‘Glissando’ director creates a triumph

THE American Cinematheque’s Alternative Screen showcase presents tonight the L.A. premiere of a terrific independent feature, Chip Hourihan’s “Glissando,” based on a short story by novelist Robert Boswell. In this low-key, minimalist first film, Hourihan reveals a real gift for establishing mood and character with economy while evoking deeply a sense of time and place; he allows us to ramble around with his people only to catch them up short -- and us.

The story starts in a bleak black-and-white present in which a middle-aged man (Ned Van Zandt) arrives in an Arizona town to retrieve his long-estranged father’s corpse, which has been found in a dumpster.

Troubled memories of the past flood over him as the film switches to color. In going for small truths, Hourihan drives them home with more force, not to mention succinctness, than countless filmmakers do in striving for the profound.

In going for small truths Hourihan drives them home with more force, not to mention succinctness, than countless filmmakers do in striving for the profound. “Glissando’s” images of seedy Southwestern locales are as evocative as those of “Paris, Texas,” and Hourihan has rounded out his film with an array of fresh takes on ‘70s pop songs. “Glissando” is a quiet knockout.

Alan Gilsenan’s excellent “The Ghost of Roger Casement,” which screens at the Egyptian in the American Cinematheque’s New Irish Cinema series, is a compassionate documentary on one of the early 20th century’s most controversial figures that is as concise as the man was himself.

Born in Ireland in 1864, Casement became a British diplomat who gained fame in 1904 for his reports on atrocities in the Belgian Congo and then against the Putayamo Indians in Brazil, resulting in his knighthood in 1911.

By then, however, he was deeply concerned over British control of his own country. When Britain’s promise of Home Rule was deferred by the outbreak of World War I, Casement, having joined the Irish League, went to Berlin to try to secure the release of Irish prisoners of war to serve in a brigade in a revolution against Britain.

Failing to achieve his goal, he was soon arrested for treason upon his return and was sentenced to die.

Because of his international stature as a humanitarian, there was a widespread clamor for his release.

At the most convenient moment possible, the British government announced the discovery of the so-called “Black Diaries,” in which Casement purportedly confided a lusty homosexual appetite, horrifying a public that included conservative Irish Nationalists and fervent Irish American supporters.

Gilsenan’s documentary suggests that ultimately Casement’s sexual orientation is irrelevant to his patriotism.

The Laemmle Theaters’ Spring Documentary Days series commences with David Schendel’s delightful yet poignant “Yank Tanks,” in which ingenious and resourceful Cubans, in the face of the U.S. embargo, have turned their ‘40s and ‘50s American cars into showpieces.

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Screenings

“Glissando,” Tonight, 7:30, Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 466-FILM.

“The Ghost of Roger Casement,” Saturday, 5 p.m., at the Egyptian.

“Yank Tanks,” Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m., at Laemmle’s Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. (323) 848-3500. Also screens at the same hour on successive weekends at the Monica 4-Plex; the Playhouse 7, Pasadena; and the Fallbrook 7, West Hills.