Silence in cinema is undoubtedly an acquired taste, but the freedom it unveils has many rich rewards. The major part of my work is both silent and paced to be projected at 18 fps. (silent speed). HOURS FOR JEROME should ideally be shown at 20fps and SONG AND SOLITUDE at 17fps when the rare luxury of that situation exists, rather than at 24fps (sound speed). To project my silent speed films (PNEUMA through the present) at 24fps is to strip them of their ability to open the heart and speak properly to their audience. Not only is the specific use of time violated, but the flickering threshold of cinema's illusion, a major player in these works, is obscured.
It is the direct connection of light and audience that interests me. The screen continually shifts dimensionally from being an image-window, to a floating energy field, to simply light on the wall. In my films, the black space surrounding the screen is as significant as the square itself. Silence allows these articulations, which are both poetic and sculptural at the same time, to be revealed and appreciated.
The first of three films depicting the emergence from adolescence. INGREEN is a reflecting pool of the underwater involvement of a mother-father-son relationship.
"... made of beautiful greens ... glimpses of figures of images that are recognizable ... the esthetic experience is created by the flow and play of superimpositions." - Jonas Mekas
"... the film haunts, has tugged at my mind now and again all these years ..." - Stan Brakhage
1964, 16mm, color/so, 12m, $35
The second in the trilogy, it is less a psychodrama and more a sad sweet song of youth and death, of boyhood and manhood and our tender earth.
"Forgetting its 'psychological plot' this film is a fine exponent of the intrinsic magical power of cinema. Its images, which evolve in a rather unmagical sober suburb, are continually transcended and manipulated into a kind of epic haiku of superimpositions and textural weavings." - Jerry Hiler
1964, 16mm, color/so, 11m, $35
Part three of this trilogy. The world is seen from a larger view. "A singularly direct and unpretentious evocation of summer life in Nathaniel Dorsky's home town. The number of that life's aspects so surely revealed, the range and thoroughness of observation, the sensual accuracy of the camera, the remarkably poetic use of slow motion, and the unhurried, meditative unfolding of episode, distinguish SUMMERWIND as a work of ripeness beyond its maker's years." - Ken Kelman
1965, 16mm, color/so, 14m, $40
This footage was shot from 1966 to 1970 and edited over a two year period ending in July 1982. HOURS FOR JEROME (as in a Book of Hours) is an arrangement of images, energies, and illuminations from daily life. These fragments of light revolve around the four seasons. PART ONE is spring through summer; PART TWO is fall and winter.
"HOURS FOR JEROME is simply the most beautifully photographed film that I've ever seen; here we enter the realm of the compassionate and the full achievement of what film can do cinemagraphically is achieved. It is a privilege to experience the thoughtful unfolding of these images." - Warren Sonbert
Note: Part 1 should be projected silent, at 18fps. Part 2 should be projected silent, at either 18fps or 24fps.
1980-1982, 16mm, color/si, 45m (24fps), $150
Note: Part 1 (21m) and Part 2 (24m) may be rented separately for $75 each.
In Stoic philosophy "pneuma" is the "soul" or fiery wind permeating the body, and at death survives the body but as impersonal energy. Similarly, the "world pneuma" permeates the details of the world. The images in this film come from an extensive collection of out-dated raw stock that has been processed without being exposed, and sometimes rephotographed in closer format. Each pattern of grain takes on its own emotional life, an evocation of different aspects of our own being. A world is revealed that is alive with the organic deterioration of film itself, the essence of cinema in its before-image, preconceptual purity. The present twilight of reversal reality has made this collection a fond farewell to those short-lived but hardy emulsions.
1977-1983, 16mm, color/si, 28m (18fps), $85
ARIEL is a highly energetic and colorful divertissement of abstract film achieved with improvised home color processing and a physical, almost sculptural manipulation of the film surface.
"ARIEL, which shares its name with the airy spirit in Shakespeare's The Tempest, presents a free-wheeling tactile procession beginning with exuberant passages full of emphatic physical gestures and moves through somber burgundy patinas and bursts of delicate vitreous pools." - Janis Crystal Lipzin
1983, 16mm, color/si, 16m (18fps), $45
Sand, wind, and light intermingle with the emulsions. The viewer is the star.
"ALAYA manages a perfection of 'musical' light across a space of time greater in length than would seem possible (consider how brief most such perfected works are, such as Peter Kubelka, say) ... and with minimal means of line and tone. ... After about three minutes I began to be aware of the subtlety of rhythm, within each shot and shot-to-shot, which carried each cut, causing each new image to sit in-the-light of those several previous ... a little short of a miracle. Bravo!" - Stan Brakhage
"From PNEUMA the particles are still there and the light is still there, but now there is the distinct impression of watching air blowing sand, yet the air is as transparent as the viewer's mind." - Konrad Steiner
1976-1987, 16mm, color/si, 28m (18fps), $85
17 REASONS WHY was photographed with a variety of semi-ancient regular 8 cameras and is projected unslit as 16mm. These pocket-sized relics enabled me to walk around virtually "unseen," exploring and improvising with the immediacy of a more spontaneous medium. The four image format has built-in contrapuntal resonances, ironies, and beauty, and in each case gives us an unpretentious look at the film frame itself ... the simple and primordial delight of luminous Kodachrome and rich black and white chugging thru these timeworn gates.
1985-1987, 16mm, color/si, 19m (18fps), $60
TRISTE is an indication of the level of cinema language that I have been working towards. By delicately shifting the weight and solidity of the images, and bringing together subject matter not ordinarily associated, a deeper sense of impermanence and mystery can open. The images are as much pure-energy objects as representation of verbal understanding and the screen itself is transformed into a "speaking" character. The "sadness" referred to in the title is more the struggle of the film itself to become a film as such, rather than some pervasive mood.
1974-1996, 16mm, color/si, 18.5m (18fps), $65
VARIATIONS blossomed forth while shooting additional material for TRISTE. What tender chaos, what current of luminous rhymes might cinema reveal unbridled from the daytime word? During the Bronze Age a variety of sanctuaries were built for curative purposes. One of the principal activities was transformative sleep. This montage speaks to that tradition.
1992-1998, 16mm, color/si, 24m (18fps), $80
The films ARBOR VITAE, TRISTE, VARIATIONS, LOVE'S REFRAIN are four cinematic songs.
Parts Three and Four of a set of Four Cinematic Songs. (Parts One and Two are "Triste" and "Variations")
ARBOR VITAE is a gesture towards a cinema of pure being. Its atmosphere is haunted by the period in which it was shot, the year of 1999. Although the cuts are open and numerous in their intent, the underlying motivation is the delicate reveal of the transparency of presence, our tender mystery midst the elaborate unfolding of the tree of life.
Note: Please project the 10 feet of black leader on the screen that preceeds the main title and that follows the last shot!! Thank you. - Nathaniel Dorsky
1999/2000, 16mm, color/si, 18fps 28m, $100
Perhaps the most delicately tactile in this series, LOVE'S REFRAIN rests moment to moment on its own surface. It is a coda in twilight, a soft-spoken conclusion to a set of four cinematic songs.
2000/2001, 16mm, color/si, 22.5m @ 18fps, $80
The first of two devotional songs.
Part One of a set of Two Devotional Songs. "The Visitation" is a gradual unfolding, an arrival so to speak. I felt the necessity to describe an occurrence, not one specifically of time and place, but one of revelation in one's own psyche. The place of articulation is not so much in the realm of images as information, but in the response of the heart to the poignancy of the cuts.
2002, 16mm, color/si, 18fps, 18m, $60
THRENODY is a somber but luminous progression through a delicate articulation of earthly phenomena...an offering to a friend who died. It is the second of two devotional songs, the first being THE VISITATION. These two films were preceeded by a series of Four Cinematic Songs: TRISTE, VARIATIONS, ARBOR VITAE, and LOVE'S REFRAIN.
2004 16mm color/silent, 25 minutes $100 rental
"Song and Solitude" was conceived and photographed with the loving collaboration of Susan Vigil during the last year of her life. Its balance is more toward an expression of inner landscape, or what it feels like to be, rather than an exploration of the external visual world as such.
Old School doesn't describe it. Dorsky has achieved such a subtle mastery over the most basic means of cinematic expression-composition, duration, juxtaposition-that he can squeeze a wealth of emotional vibrations out of the silent, seemingly banal interplay of foreground and background objects. A formalist with a brimming, elegiac soul, Dorsky will gently rock your attitude toward cinematic landscape. His world is a sublime mystery measured by patience and unmatched visual insight.-Paul Arthur, Film Comment
2005/2006, color/silent, 18 fps., 21 min. $75 Rental