"Unburdened by any sort of narration or pretension to convey a 'message,' the film is a sparkle of human energy sprouting in gospel singing and music. Blau, an experienced photographer, shows us here that he's a real jazz-man of the camera as his eye dances unforcefully with the emotionality of the performers in the film." - Andrej Zdravic
Award: Tokyo Experimental Film Festival, 1984
1982, 16mm, color/so, 12.5m, $40
Image/sound: Dawn Wiedemann and Dick Blau; Additional music: Pavel Burda, Joan La Barbara and Yehuda Yannay.
Fairy tales. We improvised them one summer in a woods on the shore of Lake Michigan around an overgrown ruin - a place where mystery seemed to lurk. The original was shot on Super 8 and subsequently altered by means of optical printing. The tales were then woven into one another, sound and image twined together, a dense underbrush filled with little treasures: from sunlit dreams to sullen demons. The effect lies somewhere between kaleidoscope and labyrinth. Twisting and turning through it all are the dozen "stories" that make up the film, stories whose flinting threads both form the larger pattern of the piece and lead to its conclusion.
1986, 16mm, color/so, 8m, $30
Direction/Editing: Dick Blau; Performance/Music: Yehuda Yannay; Screenplay: Yannay/Blau; Visual Design: Jerry Fortier; Camera: Jake Fuller; Additional Performance: Valie Export as the Good Austrian and George - can you spot him? - Kuchar. From an original idea by Yehuda Yannay.
What happens when the Wandering Jew shows up in Milwaukee ... and wanders through Western history? JIDYLL (Yidl) is a collaborative venture between filmmaker Dick Blau and composer Yehuda Yannay. It is an experimental narrative that talks about Jewish experience, both contemporary and historical, through a series of performance activities, jokes and provocations, all strung together in a picaresque tale whose shape-shifting hero - played by Yannay - passes through a mid-sized American city in the course of a mythical day.
"[A] funny, poignant and provocative essay on Jewish identity, filled with a wealth of visual puns and striking images, that may amuse and disturb both Jews and gentiles." - Milwaukee Magazine
1990, 16mm, color/so, 31m, $95