1964, 16mm, b&w/so, 12m, $35
Sound by Gavin Bryars. With Beatrice Cordua. Furthers (the theme of) the one-to-one, take-me woman. Subjective and very direct and directed at you, she gives herself and drives at what she wants .... "TRIXI is Dwoskin's most convulsive version of his recurrent theme: the confrontation of a solitary girl with the camera. Shot in one continuous 8-hour session. TRIXI records Beatrice Cordua's responses to the situation, from initial shyness, fear and withdrawal through teasing and posturing to naked surrender and final exhaustion .... The camera is highly mobile; often confronting the girl in extreme close-ups, sometimes swooping down from overhead, sometimes searching to 'recapture' her .... The camera itself is the object of erotic desire, [in] the sense of giving a performance shifting imperceptibly in a helpless self-exposure in response to its constant stare. Clearly, the form of the film was dictated by the response of the performer. Beatrice Cordua proves Dwoskin's most expressive subject to date, and the film is correspondingly 'open,' the camera having been willing to choose its tactics as direct responses." - Tony Rayns
1969, 16mm, color/so, 30m, $90
With Tina Fraser.
One single continuous shot of a girl's face before, during and after an orgasm. A concentration on the subtle changes within the face - going from an objective look into a subjective one and then back out .... MOMENT is not a woman alone, but with her "in person." Have you ever really watched the face in orgasm?
"MOMENT presents a continuous, fixed gaze by the camera at a girl's face. The fixity, although paralleling the spectator's position, nevertheless marks itself off as 'different' from our view because it refuses the complex system of cuts, movements, 'invisible' transitions etc. which classic cinema developed to capture our 'subjectivity' and absorb it into the filmic text.
"In this way, the distinction between the camera and the viewer is emphasized. Moreover, the sadistic components inherent in the pleasurable exercise of the 'controlling' gaze are returned to the viewer, as it is he/she who must construct the 'scenario' by combining a reading of the image with an imagined (but suggested) series of happenings off-screen." - from Paul Willemen, program note for "Perspectives on British Avant-Garde Film," Hayward Gallery, London
1970, 16mm, color/so, 12.5m, $35
Once upon anytime in a world like now, any man wandered into an island of women. Their succulent presence, like many Circes, drew his fantasy. He follows. He seeks a kingdom, but as I foretold you, we're all spirits, and are melted into air - thin air - and, like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a track behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep ....
TIMES FOR is a larger entry into dream reality. An unfulfilled man renders himself to the unrealized sensuality of four women. In his drifting search he fails and fades in the same loneliness as the women. The film is the reality and a metaphor for the intensities of sexual experience.
"... His camera is a never-static instrument of his intrusion into the fantasy/reality of the relationships he is dealing with and forming .... TIMES FOR is one of the few erotic masterpieces." - program note, National Film Theatre, London
1970, 16mm, color/so, 80m, $150
DIRTY is the reincarnation of two girls, a bottle and one bed. Their bodies, hands and face expressions reach out in a refilm look.
"DIRTY was originally shot in 1965. The footage was found in a very bad state and 'restored' with all marks, breaks, dirt, etc. deliberately left in place. But this is not the only thing that makes this a 'dirty' film; we see two almost naked women in a bed, first drinking from a bottle, then playing with it and ultimately engaging in erotic play. The dirt marks, the grainy texture of the image and the breakdown of the continuity of the action give the whole film the quality of a highly charged erotic memory. It creates the effect of a dreamlike recalling of a scene with the dreamer's freedom to re-run or pause on particular gestures and freeze certain privileged moments such as the caress of a hand, the bounce of a breast, a look, etc. The film becomes an erotic daydream, a play with sensual images retained from a scene witnessed sometime in the past." - Artificial Eye
1965/1971, 16mm, b&w/so, 10m, $30
"The plight of women as sex objects, and by extension the problem of their intellectual survival, finds a clear definition in DYN AMO. ... The film stares into the faces of four girls on the tiny, tatty stage of what is evidently a strip club; one after one they begin their routines, miserable, mechanical, bored, until gradually the presence of the camera encourages them to react against the deplorable indignities to which they have been submitted and they fix us with their eyes for minutes on end in silent pleas for help." - Philip Strick
1972, 16mm, color/so, 120m, $200
Initiated by Alan Power. Music by Gavin Bryars. Sound by Bob Woolfond. Man on the street (image only): Leonard Bosworth.
"... the singing voice of the last days of a London drunk (anonymous) as the orchestra raises him to heaven. The faint ghost image of a figure swims gradually to you through the grains of film low light ...."
The orchestra is conducted by Gavin Bryars and comprises John Noah and Millie Klein on violins, Cornelius Cardew on cello, Sandra Hill on bass, Phil Gebbet on flute, Hugh Shrapnel on oboe, Alec Hill on bass clarinet, Christopher Hobbs on bassoon, Eddie Thompson on trombone, John White on tuba, Gavin Bryars on organ, Derek Bailey on guitar, and the voice is?
1972, 16mm, color/so, 30m, $90
The main intention of BEHINDERT is to express some of the subjective perspectives within the social/personal confinements of a personal relationship, as seen from the point of view of the physically disabled person. This position was taken for two principal reasons: to eliminate or reduce the "objectivity and sympathy" views normally given to the subject; and to try to deal with the personal and emotional entanglements that the (or a) disabled person encounters in the so-called "normal social/personal" areas of life. The mere mention of a film concerned with the subject of physical disability conjures up preconceived notions and images as to the type of film it is. It is put aside as a medical/social document of little importance, particularly by film people who think of films as "political," "narrative," "entertainment," "poetic," or "structural." This film is about the physically normal and disabled in confrontation, but not literal relations. It is a documentary without being one. The content lies beneath the film. The material is treated subjectively, and crosses fiction with realistic documents, without a clear distinction.
1974, 16mm, color/so, 96m, $150
The film sets out to say - Here is a girl in conflict and the conflict is because of certain things that happened in her life which, separately, on reflection, might not seem to be particularly deep, traumatic, or important, but when seen in conjunction with one another, and with what is happening to her now, become significant. They build up to give the sense of why she cannot now function in relationships, and why she cannot have a relationship with a man.
"A kind of impressionistic 'diary' of a girl and her silent cry for help/understanding/love/identity. Not everything is seen from her viewpoint but everything is felt as she feels it. What Dwoskin calls an 'under-narrative' develops and interweaves through the film giving a composite of dreams, distortions, diaries, memories and feelings. Dwoskin has likened the film to a kind of contemporary Alice in Wonderland, 'a world which we can feel more and more as the filmic tapestry is woven.' It is also, one should emphasize, beautifully photographed with not only highly effective extreme close-ups but also many finely-patterned almost abstract shots." - Ken Wlaschin, catalogue, 1977 London International Film Festival
1977, 16mm, color/so, 96m, $150