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DESCRIPTION:History is typically brought to us in its official form—the sponsored 
 version, validated by power and assembled by authorized agents. But the 
 visual evidence of history has its unsanctioned and overlooked sources, 
 troves of images from elsewhere. The exacting Hungarian artist Peter 
 Forgacs has plundered one such trove, that of home movies shot primarily in 
 the thirties and forties by Hungarian Jews. “The films became more than 
 evidence, more than fact,” Forgacs has said. “They became a complex 
 cultural and archaeological site for me.” Forgacs shapes the footage into 
 elegiac “family sagas” that have the specificity of particular people 
 yet bear, through poetic resonance, an unofficial history of a time-bound 
 culture. Forgacs’s minimalism is a vital attribute: subtle cues, a word 
 placed in the frame identifying a notable person or poignant moment, ride 
 gently upon restrained waves of image manipulation. Composer Tibor 
 Szemzˆ’s haunting soundscapes further accentuate both visual detail and 
 emotional strains. Private Hungary, a series initiated in the late 
 eighties, now includes a dozen works; in the mid-nineties, Forgacs began 
 resurrecting home movies from other countries such as Spain, the 
 Netherlands, and Greece, adding breadth to his “private” world. These 
 three programs offer an official look at an unauthorized history that 
 demands our recognition.  -Steve Seid   
 -------------------------------------------------------  Part 3:   
 Wednesday November 9th  7:30  Wittgenstein Tractatus and Meanwhile 
 Somewhere   Peter Forgacs (Hungary, 1992/1994)  In Wittgenstein Tractatus 
 (32 mins) each of Forgacs’s brief essays, seven in all, refers to one of 
 the philosophical propositions from the famed 1921 text. Forgacs shows 
 through these writings how his delicate home movies, used like torn 
 photographs, can bear the weight of pure sense experience. Meanwhile 
 Somewhere (52 mins) gathers together home movies from numerous countries to 
 present the persistence of the everyday in Europe in the 
 forties—celebrating weddings, indulging in picnics, ice skating in a 
 frosty mist—while elsewhere the war rages. Puncturing the oblivion, 
 Forgacs includes amateur footage of an act of public humiliation at the 
 hands of the Nazis with townspeople as indifferent witnesses. This chilling 
 work compels viewers to find merit in their own distance.—Steve Seid  
 (Total running time: 84 mins, B&W/Tinted, Beta SP, PFA Collection, 
 permission of the artist)    [This series is presented in conjunction with 
 the Judah L. Magnes Museum exhibition The Danube Exodus: The Rippling 
 Currents of the River, coproduced by Peter Forgacs and the Labyrinth 
 Project, on view through January 22, 2006. For information, visit 
 http://www.magnes.org.]\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/10/17/78563.php
SUMMARY:The Unofficial Histories of Peter Forgacs, Part 3 of 3
LOCATION:Pacific Film Archive  2575 Bancroft Way  Between College and Telegraph  
 Berkeley, CA 94720
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/10/17/78563.php
DTSTART:20051110T033000Z
DTEND:20051110T053000Z
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