Gavin Bryars
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Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars
Sep 14, 1987Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars is an in-depth documentation of Robert Wilson’s ambitious attempt to stage an epic, twelve-hour, multinational opera for the 1984 Summer Olympics. Filmmaker Howard Brookner follows the avant-garde theatre director as he confronts a hectic work schedule, funding difficulties and relentless international travel in attempt to complete his preparations. The film examines Wilson’s unique theatrical style during The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down, which involves the continual creation of evocative stage sets, owing to a unique juxtaposition of movement, sound, text and image. Known for his precise, painterly images Wilson’s work derives more from visual art than the orthodox literary traditions of theatre. As a result, Wilson often challenges actors to perform in a boldly minimalist style, as well as collaborating with non-actors, such as young autistic poet Christopher Knowles in Einstein on the Beach.
Documentary
Sea and Stars
Aug 27, 2002Life of an ordinary fisherman changes when a young mai-mai fish sees him and falls in love!... Set to original music by composer Gavin Bryars, the film tells a romantic story of the transforming power of love - even without a happy ending.
Animation
Смерть в пенсне или Наш Чехов
Jul 01, 2010Thriller
Necropolis
Oct 31, 1970Frankenstein's monster gropes towards the awareness that his mind is a universe; Attila, naked on a white horse, liberates his people from their ignominy; the ultra-caustic Viva bemoans the frustrations of married life and drifts into the elegiac persona of the Bloody Countess Bathory; Louis Waldon is a hip American tourist searching for the (missing) Mona Lisa.
Fantasy
Собачий рай
Jun 15, 2013Moscow, summer of 1953. Tanya, an eleven-year old girl, meets a boy, Mitya. Mitya and his family have just returned from exile in the Russian Far East. Tanya learns that Mitya had to leave behind his best friend, a dog called Hector. Mitya is eager for Hector to join him in Moscow, but the adults declare it impossible - a large city is no place for a dog. In an attempt to prove the adults wrong and convince them to bring over Hector, Mitya and Tanya decide to create the perfect home for him - a dog's paradise in an empty sealed room they find in the building...
Family
Imprint
Jan 01, 1974An experimental dance film featuring members of the Ballet Rambert, one of the world’s most renowned dance companies, performing to the music of Gavin Bryars.
Naissant
Dec 31, 1964
To Tea
Jan 01, 1970To Tea, made in Holland (at the house of the Dutch avant-garde filmmaker Franz Zwartjes), is a slowed ‘Alice in Roomland’.A guide to sensual contact between two women. Their contact is arrived at through an arrangement of slow tactics. As the light of day goes the bodies come closer, and the piano melody floats in a distant hall. Once my Hungarian art teacher said: “If you exaggerate the objective lines you reach a stronger subjective expression.” So here the strange tea party gives over to touch. – S.D.
BIPED
Jan 01, 1970The décor for BIPED is an exploration into the possibilities of motion capture technology. The movements (but not the physical appearances) of the dancers were transposed into digital images. Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar collaborated with Merce Cunningham to make a new piece of virtual choreography. The dancers involved in the motion capture process were Jared Phillips, Jeannie Steele, and Robert Swinston.
Jesus Blood
Dec 11, 1972A man walks towards the camera down the end of a street to the sound of 'Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet', a composition by Gavin Bryars based on a loop of an anonymous homeless man singing the song. The man’s voice is progressively intensified by an instrumental accompaniment, which increases in density and richness, before the whole thing gradually fades out. Dwoskin’s film was produced to be shown during the premiere of Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London in December 1972. For Dwoskin, it represents “… 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…”
Trixi
Jan 01, 1969Trixi 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.
Trixi
Jan 01, 1969Trixi 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.
Times For
Oct 11, 1970A sexually frustrated man complies with the emotional and erotic wishes of four women, but afterwards he is left even lonelier than before.
Drama
Dérive 'Le naufrage de Vénus'
Apr 21, 1974Botticelli's Venus emerges from the waters, that of Yvan Lagrange, is she shipwrecked?...
Drama
Tod und Teufel
Sep 14, 1973Evolves around the rooms of a house as one of the main characters, Lisiska, is waiting and is studied in depth as she prepares herself for a meeting. The film attempts to display sexual barriers and misconceptions, and about the role-playing and the confusion around the whole question of sexual and sensual involvement. The essence is the confrontation with self-deception, lies and the real fear of contact with both sexes.
Drama
Central Bazaar
Sep 02, 1976For this remarkable experimental film, the provocative avant-garde legend Stephen Dwoskin gathered together a group of strangers and filmed them as they explored their fantasies over a period of five days: a project that now sounds a little like TV's Big Brother. The ceremonial gowns and make-up here not only evoke the eroticism of European horror movies but also highlight the film's interplay between performance and intimacy. Jonas Mekas called it 'theatre of life'.
Drama
Dyn Amo
Jun 27, 1972'Dyn Amo' is a 'drama' exploring the distinction between a person's self and his projection of that self to others; and it's a 'horror movie' tragically suggesting how a projection can become more substantial than the self behind it. Its subjects are role-playing (especially sexual role-playing), and the masochism of playing a role that conforms to others' exploitative interests.
Drama
Behindert
Nov 14, 1974Described by Stephen Dwoskin as "a documentary without being one," the basis of BEHINDERT is autobiographical: the story of a physically disabled man and a physically normal woman- played by Dwoskin (who has a post-polio disability) and Carola Regnier- who confront the difficulties of a relationship. The two were no longer a couple at the time Dwoskin made the film, yet it burns with the passion and intensity of true love.
Drama
Malamor
Sep 03, 2004Troubled teen Lisa can't seem to find the joy in everyday things. Lashing out desperately, she falls in love with her mother's junkie boyfriend, which can't end well.
Drama
Allemagne 90 neuf zéro
Sep 01, 1991Troubled teen Lisa can't seem to find the joy in everyday things. Lashing out desperately, she falls in love with her mother's junkie boyfriend, which can't end well.
Drama
