My film work is significantly informed by experimental film traditions. The films are cinepoems which build on the vertical layering of experiences rather than a more linear structure familiar to the narrative form. They are invested in the exploitation of film as material while employing an economy of idea and nuance. Many of my films have investigated ideas of gender and sexuality along with an exploration of my personal experiences with the AIDS crises. Currently my film work has shifted to a critique of the social framings of sexuality and masculinity, fracturing boundaries established by a conservative gay movement and giving voice to the radical margins of sexual dissidence. I am currently engaged in projects which investigate home movies and other culturally-produced images through the lens of a queer theoretical perspective - intervening on the material of the film to disrupt and examine the images both for critical and aesthetic pursuits.
A structural cinepoem concerning the mystery of death through the struggle for answers and survival of my boyfriend Kevin, who passed away on my birthday in Sussex, England. Before Kevin died, he asked me to redefine the acronym AIDS as An Individual Desires Solution - hence the title.
The titles of text in the first section are transcriptions from the frantic phone calls with Kevin as he describes his life with the disease. The sound in the second section is of Kevin's voice, recorded over long-distance telephone lines then, re-recorded on multiple tracks. This distortion transcends language by focusing on the sound of the struggling voice while also creating rhythmic and atmospheric counterpoint to the images.
The second section consists of images of Kevin in his apartment and images taken from a train window. The images function metaphorically for the absolute terror and pain being experienced by both Kevin and myself. All I could do was to hold onto him and the camera; as he suffered far away from me, all I had were the images to edit through the helplessness.
"The film is excruciatingly painful to watch because its form forces us to experience the discomfort of not knowing rational solutions to the irrationality of the disease. People who enjoy the sentimental AIDS death narratives of the Teleculture would not enjoy Brose's film. And I think that is exactly why they need to see it." - Jerry Tartaglia, Out Week
The film was originally shot in Super 8.
1986-1991, 16mm, b&w/color/so, 16m, $50
FILMS FOR MUSIC FOR FILM represents a reconsideration of the interactive dynamic of sound and image in film. Usually, sound elements are incorporated after a film's completion. In this instance, however, the score and spoken text function as the actual film script, directing both the film's form and content. This engagement is twofold: I initially derive images through my own responses to both the music and accompanying text, subsequently relying on the score for the film's structure, employing montage, superimposition, abstraction, etc. These films are in no way merely descriptive visions of the score and text, but rather synergistic fusions of sound, words, and images. The films in this series received their premier presentation with live musical accompaniment and narration.
Six-Film Package:
1990, 16mm, b&w/color/so, 65m, $250
VHS Sale: $60 Home Use Only
Note: Separate film descriptions and rental prices follow.
Original Score: (for piano, percussion, and tape) Douglas Cohen; Original tape sounds by Lawrence F. Brose; Piano: Michael McCandless; Percussion: Robert Schulz.
In this film, all of the effects were achieved via camera techniques employed during the course of the shoot. However, the rhythms and tempi were all planned and projected prior to the actual filming. The challenge here was to create a film where all the editing superimpositions and abstractions were accomplished "in camera" for the expressed purpose of capturing the energy of the moment.
CHAMNAN was shot in Bangkok, in the Reno Hotel, in a single room, over several days. This film might be the closest I have come to a self-study. It was an extremely emotional time as my brother had just been killed. I left for Thailand to remove myself from the abstractions of daily living and to spend time with my friend Chamnan. His image is present in most of the film.
The soundtrack includes live sounds taped during the time of the filming: the television in the room; frogs outside the window; the swimming pool; riding in a taxi; the percussive sounds of coins dropping in the cast-iron pots in the temple of the Reclining Buddha and ritual chanting during Buddhist Lent. The sounds were then altered, layered, and edited by composer Douglas Cohen and used as the foundation of the composition for live instruments.
1990, 16mm, b&w/so, 14m, $50
Piano Sonata No. 2 (1930) by Virgil Thomson, transcribed for the film by Yvar Mikhashoff (1990), performed by the Buffalo New Music Ensemble.
Virgil Thomson composed musical portraits of many people as he viewed them from across a table. Just as an artist uses the various elements of a visual medium, Virgil would sketch personal images employing the palette of musical expression.
EVERBEST, VIRGIL follows in this tradition by setting a film portrait of the composer to his self-portrait composition. In his book "On Musical Portraiture," Virgil writes: "The Second Piano Sonata is curious. ... Not me thinking about myself, but being myself. That's why I couldn't identify it as a self-portrait for many years." I filmed Virgil in his apartment at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan shortly before his passing. These are the final images abstracted from the life of a most treasured American composer.
1990, 16mm, b&w/color/so, 8m, $50
Music: Yvar Mikhashoff, "Looking Through the Air" from the trilogy "Elemental Figures"; Poem: "Shaman" by Paul Schmidt; Piano: Anthony deMare; Narration: Paul Schmidt.
The shaman, or tribal priest, of the Papago Indians is a berdache. The berdache is a figure found in many aboriginal cultures and is considered to be a vessel of both male and female spirits. Moreover, the berdache is often a cross-dressing, homosexual male. The berdache is considered to be especially blessed by the gods.
The United States government asked the Papagos to give up use of a sacred mountain so that a high-powered telescope could be installed at the site. After long negotiations, the citizens decided it was okay for the construction to take place if the Papagos would be allowed to consecrate the building with their rituals. They also assumed the right to name the observatory. It was called "The Long Eyes of Earth."
The intent of the film is to approach ritual as a way of seeing. The images are an attempt to tap the same spirit that might be invoked by a berdache. As an elemental figure, the berdache is close to nature and all its components. As a gay man, I am interested in the link between sexual identity, spirituality, and creativity. In that spirit, this film is made.
1990, 16mm, b&w/color/so, 10m, $50
Music: John Cage, performed by the Buffalo New Music Ensemble.
The cinematic challenge here was to create a visual image of musical glissandi. In his notes on RYOANJI, composer John Cage requested that the glissandi be "non-vibrato and as close as possible to the sound events found in nature rather than those occurring normally in music. The score is otherwise a 'still photograph' of mobile circumstances."
The images are put onto this film by hand. Rather than a series of photographs one after another, the image on the screen is of lines etched along the entire length of the film, providing a sustained, continuous image. This establishes a visual continuum. Also, using images of nature, I take these moving images and stack-print them onto each other, six, 12, or even 24 times to create another kind of movement.
The film is treated as another soloist in the ensemble. The score is recorded three times. In performance, the live vocalist, for example, will interact with three other versions of the song. The same holds true for the other instrumentalists as well. It is quite a full garden of sound.
1990, 16mm, color/so, 20m, $75
Music: Conlon Nancarrow
This is one of Conlon Nancarrow's altered player piano pieces. Nancarrow (an American composer) has resided in Mexico City D.F. for the past 50 years. His involvement in the Spanish Civil War as a member of the Lincoln Brigade won him the dubious honor of being an undesirable in the eyes of the American government. He fled to Mexico City where he lived in virtual obscurity and isolation (until the late 1970s). He could find no musicians to play his extremely difficult music, so he acquired a player piano roll punching machine and began composing strictly for the mechanical piano. Most of his compositions are titled "Studies."
The film is a study of light as it emanates from the title itself, "enacting" the rhythms of Study #15.
1990, 16mm, b&w/so, 1m, $25
Poems: Paul Schmidt; Music: Mark Bennett, performed by the Buffalo New Music Ensemble; Narration: Paul Schmidt.
Paul Schmidt sent me a set of five poems from a series titled "War Songs." Paul is both brilliant and sarcastic in his treatment of the seduction of war. Mark Bennett's score is also provocative, dreamy, and waltzlike. The composite is a set of songs cast as melodeclamation; i.e., music in tandem with a narrated text. My contribution is a superimposition of war scenes underlined with what I call a "Gabriel" image: a young and beautiful soldier, a personification of the good warrior, the protector of all. The image of his persona is felt throughout - sometimes active and aggressive, sometimes asleep, sometimes beckoning. The film employs images from the Vietnam War and the Second World War. The collected images of marching soldiers, rolling tanks, explosions, et al. reveal, in passing, our dear Gabriel.
1990, 16mm, b&w/color/so, 12m, $50