FAME DIFFERENCE: SIX FILMS FROM THE ORGONE ARCHIVE

by Richard Engel

The night of January 25, 2025, a new federal administration in Washington had been in office for five days, and the Orgone Cinema had their first show in five years. At the Glitterbox queer theater, it was a packed house. 

Now relocated from Melwood Street (former home of the now-defunct Pittsburgh Filmmakers) to Homestead (where the Eberle ceramics studio regularly hosts similar Pittsburgh Sound + Image screenings), the venue quickly warmed as it filled. PS+I’s Steven Haines worked the door before introducing the show and running the multiple 16mm projectors standing sentinel at the rear. 

We’d had weeks of freezing weather. We’d been dissociated since the election of November 5th. Now the maelstrom was here and, with breathtaking immediacy, a massive chunk of Pittsburgh’s manna stopped falling from heaven as the National Institutes of Health stopped in its tracks. Should the show go on? Will the dance nights get sweatier and more packed, or will the DJ be hung? 

Used to be you would go to Garfield Artworks for a screening like this, with an unannounced program of vintage shorts, and find a handful of viewers. It was heartening to see some of these same, deeply knowledgeable folks still, and hear from Kaboly and Frisbee during the Q&A as usual. But Orgone, by joining forces with PS+I, got the benefit of Hannah Kinney-Kobre’s marketing and the crowd was filled with dozens of newcomers — some from Reddit, some a year or two out of Brooklyn, some just 20 days after a cross-country move from San Diego.

Orgone’s Greg Pierce swept into the space with film prints in hand and 100 swag bags for the audience. Each was different: mine had a booklet of radio rules for train company employees, a sewing kit from Seagram’s, a small original wedding photo from 1981, a Central Catholic report card where comments might indicate whether “home preparations are thoroughly made,” an envelope of three film negatives from Fort Necessity, a blank LTV Steel crack-and-peel label for waste drums, a 1975 flyer calling for a taxpayer strike, and the night’s program. Like the paper ephemera, the Orgone Archive is thoroughly various and vintage, comprising thousands of 16mm and 8mm prints, collected over years.

After the show, Pierce let us know the first five films were a program he’d created over ten years ago and never got a chance to screen. A sixth film was added as tonight’s show got planned, he said, then referred to his recent retirement as director of film and video at the Warhol.

First up was “Conformity and Independence” (Stanley Milgram and Harry From, 1975), an educational film showing several behavioral experiments on how and when adults are more or less conformist in groups. Why beat around the bush with the night’s theme?

This was followed by “Screentest” (Frank and Caroline Mouris, 1975), a thrilling, queer, tour-de-force docu rife with stop motion, gender bending, fierce fashion, and densely layered audio commentary from the gifted NYC nonconformists that were portraited: Herman Costa, Noel Levert, Adolph Garza, Albert Elia, Stephen Cervantes, Ronald Koladzie, Phillip Haight, Pedro Barrios and Richard Hartenstein.

In “I Remember Barbra” (Kevin Burns, 1980) we heard from Flatbush residents telling tales of the great singer Streisand. My own father attended the same high school, Erasmus Hall, where we’re introduced to the principal (who incidentally never overlapped with the legend). These neighbors are proud of Barbra, and any small connection they may or may not have had becomes something to parasocially proclaim. 

The centerpiece of the night was “Beauty Knows No Pain” (Elliott Erwitt, 1971) a docu on an intense two-week tryout for a Texas college’s majorette squad. A horde of young women submit to the ordeal of training and testing, learning the steps and following the demands of Gussie Nell Davis, who first brought show business to the gridiron. It had something of an inspirational tough-but-fair vibe but seemed like a distant time and place, in black and white, with secretarial schools and pantyhose. This distance, and space it left to pity the poor acolytes, though, was about to be erased.

The finale of the original five-film program, “… no lies” (Mitchell Block, 1973) is in the Library of Congress’s National Registry. The student-made short’s off-screen interviewer is supposedly testing his new camera and featuring his girlfriend, who starts out primping and explaining the plans for the night. The format inspires her to divulge her recent rape, and her mistreatment by the cops to whom she reported it. Her boyfriend basically repeats the cops’ mistreatment, betraying her even more intimately, while balefully subjecting her to the camera gaze. In the end, she needs him to walk her to the party to feel safe. The lone actress does incredible work, and it was excruciating and angering to watch. Seeing, in the credits, that it was scripted (and thus a mock-docu) was some relief but the tears in both the film and the audience were real.

After shattering us, Pierce provided a soft landing with “Modeling the Universe” (Jaime Snyder, 1976) a lyrical presentation of natural images like bubbles in surf with extended clips of Buckminster Fuller speaking about geometric principles and stability. “I do not seek to imitate nature,” Fuller said, “I seek to find the principles she’s using.” 

For an Orgone show, this group of films was easy to apprehend and appreciate. With a full crowd, a pair of beers, and a good handful of laughs in the first few films, I felt a warm relief from the heavy chilly dread I’d experienced all week. 

Reviewing the screening in fascism’s first American week, we are clearly reminded by art to watch out that we don’t conform. While it’s hard to conclude that the short-term future here won’t hold physical, emotional, and intellectual brutality, striking first at queerdos and women, immediately papered over with lies, and working to degrade the individual, we are asked plainly by artists to be aware and pick a side. For now there are still places we can gather to understand and rediscover beautiful, thoughtful expressions of the truth. Hope to see you and chat with you there.

Richard Engel was the marketing director for Pittsburgh Filmmakers from 2003-2010. He resides in Troy Hill,.