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Four Films by Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler

Four Films by Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler

Bagatelle I, by Jerome Hiler

UCLA Film & Television Archive, the the Hugh M. Hefner Classic American Film Program, and Los Angeles Filmforum present

Enlightening Vision: Recent Films by Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler

Saturday, December 1, 2018, 7:30 pm:

Four Films by Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler

At the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024

In-person: filmmakers Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler.

Los Angeles Filmforum members receive free admission at the box office!

In every generation there is a small number of artists whose clarity of voice and individual vision inspires a renewed passion for their medium, even as they deepen our appreciation for all art. Filmmakers Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler are two such artists. Internationally celebrated for their bodies of work spanning over fifty years, Dorsky and Hiler will make rare appearances with three programs of recent films. Working with hand-held and hand-wound 16mm cameras, each creates a cinema of exquisite beauty that unfolds in time and retains the mystery and ambiguities of life lived rather than illustrated.

Dorsky and Hiler have been creative collaborators and partners since meeting during the halcyon days of New York’s 1960s underground film scene.  Dorsky, a renowned cinematographer, editor and author, has produced nearly fifty films since 1964. Each includes hundreds of images recorded in differing locales that reveal astonishing interplays of texture, movement and space. Hiler, whose practice includes painting and stained glass, creates images unsurpassed in their delicacy and subtlety of expression. Often choosing pastoral settings, his subjects emerge in inexplicable ways through multiple layering, adding filters and hand manipulating the actual film material. Hiler creates film spaces that are  ethereal and dark-hued plays with edges of perception.

Theirs are films that invite us in but don’t make it obvious how
to look and respond: they are streams of interconnected records and
reflections of the visual world, transforming recognizable objects and 
places into realms of seemingly infinite and unexpected discovery. We
are being returned, as though it was being discovered for the first time, to the essential magic 
of cinema. The Archive is honored to present this series with Nathaniel Dorsky
 and Jerome Hiler in person.

Programs organized by Steve Anker and curated by the filmmakers.


Tickets: Advance sale Price: $10.00 at http://emarket.cinema.ucla.edu/ShoppingCenter/Details.aspx?ref=1034

Tickets for Archive events may also be purchased at the box office:
General admission:  $9.00; Seniors:  $8.00; UCLA Alumni Association Members:  $8.00
Non-UCLA students:  $8.00; Filmforum members, UCLA students:  Free (see policy)

For more information: https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2018/12/01/four-films-nathaniel-dorsky-jerome-hiler , www.lafilmforum.org or 323-377-7238.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 7:30PM

FOUR FILMS BY NATHANIEL DORSKY & JEROME HILER

Although Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler have shared the same world and have many of the same interests and occupations, their films express the inner spirit of two distinct individuals. There are similarities, but these recede in significance as one experiences the unique mind of either filmmaker.

FILMS BY JEROME HILER

“Given all the layers involved, there are some rules to follow that must govern all the material. One has to regard black or darkness as if it were gold itself. The dark characteristics are what enable the layers to come through and blend with one another.” (J.H.)

NEW WORK-IN-PROGRESS (2017-18, ca. 17 min., 16mm, silent)

BAGATELLE I (2016-18, ca. 16 min., 16mm, silent)

FILMS BY NATHANIEL DORSKY

“I put shots together to create a revelation of wisdom through delicate surprise. The montage does not lead to verbal understanding, but is actual and present.” (N.D.)

AUTUMN (2016, 26 min., 16mm, silent)

COLOPHON (for the Arboretum Cycle) (2018, 13.5 min., 16mm, silent)

 Total running time: 72.5 minutes.

NEW WORK-IN-PROGRESS

By Jerome Hiler (2017-18, ca. 17 min., 16mm, silent)

“My new, as yet unnamed work, is generated from the California landscape -
seemingly congenial yet ever elusive and remote.” (J.H.)

Bagatelle I Hiler 2

Bagatelle I

BAGATELLE I

By Jerome Hiler (2016-18, ca. 16 min., 16mm, silent)

“Bagatelle I swims in a fast current below and above glimpses of
experience that shift from the familiar to the unknown.” (J.H.)

Dorsky Autumn

AUTUMN

AUTUMN

By Nathaniel Dorsky (2016, 26 min., 16mm, silent)

Autumn, photographed during the last months of the drought year, 2015, is a stately, but intimate, seasonal tome, a celebration of the poignancy and mystery of our later years.  ND

Dorsky Colophon

Colophon

COLOPHON (for the Arboretum Cycle)

By Nathaniel Dorsky (2018, 13.5 min., 16mm, silent)

Colophon (for the Arboretum Cycle) has three sections. It is in the spirit of the early Chinese landscape colophons, a text added to the horizontal scroll at a later date from when the landscape itself was enacted. Colophon was not made to be shown along with the Arboretum Cycle, but a new thing, a spring later, a different maker, so to speak.   N.D.