Jem Cohen
Jem Cohen (born 1962) is a award-winning New York City-based filmmaker known for his observational portraits of urban landscapes, blending of media formats (16mm, Super 8, video) and collaborations with music artists.[1] He is the recipient of the Independent Spirit Award and many first place awards for feature filmmaking. "Cohen's films have been broadcast in Europe by the BBC and ZDF/ARTE, and in the U.S. by the Sundance Channel and PBS. They are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney, and Melbourne's Screen Gallery."[2] He has received grants from the Guggenheim, Creative Capital, Rockefeller and Alpert Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other organizations.[3]
Cohen found the mainstream Hollywood film industry incompatible with his socio-political and artistic views. By applying the DIY ethos of Punk Rock into his filmmaking approach, he crafted a distinct style in his films through various cheap formats of Super 8mm, 16mm, and video. In an interview with The Lamp, Cohen said, "...it's very inspiring to me, to see people kind of take something outside of the industry, outside of the music industry, and it gave me something of a template to work in film outside of the film industry. And there are certainly strains of punk that are activist and that are kind of oppositional in nature to the dominant mainstream culture... that's very inspiring to me..."
Cohen's longer works include his feature film, CHAIN, and the experimental documentary, Instrument, a portrait of the D.C.-punk band Fugazi that was ten years in the making.
Another film that covers a ten year arc, Benjamin Smoke, is about the life of the front-man of the Atlanta, Georgia band Smoke. Other works of note are Lost Book Found, his Walter Benjamin-inspired portrait of New York City, Buried in Light, a series of connected Central and Eastern European city portraits, and his short film about the late Elliott Smith, Lucky Three. In 2002, Cohen made Chain X Three, a precursor to the CHAIN feature film, which was exhibited as a three-channel installation. His concert film of the Dutch band The Ex, Building a Broken Mousetrap, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2006.
In 2005, Cohen curated the four-day FUSEBOX Festival in Ghent, Belgium. A celebratory gathering "at the crossroads of film, music, and activism," participants included Guy Picciotto of Fugazi, Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine, The Evens, and a side project of Montreal's Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, called Thee Silver Mountain Elegies Play War Radio, which formed for the occasion.
(Benjamin Smoke trailer)
Other music artists Cohen has collaborated with over the years include Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Vic Chesnutt, Terry Riley, Sparklehorse, R.E.M., T.Griffin, Stephen Vitiello, Miracle Legion, DJ /rupture and Blonde Redhead.
He has also cited that he has previously worked for the film industry as a technician and prop man, some of the directors he has worked under include Alex Cox, John Sayles, and Martin Scorsese.
In addition to his filmmaking, Cohen has taught a workshop titled 'Documentary as a Lyrical Force" at the International Center of Photography. The works of Humphrey Jennings, Helen Levitt, Georges Franju, Santiago Álvarez, and Forugh Farrokhzad, as well as his own, are discussed.
[Information obtained from Dan’s ‘Jem Cohen Bio’ document]
References
1. ^ http://www.ifccenter.com/series/movie-nights-with-jem-cohen/
2. ^ http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?COHENJ
3. ^ http://mediaartists.org/content.php?sec=artist&sub=detail&artist_id=121
(lost book found excerpt)
(little flags)
Our Portaits of Plymouth:
After watching the short Jem Cohen’s films, we had to create our own portraits of Plymouth. In order to portray a valid image of the city, it was necessary for us to consider both the constructed and natural environments of the city.
Working together with Michelle we decided to base our portrait film on the architecture of Plymouth. We wanted to create a new vs. old theme to our film. One of the main associations to Plymouth is the recently built ‘Drake Circus’ so we wanted to compare this unattractive building to the beauty of the old church. We also wanted to include the eye sore ‘flames’ that have been positioned to outline the church.
We wanted to shoot all three buildings with a graceful pan, from left to right. We did so with the church and the drake circus flames, however using that shot on the drake circus entrance didn’t quite look right, so I changed it into a slow upwards zoom into the sky.
The filming went really well, and the editing was a breeze. The only moment of confusion was surrounding the decision of what music to include in our film. We decided to use three different songs, one for each building and then fade them into one another at the change of scene.
The film faded into a slow left to right pan from the floor up to the sky, passing the old church. [Breaking Benjamin – Unknown Soldier]
We then follow a fade through onto the next clip which is another left to right pan of the Drake Circus flames, but this time they are filmed with an arching movement. [Linkin Park – Burning in the Skies]
Another fade is then implied so that we are welcomed onto a slow increasing zoom, upwards and out of the main Drake Circus entrance. The shot finishes in the sky, with a perfectly timed sweep through from a seagull. […]
Final Portrature: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhozH_7LGJI
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