5 films to get you revved up

Production still from Rollerball 1975 / Director: Norman Jewison / Image courtesy: Park Circus

Production still from Rollerball 1975 / Director: Norman Jewison / Image courtesy: Park Circus / View full image

What does a biker do when not riding — visit ‘The Motorcycle: Design, Art, Desire‘ and watch a film obviously! ‘The Motorcycle‘ exhibition opened the throttle on 150 years of ground-breaking design that shaped one of the most iconic objects the world has ever seen. Featuring racers, record breakers and road icons up close. Get ready to explore the largest collection of historical, iconic and future road machines all in one place.

‘The Motorcycle’ exhibition was in Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) from 28 November 2020 until 26 April 2021.

The accompanying cinema program ‘Motorcycles on Screen’ brings together a selection of more than a century of motorcycle films from around the world. With over 50 titles in the line-up, it can be hard to know where to begin! So here are five films that really rev my engine — and hopefully yours too.

The sci-fi thriller Rollerball 1975 weaves motorcycles into its dystopian bloodsport, with bikes and roller-skaters joined together in brutal combat in a dark vision of the future.

Tsai Ming-liang’s debut feature film Rebels of the Neon God 1992 is a searing portrait of youthful unrest, sending its characters into the night streets of Taipei on their motorcycles.

In Caro Diario 1993, writer/director/star Nanni Moretti glides through Rome on his Vepsa, philosophising on cinema and the world around him.

The cult gorefest Demons 1985 sets its titular creatures against a crowd of moviegoers at the premiere of a new horror film – and the only way through the horde might just be on two wheels.

And bask in the splendour of the official vehicle of Freedonia leader Rufus T Firefly – a Harley-Davidson Model J with sidecar that never quite gets where it needs to be – in Duck Soup 1933, arguably the Marx Brothers’ finest hour.

Rob Hughes, Australian Cinémathèque, QAGOMA

RELATED: More 5 film suggestions to watch

RELATED: Read more about the bikes in ‘THE MOTORCYCLE’ exhibition

1. Duck Soup

Production still from Duck Soup 1933 / Director: Leo McCarey / Image courtesy: Universal Pictures Australia

Production still from Duck Soup 1933 / Director: Leo McCarey / Image courtesy: Universal Pictures Australia / View full image

2. Rollerball

Production still from Rollerball 1975 / Director: Norman Jewison / Image courtesy: Park Circus

Production still from Rollerball 1975 / Director: Norman Jewison / Image courtesy: Park Circus / View full image

3. Demons

Production still from Demons 1985 / Director: Lamberto Bava / Image courtesy: Intramovies

Production still from Demons 1985 / Director: Lamberto Bava / Image courtesy: Intramovies / View full image

4. Rebels of the Neon God

Production still from Rebels of the Neon God 1992 / Director: Tsai Ming-liang / Image courtesy: Central Motion Picture Corporation

Production still from Rebels of the Neon God 1992 / Director: Tsai Ming-liang / Image courtesy: Central Motion Picture Corporation / View full image

5. Caro Diario

Production still from Caro Diario 1993 / Director: Nanni Moretti / Image courtesy: Fandango

Production still from Caro Diario 1993 / Director: Nanni Moretti / Image courtesy: Fandango / View full image

Dip into our Cinema blogs / View the Cinémathèque’s ongoing program / Subscribe to QAGOMA YouTube to go behind-the-scenes

QAGOMA is the only Australian art gallery with purpose-built facilities dedicated to film and the moving image. The Australian Cinémathèque at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) provides an ongoing program of film and video that you’re unlikely to see elsewhere, offering a rich and diverse experience of the moving image, showcasing the work of influential filmmakers and international cinema, rare 35mm prints, recent restorations and silent films with live musical accompaniment on the Gallery’s Wurlitzer organ originally installed in Brisbane’s Regent Theatre in November 1929.

Featured image: Rollerball 1975

Show off your ride with #MotorcycleGOMA #QAGOMA

Related Stories

  •
    Read •

    Motorcycles on screen

    In association with the Gallery’s major summer exhibition ‘The Motorcycle: Design, Art, Desire’, the Australian Cinémathèque at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) presents the free program ‘Motorcycles on Screen’, which explores the rich history of the vehicle in cinema, from the silent era to today. ‘The Motorcycle’ exhibition was in Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) from 28 November 2020 until 26 April 2021. Film: Easy Rider Harley-Davidson Knucklehead Chopper c.1973 (engine: 1941) The chopper is a type of customised motorcycle that emerged in California in the late 1950s. It is perhaps the most extreme of all custom motorcycle styles, often using radically modified steering angles and lengthened forks for a stretched-out appearance. They can be built from an original motorcycle which is modified (‘chopped’), or from scratch. These custom bikes had exuberant paintwork, indulgent chrome, wildly extended front forks and high, ‘ape-hanger’ handlebars, famously featured in Dennis Hopper’s 1969 film Easy Rider. Motorcycles on Screen Since the beginning of the twentieth century, filmmakers have been drawn to the uniquely cinematic appeal of the motorcycle. The breakneck speed, the unmistakable designs, the ravenously revving engines: motorcycles provide myriad aesthetic possibilities for the screen. Beyond the sound and fury of the bikes themselves, the exoticism of biker gangs and the utilitarian usefulness of motorcycles as common transport offer bases for tales of great danger alongside incisive portraits of life on the ground. Blending the seminal Hollywood classics that helped define motorcycles in the popular Western imagination with lesser known but equally captivating entries in the film canon, ‘Motorcycles on Screen’ dives into portrayals of the early years of motorcycling, and examines what possibilities may lie ahead of us in the future. It looks at how motorcycles and motorcycle culture have been used in cinema to depict ideas of freedom, danger and fraternity around the world, and how the motorcycle has been used as a potent symbol in experimental filmmaking. The Motorcycle Diaries 2004 While representations of motorcycles permeate almost every film genre, the power and relative unpredictability of early bikes meant their primary role was to facilitate stunts and comedy. Each of the big three screen clowns — Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd — took advantage of the machine’s potential for slapstick pratfalls with destructive chase sequences in films such as Mabel at the Wheel 1914 and Get Out and Get Under 1920. Its capacity for adventure steered some of the first travel films (such as A Motorcycle Trip among the Clouds 1926), in which intrepid explorers would traverse remote parts of the world, whose cinematic language continues to be felt in road movies like The Motorcycle Diaries 2004. RELATED: Read about the bikes in ‘THE MOTORCYCLE’ exhibition Roman Holiday 1953 The Wild One 1953 Despite some notable exceptions — the resplendent official vehicle of Groucho Marx’s Rufus T Firefly in Duck Soup 1933, for one — the sound era initially led to a quiet period for motorcycles on screen, as new technical limitations and audience tastes pivoted towards different kinds of drama. However, this would change in 1953 with two of the most indelible images in cinema history: Audrey Hepburn on a Vespa, joyously careening through the bustling streets in Roman Holiday; and Marlon Brando decked out in leather, the epitome of mid-century American cool, leaning back against his Triumph Thunderbird in The Wild One. These competing visions of freedom from the two burgeoning superstars would play a key role in defining the motorcycle as an instrument of rebellion in popular culture for decades to come. That sense of rebellion would be potently harnessed in perhaps the most iconic screen portrait of motorcycle culture: Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider 1969. It is a film that understands and interlinks the thematic threads of freedom, danger and fraternity. Easy Rider acknowledges that these are not discrete ideas, but instead that they are often inescapably linked. As a story about outsiders on the open road, under threat and unable to assimilate into mainstream society, it also offers a counterculture parallel to the biker film genre. Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss 1970 The Loveless 1981 Rumble Fish 1983 The rise of biker gangs in postwar America — driven in part by the yearning of returned servicemen, freshly trained in motorcycleriding, for camaraderie — provoked a surge of films showing (largely fictionalised) accounts of life and death within their cloistered worlds. This fascination would spread internationally with films such as the Japanese Stray Cat Rock series, which follows an all-female gang of bikers battling it out in Shinjuku, and the Australian cult classic, Stone 1974. Filmmakers were fascinated by biker gangs not only for the dramatic possibilities in fatal rivalries and criminal enterprises, but also because of the bonds shared between members of the groups. Films such as The Loveless 1981 and Rumble Fish1983 explore these intimate ties and how personal and group identity can blur together within communities. Akira 1988 Finke: There and Back 2018 The Wild Goose Lake 2019 ‘Motorcycles on Screen’ also looks ahead for motorcycles, presenting speculative visions of the designs and roles of bikes in future societies. From the custom vehicles mounted in the Mad Max films to the light cycles of Tron 1982, through to the striking red bike Kaneda rides through Neo Tokyo in Akira1988, the practicality and dynamism of motorcycles means they regularly play a central part in shaping filmmakers’ representations of futuristic worlds. It is important to note, too, that the history of motorcycles in cinema is still being written: new entries to the canon continue to emerge in exciting and unexpected ways. Films such as Dylan River’s riveting documentary Finke: There and Back 2018, which surveys the famed dirt bike race in the Australian outback, and Diao Yinan’s Chinese crime saga The Wild Goose Lake 2019, showcase the ongoing breadth and richness of these machines on screen. Rob Hughes is Assistant Curator,...
  •
    Read •

    5 still life artworks and their film counterparts

    Running alongside the exhibition ‘Still Life Now’ at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) until 19 February 2023, the ‘Still Lives’ film program from 9 October 2022 until 12 March 2023 screening at the Australian Cinémathèque in GOMA, presents a selection of films that speak to the core exhibition themes of life, death and transformation. Here are five artworks and their filmic counterparts that take a fresh approach to the still life tradition. #1 Deborah Kelly Beastliness 2011 Director: Yorgos Lanthimos The Lobster 2015 Ideas of desire and transformation underpin the works of Deborah Kelly and Yorgos Lanthimos. Deborah Kelly’s mind-boggling collage animation Beastliness creates fantastical creatures from the pages of old encyclopaedias and textbooks to make riotous commentary on the nature of life, death, and reproduction. In a similar vein, director Yorgos Lanthimos’s darkly comedic film The Lobster is an absurdist take on the future of love and relationships, where candidates who fail to find their perfect love match are transformed into an animal of their own choosing. The Lobster 2015 The Lobster 2015 / Director: Yorgos Lanthimos / Now screening in ‘Still Lives’ #2 Marc Quinn Portraits of Landscapes series 2007 Director: Jessica Hausner Little Joe 2019 Combining ideas of art and science, nature and artifice, life and death, Marc Quinn’s vibrant ‘Portraits of landscapes’ series uses highly saturated, hyper-realistic colours to bring attention to the scientific practices of genetic modification and cryogenics that are used to alter the natural life-span of plants. Jessica Hausner’s tense paranoid thriller, Little Joe 2019, takes a similar stance, and imagines an alternate future where a genetically engineered plant named ‘Little Joe’ emits a mood-altering pollen, resulting in some sinister consequences. Little Joe 2019 Little Joe 2019 / Director: Jessica Hausner / Now screening in ‘Still Lives’ #3 Anne Noble Dead Bee Portrait #1 2015 Director: Jan Švankmajer Insects 2018 Using electron microscope images of dead bees, New Zealand artist Anne Noble attempts to reanimate the deceased bees through the vehicle of photography, to draw attention to their threatened existence and imagine their secret lives and untold histories. Comparably, the master of modern Czech surrealism, Jan Švankmajer, combines stop-motion animation with live action footage to create a wonderfully bizarre take on the lives and minds of insects. Insects 2018 Insects 2018 / Director: Jan Švankmajer / Now screening in ‘Still Lives’ #4 Michael Cook Natures Mortes series 2021 Director: Pedro Costa Vitalina Varela 2019 Michael Cook’s deeply moving, and highly emotive photographic tableaux, Nature Morte (Agriculture) and Nature Morte (Blackbird) from the ‘Natures Mortes’ photographic series emphasise the importance of culture and identity in the wake of grief and past trauma. Similar in tone and in subject, director Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela is a visually striking portrait of a widow embarking on the rediscovery her identity following the loss of her husband. Vitalina Varela 2019 Vitalina Varela 2019 / Director: Pedro Costa / Now screening in ‘Still Lives’ #5 Chen Qiulin Garden 2007 Director: Jia Zhangke Still Life 2006 Still Life 2006 by renowned Chinese director Jia Zhangke and the video work Garden by multidisciplinary artist Chen Qiulin both take the Three Gorges Dam hydro-electric project — a major engineering endeavour responsible for the displacement of thousands of residents living along the banks of the Yangtze River — as their focus but take two very different approaches to storytelling. Jia Zhangka’s Still Life focuses on the lives of two individuals whose stories take place around the project and, like the cities affected by the dam, are going through a similar process of self-deconstruction. Chen Qiulin’s video work Garden, depicts a group of migrant flower sellers moving through the streets of Wanzhou to deliver bouquets of artificial peonies (a flower which in China represents the fragility of life and its potential for renewal), to make comment on the movement of people in favour of economic progress. Both works are incredibly compelling, and explore notions of displacement, memory and social injustice to make comment on the scale and pace of change in contemporary China. Still Life 2006 Still Life 2006 / Director: Jia Zhangke / Now screening in ‘Still Lives’ Still Lives View the program A Bucket of Blood 1959 The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover 1989 Death Becomes Her 1992 Coffee and Cigarettes 2003 Niu pi (Oxhide) 2005 The Death of Mr. Lazarescu 2005 Carnivore Reflux 2006 三峡好人 (Still Life) 2006 Taxidermia 2006 Parque vía 2008 A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence 2014 The Lobster 2015 24 Frames 2017 Hmyz (Insects) 2018 Little Joe 2019 That Cloud Never Left 2019 Vitalina Varela 2019 Samtidigt På Jorden (Meanwhile On Earth) 2020 Flux Gourmet 2022 Victoria Wareham is Assistant Curator, Australian Cinémathèque, QAGOMA ‘Still Life Now’ is at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) from 24 September 2022 until 19 February 2023, the ‘Still Lives’ film program is at the Australian Cinémathèque in GOMA from 9 October 2022 until 12 March 2023. View the ongoing Cinema Program. QAGOMA is the only Australian art gallery with purpose-built facilities dedicated to film and the moving image. The Australian Cinémathèque at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) provides an ongoing program of film and video that you’re unlikely to see elsewhere, offering a rich and diverse experience of the moving image, showcasing the work of influential filmmakers and international cinema, rare 35mm prints, recent restorations and silent films with live musical accompaniment on the Gallery’s Wurlitzer organ originally installed in Brisbane’s Regent Theatre in November 1929.
Loading...