Charles Henri Ford Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Charles Henri Ford
Acting
Biography
Charles Henri Ford was many things in addition to filmmaker. A pioneer of American surrealism, Ford’s creative activities as a poet, photographer, publisher and general bohemian bon vivant, spanned much of the last century and cultivated intimate connections and collaborations with legendary intellectual and artistic figures ranging from Gertrude Stein to Andy Warhol. Paralleling his artistic trajectory in the avant-garde, as an openly queer man, Ford’s life and work was also at the vanguard of mid-twentieth century sexual politics, and like his gay colleagues and contemporaries— Allen Ginsburg and Kenneth Anger, for example— Ford’s art fused his outsider sexual status with the vital underground sensibility of the poets, painters, and filmmakers with whom he associated. (from: http://pdome.org/2014/johnny-minotaur-with-mm-serra-from-the-new-york-film-makers-cooperative-in-person-25th-anniversary-party/)
Filmography Movies
Acting
Johnny Minotaur
Johnny Minotaur is a lyrical explosion of taboos: incest, intergenerational desire, pansexuality and autoeroticism are a few of the issues Charles Henri Ford grapples with through mythopoeic, sensual imagery, recitations of his diaries and a philosophical debate featuring an impressive narration by such artists as Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Warren Sonbert and Lynne Tillman.
No President
Smith's third feature film was originally titled "The Kidnapping of Wendell Willkie by the Love Bandit," in reaction to the 1968 Presidential Campaign. It mixes B&W footage of Smith's creatures with old campaign footage of Willkie, a liberal Republican who ran against FDR in the 1940's. The climax of the work appears to be the "auctioning" of the presidential candidate at a convention.
Poem Posters
... with real-life portraits of Jayne Mansfield, Frak O'Hara, Ruth Ford, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Rudy Gernreich, Jonas Mekas and others.
Dirt
Two nuns take a bath, then meet a sailor on the Staten Island Ferry.
Joan of Arc
The story of Joan of Arc as applied to the present revolution in arts and more. The Gothic is applied to the War in Vietnam. The film is experimental in the sense that in it the visual becomes tactile.
Andy Warhol Screen Tests
The films were made between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol's Factory studio in New York City. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong key light, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film at 24 frames per second. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in 'slow motion' at 16 frames per second.
Production
Johnny Minotaur
Johnny Minotaur is a lyrical explosion of taboos: incest, intergenerational desire, pansexuality and autoeroticism are a few of the issues Charles Henri Ford grapples with through mythopoeic, sensual imagery, recitations of his diaries and a philosophical debate featuring an impressive narration by such artists as Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Warren Sonbert and Lynne Tillman.
Poem Posters
... with real-life portraits of Jayne Mansfield, Frak O'Hara, Ruth Ford, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Rudy Gernreich, Jonas Mekas and others.
Gallery
