EVENING’S CIVIL TWILIGHT IN EMPIRES OF TIN

EVENING’S CIVIL TWILIGHT IN EMPIRES
OF TIN
US 2008
Director: Jem Cohen
Jem Cohen was commissioned to close the 2007 Vienna International Film Festival with a performance piece inspired by Joseph Roth’s 1932 novel “The Radetsky March.” Cohen’s film version of the live event, which he describes as a “documentary musical hallucination,” brings together film, text, and musical performance to create a unique meditation on a central question of our time: what are the effects of Empire? The result is an evocative reflection on the magnitude, edification, and decadence of empires that parallels the symbols and shapes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with the landscape of American capitalism in decline. The core of the film is a performance by the incomparable Vic Chesnutt, playing with members of Canada’s Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Guy Picciotto (from Fugazi and Rites of Spring), and T. Griffin with Catherine McRae. (100 mins.)
With community support from the World Affairs Council of Oregon.