‘Amerika’ Brings Reality Into Focus

Al Razutis’ monumental, 3-hour “Amerika” (1972-1983), which Filmforum is presenting tonight at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) at 7:30, may well be the most provocative and challenging experimental work to screen in Los Angeles this year.

Between the Biblical quotes that frame it: “Let us create man in our image . . .” and “Let us start anew . . . East of Eden,” Razutis alternately dazzles and numbs but winds up making us think critically about how the media has shaped our very notion of reality.

“Amerika,” which is permeated with an aura of death and destruction, comes on like the ultimate apocalypse film, with a gorgeous flow of images suggesting an infinity of nuclear explosions. Drawing upon stock-footage archives, the film evolves into a series of richly varied visual and aural experiences culminating in a contemplation of how we are manipulated by a systematic exploitation of our culture’s treasure-trove of visual archetypes, commonly experienced and stored in our memories. Near the end of the film, Razutis spells it out literally on the bottom of his screen: “The plot of this film is bank robbery . . . cultural bank robbery . . . image bank robbery.”

“Amerika” invites all kinds of interpretations in regard to fashionable aesthetic theories--and, indeed, presents its own series of confounding theories and propositions. But don’t worry about them, just let the film sweep you along and think about it afterwards.

Information: (213) 276-7452, (714) 923-2441.

“The Sea Wolf” (1913), the first feature-length film made in Los Angeles, apparently no longer exists, but the Silent Society will mark the 75th anniversary of its production with a screening of a later film of its star (and director), Hobart Bosworth. “Below the Surface” (1920) screens tonight at 7:30 at the Hollywood Studio Museum, 2100 N. Highland Ave. As in “The Sea Wolf,” Bosworth is again a stern man of the sea, and for good luck, he even wore the same costume he had worn in the Jack London film.

Today, Bosworth (1867-1943) is virtually forgotten, but at the turn of the century he had become a Broadway star who later turned to pictures when he temporarily lost his voice. Caught up in the new medium, he became a writer, producer and director as well as an actor in films. “Below the Surface,” which Irvin V. Willat directed and E. Magnus Ingleton adapted from a story by Luther Reed, is no masterpiece awaiting rediscovery but a typical program picture of the era. What is extraordinary about it is the fine camera work of Frank Blount and J. O. Taylor, and especially the art direction of the late Harry Oliver, one of the most talented (and colorful) of the Hollywood pioneers. Oliver’s underwater miniature work is outstanding, and he’s as adept and meticulous at re-creating a humble New Englander’s home as he is a glamorous big-city nightclub and a large passenger ship. (Oliver’s work as an architect survives in the whimsical Tam-O-Shanter restaurant on Los Feliz Boulevard.

Bosworth, who was in the vogue of middle-aged stars in the early silent era, plays a stalwart and dignified Maine deep sea diver. He and his son (Lloyd Hughes) become heroes when they rescue men trapped in a sunken submarine. They capture the attention of a Boston con man (George Webb) and his accomplice (Grace Darmond), who is to vamp Hughes into risking his life to retrieve sunken treasure from an old hulk.

“Below the Surface” is a fairly routine but serviceable--and not entirely predictable--silent melodrama, and it turns upon, most persuasively, the impervious naivete of Hughes.

Reservations: (213) 937-0776.