Film Society of Lincoln Center Continues Sound Movie Documentary Series

The Film Society of LINCOLN Center announced today the January selections for SOUND+ VISION, a music documentary series with two special screenings on Saturday, January 24: Will Cowan's rousing The Big Beat, which includes The Diamonds and Fats Domino mingling with Harry James and The Mills Brothers in this 1958 exuberant jukebox time capsule, followed by Joe Lauro's new documentary The Big Beat: Fats Domino and the Birth of Rock 'n' Roll, which spotlights dynamic, uncut performances and interviews with two of pop music's hugest icons, Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew. A Q&A will follow with Joe Lauro.

The series also continues with a monthly live music concert series STARING AT SOUND celebrating local musicians in January and February with two eclectic performances offering music lovers an aural and visual feast. On January 23, Brooklyn-based electronic musician Dan Friel (formerly of melodic noise rock band Parts & Labor) will take the stage using junkyard electronics to play atom-smashing cyborg party anthems, joined by video synth builder Todd Bailey. On February 19, another Brooklyn-based band The Epoch will take over the amphitheater. This young music collective will curate a dazzlingly varied evening, which will include a video component and stirring performances by members of multiple bands such as Eskimeaux, Bellows, Told Slant, Small Wonder, Sharpless, and more.

Tickets are on sale now for Staring at Sound: Dan Friel (Jan 23) and The Big Beat screenings (Jan 24). Tickets for Staring at Sound: The Epoch (Feb 19) will go on sale Thursday, January 22. For more information, visit filmlinc.com.

The Big Beat
Will Cowan, 1958, 35mm, 81m
Catching the youth music Zeitgeist following Frank Tashlin's groundbreaking The Girl Can't Help It, Will Cowan's The Big Beat doubles down on pop-star appearances, with The Diamonds and The Del Vikings appealing to the teen market, and Harry James and The Mills Brothers lending their more established talents to the mix. Best of all is Fats Domino, performing the title track and his immortal "I'm Walkin'." The film's plot concerns the son of a record-company executive (William Reynolds) starting his own label to promote rock 'n' roll with the help of his devoted secretary (Andra Martin). Featuring additional music by Henry Mancini and memorable turns by Rose Marie (The Dick Van Dyke Show) and Hans Conried (the voice behind Snidely WHIPLASH and Disney's Captain Hook), this exuberant jukebox time capsule more than lives up to its name.
Saturday, January 24, 1:00pm

The Big Beat: Fats Domino and the Birth of Rock 'n' Roll
Joe Lauro, USA, 2014, digital projection, 90m
From New Orleans to Blueberry Hill, the teaming of Antoine "Fats" Domino Jr. and Dave Bartholomew is a legendary partnership that changed the course of mid-century music. Meeting at a Ninth Ward dive called The Hideaway, the two became songwriting partners, and under the banner of Imperial Records (where Bartholomew served as producer, arranger, and bandleader), they sold over 60 million records between 1949-62-a time when segregation dominated the airwaves. Director/archivist Joe Lauro, who's helmed documentaries about The Supremes and The Four Tops, uses footage unearthed in the French National Archives of a 45-minute live performance as the basis for The Big Beat, a portrait of a collaboration that charts the influence of New Orleans R&B upon the nascent genre of rock and roll, and features candid interviews with its still-vibrant subjects. Spotlighting dynamic, uncut performances (including Bartholomew on trumpet), the film is a joyful celebration of two icons who helped pop music find its thrill.
Saturday, January 24, 3:00pm (Q&A with Joe Lauro)

Dan Friel
With a tiny keyboard and a lap full of electronics and Christmas lights, Dan Friel makes some of the heaviest, most psychedelic junkyard pop music ever performed while seated. A former member of the legendary Parts & Labor, Friel has been performing solo since the band dissolved in 2012. His music is full of triumphant melodies, low, snarling bass frequencies, and delay pedal effects that sound like rainbow ice cream melting.

Friel will be joined by Todd Bailey, an artist who builds his own video synthesizers from scratch. Bailey's work can be seen at his website:http://blog.narrat1ve.com.

A previous collaboration between the two, a video for Dan Friel's song "Thumper," can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/59603894.
Friday, January 23, 8:00pm

The Epoch
The Epoch is a collective of young musicians and visual artists who make a wide variety of excellent work and all play in one another's bands. In fact, they can be found in some configuration performing in Brooklyn nearly every night of the week! Yet despite their deep involvement together, each project maintains a strongly distinctive identity. Taken individually, the collective's constituent groups are very good-but taken as an amorphous whole, they are truly remarkable. The collective features (but is not limited to) bands such as Eskimeaux, Bellows, Told Slant, Small Wonder, and Sharpless. The Film Society is proud to welcome the entire collective, who will perform live and present visual works in various forms.

An oral history of the group, published by Impose, can be found here:
http://www.imposemagazine.com/features/the-epoch.
Thursday, February 19, 8:00pm

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of LINCOLN Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year's most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, NewFest, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the Film Society recognizes an artist's unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award, whose 2015 recipient is Robert Redford. The Film Society's state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at LINCOLN Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, Jaeger-LeCoultre, American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO, Stella Artois, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com, follow @filmlinc on Twitter, and download the FREE Film Society app, now available for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices.

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