Deborah Stratman
The Illinois Parables (2016)
HD video, color, sound, 60 minutes
Daytime Screenings
9 until 31 July 2016
Screening at 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, and 5pm
Evening Screening
22 July 2016, 7 – 9pm
(film begins at 7:30pm, with an introduction by Kunstverein München film curator Vincent Stroep)
It’s a compound view into the ways faith, force, technology, and government action marks the land, and the ways in which the physical landscape, in turn, shapes those who’ve called it home, and those who do still.
Chicago-based filmmaker Deborah Stratman structured her one-hour film essay The Illinois Parables (2016) in 11 episodes. The U.S. government's ‘resettlement’ of the Cherokee Native Americans, the arrival and exodus of the Mormons of Nauvoo, the deadly 1925 tri-state tornado, the invention of the nuclear reactor, a series of mysterious fires, the killing of Black Panther activist Fred Hampton — Stratman mined the history of Illinois, and traveled to the charged locations where they occurred.
Stratman layered vivid 16 mm observational shots with related diagrams and texts, eye-witness testimonies, found archival footage, staged reenactments, and exacting sound design. Through her confluence of this seemingly disparate material, she traverses fourteen centuries of settlement and expulsion, displacement and resistance, natural and unnatural disasters, the achievements and consequences of technological innovation, and violence by the state towards the people of Illinois. Entities come into contact with greater forces. Specific, earthly, stories come to yield sublime meanings.
Like most other states in the U.S., Illinois is haunted by triumphs and tragedies. And if it is indeed ‘America’s Most Average State’, then the fragmented, subjective, and highly-localized vignettes Stratman uses to rigorously scrutinize this metonymical microcosm of the U.S. extend beyond the boundaries of any single territory.
CREDITS:
I Cahokia, IL 600-1400 CE
II Alton, IL 1673
III Golconda, IL- Jonesboro, IL 1838-1839
IV Nauvoo, IL 1839-1848
V Icaria/Nauvoo, IL 1849-1860
VI Gorham, IL - Crossville, IL 1925
VII Chicago, IL 1942
VIII Joliet, IL 1940-1976
IX Macomb, IL 1948
X Chicago, IL 1969
XI Buffalo Rock, IL 1985
FEATURING
Ravenwolf – C. Felton Jennings II
Father Jacques Marquette – José Oubrerie
Alexis de Tocqueville – Daniel Verdier
Ralph Waldo Emerson – David Gatten
Jonathan Browning – Elder Everest
Betsy Browning – Sister Everest
Tornado Eyewitnesses – Pauline Gardner, Bob Hill, Mary Holder, Minnie Rieckenberg, Dolly Schwebel, Raymond Schwebel, Mark Wells, Josie Taylor Wells
Enrico Fermi – Joshua Frieman
Wanet McNeill – Anna Toborg
Mrs. Charles Willey – Erin Debenport
Hanrahan’s Raiders – Chris Bournea, Riley Cruttenden, Joshua Finnell, Paul Hill, Peter Morgan, Blake Turner, Adrian Waggoner
MUSIC
Barry Adamson, Central Control
JS Bach, Fantasia in G Minor
Olivia Block, Untitled
Jeanne Demessieux, Étude N.6: Octaves
Gurdjieff & DeHartmann, Seekers of the Truth: Part 13
Hauschka, Kein Wort
György Kurtág, Játékok: Kis Korál
Okayung Lee, On a Windy Day, Sky, The Crow Flew After Yi Sang
Les Porte-Mentaux, Ah Ça Ira
Lunenberg Travelers, Sweet Hour of Prayer
Arvo Pärt, Für Alina, Summa
Alfred Schnittke, Zwei Kleine Stücke Für Orgel
CITATIONS
Crossing the Mississippi on the Ice – CCA Christensen
Exterior of Carthage Jail – CCA Christensen
Burning of the Temple – CCA Christensen
The Day Tomorrow Began – Argonne National Laboratory
The Murder of Fred Hampton – The Film Group
Effigy Tumuli – Michael Heizer
INTERTITLES
Edgar Jorge
SOUND RECORDISTS
Steve Badgett, Melinda Fries, Edgar Jorge, Jennifer Lange, Chris Salveter, Deborah Stratman
SOUND MIX
Jacob Ross
CAMERA / EDIT / SOUNDESIGN
Deborah Stratman
SUPPORT FROM
Creative Capital Foundation
Film/Video Studio Program, Wexner Center for the Arts
UIC School of Art & Art History
WITH THANKS
Steve Badgett, Dan Bell, Kate Brown, Buffalo Rock State Park, BYU Museum of Art, James Corsolini, Paul Dickinsen, Dave Dickas, David Dinnell, Darren & Kathi Ehlers, Erin Espelie, Mike Gibisser, Allen Glass II, Paul Hill, Chris Hughes, Illinois State Museum, Jackson County Historical Society, Edgar Jorge, Zak Kelley, Jennifer Lange, Alison Latendresse, Lisa Lee, Jesse Mclean, Curt Miller, Mike Olenick, Peoples Law Office, Dawn Pheysey, David Shea, Chris Stults, Bonnie Styles, Brad Thompson, Mark Toscano, Daniel Tucker, Andy Ulbrich, University of Chicago, Patrick Weber, Trevor Weight, Anne Wells, Suzanne Zollinger
FOR TERRY & JUDY
PYTHAGORASFILM © 2016
1-18
Deborah Stratman, The Illinois Parables, 2016, film still, Courtesy of the artist and Pythagoras Film.