Screening
Film Series | Doll Parts: Yellow Sequence, Arabian Nights
Overview
Jack Smith, Yellow Sequence, 15 min., 1963–65
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Arabian Nights, 130 min., 1974
Echoed in the lurid, plastic fairy tales of artist Cindy Sheman’s mid-career work, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s poetic visions are set upon the mythological Middle Eastern text One Thousand and One Nights for the third film in his acclaimed Trilogy of Life. Distraught at the abduction of his paramour Zumurrud, Nur-e-Din embarks on an epic journey, ultimately arriving upon a lavish kingdom that Zumurrud has come to rule under the guise of a long-lost king. This elaborate blend of eroticism and slapstick humor interweaves tales of love and loss against a glistening desert backdrop. The classic is paired with Jack Smith’s Yellow Sequence, an addendum reel to his sprawling feature Normal Love. Smith’s lavishly hued color film traces various creatures (including perennial Smith starlet Francis Francine and “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” Tiny Tim) through the junk heaps of popular culture in characteristically manic performances.
About Doll Parts
The Broad's Doll Parts film series took place from June through September 2016 in conjunction with the Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life exhibition. Tearing through underground and pop landscapes from Maya Deren to Hole, Doll Parts reframed the Cindy Sherman special exhibition as a moving-image feast of international films, artists’ tapes, and music videos. From fairy tales to horror, femme fatales to “office killers,” Doll Parts examined the iconography of Sherman’s photographic practice, showcasing influences, like minds, and apparent heirs to the artist’s evolving body of work. Outré artifice, feminist trailblazers, and plasticine appendages reign supreme.
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