The Discipline of D.E.

Early short film by GUS VAN SANT, based on the WILLIAM BURROUGHS short story of the same name. From 1978.

All My Life by Bruce Baillie

Part of the original wave of New American Cinema in the 60's, BRUCE BAILLIE's work was beautiful in it's simplicity and poeticism, always arriving at a deeply personal awareness of the image.

ALL MY LIFE, made in 1966 on 16mm film, is famously the all-time favorite film of my all-time favorite teacher of film.

Like a moth to a flame

From STAN BRAKHAGE, the seminal avant garde short film MOTHLIGHT. Made in 1963. Uploaded to YouTube in 2007.

The Perfect Human

This 1967 short film from Danish filmmaker JØRGEN LETH was the subject of LARS VON TRIER's provocation THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS, in which LETH was challenged to remake the film five times, each with new "obstructions" set by VON TRIER.

On its own, the film is certainly a singular production, merging documentary style with Structuralism, cast in a New Wave sense of off-handed poetry. For contemporary film fans who have seen the VON TRIER film, THE PERFECT HUMAN never appears in full in that movie, so it's a real pleasure to watch the original, without the weight of any further challenges.

What happens in Vegas...

One of the most delightful film experiences I had last year was catching the work of OLIVO BARBIERI, both at film festivals and galleries. His photography from the SITE SPECIFIC_NEW YORK 07 series was on view here in NYC, but my first encounter with his unique shooting style was this film, SITE SPECIFIC_LAS VEGAS 05.

The beguiling yet simple technique used by BARBIERI involves a tilt-shift lens, throwing what looks like a narrow depth of focus on far-away scenes of cityscapes. First-time viewers, myself included, have a hard time deciding if the scenes are real, or models. But all of BARBIERI's toylike depictions are shot from a helicopter, using a slightly more advanced tilt-shift technique which he won't fully disclose. The result is a chance see well-known landscapes from an unusual perspective.