Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? (1958)
This rarely-seen USC student film is a rumination on mass systems of information and the American nuclear family. Voices and other extraneous sounds litter the soundtrack as A Man (Bob Olsen) goes to work while The Woman (Gloria Jensen) tends to their home. Their Child (Marty Rambotis) watches cartoons on television. More relatable now than ever, but in a quite predictable way. Gregory Markopoulos: “A typical example of what is expected of anyone seeking to take a course at the University of California. The deliberate close-ups of things which one would never consider of any interest or value find their way in this rather tedious film.” (94)
Mothlight (1963)
This Stan Brakhage classic was made from pressing moth wings, flower petals and blades of grass between two strips of splicing tape. Stan Brakhage: “These crazy moths are flying into the candlelight, and burning themselves to death, and that’s what’s happening to me. I don’t have enough money to make these films, and… I’m not feeding my children properly, because of these damn films, you know. And I’m burning up here… What can I do?”
Doorway (1971)
In one continuous shot, Larry Gottheim covers a landscape, panning left while shooting through a seemingly impossibly wide doorway. Heavy snowfall covers the ground so all of the edges, lines, and whatever else may cross the screen stand out in contrast. A meditation, and a long exhale.
A History of Dancing (1976)
Peter von Ziegesar’s A History of Dancing is a piece of visual poetry, pulling from footage shot by Ziegesar, optical printing, failed optical printing, and hand-painted animation to present a comprehensive history of dancing. Footage of a live chicken being positioned on a chopping block opens the film before cutting to blue/black, an image that lingers even after an optical transition into the beginning of the film. The silhouette of what appears to be a running boy wipes into a shot of a private library, where a man opens a book: A History of Dancing. The next time we see the chicken, the footage appears to have been flipped horizontally, and the chicken is slaughtered. Peter von Ziegesar: “A History of Dancing explores trauma I’d gathered from an insecure childhood in suburban Connecticut—during which two of my siblings died violently as teenagers. The lesson for me was that death is always nearby, even among the well-to-do and supposedly sheltered. In a spiritual-narrative sense, the film follows the transmigration of the soul after death, going through several states before reaching a final destination similar to Nirvana. (A similar transmigration occurs in my films, None Saved, and Alaska.)”
Airing (2024)
Carter Haskins’ short silent film Airing is an urban pastorale, a genre that inherently carries a degree of irony. While the film evokes a scene reminiscent of the 19th century, it is subtly infused with modern, subversive elements. Shot on Super 8 film, its grainy texture makes the air itself feel tangible—atoms bumping and rubbing against each other. At the film’s center is a young woman seated on a blanket in a busy city park, drawing on a large piece of paper. Having recently watched several Jane Austen adaptations, I was reminded that outdoor watercolor painting was once one of the few respectable pastimes available to women. However, unlike Austen’s heroines—spirited though they may be—Haskins’ subject wears visible tattoos, a nose ring, and casually bares more skin than would ever have been deemed appropriate in polite society. Traditionally, such overt expressions of female sexuality are frowned upon in bourgeois culture. Yet, paradoxically, the idealized female nude has long been acceptable as an object for the artist’s gaze. The woman in Airing, however, appears indifferent to how her appearance might be interpreted. She asserts control over her body and presence, undisturbed by those around her. Upon closer inspection, we realize that the picture she’s painting isn’t a rendering of her immediate surroundings, but rather an imagined pastoral scene populated with nude figures in various poses—a nod to a long bohemian tradition in representational art. The camera then cuts upward to the sky, framed by tree branches rustling in a gentle breeze. It is a timeless image, disrupted only by the stark line of a telephone wire cutting across the frame. As a silent film, Airing self-consciously connects us to the early history of cinema. But it also gestures toward the broader history of visual art. While most early silent films were accompanied by live music or sound effects, other forms of visual art—such as painting and sculpture—are experienced in silence. This quietude hints at the film’s aspiration to be accepted as fine art, an aspiration it fulfills.
Just as it yearns for a return to nature, Airing also yearns for a place within the canon of artistic expression.
– Peter von Ziegesar
Sources
Markopoulos, Gregory J. Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos. Edited by Mark Webber, Visible Press, 2014.
Stan Brakhage, audio commentator. By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume 1. Directed by Brakhage, 1963.
Carter Haskins 