Meditations on youth, nature

COMPOSED of a dozen 10-minute scenes -- each consisting of a single static shot -- Sharon Lockhart’s documentary portrait “Pine Flat” is a meditation on nature, youth and the projection of our feelings about them. The deceptively straightforward images cause the viewer to think more deeply about the subjects, allowing for a more reflective interaction than is generally achieved when the mind is otherwise focused on a narrative. REDCAT will present the film Monday.

Lockhart followed a strict structure in creating the film, which was shot over 2 1/2 years near a small village in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The first six scenes depict children alone, while the last six document small groups amid varying backdrops and weather conditions.

In the first shot, the only movement is the falling snow, which blankets a thicket of trees. The environmental sounds are heightened to a low roar, mimicking the repetition of the image. We also hear the haunting voice of a child calling out, “Mason, where are you?” and an animal howling ominously in the distance.

That implied tension is replaced by the tranquillity of the next scene, in which a girl sits on a grassy hill reading a book. Birds sing periodically as the grass gently moves in the breeze and the girl turns the pages. Subsequent scenes show a boy playing a harmonica near a small waterfall, another sleeping on a patch of grass, a third aimlessly sitting with a rifle and a fourth waiting for a bus. The kids are all in nature but somehow removed from it. There’s a passivity to their solitude that indicates they’re waiting for something to happen.

Following a 10-minute intermission card over which a plaintive cover of Blink-182’s “Stay Together for the Kids” plays, the second part of the film opens on a small valley of bare trees surrounded by patches of snow. Three teenagers make their way through the glen and up a hill, disappearing out of the frame.

The remaining scenes suggest a cycle of lost innocence played out against the climatic changes of season. A boy and a girl stand chest-deep in a small body of water playfully looking at fish. Teenagers play paintball and wrestle in the rain. Two girls alternate sitting in and tussling over a tree swing. Two young couples lie in a field of grass making out, oblivious to the sounds of traffic nearby.

The final shot of a large tree on a hill shrouded by fog recalls the mystery of the film’s opening. Children are heard, but seen only in silhouette. The eerie sound of the wind builds to a portentous dissonance. The journey has come full circle, but the possibility of risk awaits.

Clearing ‘Shadows’

The restoration process for John Cassavetes’ 1959 film “Shadows” differed in many ways from that of films made in the studio system. For one thing, it was shot in 16-millimeter and blown up to 35. The extant versions were in poor condition and reflected the differing formats, challenging the preservationists at the UCLA Film and Television Archive who wanted to maintain the film’s natural “roughness” while creating a new print worthy of exhibition.

Shot in 1957 and ’58 and recut several times, “Shadows” was Cassavetes’ directing debut. Its low-budget grit and improvisational feel echoed the riffing of jazz and was unlike anything Hollywood was producing at the time. The story of a light-skinned African American brother and sister and their older, dark-skinned jazz singer brother in New York City was strikingly different in its episodic structure and its take on race. Ben Carruthers and Lelia Goldoni play the younger siblings searching for love among Manhattan’s hipsters and bohemians, while Hugh Hurd is the no-nonsense musician looking out for them.

At the screening, the archive’s Ross Lipman will present a detailed 20-minute demonstration of the “Shadows’” restoration process, showing comparison clips that illuminate the subtlety of the preservation.

Word up

Over the next three weekends, LACMA presents “Written for the Screen: Ten Films From the Writers Guild of America’s 101 Greatest Screenplays List.” To spotlight the screenwriter’s often overlooked contribution to cinematic art, the WGA recently unveiled the selections as voted upon by its members.

Creatively organized by theme, the series opens Friday with “Bittersweet Romance in Cities of the Mind,” pairing the list’s top film, “Casablanca,” written by Julius Epstein, Philip Epstein and Howard Koch, with Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman’s “Manhattan” (No. 54), one of four Allen films on the list. On Saturday, “Double Trouble” acknowledges the writers’ admiration for great comedy with Preston Sturges’ classic “The Lady Eve” (No. 52) and “Groundhog Day” (No. 27), scripted by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis.

The series continues Fridays and Saturdays and also includes “Rear Window” (No. 83, written by John Michael Hayes) with “High Noon” (No. 75, Carl Foreman), “The Godfather” (No. 2, Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, from Puzo’s novel) -- preceded by a panel moderated by David Kipen, author of “The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History” -- “Sunset Blvd.” (No. 7, Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman Jr.) with “Adaptation” (No. 77, Charlie Kaufman) and closing June 3 with “Lawrence of Arabia” (No. 14, Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson).

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Screenings

REDCAT

* “Pine Flat”: 8 p.m. Monday

Where: Disney Hall, 2nd and Hope streets, downtown L.A.

Info: (213) 237-2800, www.redcat.org

Out of the Past: Film Restoration Today

* “Shadows”: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: James Bridges Theater, Melnitz Hall, UCLA campus

Info: (310) 206-FILM, www.cinema.ucla.edu

Written for the Screen

* “Casablanca” and “Manhattan”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

* “The Lady Eve” and “Groundhog Day”: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Bing Theater, LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

Info: (323) 857-6010, www.lacma.org