"Eroticism is firstly a search for pleasure ... a perception of the divine state, which is infinite delight." - Kama Sutra
Leland Auslender has always had one foot planted firmly in the world of photography and the other in the world of science.
His films have been honored at Venice, Bergamo, New York and San Francisco international exhibitions, receiving numerous awards including three CINE Golden Eagles and a "One of Ten Best," from the Photographic Society of America, International Cinema Competition.
THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE, official US entry at Cannes and the Atlanta International Film Festival, won the Silver Phoenix for Best Experimental Film; also, the CINE Golden Eagle. It was the featured cover story for the September, 1971 issue of American Cinematographer magazine.
This film, recognized for its multiple superimposed liquid images filmed with distorting mirrors, led to the development of Auslender's present passion, an exclusive optical process that transforms rectangular images into swirling prismatic visions floating inside a sphere. Called "celestial images," they suggest the divine nature of the universe, its mythology, fantasies and dreams, where everything is alive, and everyone is touched and transformed by everything and everybody else, forming an ever-changing, indivisible, harmonious whole.
With engineering and business degrees from Cal Tech and Stanford Graduate School of Business, Auslender has worked as a film producer, director, writer and cinematographer for pioneering organizations, including Hughes Aircraft Company, US Navy, NBC-TV and ABC-TV. He owns patents to a theatrical film process, "Dynamic Frame," and served as a board member of SmarTire Systems, Inc. during the development of the company's hi-tech automotive tire monitoring systems.
Today, Auslender's aim is to reveal, in photographic images, transcendental experiences of our oneness with the mystical universe, its divine beauty and infinite delight, experiences he calls "Momentary Forevers."
Here is a poetic documentary about this famous contemporary metal sculptor, showing him at work on one of the last pieces completed before his untimely death, some say from the three "D's," Drink, Drugs and Dissipation, but more accurately from the three "S's," Struggle, Starvation and Systemic disintegration. The viewer witnesses the step-by-step process of creation as the artist collects, cuts, shapes and welds cast-off materials into a sensitive human figure. The film concludes with a cinepoem in which Boise's works are elements in an overall abstract experience.
Boise, who lived unusually close to nature, was a pioneer in the use of "available" materials. His works, noted for their powerful feeling and simplicity of design, have been exhibited in museums from coast to coast and are included in many distinguished collections. The track includes sounds and rhythms played by Boise on unique musical sculptures, which he called "Space Flowers."
Awards: CINE Golden Eagle; Third Place Commercial Film, Annual Int'l Cinema Competition, Photographic Society of America; Official USA entry, Venice, Addis Ababba, and Bergman Int'l Film Festivals; SF Int'l and American film festivals.
1966, 16mm, color/so, 9m, $30
VHS Sale: $50 Home; $90 Other
Electronic music by Jimmy Webb, Fred Katz and Tim Weisberg is blended with subliminal vocal sounds. Unique special effects and original imagery.
"Dream is the myth of the individual," Jane Harrison once wrote. This film is both dream and myth. A personal version or vision of the archetypal Aphrodite legend, it depicts the birth of the Goddess of love and beauty from sky-God father and sea-Goddess mother. After a period of gestation in the ocean depths, Aphrodite is delivered from the womb of the wave, lingers briefly on the shore, then continues her ascent, becoming the planet Venus.
The distortion technique developed by the filmmaker has received wide acclaim - a full color cover story appeared in the September, 1971 issue of the American Cinematographer.
Awards: Silver Phoenix Trophy, Atlanta Int'l Film Festival; Best Experimental Film, Cannes Film Festival; Edinburgh Film Festival; CINE Golden Eagle.
"[The Birth of Aphrodite] revives the forgotten aspect of magic in the cinema." - Todd McCarthy, San Francisco Chronicle
1971, 16mm, color/so, 12m, $38
VHS Sale: $70 Home; $140 Other
This unusual film shows how pain - the death of a child - can become a way of seeing, a spiritual experience, instead of only a woeful experience as we are taught. DEAR LITTLE LIGHTBIRD carries the viewer into the world of the mystical vision, where the eternal beauty, spirituality, and unity of life and death are experienced.
Beautifully photographed and deeply moving, it was awarded One of the Ten Best - International Cinema Competition, Photographic Society of America.
1971, 16mm, color/so, 19m, $60
VHS Sale: $80 Home; $160 Other
From 1960 to 1964, I lived in Venice Beach, California, then known as “Venice, Slum by the Sea.” It was also the heart of the mushrooming beat and hippy cultures. Its free-spirited, flamboyant inhabitants fascinated me, and I filmed all who attracted my lens. I was particularly drawn to creative characters who courageously lived their unconventional lives.
Today, 43 years later, I have edited this footage into a 15-minute documentary titled "Venice Beach in the Sixties-A Celebration of Creativity. It includes encounters with talented-sculptors Taki Camille and Ron Boise; eccentric Big-Daddy Eric Nord; Venice-West-Café creator, gentle-poet, and fiery Peace-and-Freedom-Party founder John Haag; brilliant-satirist Claire Horner; a hippy Halloween costume party; a hip “un-costume” party, with erotic dancers dressed only in body-paint; and my single encounter with the entheogenic substance LSD, a life-enhancing experience that unveiled to me the mystical universe in its eternal divine aspect. "Entheogenic" translates from the Greek as "Finding God Within," and that's what this film is all about.
Originally shot in 16-mm color, it has been shown at the Hollywood Egyptian Theatre in the American Cinematheque.
2007, DVD Sale: $35 home use, $200 institutions