Over a distinguished 25-year career, Ralph Arlyck has produced more than a dozen prize-winning, independent films. Writer and critic Philip Lopate, in In Search of the Centaur: The Essay Film, says "To my knowledge, Ralph Arlyck is, besides Chris Marker, the one consistent essay filmmaker."
He began his filmmaking career in San Francisco, attending San Francisco State College, and documenting the Haight Ashbury in his widely acclaimed first film, Sean,. He joined Canyon Cinema in 1971. His films have been screened and have won top prizes at festivals around the world, including Sundance, London, New York Film Festival, Ann Arbor and Prix Italia.
Among the numerous grants and prizes Arlyck has received are a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. He has played an important advocacy role for American independent producers, testifying twice in Congress and once before the Carnegie Commission on the role of independents in public television. He was centrally involved in legislation which first recognized independents as a important force within that system.
Arlyck writes on production issues for several media journals. He is a member of the Board of Input, an original member of the AIVF, and a long-standing member of New Day Films. He has taught film production at Vassar College, SUNY Buffalo and SUNY Purchase. He is an entertaining speaker who lectures frequently at universities and media centers.
Arlyck's reflective style, and his sensitivity to the foibles and biases of American culture, grow out of a background in journalism and his experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. He is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and has filmed and traveled widely in the Third World. He has visited the former Soviet Union twice, once as a part of the delegation of leading American independent producers, and once as a guest of the St. Petersburg Film Festival. He speaks fluent French and working Spanish.
A hilarious, incisive look at America's obsession with success.
"AN ACQUIRED TASTE is only 26 minutes long, but it is a feature-length delight .... This is a loving, funny movie." - Vincent Canby, The New York Times
A filmmaker turns 40 and casts a wry look back at the school, work, and media influences which have shaped his life through four decades. A peek just behind the smile of self-congratulation.
Awards: First Prize, Ann Arbor Film Festival; First Prize (category), Silver Award (entire festival), SF Int'l Film Festival; Best Live Action Short, Seattle; Best Short Documentary, Santa Fe; NY Film Festival.
Exhibition: Filmex; PBS; Prix Italia; Edinburgh Film Festival; Toronto Film Festival; Popoli Film Festival; Sidney Film Festival; NY Filmmakers' Exposition; Robert Flaherty Film Seminar.
1981, 16mm, color/so, 26m, $90
VHS Sale: $50 Home; $99 Other
Army recruiting as practiced by a sergeant in a small upstate New York town - how he uses tanks, guns, helicopters, slick national ads, his own charm, and his "centers of influence" (local contacts) to fill his monthly quota.
"... a low keyed, sympathetic, but devastatingly honest observation of human foibles. ... This is not an anti-war film. Nor even an anti-Army film. ... [A] touching and amusing portrayal of the human animal." - Edgar Daniels, Filmmakers Newsletter
"A highly polished documentary ... incisively edited." - Owen Shapiro, Independent Filmmakers Exposition
"Film journalism at its finest." - Michigan Daily
Awards: Ann Arbor Film Festival; Georgia Film Festival; Independent Filmmakers Exposition; Marin Film Festival.
Exhibition: PBS; German National TV.
16mm, color/so, 29m, $90
Unspeakable things occur daily in the world, but for most of us, they are like electronic interference on the screens of our personal lives. This lyrical, reflective film diary looks at a citizenry overwhelmed and benumbed by a ceaseless stream of media images, asking how a decent person can take the step from concern to action - how to be a "mensch" in the 20th century.
"A deeply personal, funny and moving work .... How the treatment of such a huge and hopeless problem can alternate between humor and memorable deep thoughts is a tribute to Arlyck's genius." - The Post Newspapers, SF
Awards: Best Documentary, Atlanta Film and Video Festival; Best of Show, Three Rivers Film Festival.
Exhibition: NY Film Festival; Sundance Film Festival.
16mm, color/so, 55m, $135
VHS Sale: $50 Home; $99 Other
A deadly confrontation between the Pompidou Center and the enigmatic-smile lady down the street.
Ralph Arlyck visits France's zany, "democratic" cultural complex on the plateau Beaubourg ("Godzilla"), and later the Louvre, in an attempt to find out something about how we feel in museums. Heated exchanges involving French intellectuals, critics, David Hockney, Pierre Boulez, American and British tourists and a Paris cop - a rekindling of the debate of "high" art and popular culture.
Awards: Grand Prize, Big Muddy Film Festival; First Prize, Documentary, Humboldt Film Festival; Silver Award, Arts, Houston Int'l Film Festival; Ann Arbor Film Festival; Sinking Creek Film & Video Festival; Seattle Film Festival.
16mm, color/so, 56m, $135
VHS Sale: $50 Home; $99 Other
"HYDE PARK is a first-rate examination of politics and land use in suburban America ...." - Stewart Udall
The Hudson River town of Hyde Park is primarily known as the home of the Roosevelts, Vanderbilts and other landed gentry at the turn of the century. But the community is no longer the "sleepy little village" of that genteel era. It is now the location of familiar American strip zoning - a collection of garish signs and facades from gas stations, motels, fast-food outlets, etc. The film looks at the struggles between outraged environmentalists, advocates of unfettered development and flamboyant politicians as they fight the same battles being waged in suburban areas throughout America.
Award: First Prize, Film Festival of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1978
Exhibition: PBS
16mm, color/so, 42m, $135
"In NATURAL HABITAT, Ralph Arlyck, through devastatingly well-selected images - an airline hostess explaining the safety features of her plane, a girl selling Teflon pans in a department store, post office employees adapting to the pace and rhythm of their machines - offers an uncomfortably accurate view of the robot-like patterns of our daily job routines." - Arthur Knight, Saturday Review
Awards: First Prize, Marin Film Festival; First Prize, Kent State Film Festival; First Prize, Lewis & Clark Film Festival; First Prize, Georgia Film Festival; Second Prize, NSA; Second Prize, Kenyon Film Festival; Second Prize, Xavier; Second Prize, West Florida; Awards at Foothill College, Monterey, Sinking Creek, Bowling Green film festivals.
Exhibition: Edinburgh Film Festival; SF Int'l Film Festival; Rochester Film Festival; Whitney Museum of American Art; PBS; German National Television; Fifth Ave. Cinema, NY; Chicago.
16mm, b&w/so, 18m, $55
A look at the US Post Office the way few of its customers ever get to see it.
Over the din of hand trucks and sorting machines, the people who do the back-breaking and monotonous work behind the scenes talk about their jobs and their futures. This material is intercut with silent scenes from the lobby of any small-town American post office where the walls are filled with posters and announcements that project to customers an entirely different image of the post office and the country than the one experienced by postal employees.
Awards: Grand Prize, Henri Langlois Int'l Film Festival, Tours, France, 1978; Honorable Mention, Marin Film Festival, 1975.
Exhibition: 1975 Public Broadcast Seminar; Museum of Modern Art, NY.
16mm, color/so, 10m, $30