"METANOMEN harnesses a kind of rhythmic conflict. The film is tense and out of this tenseness arises the vision of an enigmatic girl, set in opposition to a man shown as a contrasty profile. The two characters are set in a flux of manipulated technology run wild: the balance of forces that keeps man and woman alive in the web of the great industrial culture." - The Wittenberg Torch
1966, 16mm, b&w/so, 8m, $25
"The language of OFFON is evocation. We gaze at these iconic forms hypnotically, much the same as we are drawn to fire or water, because they make us aware of fundamental realities below the surface of normal perception." - Gene Youngblood
"OFFON is so striking a work, so obviously a landmark, that it has been acquired by virtually every major film art collection in America, from the Museum of Modern Art to the Smithsonian Institute." - Sheldon Renan, Curator, Pacific Film Archive
1968, 16mm, color/so, 10m, $30
"The interrelated convolutions and spasms of image, color, and sound that filmmaker Bartlett creates is the cumulative effect of his pioneer work using negative images, polarization, television techniques, computer-film, and electronic patterns all compressed into a visual punch that directs one where he normally would not go with a film - on a trip in search of the human soul." - Paul Brawley, The Booklist, American Library Association
1969, 16mm, color/so, 15m, $45
1971, 16mm, color/so, 13m, $40
Sponsored by the Guggenheim Foundation.
The serpent embodies the primal chaotic life force in mythic symbology. SERPENT uses natural and electronic imagery to particularize this creative force. The visceral impact of this marriage of metaphors brings about a union of irreconcilables, fire and water, nature and civilization, extremes of hot and cold.
1971, 16mm, color/so, 15m, $45
Producer: Ron Stevenson
A documentary about the old cities of Morocco. Bartlett sleptwalked into an awakening culture.
"It is as if all the impulse toward lyrical pattern in Bartlett's film work had found an objective correlative in the walls, the steps and tiles, the dense calligraphic decoration, the shaded windows and veiled eyes of the city." - The New York Times
1972, 16mm, color/so, 15m, $45
Sponsored by the American Film Institute.
1970 - the year of the moon shot; the year of the Bartlett's only son, Adam; the year Scott's life peaked in high harmony and discord with the American culture.
This autobiographical film presented so thorough a summation of Bartlett's personal work that it rendered him harmless for years to come.
1972, 16mm, color/so, 30m, $90
The classic, meditative movements of T'ai Chi Ch'uan harmonize with nature and camera as a solo figure executes the forms. The camera as acolyte witnesses the transit of body, ground and sky as the man moves from oceanside cliff, to forest, to mountain and finally to the austere city-space of a studio where, perhaps, his body had been all the time.
This film's graceful visual dignity is appealing for studies in martial arts, yoga, dance, body movement, film as art and to anyone interested in the confluence of eastern and western culture.
Awards: Filmforum; Sinking Creek Film & Video Festival.
1976, 16mm, color/so, 12m, $35
Working and playing hard at a northern California commune - fast-paced cutting to Taj Mahal's "Happy to be just like I am."
1977, 16mm, color/so, 14m, $40
A graphic disintegration of violence in Chicago, 1929. Original pre-swing jazz recordings by Earl Hines and Tiny Parham.
1979, 16mm, color/so, 12m, $35
The filmmaker narrates MAKING SERPENT, a documentary film which carefully describes the creative process behind SERPENT, his award-winning short. MAKING SERPENT is a step-by-step teaching device that explores film techniques such as: how to structure a non-verbal narrative; how to shoot film for editing; how to find universal, archetypal images in nature and daily life; how to render images in imaginative graphic forms; how to make exciting visuals inexpensively. Shown together with SERPENT, MAKING SERPENT becomes an important educational aid for film students and art students alike.
"Eisenstein's Film Form continued on film." - Bruce Baillie
"I consider it a reasonable antidote to some of the loose pretensions of structural film." - Stan Brakhage
"I was never interested in experimental film until I saw MAKING SERPENT." - Lydia Smedda, Film Teacher, Vienna, Austria
"I wish they had shown it when I was a film student." - Tom Charns, Gas Station Attendant, California
1980, 16mm, color/so, 32m, $90
In the summer of 1967, Mike MacNamee, Glen McKay and Scott Bartlett met for America's first electrovideographic jamb. Bartlett's film loops and McKay's light show liquids were mixed through a video effects bank and the results were filmed by MacNamee directly off the studio monitor with a rented kinescope camera.
Bartlett edited a portion of this material and then built a soundtrack with the help of Tom DeWitt, who had also supplied many of the original film loops, and Manny Meyer, electronic sound composer. The finished film was called OFFON.
In 1980, Bartlett recreated the event in a video production class at UCLA. With his students' help he composed a video primer: MAKING OFFON. Wipes, keying, feedback - all the standard functions of a studio switcher - are first illustrated and named, then woven into a sound and picture puzzle of the '60s.
A MUST for all video students, especially when shown along with the original OFFON.
1981, 16mm, color/so, 18m, $55