Hippodrome Hardware (1973) by Red Grooms
Sunday, January 27, 1985, 8:00 pm
The Ruckus Films of Red Grooms
Films: Shoot The Moon (1962), made in collaboration with Rudy Burckhardt, 24 min.; Fat Feet (1966), 20 min.; Ruckus Shorts (1966), 4 ½ min.; Hippodrome Hardware (1973), 30 min.
Red Grooms has become widely known for his cartoon-like environmental sculptures, in some cases wildly ambitious re-creations of entire cities (Ruckus Manhattan, The City of Chicago). During the 1960s and early 1970s Grooms also helped produce a series of films which combined his comically expressionist sets and costumes with pixelated real-life animation. Filmmakers who worked on Grooms’ films included Rudy Burckhardt, Mimi Gross, Yvonne Anderson, Dominic Falcone, Peter Hutton, George Kuchar, the cast of his Ruckus Company, and others. Tonight’s program will include Grooms’ first film, Shoot The Moon, a moon-trip fantasy elaborately mounted in the style of Méliès, and Fat Feet, a city symphony complete with living comic strip characters and sounds.