65 Seconds That Shook the Earth: Commemorating the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

April 6, 2006 - April 9, 2006

Earthquake, April 7

This April marks the hundredth year since the Bay Area was clobbered by a devastating quake along the San Andreas Fault. To mark this centenary milestone, PFA presents a weekend-long film series with a wallop, five faulty programs guaranteed to shake you up. Look for Earthquake, the first Sensurround film with enough bass to meet your bottom line; an illustrated lecture by Gray Brechin about the 1906 destruction, with archival newsreels galore; John Wayne wandering the ruins of the Barbary Coast; and the late-fifties disaster flick The Night the World Exploded, with an on-site seismologist to tell us about its unsound science. We hope you'll be not just shaken but stirred.

Steve Seid

Rare photographs and paintings of the 1906 earthquake and its aftermath are on view in the BAM exhibition The Bancroft Library at 100.

Thursday, April 6, 2006
5:30 p.m. Artistic Disasters: Works by George Kuchar, Christina McPhee, Dolissa Medina, Bill Morrison, and Semiconductor (Free Screening!)
Artists commandeer nature's ineluctable forces-fire, flood, and tectonic turmoil. Works by George Kuchar, Christina McPhee, Dolissa Medina, Bill Morrison, and Semiconductor.

Friday, April 7, 2006
8:00 p.m. Earthquake
Super Sensurround Simulation by Meyer Sound! Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, and Geneviève Bujold are among the victims of a massive temblor that devastates Los Angeles in the first and greatest of the Sensurround spectacles. Our presentation will rock the theater with waves of bodacious bass. Are you ready to rumble?

Saturday, April 8, 2006
7:00 p.m. Disaster at Dawn: San Francisco and the Great Quake of ’06
Illustrated Lecture by Gray Brechin. San Francisco historian Brechin will guide us through the debris-strewn devastation of post-quake S.F., presenting a rare collection of archival footage recorded while the fires still raged.

Saturday, April 8, 2006
8:45 p.m. Flame of Barbary Coast
Love's a disaster: cowboy John Wayne pursues Ann Dvorak, the darling of the San Francisco demimonde, until that earth-shattering day in April '06. "The most edifying screen cataclysm since the Barbary Coast was razed in Metro's San Francisco."-N.Y. Times

Sunday, April 9, 2006
6:00 p.m. The Night the World Exploded
Peggy Hellweg in Person. A massive quake in Los Angeles sets off a series of global seizures in this late-fifties disaster epic. Our guest from the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory will examine the film's faulty science.

Presented with the support of the UC Berkeley 1906 Earthquake Centennial Alliance.

Gap Inc. is proud to support First Impressions: Free First Thursdays at BAM/PFA.