Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Tuesday's Overlooked A/V: What is Creativity?

Sculpture by David Batchelor at the McManus
Rabbit, rabbit! First of May and sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cucu! If you're out protesting in the streets, I hope you're enjoying a fine day. My film today is a bit of an odd choice, truly in the spirit of the "overlooked" like no other I've written on.

I *think* it's called What is Creativity? At least that's how I've remembered it all these years. I suspect it was an hour or less long, as it was shown to me in junior high art class in 6th and again in 7th grade. The only 'name' in it was John Astin, but it doesn't appear on his list of films in IMDB. The three things I remember from it are seemingly indelibly fixed on my memory -- however, given my proclivity for 'adjusting' quotations to suit me and never quite getting them right (a habit I gave to Ro in Owl Stretching) I'm sure I may have adjusted them somewhat. But they're so vivid! And as it was on creativity, I was sold from the start.

So, what I do recall of this elusive film: there's an animated sequence that covers the history of the world through art. The "dark ages" literally blackness until the 'Renaissance' comes along with a light [insert medievalist eye roll]. There's an exchange between Michaelangelo and someone else: "What are you doing?" "I'm painting a ceiling. What are you doing?" "I'm painting a floor."

There's another part that's a parable told with ping-pong balls almost Jonathan Livingston Seagull-ish, with one non-conformist ball who decides to try to bounce as high as he can, with an inconclusive ending, "Some say he never came down..."

My favourite bit was the part with John Astin, who played an artist who wasn't doing very well then suddenly had an inspiration to put together mannequin parts and gears and whatnot in a kinetic sculpture. He debuts it to a crowd of critics and suddenly he's dressed as a gunslinger as the potshots come in. He shoots back in vain until at last there's one positive voice in the noise: "I like it!" He leans forward, encouraging the comment, until he hears, "I mean the materials alone must be worth something!" Bang! And he goes down.


So, am I the only person who remembers this?

As always, find the complete round-up of neglected works over at Todd's.


4 comments:

Todd Mason said...

I know I'm still mildly in search of the Crown (probably) educational film from the mid-'60s (that I saw in 1978) in which a teen boy is seen reading an issue of FANTASTIC...hell, I'm still looking for the short film version of a short story involving two men, an African-American and a European-American, playing timed chess. And the first horror film I saw in a theater, which opens with a woman vampire being staked in her coffin...

K. A. Laity said...

LOL, maybe you're misremembering it. It's happened to me.

Todd Mason said...

Oh, possibly...though the young memory is pretty strong (as young memories tend to be), and the other two are simply elusive, rather as yours is (educational films and older short films are incredibly poorly catalogued)...it's possible, but unlikely, after all, that you simply dreamt of John Astin in it...

K. A. Laity said...

No, it was around the time of Evil Roy Slade so I was very fond of Astin already. Doubtless there were other people I might recognise now, but didn't then.