Saturday, September 23, 7 p.m.
MARTIN
USA | 1977 | DCP | 95 min.
Director: George A. Romero
Cast: John Amplas, Elayne Nadeau, Lincoln Maazel
Made between Romero’s landmark zombie movies Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. The horror master’s modern-day take on vampire mythology stars Amplas as Martin, a shy, sensitive young man who believes himself to be a vampire. Sent to live with his superstitious uncle in Braddock, PA, Martin tries to fit in and stay out of trouble while continuing his bloodsucking ways, but trouble arises when Martin falls for a lonely, depressed housewife (Nadeau). Atmospheric, suspenseful, and touching, Martin was Romero’s personal favorite of his films and stands as a towering achievement in psychological horror and American-independent filmmaking. After the screening, a discussion with Braddock resident Tony Buba, Martin’s sound recordist and a frequent Romero collaborator.
Biography:
TONYBUBA has been producing documentaries since 1972. Buba received his M.F.A from Ohio University in 1976.
Tony’s films have been screened at Sundance, Toronto, Berlin, Black Maria, Athens, and other major international film festivals. He has had exhibitions at more than 100 universities and museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum Ludwig-Cologne, Anthology Film Archives, and Pacific Film Archives.
Some of Tony’s awards include fellowships from the NEA, AFI, Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, The Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Award as well as grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His most recent feature documentary Ghosts of Amistad aired on PBS, and in 2015 was awarded the John E. O’Connor Film Award from the American Historical Association.
Tony has also appeared onscreen as well; Tony appears in George A. Romero’s Martin and Dawn of the Dead, and has a cameo in the 2015 Sundance hit, Me, Earl and the Dying Girl. In 2018, Tony did a Moth Talk about working with George A. Romero on Martin. The talk is titled, The Rosary, The Vampire and George Romero.
Tony’s 1988 film Lightning Over Braddock was named in the Oct. 14, 2020 edition of the New Yorker magazine as one of the 62 most influential documentaries ever made.
Sponsors:
Our work is made possible by support from the Anonymous Fund, the College of Letters and Sciences, and the Department of Art History. Series co-sponsors include the Departments of Afro-American Studies, Art, Chicano & Latino Studies, Civil Society & Community Studies, Communication Arts, Design Studies, English, Gender & Women’s Studies, Sociology, Spanish & Portuguese, and Theatre & Drama as well as Center for Film and Theater Research, Center for Research on Gender and Women, Center for South Asia, Center for the Humanities, Chazen Museum of Art, Division of the Arts, Food Studies Network, Institute for Regional and International Studies, Institute for Research in the Humanities, Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies Program, Latin American, Caribbean & Iberian Studies Program, and Master of Science in Design + Innovation Program.
