The Kubelka Incident: An Essay On Schwechater

[eyeodyssey]

This film marks the centerpiece of what will easily go down as one of the more surreal filmgoing experiences I’ll ever have. Specifically regarding the connection between the audience and the film. Let me explain.

I was seated directly in front of the most… interesting row I would ever have the chance of overhearing in a theater. On one end there was this German couple. These two guys came in, and the most distinct conversation I could recall was “So, I heard you went to the beach?”, “Yeah yeah”, “What did you see there?”, “I saw the water”, “Did you see the beach?”, “No”. Just a little before them though, there walked in this middle-aged man and his elderly mother. Their whole vibe was like what you’d get if Psycho was fused with Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolfe. For the sake of reference, I’ll be calling the man Norman. Norman and his mother came in and sat just right behind my head (maybe a seat over) and the first thing the mother says is “Who is that weirdo”. “What are you talking about, ma?” replied Norman. “The creep who’s looking at everyone”. That’s about when I found out they were talking about me. Yes, I have a habit of looking when I hear people come into a theater, especially when it’s one that’s just starting to fill up. Just before I could fully comprehend that though, the mother piped up and exclaimed: “Where’s the screen!?”. “Well ma, they’ll probably project it on the wall” Norman said, making reference to the plain white non-textured wall of a museum’s theater space. “What the hell do they think they’re doing showing films without a screen!?! What sort of quality are we dealing with here!?!”. “Well ma, there’s likely gotta be something decent if it’s showing here”. “The amateurs we have to tolerate! Humph!”. Then after that, the mother started ranting about her hatred for Ru Paul circa the 1980s. “Ma, you don’t have to like Ru Paul to like these movies”. Mind you, none of the films in this certain showing had anything to do with Ru Paul. “If you don’t like the films, we can leave” assured Norman.

This little episode finally ceased once the curator came up to introduce the films. The theme of the event was disruption, each short in some way or another involving the disruption of the expectations that a passing viewer may hold. The films shown were Meet Marlon Brando, George Kuchar’s Actress film, an excerpt of a 1970 episode of the Dick Cavett show where he interviews Sly of the Family Stone, a short that marks the cinematic debut of Charlie Chaplin’s tramp character and this Schwechater film that Peter Kubelka directed. There was something in this one minute and thirty-second short that really set off Norman. As the curator ended his opening speech, the 16mm projector was reeled up and he stated that Kubelka preferred to have his films screened twice in a row during showings.

“Why? Just because he did doesn’t mean you have to!”

Looks like we’ve got a critic.


I liked the film, so I didn’t mind the repeated showings, kinda the opposite of minding it actually. I thought it was really well edited and especially stylized for a short from the 1950s. It’s the sorta stuff that would’ve been considered innovative even for the 1960s (and probably a bit later), and Kubelka’s approach to editing reminded me a great deal of Stan Brakhage’s approach to the film reel as its own form of art. With that, I was still also surprised to find out that Brakhage and Kubelka were close friends. I didn’t expect the two creators to be so closely connected.

In abridged form, Norman spent the whole screening expressing his deeply rooted grudge for the Schwechater short. He wasn’t one to hesitate on giving his thoughts, I don’t know who he assumed he was communicating to, as he certainly didn’t have much interest in the ‘weirdo’ who ‘looked at everyone’. The middle short of the screening was the Dick Cavett vignette. When Dick turned to the camera and said “And now, a word from our sponsors”, the screen suddenly went dark. The 16mm projector audibly started up, and there was a surprise second showing of Schwechater. Norman fucking flipped. “Are you kidding me?!?” he said, “God damn it not this again!”. Norman attempted to storm out of the theater, but his mother scolded him. “We get it! You’re transgressive! You went to film school! MOVE! ON!”. This second showing once again had two rounds, and like before, I didn’t mind. The moment the fourth round started, I couldn’t help but laugh at Norman as he continued giving off his own wannabe “serious critic” monologue silently to the small handful of people that were around him. Not laughing with him, but at him. He never screamed, he did that odd thing where people pretend to shout under their breath. Did he want others to hear this, was he rubbing his ego, does he have any control over his verbal outbursts?

This little incident especially soured Norman’s perspective of the showing. No matter what was on the screen, his mind would never leave that beer film. The main exception was when Sly and the Family came up in the Cavett film to do their stuff. Some of the best funk you’ll ever hear, but something else struck Norman and he started mockingly laughing at the music. The laughing was really, really weird too. He remained in this state of aggressively whispering the whole time, so he was like doing an aggravated laugh under his breath throughout the whole thing. You really had to hear it to understand what I’m talking about. The moment the song ended and the (really bizarre) interview with Sly started, Norman went right back to his beer film monologue. Following that, each time the screen would go dark between film showings, Norman would spout out one of his many one-liners. “I would rather watch this than that damned beer film again!” he says to the darkness. Alright then, Norman.

Just around the end of the event, after the digital projector went silent, the curator gave a reminder that there would be a surprise short screening. “Beer! Beer! Beer! the two German men directly behind me chanted. “Beer! Beer! Beer!” replied the few people in another row. “Noooooooo!!!” said Norman. Their calls were all replied to by an epilogue of Yul Brynner politely interrogating the audience. By the time Yul Brynner’s projection was gone, Norman and his mother followed suit. I didn’t realize until the Q&A that they had gone missing. Same with the two German men too, unfortunately.

Leaving the theater, I recalled on the drive back home that the theme of the night was disruption, and that the guy curating it had a history in subversive theater. Now is when I question everything that reality has presented to me.