“‘Caudal’
is a Spanish word meaning, literally, the quantity
of a river’s flow, and, figuratively,wealth,
or riches. In English, caudal is an anatomical
term that refers to the tail or end part of an animal,
such as the caudal fin of a fish.
The film is a study of the undulating chiaroscuro
of rivers, creeks and shorelines in black, white,
and silver. Violence counters serenity: clouds, deserts,
and waterways teem with an encyclopedia of light.
Camera follows sun’s glint as it descends through
layer after layer of abstraction, finally reaching
a climax in nature’s impossible hieroglyphic
scrawls. Metaphors are explored in an alternating
montage of water and its visual echoes—bodily
fluids, commerce, and the journey of the spirit after
death. The recurring vision of a Mexican trajinero
rowing up the canals of Xochimilco (via found footage
from a Castle Films travelogue circa 1940s) plays
host to a dream of glorious manhood and rebirth. This
film also incorporates a last vision of friend and
mentor Stan Brakhage, as I imagine him spirited up
a stairway of waves in glistening twilight. Camera
gestures (in-camera edits, flash frames) evoke this
loss and its possible redemption. Much of Los
Caudales was processed in a Russian spiral developing
tank using chemical formulas of my own design. I uncovered
silvery depths in these images, with subtleties of
gradation harkening back to early photographic processes.
Variations in surface texture are unusually gentle.
Homage: S.B.’s Commingled Containers
and Ralph Steiner’s H2O.
“Timoleon is not only in love with film, but
is the love of film. Los Caudales,
shot in b&w reversal and perhaps one of the last
films to be printed on the visually luxurious b&w
reversal print stock, has many moments of astounding
beauty. Many of its camera improvisations will stick
forever in the memory of the film lover.”—Nathaniel
Dorsky
“Christopher Becks’s
Pan of the Landscape begins with a gratifyingly
sensuous feeling of closeness in which rapid and organically
organized bursts of colored shapes express the essence
of human affection. These compelling, even alluring
glyphs gratify and even transfix the viewer in a way
that wipes away all awareness of the quotidian world,
just as happens in the most rewarding of human relationships.
Yet then, suddenly and inexplicably, those shapes
and colors start moving much more slowly and mechanically,
or they utterly freeze in time, or they become partly
hidden behind black silhouettes, revealing the earlier
intimacy as illusory, as an emergent mechanical prison
surrounds the film with a dreadfully complete Silence.
This pattern recurs again and again, presenting a
cyclical trap from which there seems to be no escape:
its elements make themselves wonderfully present,
and then again withdraw into unpredictably long periods
of absolute uncommunicativeness that, while not pleasing
in themselves, gain a terrible power in contrast to
the intimate installments.”—Fred Camper
“I started
working on this project for an event, “A Trip
Down Market Street 1905/2005: An Outdoor Centennial
Celebration,” sponsored by the Exploratorium,
a museum in San Francisco. As I am interested in the
projection apparatus and human visual perception,
I single-framed and carefully juxtaposed images on
Market Street, in order to create certain happenings
on the screen. The result may look abstract, yet representative
enough to show the characteristics of the street.
For sound, I will record the outdoor event, which
will take place at the east end of Market Street,
with a shotgun microphone, while this film is being
projected as a silent film.”—Tomonari
Nishikawa
“c:
won eyed jail is a structured confessional consisting
of two parts: a “quilt” patterned
out of 35mm still negatives and 35mm found motion
picture, and a “film print” of the quilt
that is screened through a 35mm motion picture projector.
The dual existence of c: won eyed jail as
a projected film and as a sculptural object is meant
to call into question the originary place of analysis
of film: is it in the content projected on the screen
or in the filmstrip/film negative? The (mis)use of
still negatives affectively mediates a collage unfolding
in real time before your very eyes. The result is
a fragmentation of the image that represents the visual
information in a more kinetic form. The sound is created
through collaging sentences from an essay that influenced
the project to form a sort of quilt essay dealing
with ideas of aesthetics, feminism, the philosophy
of quiltmaking and filmmaking, and of course the work
of Joyce Wieland.”—Kelly Egan
“Changes
of directions, in the wind, the edges, the shapes,
a joyous and mesmerizing Intrigue. Perhaps another
way to put it is to describe this piece as a humorous
digital cine take on the long cultural history of
the lessons left by the great Chinese painters of
the 13th century for whom shapes and edges where often
all one and the same.”—Vincent Grenier
“A man
is pursued by what he is convinced is his doppelganger.
The man is always on the move, from hotel to hotel,
country to country. In this episode the doppelganger
catches up to him.”—Joe Gibbons
“Hinterlands is
part time-lapse study of Northwest desert landscapes
and part animated fantasy; a sensorial wall of hypnosis-inducing
imagery and music, based on a fragment of T. S. Elliot’s
“The Waste Land”—Brian Short
“The diary of a necromancer
and her three favorite undead, as she lives her life
between the world of mortals and the realm of lost
souls. Inspired by the unfinished ballet “Grohg”
by Aaron Copland and originally commissioned by the
Bard Music Festival.
Producer: Sparky Pictures, Inc. in association with
Bard Music Festival.
Writer, Director, Editor JENNIFER REEVES
Co-writer WINSOME BROWN
Assistant Director, Production Manager BRIGETTE BLOOD
Principal Cast
Madame WINSOME BROWN
Youth PAUL BRICKMAN
Opium-Eater TANYA SELVARATNAM
Dancer ARIANE ANTHONY
Head Servitor DAVID F. SLONE, ESQ.
Additional Cast
Duet Dancer MONICA OLSON
Mother JANENE HIGGINS
Doctor DAVE SOLDIER
Youth’s Friend JASON BOGDAN
Female Servitor ANYA POPOVA
Opium Eater’s lover ADAM DUGAS
The Foundling MAUD ARPELS
Extra Servitors & bodies BILL WU, MATTHEW MOTTEL,
RICHARD LEDLEY, JENN REEVES, CLAIRE CHANDLER, NICK
MILLER, LOUISA BRADSHAW
Opium Eater’s Dog POIREAU
Cinematographer, Optical Effects JENNIFER REEVES
Choreographer ARIANE ANTHONY
Assistant Camera CLAIRE CHANDLER
Make-up, Stylist JOELLE TROISI
Gaffer DEREK GROSS
Key Grip, Make-up JENNIFER JONES
Additional Camera CLAIRE CHANDLER, JULIANA MONTGOMERY
Total Runtime: 79m
Program 1: STRAUB-HUILLET’S
A TRIP TO THE LOUVRE
Program
2: THE DAILY PLANET (Unearthed)
Program
3: DAVID GATTEN’S SECRET HISTORY OF THE DIVIDING
LINE: A TRUE ACCOUNT IN NINE PARTS
Program
4: THE TERRESTRIAL OBSERVATORY
Program
5: BLUE MOVIE with special guest VIVA
Program
6: ALLEN ROSS’S GRANDFATHER TRILOGY
Program 7: LARRY GOTTHEIM
Program 8: MANUAL OVERRIDE (“Slip
Inside this House”)
Program
9: SHADOWHUNGER
Program
10: HEINZ EMIGHOLZ
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Sun
Oct 2: 8:00 PM
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