Transition H50 (2016) by Jessica Eaton.
• One of my weekend posts in 2012 contained details about Taking Tiger Mountain, a low-budget feature film put together in 1983 by Tom Huckabee using footage originally shot in Tangier and Wales in the 1970s. Huckabee’s film is a strange “experimental” work of science fiction, based in part on William Burroughs’ Blade Runner script (no relation to the Ridley Scott film apart from the title), and described here as “a psychotropic apocalyptic odyssey”. The most notable aspect of the film for many will be the presence of a young Bill Paxton in the lead role, something I was reminded of when Paxton’s death was announced earlier this week. Five years ago there was only a short clip of Taking Tiger Mountain available on YouTube but since then a full copy has appeared; watch it here while you can. (The widescreen frame is cropped, and the sound is all in one channel but it’s still watchable.) Tom Huckabee talked about the film’s production (and the Burroughs connections) to Beatdom. A curio that deserves wider attention.
• “With Biller, the references come thick and fast. In The Love Witch, she channels, among others, 50s Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk’s lurid lushness, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s deadpan gaze, Nicholas Ray’s poetry, Sam Fuller’s tabloid style and Todd Haynes’s revisionist sexual politics. […] Then add the Technicolor, widescreen, haute-Hollywood “women’s pictures” of the 50s, a touch of Hammer Studios, The Wicker Man, Rosemary’s Baby and any number of studio melodramas and musicals.” John Patterson talks to director Anna Biller about her new film, The Love Witch.
• Mix of the week is the Anxious Heart Mix by Moon Wiring Club, another excellent blend of electronica, industria and dialogue samples from the outer limits of the televisual sphere. Also of note this week: VF Mix 83, an Adrian Sherwood selection by Pinch, XLR8R Podcast 479 by Chris SSG, and Secret Thirteen Mix 213 by -N.
• “Anthropologically, this was going on all around me: it was amazing and nobody was dealing with it like that, so I just went for it.” Hal Fischer on his photo-art series, Gay Semiotics, which is on display at Project Native Informant, London, until 1st April.
• Coming in May from Luaka Bop, World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, the first-ever compilation of Alice Coltrane’s scarce releases on the Avatar Book Institute label.
• Cinephilia looks back at Robert Wise and Nelson Gidding’s film of The Andromeda Strain (1971).
• Psychedelic Speed Freak: Remembering the blistering experimentalism of Hideo Ikeezumi.
• More witchery: S. Elizabeth talks to Pam Grossman about art, film and hex power.
• At The Quietus: Harry Sword on the strange world of Surgeon.
• The Feathered Tiger (1969) by Kaleidoscope | Taking Tiger Mountain (1974) by Brian Eno | Plain Tiger (1985) by Cocteau Twins
Fascinated by Taking Tiger Mountain, and how it can to made by Film Wales! Have found out the following additional info from the greatest torrent site on the internet:
” In his last year at U.T. Huckabee began work on an ambitious 35mm, wide-screen feature, Taking Tiger Mountain, starring old friend Paxton and featuring a contribution by legendary beat writer, William S. Burroughs. “Burroughs came to town and watched what I had on a flatbed moviola. He said, ‘I think you’ve got something there, kid,’ and gave me the rights to his material for $100. He even offered to appear in the film, but like an idiot I said there wasn’t really a part for him.”
” A strange and jerky script draws the viewer thru a bleak landscape. A forgetable piece except I know something you don’t.
The film was originally made with a totally different script. The sound track was lost, the film abandoned and then sold to director Tom Huckabee. Tom then hired lip readers to fill in the script and added his own off-screen character dialog to complete the film. Hence, it’s strangeness. Unfortunately you won’t see this one anywhere.
This film is very rarely seen and next to impossible to find. The film contains concepts derived from William S.Burroughs’ screenplay Bladerunner (which in turn lifted its concepts from The Bladerunner by Alan E Nourse), where bizarre underground medical procedures, psychotropic drugs and brainwashing produce an unwitting assassin sent forth in a post-apocalyptic Wales to carry out his subliminal deed. It’s a bizarre and unsettling film, experimental in nature and quite effective in creating an uncertain hallucinatory atmosphere…
This is ripped with ancient hardware from 2x 3/4″ U-matic tapes found buried in a William S. Burroughs collection – unfortunately whoever telecined this source cropped some of the frame, you can see what i mean in the screenshots. I’ve deliberately ripped the FPS to 29.970. Also the original audio was lost, the new audio track goes in and out of sync but is not too distracting.
Tom Huckabee, the director of the film, was very kind in allowing me to make this copy – please DO NOT upload this at any other sites and please DO NOT try to sell this film on iOffer or eBay or wherever.”
In addition there’s apparently work underway to digital scan and restore the original