Musical and graphic talents combined in unique film made in Cleveland.....
THE PRINTMAKER
"An inked plate is a world of images bathed in darkness," Marvin Smith muses in a kind of Stream-of-consciousness meditation, meanwhile smoothing a portion of thick black liquid over an etched metal surface.
If "The Printmaker" were to be subjected to the prevailing movie rating system, which is unlikely because it will be circulated primarily to schools and colleges, it definitely would rate GP, with an ART diploma.
It is a half hour of printmaking theory and technique meshed in an uncommon way with a steady flow of philosophizing, that is. Smith's voice-over narration, his spontaneous and unscripted reflections, underscored by original musical effects composed by Christopher Berg and performed by members of the Cleveland Orchestra.
The film is a production of Cleveland filmmaker Wil Berg's Pomes and Popcorn Inc., a fledgling company that has to its credit to date a movie based on "A Child's Garden of Verses" and another on natural childbirth currently being shown in all of the United States and several other countries.
Wil Berg until recently was a neighbor of Smith's in Cleveland Heights and a frequent visitor to his attic studio where the film idea originated. What struck Berg wasn't so much the subject of printmaking, but Smith, an almost heroic type with spiritual dimensions. A man with fire in his eyes and the tongue of an angel.
Smith welcomed the film idea. There is something of the universal man in him, or the urge to be so, to master every medium, every arena. A former member of the Cooper School of Art faculty, he now is tackling the role of wilderness artist-farmer. He and his wife, Susan, and their family left Cleveland this summer for Webster County, W. Va., in Appalachia, in their search for a saner existence.
In the film Smith says, "I think that living is a search for a way to live." He meant it.
The search for a suitable print subject for the film led no farther than Smith's home street. The recent death of a small neighbor child, struck by a car, lingered in Smith's mind, an agony of recollection. He chose as the theme of the print - the tragic muse though not the actual subject - the death of a child, Annie Banana as they called her.
"This plate is a piece of metal that is saturated with sorrow," Smith says in the film. "It has anguish, love... and hate for killers."
The actual filming took several weeks, last fall. Then the sound track, the music, the mixing, the cutting, the going back and forth. Smith himself has yet to see the finished product.
A host of Cleveland talents are utilized in the film. Berg's son Christopher, a piano major at the Manhattan School of Music, composed the score and conducted. Laszlo Krausz was the musical consultant. The orchestra performers were John Mack, oboe; Bernard Adelstein, trumpet; Daniel Majeske, violin; Abraham Skernick, viola; William Stokking, cello, and Richard Weiner, percussion.
The cinematographer was Bruce Cline, James Gregory Lord did the production stills, including the pictures with this story.
(article by Helen Borsick)
In Loving Memory of
Marvin Smith
(1932 ~ 2006)
This dvd was made possible through the generous assistance and guidance of Stephen & Vicki Paternite, Peter C. LaRose, and Dr. Bruce Cline