“Back Roads of American History" at Oddball Films February 12, 2011

Event: “Back Roads of American History: Banjos, Amputees, Coal and Other Forgotten Episodes” Emmy Award-winning archival researcher, Rich Remsberg, takes his historian’s scalpel to Oddball’s 50,0000 film collection and takes an interior look at American history. In any archive that has accumulated so many layers of incidental culture, from educational films, to home movies, to propaganda pieces, to a half-century of TV ads, the historian who knows just how to look will find a true story of our American hopes, obsessions, anxieties, and possibilities. Remsberg’s work for PBS, documentary films, and museums has helped illustrate this story in its various permutations through his selection of key images of life in our conflicted young democracy. Remsberg will dish up thick slabs of American life from Oddball’s collection, including Wizard of the Strings (1985), in which banjo and slack-key guitar master Roy Smeck reflects on a life in American roots music; Amish: A People of Preservation (1976), featuring Amish citizens of a modern America; Silent Nomad (1977), a look at California hobos; and Amputee Baseball Team (1954), a human-interest newsreel about a team of modern marvels. Plus! selections from Industry On Parade (1950-1954), with stories of coal miners and young scientists; blackface cartoons and operettas; prison songs; and more.
Date: Saturday, February 12th, 2011 at 8:00PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to: 415-558-8117 or [email protected]
Web: http://www.oddballfilm.com/oddballftp/Remsberg_PR.pdf

“Back Roads of American History”
Banjos, Amputees, Coal and Other Forgotten Episodes Screens at Oddball Films

On Saturday, February 12th at 8PM guest curator Rich Remsberg and Oddball Films present “Back Roads of American History”, a historical vivisection of American culture. Remsberg is an Emmy Award-winning archival researcher whose work includes credits for PBS, The History Channel, and numerous documentary films. By taking apart the detritus of American image culture, the screening will dive into the seedy underbelly and the hopeful vanguard of our cultural legacy.

The screening takes place at Oddball Films, 275 Capp St in San Francisco. Admission is $10.00 Seating is limited, so RSVPs are essential. RSVP to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.

Featuring:

Wizard of the Strings (Color, 1985) In this heartfelt retrospective of vaudeville star turned “Wizard of the Strings,” Roy Smeck, reflects on a life spent as a champion of your favorite string instruments: the banjo, the ukulele, and the steel guitar. Passing the torch to a new generation of slack-key players, Smeck teaches youngsters about the joys of Hawaiian guitar and the finer points of banjo plucking. In interviews with Smeck himself, as well as students, family members, and fans, we see the genteel virtuoso as active as ever in the cause for forgotten strings.

Amputee Baseball Team (B+W, 1954) There have been a number of amputees in professional baseball throughout the years, from Pete Gray of the 1940s Cardinals to Jim Abbot of the 1990s Olympic team. This newsreel, however, highlights a team made entirely of amputees facing off against an all-star lineup in a charity bash. Returning vets and medical mishaps make up a team of All-American marvels.

Way Down South (B+W, 1930) Giuseppe Creatore was a third-rate bandleader from Naples who had moderate success in the US every decade or so with hits like this early musical featurette. Creatore pays tribute to his phony heritage from the land of Dixie in this bizarre blackface morality tale of Southern chivalry and good old-fashioned fun down on the plantation.

The Amish: A People of Preservation (Color, 1975) This made-for-TV documentary takes a look at the Amish of today, living with modern problems… well, 1975 problems, anyway. This double whammy of retro chic exposes the ankles of Amish society to reveal a strongly-knit community that remains proud of its slow pace of life and its beliefs in the face of an increasingly fast world.

Selections from Industry On Parade (B+W, 1950-1954) During the 1950s, this weekly TV newsreel-style program featured innovations in manufacturing, science, and technology from around the nation, featuring cities as famous as Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Jacksonville, Florida. In these selections, coal gets a new lease on life as fashionable jewelry, kids learn the value of science, and a river in Cleveland finds its real purpose in life—fossil fuels!

Curator Bio
Rich Remsberg is an Emmy Award-winning archival image researcher whose has worked on American Experience and American Masters, among other PBS productions, Deep Sea Detectives and other History Channel shows, as well as numerous independent documentary films, and museum exhibitions. His work takes him into the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and historical societies around the country, and he lectures on archives and historical research at universities and museums nationwide. He is most recently the author of Hard Luck Blues, featuring hundreds of images of Depression-Era musicians.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.