TC #98 - Mark Toscano (Soft Fiction)

The Cinephiliacs

While every single restoration brings unique challenges, Mark Toscano sometimes has to ask a very strange question: did the filmmaker intend that scratch or speck or slice or anything that might appear like a problem or mistake as actually critical to the film? It's questions like these that bring energy to Mark as he works as a film preservationist at the Academy Film Archive, helping preserve and restore hundreds of experimental cinema works. Peter sits down with Mark to discuss his road from the George Eastman house to Canyon Cinema to the Academy, and some of the unique questions and relationships he builds as the canon of experimental cinema continue to expand under his purview. Finally, the two dive into the complex and wondrous world of Chick Strand in Soft Fiction, whose detailing of the sexual experiences and desires of women under her lyrical eye has gained complexity in today's discussions of sex and power.

0:00-3:39 Opening 4:54-12:11 Establishing Shot — UCLA's Recuerdos de un cine en español 12:57-1:25:05 Deep Focus — Mark Toscano 1:26:08-1:29:13 Sponsorship Section 1:30:41-1:51:30 Double Exposure — Soft Fiction (Chick Strand) 1:51:35-1:53:20 Close / Outtake