Tom Palazzolo

Tom Palazzolo (born 1937) is an American experimental filmmaker, photographer and artist. He is most renowned for his documentary films depicting Chicago in the 20th century. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Palazzolo moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1960. His films have shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Gene Siskel Film Center.[1] He is most known for Chicago-centered documentary films Jerry's (1976), At Maxwell Street (1984), and Down Clark Street (2000).[2] Palazzolo's work has been recognized for his ability to reveal the realities of an urban city.[3]

Early life

Tom Palazzolo was born in a working-class neighborhood in northern Saint Louis, Missouri. His father was the son of Italian immigrants and his mother was third-generation Irish. Palazzolo has four siblings; Tom, Bob, Lynn, and Janis. He attended a number of Catholic schools, and had to repeat fourth grade because of poor grades. Evading his parents wish for him to attend an all-boys Catholic high school, Palazzolo ended up attending the public Beaumont High School. He participated in football, basketball, and sought to improve his artistic skills by participating in drawing contests.[4]

Graduating high school in 1957, Palazzolo went on to work at a McDonnell Douglas plant for a year, and then enrolled in the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. Palazzolo spent his time studying commercial art, and painting circus members who would come into the school and pose for the art students.[4]

Inspired by a friend and classmate, Palazzolo applied to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and was rejected. A year later, in 1960, he moved to Chicago and applied to the school again in person. This time he was accepted. Through his time as an art student, Palazzolo found himself drawn to exploring Chicago's old buildings, ethnic neighborhoods, burlesque shows, and mixtures of people. In 1963, he signed up for a photography class taught by Ken Josephson, a photographer and professor at the school. Josephson encouraged Palazzolo to take up photography after he had been continuously discouraged by painting professors for his unconventional painting techniques.[3] Many of Palazzolo's classmates, like Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, and Karl Wirsum, were part of the Chicago Imagist movement of the late 1960s.[5]

Studying at SAIC from 1960 to 1966, Palazzolo eventually graduated and was granted a Bachelor's and Master's of fine art degree in photography.[4]

Artistic development

With a group of friends, Palazzolo formed the Floating Cinematheque, a secret film society that met in various people's apartments. Palazzolo also attended Monday night screenings at the Second City, which was curated by exhibitors under the name Aardvark. Many of these films faced the chagrin of the Chicago Police Censor Board, which determined whether films should be censored or not. Once the Motion Picture Association of America adopted a rating system of films in 1968, local censorship boards became a thing of the past, and dwindled the motivations of underground film groups.[4]

In 1968, Palazzolo married long-time girlfriend Marcia Daehn. Not long after, he was invited by the United States Information Agency to tour Middle East, Ceylon, India and Turkey for three months to screen his some of his films.[4]

Later, Palazzolo met sixteen-year-old Jeff Kreines, a high school dropout from New Trier High School. Palazzolo viewed one of Kreines's documentary films when judging a contest for student filmmakers. He admired Kreine's cinema verite style films, and the two began to collaborate on a number of films together, the most notable being Pets on Parade and Ricky and Rocky.[4]

Major works

Palazzolo went on to collaborate with Mark Rance, another student from New Trier. Their first collaboration was in 1975 about a nudist colony in northern Indiana, titled Sneakin 'n Peakin'. In 1976, Palazzolo made the film Jerry's, an inside look at the hectic nature of Jerry's Deli in Streeterville, Gay for a Day, which chronicled a pride parade, and I Was a Contestant at Mother's Wet T-shirt Contest, filmed at Mother's Bar and Club on Division Avenue.[6] Rance and Palazzolo's most well-known documentaries were Marquette Park and Marquette Park II, which showed still-existing bands of Nazis who protested black families moving into Marquette Park in the mid-1970s. It revealed the ever-present racism that plagued South Side neighborhoods and segregation that continued to afflict Chicago. Rance eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he became the director of the FilmForum cinematheque.[4]

Other collaborators included Allan Ross, who helped found Chicago Filmmakers. In 1980, Ross and Palazzolo created Nonna, a portrait of Palazzolo's Italian grandmother. By this time, though, the independent film industry was vastly changing due to a rise in costs for film and the integration of video. While many filmmakers switched to video, Palazzolo went on and created two more films - this time narratives, titled Caligari's Cure (1982) and Added Lessons (1991). These films were not as well received by a number of film critics. Palazzolo went on to continue making short documentary films. These included the making of a TV commercial for Deel Ford, a Labor Day picnic in East Chicago, and a look into a Chicago campaign stop of third-party presidential candidate John Anderson. During this time, Palazzolo began to put a focus back on painting and lithography.[4]

Palazzolo is currently still an exhibiting artist, showing his films, photography and lithographs in a number of galleries around Chicago. He has three children, Sarah, Amy and Todd with his wife Marcia.[1]

Selected filmography

Directed Works
Year Title Length
1967 "O" 12 minutes
1970 Your Astronauts
1974 Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think
1976 Jerry's 10 minutes
1976 Marquette Park 30 minutes
1976 Gay for a Day
1978 Marquette Park II 35 minutes
1978 Labor Day, East Chicago
1984 At Maxwell Street
1994 I Married A Munchkin
2000 Down Clark Street 25 minutes

References

  1. 1 2 "Tom Palazzolo | Video Data Bank". www.vdb.org. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  2. ↑ "Tom Palazzolo". IMDb. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  3. 1 2 "True Grit: 'Tom Palazzolo's Chicago'". PopMatters. 2012-05-06. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Helbig, Jack. "Tom Palazzolo's Life in Pictures". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  5. ↑ "Chicago-Scope: The Films of Tom Palazzolo, 1967–1976 | The Art Institute of Chicago". The Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  6. ↑ "Tom Palazzolo Archives - Media Burn Archive". Media Burn Archive. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
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