Remembering Dick Rogers A rare look at three documentary masterworks Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 7pm
Richard P. Rogers—known to friends, students, and colleagues as Dick—was, if such a thing be possible, a filmmaker’s filmmaker. Although he never achieved the recognition of some of his friends or students, his work was often compared by many better-known filmmakers to their own. If a nonfiction film was supposedly “about filmmaking,” you wondered how it compared to Moving Pictures: The Art of Jan Lenica. During the wave of autobiographical or diary films in the 1980s, Rogers’s 226-1690 stood out not only for its artistic rigor and invention but also for simple, sheer honesty. Much of those qualities were in full display in Alexander Olch’s beautiful meditation on the life and work of Dick Rogers, The Windmill Movie, shown at last year’s New York Film Festival and opening this week at Film Forum.
Rogers died in 2001 at the age of 57, robbing generations of students of his wisdom and inspiration and the world of his unique artistry. Happily, through the efforts of Rogers’ partner, acclaimed photographer Susan Meiselas, some of Rogers’s key works are now available on DVD. Our thanks to Susan Meiselas and Alexander Olch for their help in making this tribute to Dick possible.
Elephants: Fragments of an Argument
Richard P. Rogers, USA, 1973; 27m Moving Pictures: The Art of Jan Lenica
Richard P. Rogers, USA, 1975; 19m 226-1690
Richard P. Rogers, USA, 1984; 23m
Admission:
$11 General Public; $7 Film Society members, students and children (6-12, accompanied by an adult) $8 seniors (62+)
Online service charge: $1.25 per ticket ordered. Cash only transactions at the box office.
