ISSUE #18
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Welcome to an all-new installment of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH, brought to you by GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
Before the rest of the newsletter, we wanted to bring attention to our FILM SOCIETY ROUNDTABLE social event that is happening NEXT THURSDAY, JUNE 15th. For those not aware, this is now the third monthly purely-social event we’ve held in an effort to bring more members of the GR film community together. We were so pleased with how the last one went and can’t wait to do it again next week.
Just like last time, we’ll spend some time mingling before and after our conversation hour where you all will have the opportunity to join in on discussions about filmmaking, screenwriting, and cinephilia.
If that sounds interesting, we encourage you to RSVP for the event and join us next Thursday — and bring your friends!
This past Thursday night, we were thrilled to bring everyone a really special ONE-TIME screening of HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE featuring a GRFS EXCLUSIVE Q&A with some of the filmmakers. We have an additional piece about the film in this issue to accompany the Q&A video itself.
To kick off the newsletter, you can find the full Pipeline Q&A below...
HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE FILMMAKER Q&A (GRFS EXCLUSIVE)
We had the privilege of chatting with some of the filmmakers behind the incendiary film How to Blow Up a Pipeline ahead of our screening. This exclusive conversation includes: Jordan Sjol (co-writer/co-producer), Daniel Garber (editor), Gavin Brivik (composer), and Adri Siriwatt (production designer).
Enjoy!
Thank you to the filmmakers for taking the time to discuss the film with us and to our own BREANA MALLOY for making this all happen. Likewise, a big thanks to ALYSON CAILLAUD-JONES for her help in putting the video together for us.
HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE: A CINEMATIC CLARION CALL
[BY: DAVID BLAKESLEE]
As of this writing, I have not seen HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE (hereafter HTBUAP), but by the time you read this I will have thanks to this week’s special presentation sponsored by GRFS. It’s a movie I have wanted to see for a while, after I learned about its subject matter (radical activism taken against climate change and toxic polluters) and the controversy that developed when word got out that the FBI was monitoring the film’s potential influence on viewers who just might feel compelled to mimic actions shown on screen.
So, prior to my viewing, I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading on the film, its source material (a 2021 nonfiction book of the same name written by Andreas Malm), and the creators who invested their talent and energy into confronting audiences with an urgent call to resistance — one that verges on a demand to change one’s lifestyle.Â
What I’ve concluded after taking in a number of reviews, essays, and interviews is that HTBUAP is a seriously angry expression that seeks to genuinely disrupt the status quo. This is not a film that merely toys with the proposition that climate change is regrettable, or contentedly asserts that it would be nice if everyone just understood that and did their part to pump a little less carbon into the atmosphere. The film’s incendiary title goes beyond hyperbole, landing in a zone that, while not calling for viewers to engage in obligatory or mindless criminality, nevertheless refrains from ruling out the potential use of violent, destructive tactics in pursuit of a solution to this critical, existential threat to life as we’ve known it.
For the moment, I’ll have to withhold my judgment as to how successfully the movie makes its case, though I’m led to believe that it will prove to be pretty compelling. Even the film’s detractors have reinforced that point, with some of the main objections being just how attractively it frames the protagonists in their collective efforts to do exactly what the title implies. But it does get me thinking quite a bit about cinema’s power to provoke, persuade, and propel us to step outside of our personal comfort zones.
The potential to move the masses from complacency to outrage has long been recognized as a unique capability of motion pictures almost as long as the medium has existed (and yes, there’s a lot of literature out there that critiques movies for serving the exact opposite function of pacifying and distracting their audiences when they really ought to be more riled up about the status quo!). HTBUAP builds on an auspicious tradition of challenging cinematic works that seek to instigate revolutions within their respective societies.Â
The great Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein is rightly famous for his influential efforts in developing articulate film theory and technical innovations like montage editing, but that work was done — as evidenced by films such as Strike! and Battleship Potemkin — in service to ideals of social justice that celebrated early triumphs of Soviet forces in overthrowing the oppressive Russian czarist regime. In the political tumult of the 1960s, filmmakers as diverse as Jean-Luc Godard (Weekend), Costa Gavras (Z), Gillo Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers), Agnes Varda (Black Panthers), and Lindsay Anderson (If….), among many others, all applied their talent to creating works that found ways to seriously agitate anyone with sufficient perception and empathy to take seriously what’s happening on the screen.
In more recent decades, directors like Spike Lee (Malcolm X, Chi-Raq), Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro), the Wachowskis (V for Vendetta), and Paul Schrader (First Reformed) have all made films that were not only successful on their artistic merits but also challenged me on a personal level to rethink opinions I held that had settled into critically unexamined assumptions or beliefs.
As a person with a lifelong habit of guzzling the finite natural resources that light up my nights and shoot me through the skies and along the freeways, I’m heading into my encounter with HTBUAP open to a new perspective on what looks like one of the most intractable problems that humanity has ever had to deal with. Will I emerge with radicalized zeal to do whatever it takes to save younger generations from calamity, or will I compartmentalize its message as just another episode of doomsday-scenario entertainment? It looks like the artists have delivered on their end of the bargain. What will we as audience members do in response to their summons to action?
UPCOMING EVENTS
FILM SOCIETY ROUNDTABLE
WHAT: Join us for another GRFS social event and chat about filmmaking, screenwriting, and cinephilia with other like-minded members of the GR film community.
WHEN: Thursday, June 15th, 7:00pm.
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
JOYLAND (Sadiq, 2023)
WHAT: Haider lands a job at a Bollywood-style burlesque, where he is a backup dancer and becomes infatuated with a strong-willed trans woman.
WHEN: Wednesday, June 21st, 8:00pm.
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
And so we’ve arrived at the end of another BEAM FROM THE BOOTH! We appreciate you taking the time to read it and truly hope you’ll continue to do so. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to get each issue in your inbox every FRIDAY and stay up-to-date on all things GRFS!
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Look for ISSUE #19 in your inbox NEXT FRIDAY, 6/16!
Until then, friends...
