Run through by the disjunctions between sound and image, this programme proposes an assemblage of texts, stories and bodies. In Miss Jesus Fries on Grill, Dorothy Wiley poetically and disturbingly links the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence and a journalistic event with the cry of a newborn. Then, in a succession of seven short elliptical sequences, Amy Halpern creates a chain of different emotions, from fear to humour and joy in 3-Minute Hells. And in Letters, several “letters” attributed to a friend, worms, insects and the filmmaker’s son lead Wiley to expand the boundaries of writing and embody the textual.
In Visible Inventory Six: Motel Dissolve, Janis Crystal Lipzin charts a journey in space and time, superposing panning shots of motel rooms with handwritten words, printed numbers and the reading of two texts by Gertrude Stein. Finally, Wiley and Gunvor Nelson portray a woman while extending and interweaving narrative lines in Before Need Redressed. Directions are multiplied by a series of dreams and objects brought together by the filmmakers, leading to thought-provoking exchanges between potentially removed images. The editing tends to merge or intersect the scenes, dialogues and actions, giving the narrative a synesthetic quality.
Miss Jesus Fries on Grill, Dorothy Wiley, 1973, 12 min; 3-Minute Hells, Amy Halpern, 2010, 14 min; Letters, Dorothy Wiley, 1972, 11 min; Visible Inventory Six: Motel Dissolve, Janis Crystal Lipzin, 1978, 15 min; Before Need Redressed, Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley, 1979/1994, 42 min.
16mm screening, original version with Catalan subtitles.
Copies provided by Canyon Cinema.
