The Cinematheque has achieved the seemingly impossible with Traces That Resemble Us, inviting 12 of Vancouver’s most prominent artists—Rodney Graham, Jeff Wall, and Myfanwy MacLeod among them—to curate a series of films running until December 17 with an attendant exhibition at the Monte Clark Gallery (from November 21 to January 30).

Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt kicked off the movie portion last Thursday (November 12), courtesy of Ian Wallace, who shares a seat with Graham and Wall on the film society’s artistic advisory board.

The Cinematheque’s Shaun Inouye, who's largely responsible for Traces, reminded the Straight that Wall was also a programmer for the rep theatre in its earliest days.  

“This is coming after the failed feature film The Summer Script that Wall was making with Ian Wallace and Rodney Graham in 1973, which seemed significant,” said Inouye. “Early on, I chatted with Roy Arden about the Cinematheque in the '70s and '80s, and he reiterated what an artistic hub it used to be, with many of the participating artists—Greg Girard, Rodney Graham, Ian Wallace, Jeff Wall—getting their cinema ‘educations’ here.”

Arden, it turns out, was also a projectionist at the Vancouver East Cinema in the early '90s. Another renowned artist, Brian Jungen, volunteered at the Cinemetheque two decades ago while he trained at Emily Carr. “It’s gone largely unsung, in my opinion, this relationship between visual arts in Vancouver and cinema,” added Inouye.

“I never thought the Cinematheque would be able to get all these artists together in one room, let alone agree to exhibit together,” says artist Karin Bubaš, in a call to the Straight. “It really is an incredible feat! I think fundamentally everyone agrees how much film has influenced their practice and how important venues like the Cinematheque are.”

Bubaš has chosen Charles Laughton’s dark masterpiece The Night of the Hunter for a screening on November 26, preceded by an introduction from Monte Clark, who also happens to represent the photographer in Vancouver.

“I think he may discuss the way I explore nature in my work,” she says. “I don't know how influential [Hunter] has been to my practice but it's an amazing film. There are other films that I could have chosen that are a more obvious influence on my photographs, like Hitchcock's Vertigo, or Antonioni's Red Desert, but I wanted to bring attention to a great film that maybe people aren't as aware of. Night of the Hunter does have a dreamlike quality and an artificiality with respect to nature that one could compare to my work.”

Bubaš has also created a gorgeous, limited edition print reflecting the “child’s nightmare come to life” that she sees in Laughton’s haunting classic. Featuring her own son, “Little Lad” conjures a phantasmagoric, moonlit scene that looks as if it was struck from an alternate-universe version of the film. (She reveals that it was actually shot at Jericho Beach. “The process of constructing the photograph plays homage to the constructed sets in the film.”)

Traces That Resemble Us continues with screenings every Thursday until December 17.

Speedy
Chosen by Roy Arden, this 1928 film pits man—or Harold Lloyd, to be precise—against machine. Introduced by Aaron Peck. (November 19)

Playtime
Also virtually silent, Jacques Tati’s 1967 masterpiece similarly puts his pipe-smoking everyman through the grinder of modernity. Curated and introduced by Vikky Alexander. (November 19)

The Night of the Hunter
Love and hate collide in the singular person of Robert Mitchum, a murderous preacher who menaces his two step-children in Charles Laughton’s sole, unforgettable work as director. (November 26)

Film by Samuel Beckett
Stan Douglas introduces and pairs his own 2007 work, "Vidéo", with Beckett’s one foray into cinema, a suitably strange enterprise from 1965 featuring Buster Keaton. (November 26)

Straight Time
Jeff Wall gives us a chance to see this hardboiled Dustin Hoffman film from 1978, written (as was another of Wall’s favourites, Runaway Train), by Mr. Blue himself, Eddie Bunker. (December 3)

The Yakuza
Robert Mitchum turns up again, this time as the proto-Paul Schrader anti-hero (it was his first produced screenplay) searching for a kidnapped woman in Tokyo. Chosen by Greg Girard, also on hand to introduce Sydney Pollack’s 1974 film. (December 3)

Star 80
Bob Fosse’s locally shot 1983 feature is of special note to Vancouverites—as well as programmer Myfanwy MacLeod—in that it tells the tragic story of Dorothy Stratten, who went from an after-school job at a Hastings Street Dairy Queen to 1980’s Playmate of the Year. Stratten was murdered by her ex-husband the same year. (December 10)

Gummo
Owen Kydd brings Harmony Korine’s still-remarkable debut back to the big screen for a night of tornado-stricken, bathtub spaghetti-eating weirdness. With an introduction by Nigel Prince. (December 10)

Pickpocket
Robert Arndt will introduce this screening of Robert Bresson’s 1959 film, arguably the best introduction to the filmmaker’s hypnogogic (or “transcendental", in Paul Schrader’s words) approach to anti-cinema. (December 17)

Dillinger Is Dead
Rodney Graham is responsible for the most outré film in the series, programming Marco Ferreri’s little seen 1969 feature about a bored man (Michel Piccoli), his sleeping wife (Anita Pallenberg), and a polka-dotted gun. Introduced by Helga Pakasaar. (December 17)