These titles remain available on DVD video as both collectors items and legacy of the migration of 'film' to 'video' to digital media.
A physical 'DVD'is reprentative of these films and their origins. A physical fact, not just a file on a computer screen.
Mastered in their original formats / aspect ratios.

AMERIKA can be projected 'single screen', including a version where films / reels are screened 'in any order', or it can be projected in the director's choice 'three screen version'.

See the available AMERIKA - DVD - Complete film & 3-Screen version

Video excerpts from 3-screen AMERIKA on You Tube


Film is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art - Pompidou.

VISUAL ESSAYS: ORIGINS OF FILM are in individual film reel version and continuous play version of the six visual essays.



This film is in international collections and continues to be screened internationally.

WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE?

A collaborative video installation and film between fine arts painter Anne Popperwell and filmmaker Al Razutis.
This DVD is available as INSTALLATION & SCREENING DVD

This work has been screened internationally and is in permanent collections.

LINKS TO MANY SUBJECTS:

AMERIKA

Produced and Directed by Al Razutis, 1972-1983

SINGLE SCREEN 170 min. - THREE-SCREEN 56 min.

AMERIKA   is a "feature-length experimental film which was created one reel at a time to function as a mosaic that expresses the various sensations, myths, landscapes of the industrialized Western culture (1960's -1980's) through the eyes of media-anarchism and avant-garde film techniques." (AR) 'Amerika' Brings Reality Into Focus - SPECIAL SCREENINGS - November 21, 1988, LA Times "Al Razutis' monumental, 3-hour "Amerika" (1972-1983), which Filmforum is presenting tonight at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) at 7:30, may well be the most provocative and challenging experimental work to screen in Los Angeles this year. Between the Biblical quotes that frame it: "Let us create man in our image . . ." and "Let us start anew . . . East of Eden," Razutis alternately dazzles and numbs but winds up making us think critically about how the media has shaped our very notion of reality." Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times November 21, 1988 "The 'Simulacrum', the 'Spectacle', the 'global village' gone into hyperbole is the 'mediascape' of AMERIKA. Here, the spectacles of ever-changing 'media' employ shifting signifiers (the formal elements) and produce coded and proliferating signifieds (meanings) of consummer truths, world views, historical 'facts', anthropomorphized fears and gratifications. AMERIKA film stills 2006 DVD source AMERIKA 3-screen gallery installation, 2004 Seoul, Korea (.wmv 30 sec. video) AMERIKA poster, by Samantha Hamerness-Coombs   AMERIKA EXCERPTS CLIPS ON YOU TUBE 2 min. excerpt video on YouTube: (6 min. into 3-screen film) 1 min. excerpt video on YouTube: (15 min. into 3-screen film) 2 min. excerpt video on YouTube (33 min. into 3-screen film) 2 min. excerpt video on YouTube: (40 min. into 3-screen film) "The predominant characteristic of the film is that it draws from existing stock footage archives, the iconography and `memory bank' of a media excessive culture (one theme being media 'bank robbery' and anarcho appropriations - interventions), to locate its `subjects'. The techniques employed in rendering the various fragments vary from video-synthesis, optical matte effects, audio-synthesis,time-lapse cinematography, to more conventional 16 mm forms of representation. It formally references three decades of underground - avant-garde - experimental - commercial - documentary cinemas, and the tensions therein." (A.R.) 'Amerika' was banned briefly in Canada ( see the article in Opsis 1984 - Regina vs... ) and has been featured in international retrospectives in exhibitions and collections in the three-screen format. This film is a Los Angeles Film Critics Award winner and in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Paris - Pompidou. Produced, Directed, Written, Photographed and Edited by Al Razutis Appearances by: Samantha Hamerness-Coombs, Lincoln Clarkes, Al Razutis Soundscapes by: Tony Giancinti, Al Razutis Critical discussions on the film 'AMERIKA' and filmmaker: Between Agonism and the Autonomy of Art: The Case of Al Razutis - by William C. Wees '3 Decades of Rage' (.DOC) - or .PDF file, Razutis interview by Mike Hoolboom Note: This film contains brief sequences of extreme (stock footage) violence and graphic sexual (stock footage) subject matter. It is assumed you are a consenting adult when you view this film.

Awards:
Los Angeles Film Critics' Award - 1988

Permanent Collections:
Museum of Modern Art of France (George Pompidou) - Paris (film)
National Library of Australia (VHS, film sections)
Amherst College (DVD)
University of Quebec (Montreal) (DVD)
California Institute of the Arts (VHS)
Simon Fraser University (DVD)

'AMERIKA' - Limited Edition - available on Dual Layer DVD

Visual Essays: Origins of Film

Produced and Directed by Al Razutis, 1973-1984

56 min. color, sound

These six visual essays on film/image history attempt to reconstruct the vision of cinematic creation occurring in the minds of cinema's "primitives" ; together they comprise a critical/structural investigation of silent cinema. "I thought it necessary to engage the original film texts by creating a process of `discovery' wherein the viewer could partake in the `myth of creation' without being encumbered by the full questions of ideological significance, historical placement, and authorship." (A.R.)

"Both the visual artist and the educator make their appearances throughout Origins of Film,  but it looks to be the poet who has the final say. Informing the overall shape of the project is an argument that is presented at a number of levels. Each film is structured around a distinct set of optical printing and collage techniques [and] ... embodies a `look' which becomes the film's central strategy and metaphor." (Peter Chapman, Independent Eye)

In the collections of
National Gallery of Canada (Permanent Collection - film)
Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Spain (DVD)
University library of Lausanne, Switzerland (DVD)
University of Provence, France (DVD)

VISUAL ESSAYS SHORT CLIPS ON YOU TUBE

'Visual Essays: Origins of Film' - Limited Edition - available on DVD

IF YOU CANNOT LOCATE A VIDEO TITLE
or looking for short films - videos by Al Razutis no longer in general distribution
VISIT: 'Film - Video Archives'

Why Don't You Just Leave?

Produced and Directed by Anne Popperwell and Al Razutis, 1996

28 min. color, sound

Abstract images, uncompromising text, and the voices of men from the Family Violence Project in Victoria, BC expose the implications of domestic violence towards women.

Created as a video installation piece for a travelling exhibition of paintings by west coast artist Anne Popperwell, 'Why Don't You Just Leave?'

'Why Don't You Just Leave? can be presented in single monitor or video projected in installation or theater. .

This tape explores the various 'languages' of domestic violence by presenting text, voice-over testimonials from men who have engaged in violence. The visuals supply segmented and semi-abstracted images of women's bodies bearing text written upon the physical 'sites' of violence. As analysis of violence, the tape deals with the segmentation of our knowlege of violence and is presented in a poetic (non-didactic) manner for both male and female audiences.

This videotape on DVD continues to be exhibited in a variety of national and international exhibitions.

WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE? CLIPS ON YOU TUBE

'Why Don't You Just Leave?' - available on DVD

For additional DVD SALES information: alrazutis@ymail.com

For additional DVD SALES information: DVD SALES PAGE - LEGACY VIDEO ART TITLES

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IF YOU CANNOT LOCATE A VIDEO TITLE
or looking for short films - videos by Al Razutis no longer in general distribution
VISIT: 'Film - Video Archives'

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