Sara Kathryn Arledge (1911-1998) is one of the undeservedly neglected figures in the American experimental cinema. Although her two major works, INTROSPECTION and WHAT IS A MAN?, were completed in 1946 and 1958, respectively, neither was screened with any frequency until the late 1970s. In his book The Exploding Eye, Wheeler Winston Dixon has written, "Along with Maya Deren and Marie Menken, Sara Kathryn Arledge is one of the foremothers of the American experimental cinema, who worked tirelessly to perfect her art during the span of several decades when she was one of the few practitioners of independent cinema."
INTROSPECTION was begun in 1941 and was the first abstract dance film made in the United States. Along with Maya Deren's A Study in Choreography for Camera, also made in the mid-'40s, Arledge's film pioneered the genre that came to be known as "cine-dance." WHAT IS A MAN?, her second film, is a series of vignettes which ponder the "alienation" of modern man and woman. Completed shortly after Arledge's release from Napa State Hospital, where she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had undergone numerous electroshock treatments, WHAT IS A MAN? offers a fascinating glimpse into the filmmaker's psyche.
A prolific painter, Arledge also pioneered the medium of hand painting on glass slide transparencies. These largely abstract works, begun in 1947, involved the making of "glass sandwiches," between which she squeezed colored gelatinous sheets which were heated in ovens. The melted gels were then drawn on with toothpicks, Q-tips, crumpled napkins and toilet paper, Sharpie pens and so on. Finding great satisfaction with this process, Arledge would eventually make a number of what she called "stable" films (see TENDER IMAGES and INTERIOR GARDEN), in which she transferred the glass transparencies to 16mm film.
"Disembodied parts of dancers are seen moving freely in black space ... [they] form a moving and rhythmic three dimensional design of semi-abstract shapes." - Lewis Jacobs, "Avant-Garde Production in America," Experiment in the Film, Grey Walls Press, London, 1949
"Our dance audience seemed particularly pleased with the opportunity to enjoy such a rare film." - Margaret Cooper, Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada, November 1977
Purpose: to demonstrate a (then) new dance medium totally different from the stage. Audience: general public, dancers, artists.
1941, 16mm, color/so, 7m, $20
"Imagery and dialogue stimulated by Finnegan's Wake. It is a satire with undertones of the cosmic spirit." - Sara Kathryn Arledge
"WHAT IS A MAN? propels Sara Kathryn Arledge from the realm of formal experimentation to social satire. Made with a remarkably sharp wit and a trenchant, mocking view of gender conventions, Arledge gives us a work far ahead of its time. Begun in 1951, Arledge received the first Creative Film Foundation award (established by Maya Deren) for script development in 1956 and completed the film in 1958. It was not until Nelly Kaplan's also neglected feature A Very Curious Girl (La Fianc�e Du Pirate, 1969) that women's cinema would once again celebrate such a spirited, subversive artist." - Bill Nichols, from his program notes for the film series "Maya Deren: Her Radical Aspirations and Influences in the Film Avant-Garde," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, April-May 1996
1958, 16mm, color/so, 10m, $30
Seventeen brilliantly colored stable images, accompanied by rain sounds. INTERIOR GARDEN, along with TENDER IMAGES, are filmic combinations of abstract and semi-abstract hand-painted glass transparencies dating from 1947 to 1978.
"A magical original piece from a pioneer experimentalist. A marvelous new technique and powerful perspective into the heart of the poet." - Chick Strand
1978, 16mm, color/so, 7m, $20
Fifteen imaginative three-dimensional paintings in black, sepia and white light.
"Beautiful and original." - Francis Lee, pioneer filmmaker, NY
1978, 16mm, color/si, 6m, $20
"The final work from Pasadena's venerable filmmaker is a modern-day Greek tragicomedy, replete with appearances by gods, goddesses, wood-nymphs, and talk show hosts." - Terry Cannon
"I do enjoy uncertain states of mind." - Sara Kathyrn Arledge
1983, 16mm, color/so, 15m, $45