Video

THE GREAT PANCAKE RACE (1972)

In my senior year at the Lawrenceville School I was not alone in shooting a super-8 film as my independent study project. Part of the change that came over educational institutions during the Anti Vietnam War Movement was the inclusion of media as academic topic and cultural outlet. In the gymnasium there was a regular program of screenings, both the latest in 60s to early 70s Hollywood cinema and the classics of European art cinema. We also enjoyed the first class offered at the school on film appreciation and criticism at this time. A product of the counter culture and the interest I immediately took in European art cinema, my adaptation of the story “The Great Pancake Record,” also changed the record to race in multiple senses. The sole Black student in our class played the Aunt Jemima figure in my film as well as the anonymous figure of military or police coercion that brings the orgy to a close (just in time for the next round of the ongoing pancake contest). I thought I was right to address the tokenist integration of Black Americans in this way -- and Miles (that was his name) agreed.

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