Word: hfa
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Located in the basement of the Carpenter Center HFA is a resource for films students, a mecca for cinemagroupies, and, in the eyes of many ordinary movie-goers, an outright peculiarity. Films screened at HFA this month include "Sensations: A Holy Orgasm of Shadow-Play," "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," Sex and Zen," and "Backyard Movie," the later juxtaposing "old home movies" with "cheeky footage of naked men on trampolines and frolicking dogs," according to HFA's monthly bulletin...
Newcomers to HFA "get really confused," claimed the woman selling tickets at a recent showing. "They don't understand that we don't sell popcorn... You can tell that they only go to Loews." For the savvy cineast, however, the archive is a "real resource, the woman insisted. "A lot o times we'll show things that won't get shown anywhere else...
...HFA ethos--equal parts intellectual snobbery and earnest aesthetic evangelism--is personified by Vlada K. Petric, senior VES lecturer and curator of the archive. Petric, a white-haired man with watery blue eyes and a broad, stubborn face, works in a small office plastered with magazine clippings and film stills. He pontificates passionately in heavily accented English, and does not permit interruptions. Petric draws a distinction between "cinema," which he calls "a means of artistic expression," and "artsy films"--"Schindler's List" or "Remains of the Day," for example--which have "nothing to do with art." Then of course, there...
Petric admitted that HFA caters to a limited clientele. But, he said proudly, "I prefer to have a film that will help someone understand art, with only five people [in the audience], than a full house showing "Remains of the Day." He bristled at the suggestion that HFA films are "weird." "That's not weird; that's avant-garde," he sniffed. Petric has no patience for philistines who scorn film studies. "They are stupid," he says flatly. "If someone is still taking this issue, I would say he's undeveloped uncultured, primitive...
Committed to turning the HFA into the biggest film assemblage at any university in the country, Jones is raising funds to purchase a particular film collection. He feels that it is "very, very important" to have such a resource available to students. "Like language labs, the HFA must be available in a similar manner," says Jones...