Film Categories: art & artists

  • Of Lines and Men… and Some Women

    In this film the artist-animator is shown in conflict with himself. His creations springing from his own befuddled unconscious begin to metamorphosize; initially in his absence and then in full view of their dismayed creator. The battle rages on as he tries to control the images flashing by on the screen. He wants to create something nice for a change. Something beautiful. But alas, his line goes wild and has ideas of its own. Luckily for us his demons, though charged with pain and anger at an unjust world, are also infused with humour, warmth and a great deal of…

  • On the Marriage Broker Joke

    “‘On the Marriage Broker Joke’… turns upon an opposition of Freudian analysis and Christian hermeneutics… Two pandas, who exist only because of a textual error, run a shell game for the viewer in an environment with false perspectives. They posit the existence of various films and characters, one of which is interpreted by an academic as containing religious symbolism. Sigmund Freud’s own explanation is given by a sleeper awakened by an alarm clock.” – P. Adams Sitney

  • One Second in Montreal

    “In Snow’s… ‘One Second in Montreal’ and ‘Dripping Water’ (made with Joyce Wieland) we are brought to consider the force of time stripped of spatial interest. A collection of snow scenes, all still photographs of potential sites for a monument in Montreal (thus distinctly not ‘artistic’ photographs) follow one another for 22 minutes. The film is aggressive, yet haunting. It is too at the edge, at the point where an image of an actuality provides a firmer ground for meditation than an abstract image or no image at all. “This particular film provides the subtlety of Snow’s genius, in his…

  • One Side, Left Corner

    “The one I liked best was ‘One Side, Left Corner’, which could be described equally well as a drama, documentary, or experimental film. If it can be said to have a plot it’s about a couple who drive out to a cottage in the country, then back to the city – but that really doesn’t matter. It’s about people failing to communicate! What counts is the experiments in filmmaking that were an integral part of what the film was saying. I liked Neal Livingston’s innovations. They worked. Experimental success.” – Catriona Talbot, The 4th Estate, Halifax, Nova Scotia

  • One Way Boogie Woogie

    “…sixty one-minute shots with no camera movement. This tension between painterly and cinematic space is not only experienced as an intellectual contrast but is also felt as a dialectic between permanence and impermanence…” – Noel Carroll, Soho Weekly News

  • Ophelia and The Cat Lady

    Two films on one reel. With Liz Reiner (OPHELIA) and Carla Liss (THE CAT LADY). On one level the films are portraits; on another level the first is inspired by reading about the painting of John Millais’ “Ophelia,” and “The Cat Lady” is an homage to the horror films of the filmmaker’s childhood movie going.

  • Optic Nerve

    Of this film Hammer says, “It is about the fragility of both film and life as the sterility of a nursing home is memorized with veils and faded patterns of the past by the filmmaker imagining what her grandmother is seeing.” The film won first prize in several film festivals, was chosen for the 1987 Whitney Museum of Art Biennial and was premiered at the London International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 1988.

  • Our Hero: The True Story of Virgil Huffenmeister

    “Our Hero” is a mockudrama chronicling the life and times of Virgil Huffenmeister. The film traces his story from young orphan to international superstar and his eventual downfall. This short comedy touches on such subjects as the death penalty, instant celebrity, and Elvis Presley.

  • Our Trip

    “Feminist filmmaker and performance artist Barbara Hammer has celebrated her recent trip to Peru with her friend Corky Wick through a diaristic animation of photographs they took during their travels. Landscapes and portraits are given growing patterns of framing and texture with magic markers and tempera paint, expressing the richly evocative folk art of the Incan people they saw as we hear their native music resonate on the soundtrack.” – Anthony Reveaux

  • Painting with Light (Leach)

    The craft and art of stained glass is presented in an entertaining cinematic style. From the early stages of design through the choice and cutting of glass to the glazing and cleaning of the finished panel, all are detailed through the expression of artist Robert Jekyll.