bombards the streets with as many posters as he can find space for, often pasting over other posters. Whenever I see ads for his limited repertoire of films, I rip them off but this man is like a cancer, he keeps coming back. I would love to see this stopped from defacing our streets.

M.S.

________________________

Dear Mr./Ms. S,

Thank you for your note.

The Toronto Advertising Hall of Shame (Canadians Against Street SPAM) relies heavily on surveillance and action by concerned Toronto residents such as yourself to report abuses of our city with photos and identification of locations.

Anything you can your neighbours can do to help identify and , more important, remove the abuses, is welcome.

Thank you for your help.

Robert

==========================

One day a man at my programs said, “You have been doing great work for the art and culture of this country for a long time.”

“Some see it that way. Most do not. What do you do?”

He handed me his card.

On it I read: THE HONOURABLE JOHN ROBERTS, P.C. (Privy Council).

He had served in the government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau as Minister of Culture and Minister of the Environment For Canada.

When I began my programs, back in the mid-1960, very few people used street flyers.

The technology that allowed their use was just coming into being.

Before that getting stuff printed was expensive process.

But then in the mid-sixties the first wave of offset printing shops opened up that could use cheap paper plates as opposed to the more expensive to produce metal ones.

Street posters allowed me to reach people I could never otherwise have reached.

It is clear that Robert du Ville and his friends view me as a public enemy.

That is natural.

As Henry Miller noted in his OPEN LETTER TO SURREALISTS EVERYWHERE, “Whenever an English artist of any value has arisen he has always been seen as Public Enemy Number One.”

In 1968 I had a little screening space thirty-nine steps above a pool hall on the east side of Yonge at Yorkville  aptly named THE PUBLIC ENEMY.

One day the family of Robert and Jane Jacobs, newly arrived in Toronto, showed up at my door for a screening of the Lon Chaney 1923 film, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME.

They had discovered my screening from a street poster.

They were regulars after that.

Two years later, when I served as Director Of Cinema Studies at Rochdale College (another den filled with public enemies) I saw a picture of Mrs. Jacobs in the paper.

I found out she had written a book titled “THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN CITIES.

Naturally, I read it.

I read her other books as well (more than twice).

A good many people have come out to my programs and found value in them:

MICHAEL VALPY, GLOBE AND MAIL:

“REG HARTT is what living in a metropolis is all about. He personifies the city as a meeting place of ideas, as a feast of experience and discussion and debate, as a triumph of the original and provoking over the banal and soporific.”

One of the hallmarks of those early years was that the people who used the streets to promote their events generally showed respect for each other.

I remember the day Jerome Godbout began to post flyers for his band, THE PHANTOMS.

I would find Jerome’s flyers beside mine, below mine, above mine but never on mine.

I went to his show.

As he came through the audience I introduced myself.

“You are the guy with the posters!” he said.

We have been friends for years.

Then, around 1974 the first wave of commercial street postering hit Toronto.

These people would go out with expensively produced posters for everything from the Art Gallery Of  Toronto to Campbell’s Soup.

We found ourselves being covered over by these people who showed no respect for any one or anything.

That led to wars between competing commercial posters that all too often involved physical violence.

I, myself, was mugged by these people.

When the Supreme Court of Canada declared street postering constitutional under freedom of speech the genie flew out of the bottle.

People who would never have used street posters for fear of having a record now began to.

Rapidly there was no space for anyone while everyone was everywhere.

Five minutes after we posted a flyer someone else covered it.

The biggest damage was done and continues to be done not by the artist promoting his or her event or the folks having a yard sale but by the people paid to poster material commercially.

The CBC documented one organization, dubbed “The Poster Mafia” on the street for reasons that should be obvious.

The CBC posted small ads for lost cats, dogs, yard sales, etc., and then photographed these folks destroying them so that Coca Cola or Campbell’s Soups or whatever could seize another mile of advertising space.

When they broadcast it the “Poster Mafia” people said, “Why didn’t you tell us it was yours?”

Truth be told The Poster Mafia once offered to respect my work.

I told them I’d rather be treated the way they treat everyone else, thank you very much.

I usually limit myself to not more than 300 flyers per event.

Those do not go out all at once.  I take out a few each day and maintain my visibility.  I am one of the few people who prefer to do the grunt work myself (I see it as exercise and it keeps me aware of what is happening around the city).  As well, when I pay someone to do it I get calls from folk who say, “You covered my flyer!” even though I instruct people not to (except where the people who have passed before have been pigs who left no room for anyone else).

In the last ten years more and more people have turned to postering as an easy way to feed their drug addictions though not everyone who does it does it for that reason.

It is routine now for several high end clubs to send crews out who do nothing but spend the day going over and over the same ground so that a street pole may have ten layers or more of paper wrapped around it in one day. Put up an ad for a lost cat and these folks tear it down.

They laugh at the idea of free speech for anyone but themselves.

They defend their actions with that tired old refrain, “It is my job.”

As if that somehow gives them a right to be less than human.

So, while I disagree completely with the assessment of the value of my work on this site I know why the people who are upset are upset.

Quite frankly, I do not know what can be done about it.

Postering is time consuming.

It is also hard work.

I have  tried ads in other media.

I bought full page ads in the weeklies.

I bought ads in those slick magazines people leave on the floor when they go to the movies.

I am not the first person to find  those media can’t draw flies with syrup.

People pick them up, look at them and, because they have not paid for them, toss them.

Over the years I have worked in many venues; The Spadina Hotel, The Diamond Club (now The Phoenix), Yuk Yuk’s, Sneaky Dee’s and others.

I watched management go broke paying for full page ads in the weeklies because they saw other people doing it and thought that is how to reach their market.

Those pages are not cheap.

Street posters are, as Jane Jacobs, described them, “the newspaper of the streets.”

The Supreme Court of Canada defended street posters as Freedom Of Speech.

But that freedom has been stolen away from the people by those who now make the streets of the city their own preserve.

These people are thugs.

One commercial posterer employed a couple of friends of mine.

“Cover everyone. Cover Reg Hartt,” he told them.

“Reg is our friend,” they replied.

“Cover him or I will fire you,” he said.

They got fired.

Another street person who was helping me out got physically attacked by this man so severely he had to go to the hospital.

When his people go out they paste material over every available surface regardless of what was there before.

I defend the right of the individual to announce their event or seek help finding their pet.

When I poster I respect that right.

But with every breath of my body I denounce those who usurp the right of the individual.

Get these people off the streets.

They are the enemy.

Meanwhile, come to my programs and find out why The Lonely Planet Guide tells people all over the world to visit Reg Hartt when they are in Toronto.

Below: Words from people who have found value in my work.

JULIA SCUTARU, retired journalist, Bucharest, Romania;
“In Toronto, I discovered by chance, Cineforum. Pure chance but a fortunate one. In that small room exhaling culture, passion and dedication, I watched the movie TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, an important historical, political and social document., and real artistic achievement….As a journalist (in Romania) I worked in the cultural field, including film reviews. Therefore I came to the Cineforum not just as a movie lover, but as a knowledgeable professional…We live in an era authoritatively dominated by brainwashing and political correctness…I admired Reg Hartt’s courage and passion put in searching out and defending the human truth, the artistic truth, the historical truth; the Truth and unveiling it…Discovering Reg Hartt and his Cineforum was one of the most important events of my visit in Toronto.”

REG HARTT HAS A FEEL FOR FILM UNIQUE IN THIS COUNTRY, APPROACHING GENIUS LEVEL.
–Elwy Yost, former host SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (TVOntario). Quoted in UofT Student Newspaper.

JOHN ROBERT COLOMBO (author and anthologist).

Eight Things Everyone Must Know About Reg Hartt

l. Reg Hartt gives talks that are sometimes more interesting than the films he shows.

2. The films he shows are interesting films, otherwise he would not be repeatedly showing them

3. Reg Hartt is something of a legend in Toronto, and someone who has generated kilometers of publicity.

4. The purpose of the publicity he generates is not to feed his ego (though his ego is a grand one!); the publicity’s purpose is to draw attention to the fact that day after day, week after week, year after year, he exhibits to one and all the world’s classic films (especially its wonderful short features-animated cartoons). He has done so since l967. Since then perhaps millions have listened to his talks, watched his l6mm movies, and left infuriated or fulfilled.

5. Reg Hartt delights in his gnarly reputation.

6. His reputation is gnarly because he gives neither a fig nor a fuck for bourgeois morality, be it that of society, church, campus, boardroom, or the media. Friends and enemies alike attest to how fair the man is-and the fact that he views the world as drama-as a “vanity fair.”

7. Reg Hartt believes that “more things are wrought by wear and tear than this world dreams of.”

8. By “wear and tear” he has in mind the following fundamental and psychological facts: chaos and confrontation are crucial to human creativity…people have to pull down their hang-ups. ..Reg has a “beating hartt” but is no “bleeding hartt.”

JOHN BENTLEY MAYS, THE GLOBE AND MAIL;

“REG HARTT’S SURREALIST FILM FEST would be welcome any time, since much of what’s on view is timelessly wonderful, and the rest is thoroughly interesting…To view this wonderful festival is to feel one’s self in a hall of mirrors, where images of the old seem new, and the new suddenly seem everlasting.”

PAUL McGRATH, THE GLOBE AND MAIL;

“Some audience members were visibly distressed by the frequency and force of Hartt’s interjections into the program but it is clearly his chosen way of doing things, and the payoff in information is worth it. He has many good stories to tell: about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’s transformation into Mickey Mouse, Disney’s most enduring character; about the furor that greeted the creation of Tweety Pie, which subsided only when the artists painted him yellow; and much valuable technical information for the animation students. He has some interesting tales about Mel Blanc, Warners’ resident genius of voice characterization, as he continues the series with a full scale look at the Warner work of Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, and others. It’s the best work of its kind you will see anywhere because, except in rare oases in the United States and Eastern-Europe, they don’t make them like that anymore.”

BERNIE FARBER, National Director Community Relations for the Canadian Jewish Congress;

“(REG HARTTT’S presentation IS educational) TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, unfortunately and very tragically was one of the most important propaganda pieces ever made. Nazism was nothing if not for it propaganda machine…it laid the groundwork for the German public to accept Nazism, and these are things that have to be studied, in terms of how film can affect people in that way.” (from THE TELEGRAPH JOURNAL, St. John, New Brunswick, Sept. 20, l995)

JENNY WOOLF, THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, London, England;

“REG HARTT is passionate about self-expression…His shows are brilliant.”

BAREND KIEFTE, THE MUSE. St. John’s, Newfoundland (July l5, l988);
“SURREALISM is an art movement that requires and deserves explanation, and Hartt did that well.”

DAVID BEARD, owner CINEBOOKS, quoted in THE TORONTO STAR, Nov. l, l979;

“This man has devoted his whole life to bringing the film classics to the public. He treats animation-cartoons, if you will-as art. He is underfinanced, overworked and snubbed. I think we should pay tribute to him.”

GREG WILLIAMS, MA (Ph, D. Candidate), President, University College Film Society, and Chairman of the Subcommittee for film, U. C. Symposium;

“I wish we had more time to chat together last night about our respective (and mutual) interests in film.‘Cineforum’ has attained the status of an institution; it represents an achievement of which you should rightly feel proud. I can only hope the ‘University College Film Society’ will someday approximate its success and that I will, personally, match your inspired delivery as a master of ceremonies. As a newcomer to the business of arranging film programs, so far I am your equal perhaps only in enthusiasm. Thus I find your presentations to be not only exceptional in their content but also edifying in their execution. As an academic (in the field of English) I am also impressed by the high scholarly standard that pervades your informed and witty introductions, I frequently wonder if you have ever considered writing a history…some very good books have been written…but no text has dealt with it in a definitive way. A marshalling of your knowledge would, I am certain, produce a very fine volume indeed.”

DOUGLAS ELIUK, former education officer NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA;

“(REG) Hartt is acknowledged as a phenomenon in the film community. He is someone who does not rely on government grants, subsidies or institutional protection to generate his film activities. He depends entirely on his intelligence, talent and resourcefulness. His events are produced with care and good sense, in a clean and friendly atmosphere and with an almost avuncular consideration for his fans, As a film officer for the National Film Board of Canada for 30 years, I have seldom seen anyone who added so much substance and passion to the cultural fabric of our society as he has done with his lectures and presentations.”

JOHN KRICFALUSI, creator of REN & STIMPY;

“I hope Reg Hartt continues to inspire young artists.”

JANE JACOBS, activist, author, urbanologist;

“Some time ago I attended a showing of the Nazi propaganda film, “TRIUMPH OF THE WILL,” in a program put on by Reg Hartt (who) prefaced the film with an excellent commentary on the frightening skill with which expert propagandists can manipulate and fool unwary, credulous or self-deceived viewers…I thought the program was eminently educational, indeed almost a necessary form of education in the sense that it so vividly and effectively inoculated viewers against accepting propaganda at face value. The program went way beyond the all-too-common hassle over ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ propaganda because it was anti-propaganda of any sort: anti-manipulation.
“Reflect on what Mr. Hartt is doing and on its educational usefulness for those who will listen and then observe the demonic illustrations of his point. Anyone who does that, I think, must forever after, be suspicious of being sold a seductive propaganda bill of goods.”

JERZEY ZABORSKI, archaelogist, Egyptologist, Sumeroligist, Tibetan Lama & companion to the Dalai Lama on his journey across Canada;

“CINEFORUM is like a university. People can learn there. Reg Hartt is a ‘Crazy-Wisdom-Yogin,’ someone who is living absolutely the life he is teaching. As a Buddhist that is the highest compliment I can pay anyone.”

JUDITH MERRIL when asked by SF writer ROB SAWYER why Reg Hartt was invited to be a member of Hydra North, the gathering of SF professionals in Canada (Reg does not write SF);

“Reg Hartt is THE most creative person working in film in Canada.”

PETER MOORE, British Artist;

“I am a Brit artist. I love Toronto. I have sometimes heard it said that Toronto is boring. It is a comparatively well ordered city. Maybe that is why some imperceptive people think it boring. The thing is I keep having amazing successes in Toronto. My friend Bob Welton who decided he was much happier in Warsaw than in London used to say in London everything is possible and nothing is probable. I just find in Toronto not everything is possible but lots of things, important things, are quite probable. Does this make sense?

“ANYWAY, a wonderful surprise in Toronto is Reg Hartt’s Cineforum. I was walking down Bloor Street with my friend Alan, a composer, a Torontonian who, searching for fulfillment in London, has realized that everything he wanted existed in his original home, Toronto. It was my birthday. He said, “What do you want to do for your birthday?” I said, “I want to go and see that!”

“I was pointing at a mysterious poster for TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, (the film of Hitler’s l934 Nuremberg rally). I’d always wanted to see that.

“So we went and I found myself in the most perfect place on earth to watch a film. With the film was an unexpected treat….a brilliant, unbiased, sensible and stimulating introduction by the amazing Reg Hartt.

“So once again, in German mode, we went to see Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS. Reg had somehow spliced on to the film his own soundtrack. Now this was interesting because a while later we went to the Art Gallery of Ontatio where the same film was shown-much bigger screen-and with piano accompaniment. It was interesting to compare the two showings and, in my humble opinion, Reg’s came out winning.

“REG HARTT and CINEFORUM add considerably to the mysterious charms of Toronto which often makes me want to be a NEW CANADIAN!”

JOHN KENNEDY, fab;

“If you walk around Toronto at all, you probably know the name Reg Hartt. There’s hardly a lamppost, hydro pole or construction wall in the downtown area that hasn’t …Reg Hartt’s posters. They advertise screenings of THE BIRTH OF A NATION, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, METROPOLIS, Bugs Bunny cartoons and other celluloid classics at Hartt’s theatre, Cineforum.…Hartt’s theatre is actually his converted living room. The walls are painted black and a large movie screen hangs at the front…Hartt likes to talk. not just about movies…but about everything from his views on the education system to human sexuality. His voice fluctuates between that of a professional story teller and that of a crazy man. None of it comes across as pretentious because Hartt has had a remarkable life and has obviously gained an enormous amount of wisdom. I sat there equally mesmerized and terrified…My friend and I spent most of the night thinking about Hartt’s words-not about movies but about life and people and ourselves. His words lasted for days and we looked at our lives a little differently. Cineforum is the oddest place in the city to see a film but there’s something to be said for being able to see films the way they were meant to be seen. And there’s a lot to be said for being able to listen to Reg Hartt.”

In addition to Robert Frank’s COCKSUCKER BLUES, the following are now in The Cineforum archive”

The Complete Film Works. Vol 1:

Pull My Daisy, The Sin of Jesus, Me and My Brother

by Robert Frank

Steidl

Robert Frank’s significant contribution to photography in the mid-twentieth century is unquestionable. His book, The Americans, is arguably the most important American photography publication of the post-World War II period, and his photography has spawned numerous disciples, as well as a rich critical literature. However, at the very moment Frank achieved the status of a “star” at the end of the 1950s, he abandoned traditional still photography to become a filmmaker. He eventually returned to photography in the 1970s, but Frank, as a filmmaker, has remained a well-kept secret for almost four decades. Robert Frank The Complete Film Works fills a long overdue gap by presenting every one of Frank’s more than 25 films and videos, some of them classics of the New American Cinema of the 1950s and 60s.

Robert Frank The Complete Film Works Volume 1:

Pull My Daisy is a 1959 short film that typifies the Beat Generation. Directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Daisy was adapted by Jack Kerouac from the third act of a stage play he never finished entitled Beat Generation. Kerouac also provided improvised narration. It starred Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Larry Rivers, Peter Orlovsky, David Amram, Richard Bellamy, Alice Neel, Sally Gross and Pablo, Frank’s then-infant son. Based on an incident in the life of Neal Cassady and his wife Carolyn, Daisy tells the story of a railway brakeman whose painter wife invites a respectable bishop over for dinner. However, the brakeman’s bohemian friends crash the party, with comic results. Pull My Daisy was praised for years as an improvisational masterpiece, until Leslie revealed in 1968 that the film was actually carefully planned, rehearsed, and directed by him and Frank

The Sin of Jesus was based on the story of Isaac Babel, a woman on a chicken farm who spends her days working at an egg-sorting machine. “I’m the only woman here.” She is pregnant, her husband spends his days lying in bed, and his friends encourage him to go out on the town with them. The woman talks to herself as she works, lost in the monotony of human existence. She counts the passing days in the same way she counts eggs. Even extraordinary events, such as the appearance of Jesus Christ in the barn, go under the stream of this melancholy solipsism.

Me and My Brother seems to be a rather artless-film-within-a-film being shown at a rundown movie theater. The story contains bizarre twists and turns: skillfully weaving together opposites, playing counterfeits against the authentic, pornography against poetry, acting against being, Beat cynicism against hippie romanticism, monochrome against colored. This was Frank’s first feature-length film work and it celebrates the return of the poetic essay as assemblage, the affirmation of the underground as a wild cinematic analysis in the form of a collage. There is a method to this film’s madness: It is so rich in text, quotes, music, and associations that keeping up with it through the underbrush of psyche, film, and urbanity is barely possible.

Three jewel cases in a sleeve

Pull My Daisy – 28 minutes – 1959
The Sin of Jesus – 40 minutes – 1961
Me and My Brother – 85 minutes – 1968

13 cm x 21 cm
Steidl
ISBN: 978-3-86521-365-5
Publication date: May 2008

Robert Frank The Complete Film Works Vol. 2:

OK End Here,

Conversations in Vermont,

Liferaft Earth

by Robert Frank

OK End Here is Frank’s 1963 short film about inertia in a modern relationship. The film alternates between semidocumentary scenes and shots composed with rigid formality, and appears to have been directly influenced by the French Nouvelle Vague and Michelangelo Antonioni’s films. The characters are often only partially visible or physically separated by walls, doors, reflections, or furniture, and the camera relays the story with little rhyme nor reason, a roaming gaze, which seems to lose itself in things of little importance, while at the same time capturing the dominant atmosphere of routine, alienation, and apathy.

• Three DVD’s in a film-roll box, slipcased
  OK End Here – 32 minutes – 1963
  Conversations in Vermont – 26 minutes – 1969
  Liferaft Earth – 37 minutes – 1969
• Steidl
• ISBN: 978-3-86521-525-3
• Publication date: May 2008

The Complete Film Works. Vol 3:

Keep Busy,

About Me: A Musical

by Robert Frank

Keep Busy “I am filming the outside in order to look inside,” Robert Frank once said about his aesthetics. In Keep Busy his chosen home of Nova Scotia serves for the first time as the “outside” in an examination of the “inside.” The protagonists’ astounding verbal gymnastics and often incomprehensible interactions tend to descend into nonsense, and with the syncopated rhythm of its action and dialogue, this film is reminiscent of the playful and parodying elements of the Beat fantasy Pull My Daisy. The interweaving of documentary and fiction with the syncopated rhythm of its action and dialogue presents an absurd buzz of activity reminiscent of Beckett’s abstract comic grotesque.

About Me: A Musical “My project was to make a film about music in America…. Well, fuck the music. I just decided to make a film about myself.” Robert Frank’s self-portrait is a film about music that repeatedly poses questions concerning artistic expression and the function of memory. Frank himself introduces an actress as “the young lady that is playing me.” She throws a stack of photographs onto the bed and says with disgust, “That’s my past.” Despite the apparently autobiographical nature of the film, Frank, the immigrant, regards his story as a collective one. The film teaches temple musicians in Benares, India, “hope freaks” in New Mexico and inmates in a Texas prison. “That’s me,” Frank says when an old-fashioned film projector shows him as a small child. An interview of passers-by completes the circle: “If you had a camera and some film, what would you shoot?” A street musician answers, “About myself,” and starts playing a classic number. “Those were the days, my friend.”

S-8 Stones Footage from Exile on Main St. Filmed during the making of the Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones album cover.

Three DVDs in a film-roll box, slipcased
Keep Busy – 38 minutes – 1975
About Me: A Musical – 35 minutes – 1971
S-8 Stones Footage from Exile on Main St. – 5 minutes – 1972
13 cm x 21 cm

Publication date: May 2008

Cocksucker Blues

Mcourt
Rick “Lucifer” McGrath

Cast: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Mick Taylor, Danny Seymour, Bianca Jagger, Tina Turner, Truman Capote, Stevie Wonder, Andy Warhol, Dick Cavett, Terry Southern, Princess Radziwell, Cynthia Jones, various groupies, roadies and scalpers.

Directed by Robert Frank
Produced by Marshall Chess
Editors: Robert Frank, Paul Justman, Susan Steinberg
Camera: Robert Frank, Danny Seymour
Sound: Danny Seymour

1972, Unreleased; 95 min, color (no video release)

Ojo says:

COCKSUCKER BLUES (1972) Robert Frank.

Drugs, Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll (and drugs & more sex)

Of all the tours the Rolling Stones have made across North America, the 1972 tour is still remembered as the most outrageous, most provocative, most inventive musical outing the fab five from London ever performed.

I was fortunate enough to see this juicy juggernaut when it made its stop in Vancouver on Saturday, June 3rd, 1972. As Stones expert Harold Colson has written elsewhere… “The fabled summer 1972 tour through the U.S. and Canada is revered by Stones fans worldwide as arguably the band’s greatest ever, and it remains enshrined in the annals of rock lore and popular imagination as the masterpiece speedball of indoor triumph, outdoor maelstrom, and backstage debauch. In powerful testament to this enduring sway, vast quantities of audio recordings, books, magazines, photographs, films, videos, and other memorabilia have since issued through licit and sub-licit channels to keep the coveted sights and sounds of the Stones Touring Party alive, rolling, and fresh to this very day.”

Cocksucker Blues is one of those enduring sub-licit channels which not only celebrates the fore, middle and background of this tour, but which also presents itself as one of the very best rock tour movies ever made, and never seen.

Have You Heard About The… It’s Not One Of Those

Here’s the scene: the Stones have not visited the US since the 1969 disaster of Altamont — also immortalized by the Brothers Maysles in the tour/performance flick Gimmie Shelter — and the group is riding high and hard on the success of their definitive album, Exile On Main Street.

Myth-mad Mick, despite the surprisingly frank shots of Gimmie Shelter, decides to do the film thing one more time and enlists the talent of famous photog/filmmaker Robert Frank (he shot the pix on the Exile album cover, and shot a brutal documentary on madness, called Me and My Brother).

In comes producer Marshall Chess, who, early in the movie, gives the plotline: Mick has already written a song called Cocksucker Blues, about a gay hooker in London, to fulfill the group’s contractual obligations to Decca records, which was run at the time by an old fart named Sir Edward Lewis. Apparently, during a meeting, Mick gets up and plays a demo of the song to the uptight geezer… the lyrics of which are:

Well, I’m a lonesome schoolboy
and I just came into town
Yeah, I’m a lonesome schoolboy
and I just came into town
Well, I heard so much about London
I decided to check it out
Well, I wait in Leicester Square
with a come-hither look in my eye
Yeah, I’m leaning on Nelsons Column
but all I do is talk to the lime
Oh where can I get my cock sucked?
Where can I get my ass fucked?
I may have no money,
but I know where to put it every time
Well, I asked a young policeman
if he’d only lock me up for the night
Well, I’ve had pigs in the farmyard,
some of them, some of them, they’re alright?
Well, he fucked me with his truncheon
and his helmet was way too tight
Oh where can I get my cock sucked?
Where can I get my ass fucked?
I ain’t got no money,
but I know where to put it every time

Needless to say, this winsome ditty had the desired effect, and the song was never released. Chess goes on to say some cat in New York was organizing a benefit for Oz Magazine, which was being hassled by the government in an obscenity trial, and the idea came up to do a porno album, with rock stars contributing “adult” material to raise dough for the underground magazine.

Cocksucker Blues was one song, and there were others, like Dr John (The Night Tripper)’s “You Can Never Eat Too Much Pussy”. Then the idea expanded from an album to a film… which this isn’t.

Shot cinema verite, docurocku style, Cocksucker Blues is a pinball machine of images — soft, warm, harsh, exploitive, funny, sad, boring, stupid and smart, jammed with images of excessive hard drug taking, nodding-off Stones, roadies fucking groupies, backstage parties, naked women, heroin shoot-ups, and, yes, some great concert footage. It was, however, so over the top that the Stones banned its release and obtained a court injunction against its distribution. Cinematographer Frank finally got the rights to screen the flick once a year, but one can only obtain this movie on video in bootleg form.

I’m Bored. How About Some Sex & Drugs?

Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, commenting on Cocksucker Blues, called it “definitely one of the best movies about rock and roll I’ve ever seen. . . . It makes you think being a rock and roll star is one of the last things you’d ever want to do.” Amen to that. One has the feeling these guys are soldiers, waiting for the next battle, the next opportunity to feel alive. In the meantime, there’s the tedium, confusion, boredom, and good old angst & ennui of being locked into a big money, big stadium, big everything rock tour.

Director Frank unblinkingly reveals these patterns of unrest behind the Stone’s bulletproof window of fame, showing us the ever-present drugs and groupies, Keith Richards’ addiction to heroin, Mick Jagger’s problems with the high-maintenance Bianca (who looks like Sade at a Nirvana concert) and, most interestingly, just how adroit the Glimmer Twins are at concocting and manipulating their outlaw reputations.

One of the sadder themes Frank also films is the degeneration of his friend and co-cameraman Danny Seymour, who finally succumbs to the temptations of drugs and sex around him. While not downplayed, Frank underscores the concert performances with his fascination of the backstage world, and allows the mundane sounds of the tour to set the film’s themes and feel: raw and inconsequential conversations; Bianca’s tiny music box; a bluesy, poignant piano theme; yammering local disc jockeys; and the nervous practice of antsy musicians just prior to going onstage.

Some Great Music. But Not Much Of It.

For a 90-minute flick, only about 15 are concert shots. We watch the boys perform the opening song for pretty well every night of the tour, Brown Sugar, as well as Midnight Rambler, Uptight (with Stevie Wonder), Happy, and Street Fighting Man. Midnight Rambler is notable for Mick’s haunting harp opening, and the band, blitzed as they are, still play very well, with Keith laying down his usual heavy chops against Mick Taylor’s intelligent fills.

Mostly Classic Self-Indulgent Stuff.

No doubt shocking when shot, but now mostly cliches, given the excesses of bands which followed – Led Zeppelin being first and foremost — Cocksucker Blues reads like a litany of rock high priest thou shalt’s: watch everybody snort coke & shoot heroin marvel at Bobby Keyes and Keith Richard as they toss a TV off their hotel balcony (first they check to see no one’s below) thrill as Dick Cavett asks Bill Wyman, “what’s running through your nervous system right now?” smirk as Wyman doesn’t answer leer as Mick Jagger rubs his dink through his pants, then undoes them and gets his hand in for a better feel gasp as a girl trying to get into the concert complains her baby was taken from her because she’s always on acid laugh to discover a scalper is charging $10 for a $3.50 ticket chuckle as a totally stoned Keith tries to order room service for some strawberries, blueberries and “three apples”

look at your watch as the boys play some very drunken poker. See Keith win. ooh as Charlie Watts makes a very difficult pool shot in a southern diner moan as a naked groupie rolls on a bed, legs spread, fingering her pussy make notes as Keith tells Mick it’s best to snort coke through a rolled up dollar bill guffaw as Mick turns to the camera after a brief meeting with Tina Turner and says “I wouldn’t mind…” look at your watch again as the tour crew packs the group’s suitcases and cleans out their hotel rooms wonder in amazement as Bianca sits sullenly, smoking a cigarette and playing a little music box over and over.

The Picture Quality Sucks As Much As The Groupies.

OK, we’re talking bootleg here. Gawd knows how many times this video has been copied before falling into my quivering hands. It’s not pristine 35mm, that’s for sure. On the other hand, the film itself is so zany that the highly degraded picture quality (the sound has remained pretty good) can actually add to the ethereal nature of this strange trip.

My copy shows massive colour shifts to mostly blue, and the definition between colours has degenerated to almost a posterized effect. In some shots you can’t really tell who the people are anymore — but does it matter? This ain’t Spielberg, this is hardcore rock ‘n’ roll, and it still has the backbeat, so you really can’t lose it.

I think this is the greatest rock movie ever made — probably that ever will be made, combining a talented, artistic filmmaker with the World’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band at the height of their glory on their craziest tour.

Doesn’t get much better than that.

© Rick “Ojo” McGrath July/2001

NOTE: We found several sources for COCKSUCKER BLUES and ordered a copy from each of them.

While most fit this description all too well: “My copy shows massive colour shifts to mostly blue, and the definition between colours has degenerated to almost a posterized effect. In some shots you can’t really tell who the people are anymore — but does it matter?” I got one that does not.

So to see this picture (and hear it) better than anyone except Robert Frank himself can show it to you come to The Cineforum.

And don’t ask.

Our copy is not for sale.

When and if the time comes to make this film available the right to sell it belongs to the man who made it.

As I surf the web I find some pretty off putting stuff written about myself.

The latest is a post at:

http://www.lucidforge.com/film-news/film-interviews/2719-the-cineforum-experience-last-night-i-dreamt-i-met-reg-hartt-.html

None of us can control what others say about us.

The only thing we can control is how we react.

I have been at this a long time. This year marks the 40th anniversary of when I returned to Toronto from Hollywood to become part of Rochdale College.

I had spent the month previous in Hollywood meditating on the Wilhelm/Baynes edition of THE I CHING and a particularly powerful translation not available to most (I got it by accident) of THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Once we have impregnated our mind with ideas from those sources we fertilize our self to give birth to a totally new being or we revert to something worse than what we were.

THE I CHING teaches that the superior man does not work for money.

Great. I can’t do anything just to make money.

Well, that was easy as I could not do that to begin with.

That made for some particularly difficult life choices.

THE I CHING also teaches that the superior man forgives both the conscious and unconscious misdeeds upon his person by others before they happen.

That also makes for a difficult choice but it also allows our power of self-healing to work at its peak.

—– Original Message —–

From: Ryan Warring Bird

To: rhartt4363@rogers.com

Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:28 PM

Subject: Interview Request

Reg,

My name is Ryan Warring Bird. I am editor of Lucid Media Magazine. We are a nationally distributed arts & culture magazine based out of Toronto. One of our film contributors David Summers wishes to request an interview. We intend this piece to be a 1100 film interview in traditional Q&A format. If you are interested, kindly contact us at your earliest convenience.

–
Sincerely,
Ryan Warring Bird
Editor
Lucid Media Magazine
C&G Monthly

warringbird@gmail.com
Office: (416) 516-2894
Cell: (416) 380-0849

—– Original Message —–

From: David Summers

To: rhartt4363@rogers.com

Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 9:03 AM

Subject: Interview with Lucid Media Magazine

Hello,

I was informed by a colleague of mine at Lucid Media Magazine that you may potentially be interested in conducting a short interview with us.  We’d like to include this in the upcoming edition so it would most likely need to be done within the next week.  Hopefully we will be able to synchronize our available time which for me would either be Friday or next Monday night, or any time on Sunday.  If these times are not possible, and if it would be more convenient, I can instead conduct this interview over the internet and send you some questions which you could answer on your own time.  If this is still not at all possible I still would like to thank you for your consideration.

Thanks,

David Summers

What follows is the interview which appears:

Since 1992, eccentric archivist Reg Hartt has opened his doors to lovers of rare film. With a screening room in his front parlour, he welcomes any and all curious visitors. You will know his house when you see it. There is a red neon sign in his window that blinks “Cineforum”, a Greek inscription above his door that reads “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”, and a cast of mysterious characters that lurk in the shadowy background. Two weeks after granting us an interview, a pile of crumpled notes were found on our office doorstep, and we have dutifully transcribed them for you, on fear of mystic  retribution. Enjoy.

He lives at 463 Bathurst Street. He lets strangers into his house to watch movies. There are no formal invitations. If you want to come you just need to notice the photocopies he has taped to the lamp posts all across the city. You may have seen them too. Black and white images. Salvador Dali. Adolph Hitler. Bugs Bunny. Always rustling in the wind.

For some reason he is expecting me this Friday evening. When I get there he’s left the front door open, even though it is terribly cold outside. As I step inside he appears from nowhere and shakes my hand. He offers me tea. He’s put water on. As he pours from the kettle water slops all over the table. In the corner of the kitchen stands a young dark skinned man who is watching us silently. He nods when he sees I’ve noticed him, but doesn’t introduce himself.

“Let’s go into the other room,” says the host. “Where the others won’t hear us.”

I’m led into a small cramped room at the front of the house. It is dark in here. The only light comes from the hallway outside. There are many chairs scattered about, and we choose two that are enclosed by a barricade of metal filing cabinets. We sit and I fumble with a piece of crumpled paper that I’ve pulled from my pocket. The host eyes the paper suspiciously.

“You’ve brought some questions with you, I see.”

On my lap is a handheld machine to record our conversation. This he also eyes in his peculiar way, peering out from under his eyebrows, which stand on end like a mad hypnotists. As I press the record button the house begins to creak.

Somehow our conversation has begun. I can’t recall if it was he or I who started it.

“The special thing about this place, and what we are doing here, is that we aren’t a part of the community. If you want to know how we’re a part of it, that’s how. By not being a part. At least not consciously. As soon as we become a part of the community, we don’t exist.”

For more about the haunted world of the Cineforum, and its mysterious host Reg Hartt, check out the printed version of Lucid Media, found on the racks and shelves of your local bookstores.

“For some reason he is expecting me this Friday evening. When I get there he’s left the front door open, even though it is terribly cold outside. As I step inside he appears from nowhere and shakes my hand. He offers me tea. He’s put water on. As he pours from the kettle water slops all over the table. In the corner of the kitchen stands a young dark skinned man who is watching us silently. He nods when he sees I’ve noticed him, but doesn’t introduce himself.

“Let’s go into the other room,” says the host. “Where the others won’t hear us.”

Now imagine yourself as me.

You know someone is coming over. It’s cold so you leave the door open so they don’t have to knock. You make coffee and put on hot water so they can have a hot drink to warm up.

Is there a note of grace here?

No, there is not.

The writer talks about water slopping hot on to the table.

One thing I have learned over the years is that we have to have a pretty thick skin.

I surf the web and find folks saying there is something creepy about coming here.

That speaks more about them than it does about myself.

I started this program by accident.

I was using a bar up the street when a conflict with its management caused ,me to move the program here for one night as it was so close.

“We like this,” said the people who came out.

Now anyone who has worked in the arts knows that the really difficult thing is to find a place where you can present your ideas without being interfered with.

Avantgarde musician Cecil Taylor said, “The key to success in the arts is to find someplace small in your own city where you can present your work on a regular basis without being interfered with.”

In that moment I found my small place.

Lots of people from around the world have passed through my door and found value here.

Here are just a few of them:

What has been written about Reg Hartt & Cineforum

JULIA SCUTARU, retired journalist, Bucharest, Romania;
“In Toronto, I discovered by chance, Cineforum. Pure chance but a fortunate one. In that small room exhaling culture, passion and dedication, I watched the movie TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, an important historical, political and social document., and real artistic achievement….As a journalist (in Romania) I worked in the cultural field, including film reviews. Therefore I came to the Cineforum not just as a movie lover, but as a knowledgeable professional…We live in an era authoritatively dominated by brainwashing and political correctness…I admired Reg Hartt’s courage and passion put in searching out and defending the human truth, the artistic truth, the historical truth; the Truth and unveiling it…Discovering Reg Hartt and his Cineforum was one of the most important events of my visit in Toronto.”

REG HARTT HAS A FEEL FOR FILM UNIQUE IN THIS COUNTRY, APPROACHING GENIUS LEVEL.
–Elwy Yost, former host SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (TVOntario). Quoted in UofT Student Newspaper.

JOHN ROBERT COLOMBO (author and anthologist).

Eight Things Everyone Must Know About Reg Hartt

l. Reg Hartt gives talks that are sometimes more interesting than the films he shows.

2. The films he shows are interesting films, otherwise he would not be repeatedly showing them

3. Reg Hartt is something of a legend in Toronto, and someone who has generated kilometers of publicity.

4. The purpose of the publicity he generates is not to feed his ego (though his ego is a grand one!); the publicity’s purpose is to draw attention to the fact that day after day, week after week, year after year, he exhibits to one and all the world’s classic films (especially its wonderful short features-animated cartoons). He has done so since l967. Since then perhaps millions have listened to his talks, watched his l6mm movies, and left infuriated or fulfilled.

5. Reg Hartt delights in his gnarly reputation.

6. His reputation is gnarly because he gives neither a fig nor a fuck for bourgeois morality, be it that of society, church, campus, boardroom, or the media. Friends and enemies alike attest to how fair the man is-and the fact that he views the world as drama-as a “vanity fair.”

7. Reg Hartt believes that “more things are wrought by wear and tear than this world dreams of.”

8. By “wear and tear” he has in mind the following fundamental and psychological facts: chaos and confrontation are crucial to human creativity…people have to pull down their hang-ups. ..Reg has a “beating hartt” but is no “bleeding hartt.”

MICHAEL VALPY, GLOBE AND MAIL;

“REG HARTT is what living in a metropolis is all about. He personifies the city as a meeting place of ideas, as a feast of experience and discussion and debate, as a triumph of the original and provoking over the banal and soporific.”

JOHN BENTLEY MAYS, THE GLOBE AND MAIL;

“REG HARTT’S SURREALIST FILM FEST would be welcome any time, since much of what’s on view is timelessly wonderful, and the rest is thoroughly interesting…To view this wonderful festival is to feel one’s self in a hall of mirrors, where images of the old seem new, and the new suddenly seem everlasting.”

PAUL McGRATH, THE GLOBE AND MAIL;

“Some audience members were visibly distressed by the frequency and force of Hartt’s interjections into the program but it is clearly his chosen way of doing things, and the payoff in information is worth it. He has many good stories to tell: about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’s transformation into Mickey Mouse, Disney’s most enduring character; about the furor that greeted the creation of Tweety Pie, which subsided only when the artists painted him yellow; and much valuable technical information for the animation students. He has some interesting tales about Mel Blanc, Warners’ resident genius of voice characterization, as he continues the series with a full scale look at the Warner work of Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, and others. It’s the best work of its kind you will see anywhere because, except in rare oases in the United States and Eastern-Europe, they don’t make them like that anymore.”

BERNIE FARBER, National Director Community Relations for the Canadian Jewish Congress;

“(REG HARTTT’S presentation IS educational) TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, unfortunately and very tragically was one of the most important propaganda pieces ever made. Nazism was nothing if not for it propaganda machine…it laid the groundwork for the German public to accept Nazism, and these are things that have to be studied, in terms of how film can affect people in that way.” (from THE TELEGRAPH JOURNAL, St. John, New Brunswick, Sept. 20, l995)

JENNY WOOLF, THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, London, England;

“REG HARTT is passionate about self-expression…His shows are brilliant.”

BAREND KIEFTE, THE MUSE. St. John’s, Newfoundland (July l5, l988);
“SURREALISM is an art movement that requires and deserves explanation, and Hartt did that well.”

DAVID BEARD, owner CINEBOOKS, quoted in THE TORONTO STAR, Nov. l, l979;

“This man has devoted his whole life to bringing the film classics to the public. He treats animation-cartoons, if you will-as art. He is underfinanced, overworked and snubbed. I think we should pay tribute to him.”

GREG WILLIAMS, MA (Ph, D. Candidate), President, University College Film Society, and Chairman of the Subcommittee for film, U. C. Symposium;

“I wish we had more time to chat together last night about our respective (and mutual) interests in film.‘Cineforum’ has attained the status of an institution; it represents an achievement of which you should rightly feel proud. I can only hope the ‘University College Film Society’ will someday approximate its success and that I will, personally, match your inspired delivery as a master of ceremonies. As a newcomer to the business of arranging film programs, so far I am your equal perhaps only in enthusiasm. Thus I find your presentations to be not only exceptional in their content but also edifying in their execution. As an academic (in the field of English) I am also impressed by the high scholarly standard that pervades your informed and witty introductions, I frequently wonder if you have ever considered writing a history…some very good books have been written…but no text has dealt with it in a definitive way. A marshalling of your knowledge would, I am certain, produce a very fine volume indeed.”

DOUGLAS ELIUK, former education officer NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA;

“(REG) Hartt is acknowledged as a phenomenon in the film community. He is someone who does not rely on government grants, subsidies or institutional protection to generate his film activities. He depends entirely on his intelligence, talent and resourcefulness. His events are produced with care and good sense, in a clean and friendly atmosphere and with an almost avuncular consideration for his fans, As a film officer for the National Film Board of Canada for 30 years, I have seldom seen anyone who added so much substance and passion to the cultural fabric of our society as he has done with his lectures and presentations.”

JOHN KRICFALUSI, creator of REN & STIMPY;

“I hope Reg Hartt continues to inspire young artists.”

JANE JACOBS, activist, author, urbanologist;

“Some time ago I attended a showing of the Nazi propaganda film, “TRIUMPH OF THE WILL,” in a program put on by Reg Hartt (who) prefaced the film with an excellent commentary on the frightening skill with which expert propagandists can manipulate and fool unwary, credulous or self-deceived viewers…I thought the program was eminently educational, indeed almost a necessary form of education in the sense that it so vividly and effectively inoculated viewers against accepting propaganda at face value. The program went way beyond the all-too-common hassle over ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ propaganda because it was anti-propaganda of any sort: anti-manipulation.
“Reflect on what Mr. Hartt is doing and on its educational usefulness for those who will listen and then observe the demonic illustrations of his point. Anyone who does that, I think, must forever after, be suspicious of being sold a seductive propaganda bill of goods.”

JERZEY ZABORSKI, archaelogist, Egyptologist, Sumeroligist, Tibetan Lama & companion to the Dalai Lama on his journey across Canada;

“CINEFORUM is like a university. People can learn there. Reg Hartt is a ‘Crazy-Wisdom-Yogin,’ someone who is living absolutely the life he is teaching. As a Buddhist that is the highest compliment I can pay anyone.”

JUDITH MERRIL when asked by SF writer ROB SAWYER why Reg Hartt was invited to be a member of Hydra North, the gathering of SF professionals in Canada (Reg does not write SF);

“Reg Hartt is THE most creative person working in film in Canada.”

PETER MOORE, British Artist;

“I am a Brit artist. I love Toronto. I have sometimes heard it said that Toronto is boring. It is a comparatively well ordered city. Maybe that is why some imperceptive people think it boring. The thing is I keep having amazing successes in Toronto. My friend Bob Welton who decided he was much happier in Warsaw than in London used to say in London everything is possible and nothing is probable. I just find in Toronto not everything is possible but lots of things, important things, are quite probable. Does this make sense?

“ANYWAY, a wonderful surprise in Toronto is Reg Hartt’s Cineforum. I was walking down Bloor Street with my friend Alan, a composer, a Torontonian who, searching for fulfillment in London, has realized that everything he wanted existed in his original home, Toronto. It was my birthday. He said, “What do you want to do for your birthday?” I said, “I want to go and see that!”

“I was pointing at a mysterious poster for TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, (the film of Hitler’s l934 Nuremberg rally). I’d always wanted to see that.

“So we went and I found myself in the most perfect place on earth to watch a film. With the film was an unexpected treat….a brilliant, unbiased, sensible and stimulating introduction by the amazing Reg Hartt.

“So once again, in German mode, we went to see Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS. Reg had somehow spliced on to the film his own soundtrack. Now this was interesting because a while later we went to the Art Gallery of Ontatio where the same film was shown-much bigger screen-and with piano accompaniment. It was interesting to compare the two showings and, in my humble opinion, Reg’s came out winning.

“REG HARTT and CINEFORUM add considerably to the mysterious charms of Toronto which often makes me want to be a NEW CANADIAN!”

DOUGLAS ELIUK on Reg Hartt’s score for METROPOLIS;

“I have left so many cinemas looking like I’ve been smelling onions for two hours that it is a pleasure and a catharsis to alert you to a redeeming film experience I enjoyed recently. It was not exactly an epiphany, but when something brilliant comes along, it deserves comment beyond self congratulations on managing to stay awake.

“What I’m referring to is a recent screening of Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS I attended at Reg Hartt’s Cineforum. I’ve seen the film with every sort of accompaniment except organ grinder and a monkey. When organ and even the now rare orchestral accompaniments have been attached to one of the “silent” classics, it is still hard to avoid the giggle factor what with all the usual silent movie grand overwrought gestural school of acting methods. However, Reg Hartt has completely transcended the predictable approach and has presented a classic film with a brilliant multi-layered sound track that forgives the histrionic giggle factor. Hartt allows us to see a great film with a fresh perspective.
“I am not Mr. Hartt’s P. R. council but as someone who has been in the film industry for decades and who celebrates cinematic excellence,I hope you will take the opportunity to experience this superb revitalization of METROPOLIS with its innovative music track.”

From a letter to Ottawa’s Towne Cinema (Nov. 7, l985)

“Last week I finally got a chance to see a film I have been trying to see for literally years. That film is METROPOLIS, and I don’t mean Giorgio Moroder’s head-banger version. No, I’m talking about the most complete version of the film as it was meant to be seen in a l6mm print so clear, so clean you’d think the film was made a year ago. Wow. I mean I have been hearing stories about METROPOLIS for a long time, but I never thought my expectations would be met let alone far surpassed. And this without the “help” of Mr. Moroder. Does this mean there wasn’t a soundtrack?

”Far from it. Accompanying the film was a brilliant (and I mean brilliant) soundtrack combining both modern music and classical pieces. This soundtrack suited the film when we all know Moroder’s didn’t. So who has this print of the film? Reg Hartt….If you know anything about Reg Hartt you know his lectures are anything but boring. He’s thrown chairs at people, kicked non-believers out, slandered near everyone under the sun (who usually deserves it) and started near riots. In other words, a real entertaining guy. Honestly. Reg is a lot of fun, he knows more about film (and the politics of film) than all of my teachers combined. And his soundtracks!”

JOHN KENNEDY, fab;

“If you walk around Toronto at all, you probably know the name Reg Hartt. There’s hardly a lamppost, hydro pole or construction wall in the downtown area that hasn’t …Reg Hartt’s posters. They advertise screenings of THE BIRTH OF A NATION, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, METROPOLIS, Bugs Bunny cartoons and other celluloid classics at Hartt’s theatre, Cineforum.…Hartt’s theatre is actually his converted living room. The walls are painted black and a large movie screen hangs at the front…Hartt likes to talk. not just about movies…but about everything from his views on the education system to human sexuality. His voice fluctuates between that of a professional story teller and that of a crazy man. None of it comes across as pretentious because Hartt has had a remarkable life and has obviously gained an enormous amount of wisdom. I sat there equally mesmerized and terrified…My friend and I spent most of the night thinking about Hartt’s words-not about movies but about life and people and ourselves. His words lasted for days and we looked at our lives a little differently. Cineforum is the oddest place in the city to see a film but there’s something to be said for being able to see films the way they were meant to be seen. And there’s a lot to be said for being able to listen to Reg Hartt.”

A few years back I was invited down to The Thalia Theatre in New York.

I did six presentations in a row that day.

Most of the audience for each presentation sat over for the remaining ones so that by the end of the day the place was packed.

One very old Chinese man who had been there from the start stopped as he left and said, “Thank you. This has been the best day of my life.”

Now if you know anything about the treatment of the Chinese in America for men of his age you also know that that is one heckuva thing to hear.

So I will go with the folks who say thank you for having a hot drink ready for them and leave the ones who think that is creepy to themselves.

CELEBRATING FORTY YEARS IN TORONTO (1970—2010).

“He’s had an amazing impact given the size of the venue and the eso­teric nature of the programming. He’s had an incredible impact on the city. No one else is doing it. No one else has ever done it,” said Rob Salem, TV columnist for the Toronto Star—THE ANNEX GLEANER, Dec. 2008.

Forty years ago, this year, I was in Hollywood, California looking for a way to enter the motion picture industry.

“What did you do in Toronto?” a police officer asked me one day.

“I showed films at Rochdale College,” I said.

“Do you mean Canada’s Communist Training Centre?” he asked.

There and then I knew, to my mind, that if the police in Hollywood knew about Rochdale it had to be the hippest place on earth. I determined to get back to Toronto.

I got home to where I was staying to find a large manila envelope waiting for me from the legendary motion picture star Mae West.

Inside was an autographed photograph of her from her current film, MYRA BRECKINRIDGE plus an invitation to come up and see her.

I wrote her a note of thanks telling her I was returning to Toronto and Rochdale College.

Then I headed back to Canada.

When I got to Rochdale the office was abuzz. Waiting for me was a tiny perfumed letter from Miss Mae West. I opened it. It read, “If you are out this way again come up and see me.”

Again I wrote her a note of thanks.

Then I met with then Rochdale President Peter Turner whom I had first met in 1968 at Judith Merril’s. Peter was going to marry her daughter.

Judy was the reason I was at Rochdale.

My screenings actually began out of a small used bookstore on Queen Street West in Toronto, VIKING BOOKS, run by the later Captain George Hendersen.

Honest Ed Mirvish invited George to move the store to what is now Mirvish Village on Markham Street just south of Bloor.

My screenings continued in his new store which I ran for him while he was hospitalized.

Then they moved to a number of venues around the city the most important of which was a little shop 39 steps above a pool hall at the end of Yorkville at Yonge called “The Little Queen Victoria Boutique.” It was run by Ron Simpson and Jennie Wright. Ron won the Governor General’s Award for set design that year (1967).

They moved to England. I took the space over. I re-named it THE PUBLIC ENEMY after the film that had made James Cagney a star.

I have an intuitive knack for doing the right thing. Years later in Henry Miller’s OPEN LETTER TO SURREALISTS EVERYWHERE I read, “Whenever an English artist of any value has arisen he has always been seen as Public Enemy Number One.”

Wendy Michener, daughter of The Governor General of Canada, was the film writer for THE GLOBE AND MAIL.

“You are on the house,” I said when she walked in one day.

“No,” she said, “This is how you make your living. You should always charge the press. They will appreciate what you do more.”

Then she wrote a feature article in which she said, “Thanks to Reg Hartt Toronto is at last a movie city.”

She went on to state that until a city had given birth to venues like Cinema 16 in New York it was not really a movie city.

My venue was Cinema 8mm.

Encouraged by my teachers in high school to be a writer I saw film as the medium for expression in our time print had been in the 19^th century.

I had begun to read books on the art, business and history of motion pictures.

When I asked the people who ran the local movie houses to bring in pictures like THE BIRTH OF A NATION and THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI they looked at me like I was a one kid communist plot bent on putting them out of business.

One day I saw an ad in a magazine called FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND for 8mm prints of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, METROPOLIS, the Lon Chaney version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, NOSFERATU and more.

With money I got from cutting chickens for the local branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario where I worked for the brilliant J. J. Hilsinger) I “wasted” (in the eyes of my mother) my earnings on old movies no one but myself wanted to see.

In my last year in high school (grade 13) I found myself in the principal’s office where I was told I had entirely the wrong attitude.

“If you leave this school today you will starve in two weeks,” I was told.

That night saw me on the streets of Toronto with no place to stay.

I had just enough money in my pocket to buy a beer.

I was 18. Drinking age was then 21.

No sooner had the waiter dropped the beer than two police officers walked in.

“Drink your beer and talk with me,” said an older man.

“You are new in town. Do you have a place to stay?” he asked after the police left.

“You should not have gone home with that man last night,” said another much better dressed man I met in the same bar the next day.

“That is a terrible person. What do you want to do?” he asked.

“I want to work in motion pictures.”

“I am a producer. I will help you get a job,” he said.

“There is a bed in the basement,” he said when we got to a house way out in nowhere.

“Turn around,” he said when I got to the bottom of the stairs.

I turned and looked up.

“Give me what I want or I will kill you,” he said.

In his hand was a hammer.

“If I had warned you would you have believed me?” asked Billy (the man I had met the first night).

“At that time, no. From now on, yes,” I replied.

Billy then told me he was psychic.

I laughed.

“You are going to celebrate your thirty-fifth birthday in a psychiatric hospital after you lose someone very close to you. Don’t worry about it. When you come out you will become the richest man on earth,” he said.

On June 12, 1981 as I cut the cake my sister had brought in to McMaster Psychiatric Hospital to celebrate my 35^th birthday I was not laughing.

“Do you know what is wrong with you?” said the chief doctor as the knife cut the cake.

“Nothing. I am on time and on schedule,” I told him.

The morning of May 23, 1981 I was staying at my sister Kathy’s place in Hamilton. I felt a wave on tense pain as if my chest exploded accompanied by an overwhelming need for the arms of my mother.

That night, a Saturday, we were watching a movie on television.

The main character put a rifle in his mouth.

The phone rang.

My sister answered it.

“Something terrible has happened to our brother, Michael,” she said.

The man on television pulled the trigger.

His head exploded.

Concerned I was going to follow my brother my family had had me committed to the psychiatric hospital. “It is not unusual for one suicide in a family to follow another,” they said.

The person who really needed help did not get it.

That was my youngest brother, Mark, who was called by the police to identify Michael’s corpse.

He has not recovered.

Years later I read Joseph Campbell’s THE HERO OF A THOUSAND FACES.

In it I found out that when we place our feet on the path of the hero the first person we meet is an older person who helps us and the second is an older person who wounds us.

Without knowing it (as who could) that was the path I set out on.

“So we shall let the reader answer the question for himself, ‘Who is the happier man? He who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on the shore and merely existed?’” wrote Hunter S. Thompson at 17 in his high school yearbook.

Billy helped me get a job as a bank clerk.

One of my co-workers took me to a shop on Queen Street that sold old comic books, movie posters and magazines and the like.

“Would you like to show your films here?” said the owner.

And that is how it all began.

One of the customers at the bank was the tallest most effeminate man I had ever seen.

Everyone treated him with contempt.

After two months I asked him if we could meet after work.

He told me the story of his life and the story of the play he had written out of that life.

He told me of how that play had been produced at Stratford where the students in the audience choked themselves laughing with condescension until the Director of Stratford roared at them, “WOUKLD YOU PLEASE BEHAVE LIKE A REAL AUDIENCE!”

Bruno Gerussi (later the star of THE BEACHCOMBERS) tried to produce the play at York University where it was banned as obscene.

Nathan Cohan, then the theater critic for THE TORONTO STAR (and the best this city has ever seen) had helped get his play produced off Broadway in New York where it was scheduled to open soon.

The play was FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES. The ultra-effeminate customer was JOHN HERBERT.

“You know,” I said when we parted, “Tomorrow when you walk in the bank I am going to treat you the same way everyone else does. This night did not happen.”

“Yes, I know,” he said adding with an infinite grace that made me shoot up the half inch it takes to stop being a boy who cares about what others say into a man who cares about the kind of person he is, “We all have to grow at our own speed.”

The next day when Jack walked in everyone was astounded by the respect with which I greeted him.

From that moment on they began to heap contempt on me.

It was easy to bear.

I had gotten rid of my self contempt.

I had not, of course, realized it in the moment but the moment I walked out of that high school and set sail on the sea of life my real education began.

I was to meet the most astounding people.

At George’s store, through my screenings, I first came in contact with people like Pierre Berton, one of Canada’s greatest journalists and historical writers as well as one of the stars of the television show FRONT PAGE CHALLENGE on the CBC.

Mr. Berton gave his last public reading at The Cineforum.

When his agent was asked why he was giving a reading at my little row house on Bathurst she replied, “Pierre loves Reg.”

That was printed in Canada’s national paper, THE GLOBE AND MAIL.

As the years passed I came to see that had I not walked out of school that day I would have starved.

One day, in 1968, a family climbed the thirty-nine steps to THE PUBLIC ENEMY and came into my life.

I knew them for two years before I knew their last name.

Seeing the mother’s picture in a newspaper I read the feature.

I discovered her name was Jane Jacobs and that she had written a very important book called THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN CITIES.

Naturally, I read it.

Unlike most people who work with film I am a book person first.

I have always seen the movies as a poor second choice when it comes to books.

Unable to see the movies I read the books on which they were based first.

By the time I got to see the films I knew how far below the mark all too many of them are.

It is like soldiers who go to see the current Oscar nominated film, THE HURT LOCKER.

For them the thing is a joke.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/for-soldiers-in-the-real-world-the-hurt-locker-sets-off-explosions-of-laughter/article1490605/

I want to, God willing, make movies for the people on the front line not the ones safe at the rear.

My programs at Rochdale continued until the college was forced to close.

Rochdale College was unique.

It began as a student high rise.

Along the way it morphed into the boldest experiment ever undertaken in alternate education.

Conventionally viewed as a failure the Rochdale experiment was an amazing success.

There were to be neither classrooms nor teachers.

What there was were large open spaces where people could gather and rooms that could be used for special programs.

Additionally people who had achieved success in their field were invited to live in Rochdale  for free on condition they make themselves available as resource people.

Thus it was that Judith Merril, the mother of modern speculative/science fiction came to be part of the Rochdale Experiment.

Another aspect of the experiment was to garner it a notoriety that doomed it from the start.

Our then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, decided to allow within Rochdale the use of hashish, LSD, marijuana and mescaline.

Rochdale was eighteen floors. I like to say, the higher up you went, the higher you got.

I was not then and am not now interested in getting stoned. I never cared for marijuana or hashish.

Running my self-funded programs demanded all my energy and resources.

These things are attractive to people who spend their lives sitting in the back seat.

When we are actively engaged in living our lives these things are distractions.

I was not attracted to Rochdale, as most everyone else was, by drugs.

I was attracted by Judith Meril whom I knew from her anthologies of THE YEAR’S BEST SF.

“You scared the shit out me when I first met you,” she told me nearly thirty years later.

I was pre-punk punk dressed head to foot in black filled to the brim with passionate intensity.

I might have sacred her but Judy was never a person to be blocked by fear.

When she found out I had copies of films like THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, D. W. Griffith’s films THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE, Lon Chaney’s THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, THE GOLEM, THE LAST LAUGH, Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS, NOSFERATU, Erich Von Stroheim’s FOOLISH WIVES and the films of Charlie Chaplin (to name just a few) she said, “You belong here,” and sponsored me as a Rochdale Resource Person.

I did not live there.

But, for a brief moment in 1968 when the doors opened, I did programs there until I moved to Ottawa where I lived for a year with my uncle, Douglas Hartt (Director General of Public Works Canada), studied at The Bartonian Metaphysical Society and ran programs out of the fabled LE HIBOU COFFEE HOUSE and other venues.

I got invited to join the Bartonian Metaphysical Society after I went the first time.

It was built around a woman, Dr. Winifred Barton.

While she was speaking I looked around the room from my seat at the very back.

A man on my right, by the exit door, when he caught my eye on him did a STAR TREK and faded from view (as they did in their transporter beams).

I kept an eye on the spot.

I saw him two more times.

During the break I told the woman who had been speaking what I had seen.

“Wait here,” she said as she entered a room on the side.

She came back with a photograph.

“Is this the man?”

It was.

“That is the caretaker. He died yesterday. Where you saw him was his favorite place to sit during our meetings.”

I had not, until that moment either believed in or thought about an existence after this one.

Now that I knew from direct experience that this existence is not all there is I was interested.

I stayed in Ottawa for a year.

Then I returned to Toronto and Rochdale.

A friend I had not seen in a year showed up.

“I am living in Hollywood. Come on out,” he said.

That is how I came to be there.

We nearly always do not know the value of a place while we are in it.

It is only afterwards from the distance of space and time that we can see more clearly.

Rochdale was the only place on earth where the ideas about alternate education that had been floating around for decades were actually tried out. For that reason alone it was the most important place on earth to be.

There was nothing like it before.

There has been nothing like it since.

When Rochdale closed Judith Merril (whose collection of science fiction and science fiction related materials had been donated to The Toronto Public Library System and had given birth to THE SPACED OUT LIBRARY –now THEW MERRIL COLLECTION) sponsored my screenings at the adjoining Palmerston Library.

In 1979 I moved them to INNIS COLLEGE at The University of Toronto.

One of the regulars at my animation programs was an enthusiastic student from Sheridan College who asked if we could do programs there.

When I went to Europe I left him in charge of my house.

His name is John Kricfalusi.

He revolutionized modern animation with his show, REN & STIMPY.

He wrote, “I credit you as much as possible for showing me what animation can be. I hope you continue to inspire young students.”

To Be Continued…

Oh! Marie...Mere De Dieu

THE ANARCHIST, SURREALIST HALLUCINATORY FILM FESTIVAL*

Different program each week.* Films By Luis Bunuel and others including Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Fernand Leger, and many more. The goal of any surrealist event whether it was pro-art, non-art or anti-art was to outrage the public. When like insects or bacteria the public became immune to one kind of poison the surrealists thought up another.

Piere Molinier’s OH! MARIE…MARE DE DIEU (above) was perhaps the most outrageous image conjured up by the surrealists.

Mae West

7pm Thursday, March 4, 11, 18, 25.

THE FILMS OF MAE WEST Different film each night.

THE CINEFORUM has all of Mae West’s films (including her rare television appearance with MR. ED, THE TALKING HORSE).

It is generally forgotten that in addition to starring in her films Miss West also wrote them. Any artist who goes to jail for their art is a revolutionary. Mae West went to jail and was proud of it.

Also, on our shelves, are all the major books about this artist whose work in motion pictures single handly led to the creation of THE MOTION PICTURE CODE OF CENSORS.

It was not what she said but how she said it.

It was not what she did but how she did it.

When was good she was very good but when she was bad she was better.

Caught between two evils she always picked the one she had not yet tried.

Andy Warhol's campbell soup can

7pm Wednesday, March 3, 10, 17, 24.

(The Cineforum has most them. Different program each night) For those who want to study the film works of one of the greatest artists of his generation this is an unparalleled opportunity to do so.

http://www.warholstars.org/filmch/filmchro.html

Old school audiences at a 3D Movie.

Wireless Shutter Glasses New School technology for Viewing 3D

9pm Monday, March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29.

Different Program each night.

THE CINEFORUM is unique in Canada when it comes to 3D. We have the largest archive of 3D films in the country going right back to the Lumiere Brothers’ “TRAIN ARRIVING IN A STATION” which terrified viewers out of their seats and on to the streets and extending up to the latest works.

Not only that THE CINEFORUM employs the unique digital technology created by Lenny Lipton (who put his royalties from his hit PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON into advancing 3D technology).

You will not use conventional red and blue colored glasses but state of the art wireless shutter glasses.

From 3-D FILMAKERS, Conversations with Creators of Stereoscopic Motion Pictures by Ray Zone:

RAY ZONE: Have you checked out his Reality Camera System (RCS) that Cameron built with Vince Pace?

Lenny Lipton: Yeah, I’ve seen it. Actually we have the trailer for Ghosts of the Abyss, which we show on our cinema server. Stereographies developed with Sunn and Christie a cinema server that you really ought to see. It’s the best-projected stereoscopic image you’re ever going to see. It’s field sequential but uses CrystalEyes and a DLP projector. It’s a single projector that handles the left and right channels identically. Because it’s a DLP projector, there’s no ghosting into the adjacent field.

With CrystalEyes you have about a 1500:1 dynamic range for extinction, which is an order of magnitude better than what you get with polarization. So there’s no crosstalk and the image is fabulous. We’ve got stuff that Max Penner shot. We have stuff that Kleiser-Walczak did. We’ve got stuff by Jason Goodman in New York. And we’ve also got the trailer that Jim did for Ghosts of the Abyss.

Your paper in the SMPTE Journal really pointed out the suitability and friendliness of digital cinema for 3-D. What do you see for the future of digital 3-D projection?

There’s no doubt in my mind that if price is not the issue, then digital cinema is the perfect way to do 3-D. In a stereoscopic transmission system, which Spottis-woode defines as going from the camera to the screen, you want to handle the im­ages identically.

Obviously, the only difference between the two images should be the entity of parallax. If the images are just as bright and there’s no vignetting in one and none in the other and they have the same color temperature, you will be able to produce a very good stereoscopic image. In the above-and-below systems, and in the twin-projector systems, there are all kinds of opportunities to have what I call “asymmetries,” a lack of congruence.

This lack of congruence between the two images if one image is darker, if the right eye sees a darker image, or if the geometry isn’t right, or if one of the images is higher than the other, or they’re out of phase, you get stress and strain. That manifests in different people in different ways. Some people’s eyes hurt or they have headaches. The longer you look at it the worse it gets. It gets cumulative.

So you can get away with stuff at a trade show or a theme park that you couldn’t get away with in a feature. If you sit there for an hour and a half, you’ll feel like you’re going crazy if there are things wrong with the images.

This is not a very difficult principle to grasp. But in practice, it is simply rarely done with the above-and-below projection systems and even in theme parks. I took my wife and kids to see 3-D movies at Legoland, Disneyland, and Sea World. Only in Disneyland was the projection OK. At Sea World, there were vertical parallax errors measuring several feet. In Legoland, images were out of phase. They were using digital projectors and some kind of server, but they kept going out of phase.

People in the audience can’t articulate what’s going on. But it degrades the experience and it screws it up. If you can make a single projector work right, and you can do that with a field-sequential projector, the left and right images are going to have equal brightness, equal color temperature, and the same geometry.

If the photography has been done right, then everything should be perfect. And you should have a very good experience. And if you add to that no crosstalk, if you can get rid of the ghosting, and there’s no leakage of the left into the right eye, you have really replicated the kind of experience you get in a stereoscope. That’s the ultimate channel separation because you’ve got separate images. If you can do that with a projected stereoscopic image, it is essentially perfect. And you can look at the images indefinitely and they’re very beautiful.

That’s the way the stereoscopic cinema should be. There may be economic reasons right now why it’s not going to be like that today, but we could go in that direction.

Well, the existing infrastructure is keeping the status quo in place.

You’ve got to realize that Texas Instruments (IT), because of what Christie and Stereographies have done, has made provision in their new “black chip” projectors for stereo. Anybody who buys one of those projectors is going to be ready to do field-sequential stereo.

The stereoscopic cinema has a chance of gaining ground. With the flip of a switch you turn existing cinemas into stereoscopic cinemas if they’re equipped with these new projectors using the TT chip. That chip is going into Barco and Christie projectors that will be delivered to theaters. That’s very, very hopeful for stereoscopic cinema.

To get a copy of this book (and get in contact with one of the major movers in 3D contact RAY ZONE at: http://www.ray3dzone.com/

This IS the technology employed at THE CINEFORUM.

You will see these films AT THEIR VERY BEST.

For those who want to learn as much about 3D as can be learned I also have an extensive collection of books and magazines. These can not be removed from the premises.–Reg Hartt.

NOSFERATU: A SYMPHONY OF FEAR

7pm Monday, March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29.

NOSFERATU [A SYMPHONY OF FEAR] (1922) set to the music of RADIOHEAD’S KID A and OK COMPUTER.

With introduction by Reg Hartt.

Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS. Illustration Copyright Reg Hartt.

2:00pm Sunday, February 29, March 7, 14, 21, 28.

Presented with An Introduction By Reg Hartt: DARK AGE AHEAD.

DARK AGE AHEAD is the last book by the greatest modern thinker about cities, Jane Jacobs.

Program time: 4 hours (approximately)