Tom Palazzolo

Tom Palazzolo (born 1937) is an American experimental filmmaker, photographer, and painter. From St. Louis, Missouri, Palazzolo moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1960 to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Palazzolo is most known for his Chicago-centric documentary films.  He is recognized for his ability to reveal the realities of urban life. Utilizing the Cinéma vérité style in films such as Jerry's (1976), his perspective often include panoramic views of a place or event  .  Palazzolo's editing style is said to add a sense of humour while still portraying his subjects honestly.

Early Life
Tom Palazzolo was born in a working-class neighborhood in north Saint Louis, Missouri. His father was the son of Italian immigrants and his mother was third-generation Irish. Palazzolo grew up with his three siblings, Bob, Lynn, and Janis. He attended an all-boys Catholic elementary school during  which he was recognised for his drawing abilities anywhere from his favourite characters to school bulletin boards.  Evading his parents wish for him to attend an all-boys Catholic high school as well, Palazzolo managed to slip into the public Beaumont High School. Palazzolo's interest in drawing led to his submission in a Draw Me! contest and his enrolment in a mail-in Art Instruction Schools.

Education 
After graduating high school in 1957, Palazzolo worked at McDonnell Douglas plant for a year. During that time, he saved up money to attend art school. Off the recommendation of an old teacher, he enrolled in the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. While at Ringling, he met Bernie Beckman, and the two studied commercial art together. Beckmann soon left for the School of the Art Institute Chicago and Palazzolo wanted to follow. He was rejected the first time but came back in person the next year and was accepted.  

After moving in with Beckmann, he began to explore the city. Hey was intrigued by the grit of Chicago, its buildings, neighbourhoods, businesses, attractions, and people. These figurative and realistic interests would become a part of his painting practice to the disdain of his professors.  After a slew of less than positive painting critiques, he signed up for a photography class taught by Kenneth Josephson in 1963. Josephson was the first professor to positively critiqued him. Palazzolo's first go at filmmaking was with the Keystone 16mm given to him by Josephson. Palazzolo's six years as a student wrapped up at his final critique, presented in the form of photos. His painting professors decided to give him a Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts in Photography.

Professional Life  
As a young adult, Palazzolo and a group of friends formed the Floating Cinematheque, a secret film society that met in apartments around Chicago. He also regularly attended Monday night screenings at the Second City that were curated by exhibitors under the name Aardvark. Screenings at film festivals and in groups like Aardvark where helpful for the promotion of Palazzolo's films, with Roger Ebert in regular attendance and eventually reviewing some of Palazzolo's films.  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.

In 1968, after gaining some media attention for his documentary films, Palazzolo was invited by the United States Information Agency to tour the Middle East, Ceylon, India, and Turkey for three months to screen his films publicly. Palazzolo was married to long term girlfriend Marcia Daehn in the same year in order for her to join him on the trip.

Palazzolo then taught documentary film classes at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1981, and he eventually went on to teach for 36 years at Richard J. Daley College .

Major Works and Collaborators 
Early films of Palazollo's include Love It / Leave It (1973), a document of the Naked City Beauty Pageant in Roselawn, Indiana and a variety of midwestern parades. Where he lacks a technical finesse it is made up for with his genuine interest in the goings on around him.  Often a participant or a close observer to the action, Palazollo works to reveal the absurdity of midwestern norms and values. Palazzolo approaches the subject of parades again in Your Astronauts(1970), where he uses noise from a cafeteria as a soundtrack for the chaos of the Apollo 11 parade. Palazzolo found particular interest in the high number of suburban residents who had made their way into the city for occasions like these.

In 1972, 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 at the Chicago Public Library. He admired Kreine's Cinéma vérité style films, and the two collaborated on a total of eight films together, the most notable being Pets on Parade and Ricky and Rocky. Ricky and Rocky follows Ricky, an Italian, and Roxanne, who is Polish, through their surprise wedding shower that has been thrown for them by Ricky's family.  The camerawork in Ricky and Rockyemphasizes the family and their style as more eventful then the wedding shower itself.  The film won awards at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the Bellevue Film Festival.

Kreines later introduced Palazzolo to Mark Rance, a fellow student from New Trier, and the two soon became collaborators. Their first collaboration was in 1975 about a naturist community in northern Indiana, titled Sneakin 'n Peakin'''. During this time Palazzo worked on independent projects including 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. Rance and Palazzolo's most well-known documentaries were Marquette Park and Marquette Park II, which documented still-existing bands of Nazis who protested black families moving into Marquette Park in the mid-1970s. These films were shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and later at Cannes Film Festival. Rance eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he became the director of the FilmForum cinematheque.

Other collaborators included Allen Ross, who helped found Chicago Filmmakers. In 1980, Ross and Palazzolo created Nonna,  a portrait of Palazzolo's Italian grandmother. By this time, the independent film industry was vastly changing due to a rise in costs  and the introduction of video. While many filmmakers switched to video, Palazzolo went on to create two more films - this time narratives, titled Caligari's Cure (1982) and Added Lessons'' (1991). These films were not as well received by critics. However, Palazzolo continued making short documentary films including 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 B. Anderson. During this time, Palazzolo began to put a focus back on painting and lithography. In 1999, Palazzolo had a show of paintings, prints, and photographs at the Jaqueline Ross Gallery in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.

Personal Life 
Palazzolo and wife Marcia Daehn had three children, Sarah, Amy, and Todd.

References

External links 
 Tom Palazzolo on IMDB
 Tom Palazzolo at the Video Data Bank
 Tom Palazzolo  at the Independent Video Archive

Category:American experimental filmmakers
Category:American photographers
Category:1937 births
Category:Living people