2019 January Classic Movie Bad Day At Black Rock

“Bad Day At Black Rock” is the January Film Classic in Bigfork

The opening film, for the 2019 Classic Movie Series in Bigfork is one that has an unusual number of stars in it.  Starting with Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan as the headliners, you can add Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine. That is a lot of talent for even the big screen to handle.  The title is “Bad Day at Black Rock”. It is a 1955 thriller film that combines elements of both the western and film noir genre in a mixed story about a stranger arriving in a small desert community who stirs up quite a storm for the residents to handle.  The cast is predominantly male and the action fast and furious at just the right times. With Tracy as a one-armed war veteran as the star who can take very good care of himself.  The soft side is only in the fact that he is trying to find the father of a Japanese-American veteran who saved his life in the Pacific war to give him his son's medal. This January Movie Classic will be shown at the Edge Theater in Bigfork by Jack Nachbar. It will be accompanied by Jack’s presentation providing a better understanding of the time period of the movie.  Date: Thursday January 10^th . Time: 6:30PM. Price: FREE of charge

The film was released only 10 years after the war ended.  The country was still in a “healing” mode.  Good movie, good cast, lots of audience acceptance, positive reviews, awards, nominations and a profit for the studio. A good one to see and it is hard for me not to tell you more because of the really good plot. Just a little trivia about this film: the studio wanted to call it “Bad Day at Hondo”, but John Wayne had just made the movie “Hondo” and there might be some confusion. The title came about when a studio staff person was on a train going by a town called “Black Rock” in California, where a lot of movie work was done, and the ideas came together: they called the movie a “Bad Day at Black Rock.” 

Spencer Tracy was “cool” to the idea of doing the movie. But when they made the character both with one arm and a real tough guy, he could not turn it down.  The fact that he was a “mysterious stranger” showing in a small town with probably no reason to be there, made the close-knit town nervous anyway and allowed the movie to have its mysterious “edgyness.”. And then there is his reason for being there: to put a medal on the grave of a Japanese-American serviceman. Who knows how he died and why?  All good plot builders.

In 2018 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Here is a little about the movie that Bosley Crowther said in his February 2, 1955 review of this movie.

“The streamliner hasn't stopped in four years, and apparently few people ever pass through. Especially are they wary of this stranger when they discover that he is interested in a certain Japanese farmer who they tell him left town a few years back. They wonder if he is a detective, seeing how he noses around. And he, in turn, wonders darkly why everyone is so hostile toward him. Slowly, through a process of guarded discourse, which Director John Sturges has built up by patient, methodical pacing of his almost completely male cast, an eerie light begins to glimmer….”       

Come and see a film that has met the test of time and is a good movie.  And also why the town was so suspicious. Place: The Edge Center for the Arts, Bigfork. Date and time: Thursday the10^th at 6:30PM.  It will be worth going to Bigfork, because Jack will provide you with background about the movie and a cartoon. An appropriate snack will be served courtesy of Jack and his wife/projectionist, Lynn. The Classic Movie Series is part of the District 318 Adult Education Program.

“Saturday Night Fever” is the December Film Classic in Bigfork

Saturday Night Fever” is the December Film Classic in Bigfork

The December film for this season’s “Classic” movies at the Edge is a 1977 movie that has held its popularity through the decades. The fact that it is not based on the work of an American is of little importance. It is an American “monster-sized” success. The story is from a 1976 article in the “New York” magazine by a British writer and based on British youth’s “mod” subculture. Nothing very American about any of that…right? It still has one of the best selling sound-tracks of all time, and the movie itself is part of the American Library of Congress selections being preserved as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” being picked in 2010.  This December Movie Classic will be shown at the Edge Theater in Bigfork by Jack Nachbar. This is an "R" rated movie and not suitable for children. It will be accompanied by Jack’s presentation providing a better understanding of the time period of the movie.  Date: Thursday December 13th. Time: 6:30PM. Price: FREE of charge.

“Saturday Night Fever” is a great movie, has music, music and more music, graceful dancing, plenty of sex for its time, and racial tension mixed in. It was a very successful commercially impact movie with more “lives” than a cat, from its three release formats, best selling movie track music, VHS and CD releases and still familiar music The movie was originally released in an “R” rated form, then was also released in a PG” version, and even later as “PG-13” version in 1980. It did much to popularize the “disco” life-style and music, has wonderful graceful dancing, and America’s male media idol of the time, John Travolta. 

All the fuss is about a simple story of a young man who has a “dead-end” job, squabbling family, and a strange girlfriend. But when he gets on the dance-floor, he is king.  Disco music’s popularity owes a lot to this one star and one movie.

The movie’s one big star is John Travolta, but he does not have one of the best scenes in the movie. That goes to “Annette” played by Donna Pescow.  When the “boys” fall off the bridge into the river they fall onto a platform set up to safely “catch” them just out of sight of the camera. However that fact was kept from Pescow because the director wanted a true horror reaction when she thought they really fell into the water. He got the reaction he wanted -- horror --terrified look --- and fear, then anger when she found out the truth. Her next line in the movie was “you f___kers!” was also real and not scripted. Also unscripted but used was Travolta’s response to his father’s head slap at the dinner table about mussing up his hair.  So there is a wide range of interesting sidelights to enjoy. 

This is a good movie all around. And evidently a local Mafia group thought so too.  They reportedly tried to extort money from the film makers during shooting and even used a small “fire bomb” on the studio. Also a group of Hasidic Jews were against the film being shot in their neighborhood, and tried to disrupt the filming. They even tried to turn one over one of the cars used in production. Lots of critics, lots of challenges. But the end result is a great piece of film history. 

Come and see a film that will show you what has met the test of time and is still a good movie.  Place: The Edge Center for the Arts, Bigfork. Date and time: Thursday 13^th at 6:30PM. Rating: R. It will be worth going to Bigfork, because Jack will provide you with background about the movie and a cartoon. An appropriate snack will be served courtesy of Jack and his wife/projectionist, Lynn. The Classic Movie Series is part of the District 318 Adult Education Program.

Ellen Sandbeck Paper Artist Exhibit

2018 has been a wonderful year of exhibits in the Gallery at the Bigfork Edge Center for the Arts, and the final showing of the year closes with another unique show. Ellen Sandbeck bills herself as a “paper artist”, but that hardly begins to describe the multi- faceted presenter of this final “exhibit” of the year.  Ellen is not only an artist, but a teacher, organic gardener, mother and others. It is hard to imagine how she fits in enough time for her art. At this exhibit you will see examples of work that you must get close to appreciate the detail and then back up to appreciate how it "fits'" together. It is one of those exhibits that makes one want to study.   Ellen Sandbeck's work will be on display from November 1 through December 1 during normal gallery hours and during Edge Events. The gallery is next to the Bigfork School and is open from 10 am to 4 pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, plus during Edge center events. Admission to the gallery and during the opening reception From 5 pm until 7 PM on Friday, November 2 is free.

Regarding her art, in her own words: “I have always been entranced by the natural world, and have been making nature-based art since I was a toddler. I have been doing papercuts since 1985, when my son was born, and the constant distraction of tending him made it difficult to do any form of artwork that involved drying time. I soon realized that papercutting was my true medium. Though every papercut I started during that first year fell apart in my hands, after a single, injudicious cut, I kept practicing. After that first year, I began sending samples to publishing companies, and within a year had landed my first book contract, with Dover Publications, for a stencil book. Ten other books of original graphics followed.

In 2009, I began a year-long project in which I executed a papercut of the historical Buddha every day. Like every project I have ever taken on, this project was far more time-consuming than I had anticipated, yet it was a year of very peaceful meditation. As the year progressed, so did I, and I began to feel as if I was getting a handle on my medium. Though papercutting could be considered rather limiting, and even clumsy, I find its limitations a challenge, and tend to regard it as a game or a sport, as well as an art. I also regard papercutting as a sort of hybrid between drawing and very very shallow bas relief, and as I am working, I almost get a sensation of working and feeling my way around the three-dimensional bodies of my subjects.”

 Even though the Edge Gallery is a “traditional gallery” at least in design, the Edge strives to bring to our audience a view of the wonderful diversity of what we call “Art on the Edge” and Ellen is a wonderful example of that effort.  Mark you calendar accordingly.  This is one you don’t want to miss.

Ellen Sandbeck will be showing her work at the Edge Center Gallery for the Arts November 1, through December 1 during normal gallery hours and during Edge center events. An open hose reception is on November 2 from five to seven P.M. at the gallery. This is an event filled with color and stories. You will art of incredible detail, vivid colors and unique beauty.

Chholing Taha Art Exhibit

Chholing Tata Art Exhibit at the Bigfork Art Gallery

The Chholing Taha exhibit is the October art show at the Edge Art Gallery in Bigfork this year.  She is a Cree First Nations artist born in Canada and is now based in Anoka Minnesota. She uses Native imagery to express both contemporary issues and indigenous stories.  She is a master story teller, artist and seamstress from which her name "The Shawl Lady" originates. Chholing Taha’s vibrant colors and masterful interpretations of Native North American’s tales, myths, legends and dreams, leap out from the paintings and shawls you’ll see when you visit Edge during October. Come and see Chholing’s work at the Edge Gallery from October 4^th through the 27^th .  The gallery is next to the Bigfork School and is open from 10 am to 4 pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Admission to the gallery and October 5th reception is free.

October brings artist Chholing Taha to the Edge Gallery. A master story teller, artist and seamstress of exceptional talent, her masterful interpretations of Native North American’s tales, myths, legends and dreams, bring story, color and artistic expression into incredible works of art.

Chholing Taha was born in Canada and now based in Anoka. She draws on symbols from tribes from the Northwest coast, as well as the Great Lakes tribes, and it is her heart’s wish to instill a sense of mystery within anyone who views her work and discovers that place within each of us that beats together as one communal “spirit drum” common to all of humanity.  Her paintings act as an honoring, translating and preserving great stories, traditions, and messages.

Chholing Taha will be showing her work at the Edge Center for the Arts October 4^th through the 27^th. An open hose reception is on October 5^th from five to seven P.M. at the gallery. This is an event filled with color and stories. You will be impressed by both so don’t miss this special talent with her colors and interwoven stories.

“All the King’s Men” is the October Film Classic in Bigfork

The October film for this season “Classic” movies at the Edge is a 1949 Film Noir classic, “All the King’s Men.” The movie won three Oscars including Best Film.  The plot is about a small time political want-to-be politician who rises from a rural county seat to become governor of a state. It’s a thinly disguised story of Louisiana politician Huey Long who rose to power with a similar anything-goes approach to politics in the 1930’s. The movie’s success is not just the story in the movie, which is compelling by itself, but the incredible editing done on the first attempts to tell the story that ended up being much to long and complicated. This October Movie Classic will be shown at the Edge Theatre in Bigfork by Jack Nachbar. It will be accompanied by Jack’s presentation providing a better understanding of the time period of the movie.  Date: Thursday October 11th. Time: 6:30PM. Price: FREE of charge.

The movie ended up so long after the “normal” tinkering done by editing that it made some of the management panicky to say the least. Production team members Robert Parrish and Harry Cohn were instructed to take just the best part of each scene and cut the rest, music and all. Then they cut another 100 feet from the beginning and end regardless. What ended up is a 109 minute movie “diamond in the rough” with a “jagged urgency” that is “compelling and Oscar worthy”. You got to see it knowing the back story to appreciate what happened. Don’t know if it was ever done that way again, but it worked.

The stars in the movie were Broderick Crawford, who won the best actor Oscar and Mercedes McCambridge who won the best supporting actress Oscar. The acting talent does not stop there because John Ireland was also nominated for the Best Supporting Actor. That is some special talent on in one film.  In total the film was nominated for seven Oscars.  Great acting, great directing and a film “miracle” all combined to make this one well received by audiences and film critics then and now.

I think maybe this is one of those times where we should stop trying to restate what the critics said and let those reviews speak for themselves. Then you decide whether a trip to Bigfork is worth to see what the nice accolades were all about.  As a footnote to the reviews: in 2001 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registery and to date it is the last Best Picture winner to be based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. 

Bosley Crowther who reviewed films for thr News York Times, who said, "Robert Rossen has written and directed, as well as personally produced, a rip-roaring film of the same title ... We have carefully used that descriptive as the tag for this new Columbia film because a quality of turbulence and vitality is the one that it most fully demonstrates ... In short, Mr. Rossen has assembled in this starkly unprettified film a piece of pictorial journalism that is remarkable for its brilliant parts. Critic William Brogdon, for Variety Magazine, said  “As the rural Abe Lincoln, springing up from the soil to make himself a great man by using the opinionless, follow-the-leader instinct of the more common voter, Broderick Crawford does a standout performance. Given a meaty part, his histrionic bent wraps it up for a great personal success adding much to the many worthwhile aspects of the drama’”.

Those strong opinions most likely mean there is something special on the big screen in October. Come and see a film that will make you think.  Place: The Edge Center for the Arts, Bigfork. Date and time: Thursday October 1t^th at 6:30PM. It will be worth going to Bigfork, because Jack will provide you with background about the movie and a cartoon of the period. An appropriate snack will be served courtesy of Jack and his wife/projectionist, Lynn. The Classic Movie Series is part of the District 318 Adult Education Program.

Betsy Bowen Block Prints at the Edge Center Art Gallery

Betsy Bowen: Block Prints is this month's exhibit at the Bigfork Art Gallery. Betsy is an illustrator of the wildlife and domestic life around her longtime home near Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore. The immediate lure of color and line in Betsy’s woodcuts invites viewers to discover the good-humored stories she tells with her images. Come and see Betsy’s block prints at the Edge Gallery from September 6th to the 29th.  The gallery is next to the Bigfork School and is open from 10 am to 4 pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Admission to the gallery and September 7th reception is free.

If you are a parent or grandparent, you're most likely familiar with Betsy's children's book Antler, Bear, Canoe, found in children's bedrooms throughout Northern Minnesota and beyond. The book carries young readers through the seasons of the year in an "ABC" format and is also one of the first books introduced to kindergartners at Bigfork Elementary School. 

Constructed with bold colors, Betsy's woodcuts delineate the essence of our northern lifestyle, history, and existence: they literally pulse with the feeling of Northern Minnesota. 

Of her work, Betsy says, “Poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote that ‘Scientists tell us that the world is made up of Atoms, but we know it is made up of Stories.’ Now here is a concept that shaped my view of the world.” Bowen's prints are from the stories “that hold the very form and energy of our existence.

Bowen will be showing her woodcuts at the Edge Center for the Arts September 6th through the 29th. An open house reception is on September 6th from five to seven P.M. at the gallery. This is an evening you don’t want to miss.

There was also an Author Event at the Bigfork school where Bowen had an opportunity to speak to the K-3 students (See below).  She Read from her book, Antler, Bear and Canoe plus explained the art of block printing. The Bigfork Art Gallery Committee also donated 100 of Bowen's books to the school. 

"In the Heat of the Night" is the September Classic Movie Shown in Bigfork

The Classic Movie Series this year starts with a mystery drama from 1967, “In the Heat of the Night,” staring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. It is about a black Philadelphia police detective who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a small town in Mississippi. The film won five Oscars in 1967 including the year’s Best Picture award. It is so good that it was followed up by two sequels and a TV series with the same name. It is worth seeing, if for no other reason, to find out what all the excitement was about. Great stars, great time period and great drama: that’s makes a great combination. With lots of racist implications, a false arrest, and a good plot you will find out why the movie richly deserved those five Oscars. This September Movie Classic will be shown at the Edge Theatre in Bigfork by Jack Nachbar. It will be accompanied by Jack’s presentation providing a better understanding of the time period of the movie.  Date: Thursday September 13^th. Time: 6:30PM. Price: FREE of charge.

The murder suspect is a black man found and arrested at the railway station. Probably sounded logical to the Sparta police, but they quickly discover he is a detective from Chicago.  Oops.  Not only that, the murder seemed to take place in the building site of a new, and, important to the town, factory being built by the murdered man. The widow is not happy about the local police and threatens to stop construction.  It is a good plot based on a 1965 novel of the same name. When you come to see it, keep in mind that Sidney’s line “They call me Mister Tibbs,” ended up being named #16  Most Memorable Movie Quote of all time by the American Film Institute.  

1967 was a bad time in America to be black, Sidney Poitier would not work in the south because he and Harry Belafonte were almost killed by the KKK during an earlier visit to Mississippi. That’s how Sparta Illinois got the work, not Mississippi. Just a few days of location shooting in Tennessee once again put Poitier under threat.

Sir Sidney Poitier (February 20, 1927) is Bahamian-American and an accomplished actor, film director and diplomat. It is hard to pick a “Best" of his Films from his list of 52 films. This movie is number 27 on his career list. He was the first Bahamian and first black actor to win an Oscar. He has some 19 awards.  I suspect receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2009 ranks way up on his list with along being Knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1974.

Rod Steiger (1925-2002) made his mark on the film world by playing “off beat’ kind of crazy characters that were ready to fly off the handle.  He was associated with “Method Acting” to the point that it often caused verbal exchanges with directors and such during filming. That explains why his work is so often  realistic. But it was very good for “In the Heat of the Night."  In this case he was so so good that he won the best actor Oscar. That might be reason enough to see the movie all by it self. He was asked by the director to chew gum during his scenes, which Rod did not particularly like, but doing as directed, he learned to like it so much he went through 263 packs of gum during the shooting.  Now that’s dedication. Wonder what his dentist thought of the idea? Interestingly his co-star in this movie Sidney Poitier thought Steiger and  Spencer Tracy were the best actors he ever encountered.  

A great movie from an award winning book that spawned two film sequels and a TV series. That most likely means there is something special on the big screen in Bigfork in September.  The classic Movie Series is part of the District 318 Adult Education program.  Come and see a mystery thriller that will make you think.  Place: The Edge Center for the Arts, Bigfork. Date and time: Thursday September 13^th at 6:30PM. It will be worth going to Bigfork, because Jack will provide you with background about the movie and a cartoon of the period. An appropriate snack will be served courtesy of Jack and his wife/projectionist, Lynn.