Making Visual History
Tom Kalin: Fictionalizing History and Reinterpreting the Past

ADMISSION:
Admission is free. Reservations required. RSVP at the links below beginning Wednesday, October 19, at 9 a.m.

USC Students, Staff, and Faculty: RSVP
USC Alumni: RSVP
General Public: RSVP

DESCRIPTION:
Tom Kalin, a key figure of New Queer Cinema, will present clips of his critically acclaimed films about some of the most shocking crimes of the twentieth century, and discuss the complexities of making movies about difficult histories.

Kalin’s 1992 film Swoon took on the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder case of 1924, called by many “the crime of the century,” and earned critical recognition as one of the Top 100 American Independent Films (BFI). In 2007, Kalin’s feature Savage Grace, starring Julianne Moore, dramatized the scandalous 1972 murder of socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland by her son. In conversation with USC professor Howard A. Rodman, president of the Writers Guild of America and screenwriter of Savage Grace, Kalin will reflect on the aesthetic and ethical challenges of making period films about murder, sex, and queer history.

Tom Kalin’s critically acclaimed work ranges from experimental video installations to narrative feature films. He was a 2011 Guggenheim fellow and a founding member of the AIDS activist/artist collective Gran Fury. He is a professor of experimental film at the European Graduate School.

This event is presented as part of “Making Visual History,” a series of events exploring the intersection of the arts and humanities and the fascinating work of making history visible on screen.   

Related Events:
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For more info, click here.

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For more info, click here.

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Monday, April 3, 2017, 7 p.m.
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Organized by Vanessa Schwartz (History, Art History, and Visual Studies Research Institute), Daniela Bleichmar (Art History and History), Akira Lippit (Cinematic Arts, Comparative Literature, and East Asian Languages and Cultures), and Michael Renov (Cinematic Arts). Co-sponsored by the Visual Studies Research Institute, Mellon Sawyer Seminar, and USC School of Cinematic Arts.