The genesis of To Open Eyes: A Film on Josef Albers developed from Arnold Bittleman's appreciation for Albers while Bittleman was a student at Yale University in the 1960s. Wanting to preserve Albers’s teaching method—learning by doing—Bittleman set out with filmmaker and editor Carl Howard to make a visual record of Albers teaching students how to see and use color as a visual grammar. The film includes archival footage of Josef Albers at home in conversation with Bittleman, as well as footage from Black Mountain College and Yale University.
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Operation Bootstrap, a non-profit community-based organization, was founded in October 1965, just two months after the Watts rebellion, as a response to a neighborhood in distress. The 1968 documentary captures Bootstrap’s mission of economic development with scenes of women and men training for a range of employment opportunities including how to operate power sewing machines for work in the local garment factory, to the new technologies of the day, the IBM keypunch machines. Especially engaging are the scenes of “sensitivity sessions” hosted by the organization, where black and white Angelenos debate issues of race and racism in 1960s America. The film’s cinéma-vérité style allows for a certain closeness with its subject and allows for a precious time capsule glimpse into this vibrant and struggling community.
Jan 1968
A Teacher teaches her students listening skills...in the form of a giant mouth and ears.
Jul 1971
Puppets demonstrate the correct ways in which to board, ride and exit a school bus safely, and we are aided with live action examples of real children going through the same procedures. Filmed in Ft Worth.
Jan 1976
