Dennis Hopper & the New Hollywood:
Dennis Hooper in front of Julian Schnabel’s plate painting
Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood is Melbourne’s ACMI (The Australian Centre for the Moving Image) current exhibition. Originally produced in 2008 by Cinémathèque Française, in conjunction with Hopper and his production company Easy Rider Productions, the exhibition not only encapsulates his career as auteur and artist but also broadly chronicles a time in cinematic history when the old Hollywood system was being invaded with a new cinematic freedom from formula, convention and censorship.
The exhibition is being held in gallery 1, a long and vast room in the bowels of ACMI, allowing for a grand entrance of sight and sound, somehow fitting for an individual of Dennis Hopper’s cultural stature. A digital slideshow of Hopper’s image and audio from a piece-to-camera/montage – put together by the curator of the original French exhibition, Matthieu Orléan – entitled ‘I Remember’ draw you down the huge staircase to what essentially is the introduction, except your attention is ripped away by the ticket office. The disorientation from the disruption of purchasing a ticket takes a while to regain a sense of harmony with the exhibition, but I’m this can be alleviated by spending some time with the aforementioned video before working your way through the exhibition.
A readymade artwork, Hotel Green (Entrance) (1963) points the way into the exhibition. Hopper apparently met Marcel Duchamp at the Hotel Green, stole the sign and got him to sign it thus collaborating on a Duchamp ready-made. It is completely understandable that this piece presides over the exhibition, not only due to the French origins of the exhibition and Duchamp; it also perfectly symbolizes the freedom and rebellion that is Dennis Hopper’s artistic career.
Navigation around the exhibition is through five thematic sections which guide you through Hopper’s creative life as well as a point of reference for his personally collected artworks. On the Fringes of Hollywood immerses you in his early Hollywood career with the suggestion that while he worked within the Classical Hollywood System he was an outsider. And that he definitely was, after his need for countless takes while shooting Henry Hathaway’s From Hell to Texas in 1958, the director told him that he would never work in Hollywood again and was effectively blacklisted from any major Hollywood role for almost a decade, a film which incidentally is absent from the exhibition. Also in this section are photographic portraits of Hopper, at work and play. Notable favourites are Annie Leibovits’ 1995 picture of Hopper with Christopher Walken at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood and a photo taken at Hoppers house in 1965 by William Claxon. The later, a spontaneous snapshot captures my attention as it holds a lack of realism due to having only ever known Dennis Hopper through image. I feel the need to strip away his icon status and gain a sense of reality about the man.
The New Myths of Hollywood turns the view to world through Hopper’s eyes showcasing his own photographs and iconic art from the 1960’s. While the audience’s attention is easily drawn to a sizable collage of his early Hollywood career, I am drawn to the small screen opposite. Here I find the only direct glimpse into Hopper’s personality as I watch him fool around with his friends in the Andy Warhol film entitled Tarzan and Jane Regained… Sort of (1963). Oddly placed in this section, definitely not within the context of this section, is a small screen showing a sample of recent television and advertising work from his resume. Most amusing is the 1990’s UK commercial for Ford Cougar, where Hopper drives a Cougar down a US highway alongside Billy (himself) from Easy Rider, to Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild (from the film’s soundtrack). Apparently he finds nothing wrong with selling a little of your creative soul to the advertising devil!
Still from 1990 Ford Cougar Advertisement
Leaving Hollywood focuses on Hopper’s second directing effort, Easy Rider (1969), the time following when he left Los Angeles, lived in Taos, New Mexico, for fifteen years and the work that he did during that time. All sorts of Easy Rider paraphernalia is on display with the most fascinating (for me) being the script advisor’s original shooting script. I was torn between the excitement for the history that it holds, having worked on films myself, and the fact that it looked like it could have been anybody’s script. Not a mark on it to suggest that it was even used by anyone during the shoot, except that the paper did look suitably aged. It looked like it could have been a copy I picked from Cinestore in Sydney when I was a film student a fair time ago, still it was pretty cool.
Los Angeles, the Real Face of Hollywood centers on Hopper’s returned interest in Los Angeles, within his art and filmmaking. Polaroid photos and his fifth directorial Colors (1988) express his interest in street culture, while his return to abstract expressionist art reflects his curiosity with street culture’s key art form, graffiti. In accompaniment to the film is a media deconstruction by New York digital media artist Cory Arcangel. Known mostly for his reprogrammed Nintendo game cartridge videos, Arcangel has written a computer program based on slit-scan imaging. By separating the colours, scanning one row of pixels at a time and then stretching it down the screen, the resulting video is a mesmerizing cascade of colour with an approximate duration of 33 days.
A still from Cory Arcangel’s Colors, (2005)
And the last thematic section, Exploding Hollywood, explores post New Hollywood and his disillusion with the rise of the Blockbuster and the studios regaining control. In this final section we see how Hopper’s disenchantment in the film industry and his own history if self destructive drug abuse manifests itself creatively by blowing himself up at a speedway in Texas titled Life After On Canvas (1983). But amongst Lichtenstein’s Mad Scientist (1963) and Robert Longo’s awesome eight foot charcoal drawing Bodyhammer Glock (1993) we find my favourite Hopper film, Out Of The Blue (1980). Originally banned in the UK and missing out on the Palme d’Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival it is Hopper’s finest yet most oppressive masterpiece about a young punk girl trying to find her place in the world. I remember randomly coming across a suspiciously fraudulent VHS copy many years ago and it has been a prized film of mine ever since.
Overall I loved the exhibition, although I believe it was to do with my personal admiration for Dennis Hopper’s creative career. As somebody who also uses multiple art forms to creatively express myself, I found the experience invaluable. With that said, it clearly was not an exhibition originally designed for gallery 1 at ACMI. Sound was a small issue, while it was not a problem with overlapping audio as you survey the photography and art – it even worked in its favour by almost becoming an avant garde soundscape – it did pose a menace when trying to listen to clips of Hopper’s film work where headphones were not supplied. I found myself on occasion wondering if I was listening to the right audio. If you are a fan of Dennis Hopper or the American avant garde that he represents I highly recommend paying the admission fee. If not then you’re probably better off hanging onto your money and wandering into Screen Worlds or gallery two.
Tags: ACMI, Cinematheque Francaise, Cory Arcangel, Dennis Hopper, The New Hollywood Cinema
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