Starring, Texas!
Rare look at first works of six legendary Texas filmmakers is a real treat
Wes Anderson's short film, "Bottle Rocket," was later made into a full-lengthfilm
Texas Independent Film Network/Facebook
UPDATE: The screening of Texas Legends, Before They Were Legends has been rescheduled to Thursday, February 24 at 7:00 p.m at Glassell School of Art, Freed Auditorium
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Film lovers across the Lone Star state are in store for an early Valentine — the brand spanking new Texas Independent Film Networkwill debut its traveling screenings of Texas-made indies in nine cities and the first program is a collection of little gems.
Texas Legends, Before They Were Legends, Friday at the Museum of Fine Arts, features six early short films by influential filmmakers, giving us the rare chance to see these artists’ first works.
“Don’t expect to see masterpieces the first time out the gate,” says Ryan Long, the Film Network’s director and co-founder. "All artists have to start somewhere and keep on working to get better. Iat’s about being prolific rather than being perfect.”
These older films will “show the birth” of their creator's cinematic journey, he adds.
The film I’m especially looking forward to in this first program is Houstonian Wes Anderson’s 1992 short Bottle Rocket, shot in Austin.This was not only his directorial debut, but also the screen debut of Dallas actor/brothers Owen and Luke Wilson. It formed the basis for the full-length feature version of Bottle Rocket released four years later, also starring the Wilson boys.
After Bottle Rocket, Anderson went on to make the comedy Rushmore, shot in Houston and partially at his alma mater St. John’s School, starring Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman as well as Luke Wilson, and, this time, his older brother Andrew. Another young Houstonian (and future Gilmore Girl) Alexis Bledel, had an uncredited role as a student.
Machete and Spy Kids director Robert Rodriquez has come a long way since his 16mm short Bedhead. Made in 1991 while he was a student at the University of Texas at Austin, Rodriguez shot Bedhead enlisting his brothers and sisters as actors and his family and friends as crew. This is the film he entered into several film festivals where it won cash prizes that he reportedly used to help fund his first full-length film, the infamous El Mariachi.
As a horror film fan, and therefore a follower of Tobe Hooper, whose Texas Chainsaw Massacre started something in this genre that has never stopped, it will be interesting to see what Hooper was producing almost 10 years prior to his groundbreaker.His short, The Heisters, was shot in 1965 while the Austin native was busy learning the craft of filmmaking at the University of Texas. He calls the film “a Gothic mod comedy,” and it was invited to be entered into the short film category of the Oscars, but unfortunately it wasn’t finished in time.
A decidedly different film in the “Texas Legends” program mix is the 1976 Styx by Jan Krawitz. The renowned Stanford and former University of Texas professor, who has been independently producing documentary films for 30 years, began her career as a documentarian with the impressionistic film, which uses the Philadelphia subway system as a metaphor for the underworld.
Naturally, there has to be a film by Houston’s own Richard Linklater. Woodshock was his first foray into making movies and was actually a documentary filmed at the 1985 Woodshock Music Festival in Dripping Springs. Linklater and cinematographer Lee Daniel captured the mayhem and debauchery that was Woodshock, along with a rare early interview with a young Daniel Johnston, the cult singer/songwriter/artist. It’s kind of a Texan version of Heavy Metal Parking Lot, I’m told.
The last of the six films showcased is Brian Hansen’s 1981 Speed of Light. While visiting Austin, New Yorkdirector Jonathan Demme was so impressed that it became the centerpiece of a collection of films he took back with him to screen. (The prolific director went on to win an Oscar for Silence of the Lambs about a decade later. Impressing him is a big deal.)His Jonathan Demme Presents: Made in Texas – New Films from Austin was described as “a screaming red piece of time crash-landing in the backwash of the American Gothic.”
Now if that doesn’t pique your interest in viewing this short film collection, what would?
Future monthly programs by the Texas Independent Film Network will take a different Texas film on a circuit across the state. When possible, the filmmakers will attend the screenings themselves though none of the “legends” will be making it this first go-around.
The Network is a coalition of film societies, universities and independent theaters who have united to bring Texas-made independent films to Texas audiences.Houston partners to thank are the Museum of Fine Arts and Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP).
The project was the brainchild of Louis Black and Ryan Long.Black is best known as a co-founder of both SXSW and the Austin Chronicle.Long, in addition to his post with the Austin Film Society as Film Programs Manager, is director of Austin’s premiere micro-cinema, Screen Door Film. He’ll be traveling to moderate the screenings.
Whether you’re a film fan like me or a film student or film scholar, this will present a welcome and exceptional opportunity for us to watch the works that come from the many talented filmmakers from our great state.
