Still from Kevin Jerome Everson’s CINNAMON
This Saturday, we’re hosting the next installment of the AutoBody Film Program at the Crowley Theater in Marfa. This time, we’re showing three short films — Matthew Barney’s Hoist, Claude Lelouch’s C’était un Rendezvous, and Kevin Jerome Everson‘s The Prichard — followed by Everson’s feature Cinnamon. The grouping of films continues to probe an extended metaphor built around a pun on autoeroticism.
I’m especially excited to see the films by Everson, who recently had a solo show at the Whitney, “More Than That: Films by Kevin Jerome Everson” (which got a great review in the Times). Cinnamon (2006) is set in the world of African-American drag racing, an experimental film about the consistent routine of a young bank teller (Erin) and a mechanic (John) as they prepare for a race.
Here’s Everson discussing Cinnamon and his work in “Notes from the Avant Gutter: Kevin Jerome Everson on Art, Work, the Beauty of Everyday Routine and Getting it DONE” from 2006:
Over the past ten years I have completed two feature films (Spicebush, 2005 and Cinnamon, Sundance 2006) and over twenty-five short 16mm, 35mm and digital films about the working class culture of Black Americans and other people of African descent. My films focus on conditions, tasks, gestures, and materials in these communities. The films focus on the relentlessness of every day life, as well as its beauty — and have a naturalistic, almost documentary-like texture.
Discuss some of your choices with respect to the characters in Cinnamon.
One of the main reasons why I decided to make a film that included a racecar driver and a bank employee is because the people engaged in these careersare often asked if the worst case scenario has ever happened: “Has the bank ever been robbed?” Or “Have you ever crashed?” The other reason is that my mother is a retired bank teller and my father is a retired mechanic. My father drove and repaired stock cars in the 1960s. I have always portrayed individual’s careers or crafts as if they were engaged in an artistic endeavor. I respond to people of African descent who are experts in their respective fields. This allows me to find formal as well as social meaning in the task. These crafts
or careers sometimes arrive from what I am personally invested in; the characters of the bank teller, mechanic and racecar driver are homage to my
parents.
I love this part: “My films focus on conditions, tasks, gestures, and materials in these communities. The films focus on the relentlessness of every day life, as well as its beauty.” Read more of the interview here (be sure to scroll down).
