Filmmakers William and Louise Greaves will present their latest documentary, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2½,
on Sunday, Nov. 6, at 2 p.m. in the Kirner-Johnson Auditorium at
Hamilton College as part of the film and lecture series, F.I.L.M (Forum
for Images and Languages in Motion). The series continues through
December. The event is free and open to the public.
Greaves is the dean of African-American filmmakers, and the recent recipient of the Career Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association; he and his partner Louise have been producing documentaries on a wide range of subjects for decades. In 1980, Greaves shared the Actor's Studio's first Dusa Award with Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, Sally Field and Dustin Hoffman, among others. He held major roles in a number of black-directed/black-cast films in the 1940s and was an executive producer and co-host of the Emmy Award winning series Black Journal. He produced and directed a number of films including the 1981 hit Bustin' Loose starring Richard Pryor.
Greaves' latest documentary is a sequel to his 1968 film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One. In the sequel, Greaves brings the same cast and crew together after 20 years, not just to revisit the experience of making the earlier film, but to simultaneously continue the original project and to allow his cast, crew (and characters) to reflect on the nearly four decades that have passed since the summer of 1968. Produced with the help of Steve Buscemi, Take 2½, like its predecessor, explores the experience of making a film in a public space with wit and intelligence, revealing how the organism, the "symbiopsychotaxiplasm," of the group of people involved in the production (the people making the film and the people in Central Park who came in contact with it) evolved during a few days of a 1968 summer and have continued to evolve.
For more information on the F.I.L.M. series or schedules for November, please call (315) 859-4186 or e-mail smacdona@hamilton.edu.
Greaves is the dean of African-American filmmakers, and the recent recipient of the Career Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association; he and his partner Louise have been producing documentaries on a wide range of subjects for decades. In 1980, Greaves shared the Actor's Studio's first Dusa Award with Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, Sally Field and Dustin Hoffman, among others. He held major roles in a number of black-directed/black-cast films in the 1940s and was an executive producer and co-host of the Emmy Award winning series Black Journal. He produced and directed a number of films including the 1981 hit Bustin' Loose starring Richard Pryor.
Greaves' latest documentary is a sequel to his 1968 film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One. In the sequel, Greaves brings the same cast and crew together after 20 years, not just to revisit the experience of making the earlier film, but to simultaneously continue the original project and to allow his cast, crew (and characters) to reflect on the nearly four decades that have passed since the summer of 1968. Produced with the help of Steve Buscemi, Take 2½, like its predecessor, explores the experience of making a film in a public space with wit and intelligence, revealing how the organism, the "symbiopsychotaxiplasm," of the group of people involved in the production (the people making the film and the people in Central Park who came in contact with it) evolved during a few days of a 1968 summer and have continued to evolve.
For more information on the F.I.L.M. series or schedules for November, please call (315) 859-4186 or e-mail smacdona@hamilton.edu.
