The current postmodern fascination of film and video artists with classical cinema is culminating in an absorbing body of work by a growing group of artists. Several months ago, I talked about an intriguing exhibit Double Cross - the Hollywood Films of Douglas Gordon. Gordon's deconstruction of some of the most iconographic films of the 21st century was one of the finest shows I saw all year. (It included the conceptually astonishing 24 Hour Psycho).

Now the National Art Gallery is showing Canadian Mark Lewis' Films 1995-2000. Like Gordon, Lewis deconstructs cinematic images, bringing them to the gallery as either video, projection or widescreen film.

Lewis' approach is to leap inside of the movies, bringing new meanings to elements audiences take for granted. For example, Lewis crafts a small film by using only the opening scenes, the credits and the end. In Two Impossible Film, Lewis' first work within this genre, he "suggests films that were never made simply through the use of credits." What about the lowest man on the totem pole? In The Pitch Lewis "focuses on the role of the extra, often not even listed in the credits."

Peeping Tom sounds especially promising. Remember Michael Powell's seminal 1959 British psycho thriller? A serial killer filmmaker lures innocent women up to his flat, claiming he wants to film them. He looks at them through the lens of his camera (the mediating power of technology and the essential voyeurism of the cinematic gaze) and immediately murders them.

While Douglas used Psycho, Lewis went to London and shot all the scenes that Peeping Tom's main character would have seen. He simulated the same locations and re-staged all the scenes of the controversial 1959 classic. The point was to get under the skin of the filmmaker. The purpose was to match "as precisely as possible" the look and feel of the original film.

While some of us might scream "Ewww! Talk about shades of Gus Van Sant's loser remake of Psycho!" I think this show sounds extremely promising. The deconstruction of cinema is an extraordinarily fertile ground for understanding the minds of Western civilization. If we can pull apart the iconography of the movies, we can hope to get a better feel for humanity during the past century. After all, like it or not, the movies were the most significant art form of the last 100 years.

Temptation in Calgary Vaclav Havel's play Temptation is closing at the Reeve this coming Saturday night. While most of us know Havel as the leader of the Czech Republic, the politician is actually considered one of Eastern Europe's finest contemporary playwrights. Temptation was penned two years after Havel was sprung from jail. During his time in the clink, the playwright was overcome with paranoia caused by his surroundings and the two books he was allowed to read, Goethe's Faust and Doctor Faustus. This anxiety was the creative genesis for Temptation, a play which "centres on a man who strikes a deal with a sinister entity to gain incredible knowledge and power." Temptation was written in only 10 days and banned in Czechoslovakia until Havel became president in 1989.

Temptation
Until Dec.9th
Reeve Theatre
University of Calgary
(403)220-5421

Banner Art: Public artists from the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley should get to work. The Public Art Street Banner Design Competition is making a call for design submissions for 40 banners "that will be displayed in pairs on street lamps adjacent to the Punjabi Bazaar on Scott Road between 92nd and 96th Avenues in Surrey/Delta." The winning designer pockets a cool grand. For full information, contact Pamela McKeown, Surrey Arts Centre, 137580 - 88th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V3W 3L1. Tel. 604-501-5190. Deadline for entries is 4:00 pm, Thursday, December 14, 2000.