Los Angeles is often the cinematic setting for million-dollar blockbusters and film student projects alike, as well as providing rich material for independent, experimental films. Today, two distinctly L.A. filmmakers will be screening their off-beat, artistic work at the Billy Wilder Theater in the program “Restoring the Los Angeles Avant-Garde.”
Several short films from featured filmmakers Thom Andersen and Morgan Fisher will be shown, followed by a Q&A session with them and Academy Film Archive preservationist Mark Toscano.
Toscano, the organizer of the screening, came up with the idea of showing restored experimental and independent films through his work in film restoration and preservation. All of the films shown were filmed in the 1960s and ’70s, so they needed varying levels of restoration.
Toscano had been brainstorming a show about restored L.A. experimental films for a while and collected extensive footage, much of which included the films of Andersen and Fisher.
“I worked enough with both (Andersen and Fisher’s) films, and they had been friends for a long time … so I thought it would be nice to have a screening with just (the two of them).”
But just because the title of the program includes Los Angeles specifically, the films of Andersen and Fisher that are showing do not all have to do directly with the city itself.
“It’s funny because one of Morgan’s films … was actually shot in Massachusetts,” Toscano said. The screening as a whole is more about celebrating both filmmakers’ independent films, with their takes on Los Angeles as a supplement to their other work.
“(Andersen) in particular has been very interested in L.A.,” Toscano said. Andersen is best known for his documentary “Los Angeles Plays Itself,” which focuses on how the landscape, architecture and attitude of Los Angeles are used in other feature films.
While Fisher may not be as well known as a filmmaker, Toscano said his professional focus is more on the technical and conceptual side.
“As for my own films, I would have to say they don’t directly deal with L.A.,” Fisher said. “It is not because they weren’t shot here because I was living in Los Angeles and I was based here, but I was away a lot so I shot often in other places. … I (still) tend to think of myself as a Los Angeles filmmaker.”
However, while the films shown at the screening do not necessarily have a specific L.A. aspect, the pairing of Fisher and Andersen’s films do convey a sense of camaraderie and friendship despite the stylistic differences.
“I think we both share an interest in forms that can be called radical … but there are also differences,” Fisher said.
“My films tend to be more about self-investigation, self-description or self-definition. I think that Thom’s films, although that is a very strong component within them, tend to be more concerned with subject matter. … The thing is, though, that we both are very hard-core, but he is more subtle about it than I am.”