Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Interview: MUSEUM OF THE NIGHT [DOC NYC 2025 - New York, New York - Virtual] - Part I

2 days ago

Director Fermin Eloy Acosta talks to Fest Track about concept, restoration and the texture of this specific type of theater (portrayed in the film) in regards to his documentary: "Museum Of The Night" playing the Metropolis Competition section of DOC NYC 2025 in New York, New York.

Transcript

00:00I

00:27mean, how'd you find him?

00:28How'd you learn about the theater of the ridiculous?

00:31I mean, you know, obviously he's a known artist, you know, in Argentina, but where was the

00:37where was the spark point of that?

00:39Okay.

00:40That's a nice question.

00:41I mean, as the movie shows, I be, I, I heard at the first time I heard of it, it was, well,

00:47through Leandro, I, I, I went to, um, there was this, um, they were showing his pictures

00:55of the theater, theater of the ridiculous.

00:58And I, and I saw these pictures and I, and I thought, well, this is an amazing approach

01:04and this is an amazing, an amazing archive.

01:05So that's when I began to think about making a movie with that archive, with that story,

01:12uh, unknown in Argentina.

01:15Um, well, and I, and I began my, my research.

01:18I mean, I, I came to the U S to New York to do some research in 2019.

01:24So, well, it took me a lot of time to gather all these, uh, objects and all these materials

01:31together to, to make a film.

01:34Whereas most of his, uh, material, like the peculiar, the, the films, were they all, did

01:40they need to be restored?

01:41Were they, cause I know you were talking, there was different formats, different things.

01:46What did it take to do that?

01:48Okay.

01:48Yes.

01:49There, uh, there were some archives that were not in a, in a very good form.

01:54I mean, there were some archives that we needed to restore digitally, restore, um, the colors

02:01of the, of the archives besides also the grain and the images weren't that good.

02:07I mean, there were other archives that Leandro, uh, had in a very good, uh, quality because

02:13he, he's trying to, uh, he's trying to restore some of, some of his, of his work, but other

02:21archives weren't that good.

02:22So we did some, this, this digital restoration for the movie is so, and we also work, uh,

02:30very profoundly with some archives, especially the one of the moon, the moon shots that were,

02:37that were from the seventies.

02:38They were, they weren't in a very good quality.

02:40Um, and also, um, let me think also some pictures we, we, we needed to, to arrange, but a little

02:51bit, uh, the brightness, uh, that kind of things, um, but we did a very, a very good job with

02:57Daniela Medina, which is the color grading, uh, the, the, the one that, that did that job.

03:03Um, and, and, and, and there was also a very, a very deep and profound work of, uh, of editing

03:11also behind all this.

03:13My encounter with the theater ridiculous was almost like an accident.

03:24It was a kind of a revolution manifest.

03:43It's also capturing through whiffs of, uh, of photographs and everything, a time that doesn't

03:54exist anymore.

03:55Um, you know, the thing is where this was on 42nd and I think 10th, uh, you said, you know,

04:01obviously that's been completely gentrified now.

04:04Um, could you talk about, you know, his memories, being able to capture the energy of his memories,

04:10the photographs are energetic enough, but, you know, when he describes the reds and how,

04:17you know, it wasn't really made for photographs, but yet that was it, you know, it's, you find

04:23these colors and this energy.

04:25I certainly did.

04:26Um, well, I think that one of the main ideas I wanted to capture was this technical imagination

04:34he has.

04:34I mean, he's very aware of the use of techniques.

04:37He's very aware of the use of photography as, as the movie tells, he was the one that

04:44took the pictures and then he did all the process to, to, to rep, to revelate.

04:50Is that okay?

04:51To reveal them, to reveal them, to reveal the images.

04:55Uh, so he is very aware of techniques.

04:57He was all his life was, uh, aware of these techniques.

05:02Uh, besides, I mean, a photograph, video film, uh, I don't know, filming.

05:10So, um, and I wanted to capture this balance between what was, uh, hidden in that images

05:19related to regarding the technique, but also related to this underworld, underground world

05:26in the sixties and seventies.

05:29I am fascinated by this kind of stories, uh, before Stonewall, before the, uh, identities

05:37became commodified, uh, in the eighties and nineties.

05:41And I also, uh, a fan of these stories of New York, uh, before the gentrification process,

05:47which before Giuliani's process.

05:50So for example, I had read when I was doing the film, I had read this book of Samuel Delany,

05:57which is a Times Square Red, Times Square Blue that tells the story of the, uh, pornographic

06:02cinemas in the 42nd street as, uh, and I also, well, I read other things related to that story

06:10and, and, and, and the story of Jack Smith as, uh, as an artist in, in that, in that period

06:16that was very, uh, mostly, but was very influential to theater, the ridiculous and, and, and Charles

06:22Lattlam.

06:23So I was fascinated by that, by the aura of that period.

06:27So that's, that's why the movie tries to, um, I don't know, tries to search that, that

06:36goes, uh, perhaps by, by the sound, by sound, the sound design and also by the reconstruction

06:44of these nights, uh, of, of the theater.

07:06Interview with David Johansson, September 29th, 2002.

07:13What's the script like?

07:14I don't see good, but this is nice that you got this thing like.

07:20I like the fact that you said the reconstruction of the nights, because it was all about, yeah,

07:24at one point, I think that, uh, Leandro says, you know, it's like a midnight mass after the

07:29films ended.

07:30Yes.

07:30The theater began, but I thought that was really great.

07:33But then you did, you did something very interesting is that you, you listed the tenants of the

07:39theater of the ridiculous, which was, I think, mechanical, sentimental, social, um, supreme

07:45and moral.

07:47Uh, and that really, for me defined that sort of idea because it was a Renaissance thinking,

07:54but thinking outside the box in a different world.

07:57Okay.

07:57I was trying to reconstruct or perhaps to, I don't know if it's fully reconstructed,

08:03but because you can't reconstruct the whole thing, but I was trying to, um, to give form

08:10to an, uh, to an idea of how Charles Ladlam thought theater, uh, as far as I know.

08:17I mean, I'm not, uh, I'm not, uh, I'm not a specialist of in his, in his theater, but I, but I try to,

08:24um, take some pieces that were, that, that were related to, to his thinking, for example, the

08:31diaries and, and the, and the money manifest, the manifesto.

08:36And also, uh, uh, these annotations he had, uh, related to puppetry or related to Artaud

08:44or related to Alfred Jarry, um, or Circus, I began to notice that he said, he had a lot of,

08:51uh, um, how do you call when he had a lot of influences, he had a lot of influences when he was

09:00trying to think theater, this idea of the chance.

09:03So I thought that it was not about only about, uh, sexual politic behind all this theater, but it

09:12was also a political imagination and a way of thinking and designing life and art together.

09:20Uh, they were, they were avant-garde.

09:22So that's why everything is combined in that, in, in that idea of, of the theater.

09:28So that was what I, what I was trying to, I don't know, to, to, to capture, but well,

09:35it's difficult to say that to capture because it's, it's, it's, I'm uncapturable.

09:40I mean, the first person from my group had days, 1980.

09:47Everybody's gone.

09:48The question from me is, I think, the theater of the Riddiculation of the theater is a kind of

09:57space in the area, the crater, which, to which I see in a moment, and, of which, eventually,

10:04I know that I can leave.

10:09leader.

Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Interview: MUSEUM OF THE NIGHT [DOC NYC 2025 - New York, New York - Virtual] - Part I

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