The second screening in our Citzen Cinema Screening series on the subject of love, will take place on Wednesday, March 14, at 7:00 PM at the Edwin Johnson Screening Room, 1418 5th. St., Berkeley, Ca 945710. We will screen a favorite of mine, Sally Potter’s film, THE TANGO LESSON. Here are excerpts of what Potter says about her film:

“This film is based on my own experience and exists between reality and fiction. When I first started taking tango lessons it was as a break from the intensely cerebral, sedentary process of scriptwriting– the “serious” work I was doing at the time. But what began as something on the sidelines of my life- something done for pleasure, for fun- gradually became an obsession. Then the obsession became a fire fueling a new film. I abandoned RAGE, the script I was writing, and started to work on what was to become THE TANGO LESSON…

But above all, I learned that pleasure– taken to its extremity– becomes work. And work– taken to its extremity– becomes love. This is why THE TANGO LESSON, which started as a desire to make a film about the joy of dance, became a story about the complexity of love.” I found our screening of LAST TANGO IN PARIS very stimulating. It was controversial. There were people who found the film brilliant, others who felt it denigrating to women. We had a passionate and personal discussion which occasionally became heated, giving everyone the chance to be candid and real. This is what I hoped would happen. I hope it will happen again after our viewing of THE TANGO LESSON.

Wine, beer and a little popcorn. $10 per person if you can afford it but not required. I think its important that we get together and have discussions like these. I think our contemporary American culture in the Arts has failed us. In particular, cinema, painting and sculpture and whatever people think are the plastic arts today have failed to stimulate personal and or social kinds of catharsis which I take to be the gut level bottom line.

When I gave a talk at the the Columbus School of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio yesterday I talked about the Art Jokes which have plagued museums, galleries and art schools since the early 20th Century, the sort of stuff created by the Duchamps, Warhols, Rauschenbergs, Oldenbergs and Johns, etc. which I think weaken and trivialize our attempts to find out who we are and to express ourselves with conviction and passion.

So come, see and talk. I think It’s vital that we do so in this troubled era.

RSVP if possible at (510)527-7217 or rnilsson@robnilsson.com. Seating is limited.