Chicagoist Weekend Theater: 'Chicago Breakdown'

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 29, 2013 7:00PM

We love good time-lapse photography here at Chicagoist and the style is only one of many found in Gary Brown's "Chicago Breakdown," a sort of experimental short film that stitches together scenes from 1970s Chicago from street and aerial perspectives from such settings as a Playboy magazine photography shoot, tense trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, riding on a firetruck, waves crashing the lakefront and more.

The film is part of the William O'Farrell Collection at Chicago Film Archives. O'Farrell was former head of Moving Image and Audio Conservation at the National Archives of Canada and was a staunch supporter of saving "orphaned" lost and neglected films. During a leave of absence from the National Archives in 2004 O'Farrell helped the then-nascent CFA find its footing. This collection of orphaned films is named after O'Farrell and the collection contains many films he purchased in online auctions.