Stalking the Image: The Films of Margaret Tait
November 18–19, 2005

Margaret Tait’s pride of place in her native Scotland—and even more ardently in the Highlands and on the island of Orkney—manifested itself in exquisitely intimate films that combine poetry, portraiture, music, art, experimental documentary, home movie, and animation. A true auteur—she wrote, directed, photographed, edited, animated, and almost always financed her films—Tait (1918–1999) is the subject of an extensive touring retrospective that features newly preserved prints, including Portrait of Ga (1952) and Colour Poems (1974). Also presented is one of Tait’s earliest films, Three Portrait Sketches (1951), made in Rome when she was studying at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia during the height of the neorealist movement. Tait often quoted García Lorca’s phrase "stalking the image" to define her philosophy, believing that if you look at an object closely enough—a garden, a face, a street—it will speak its nature.

Organized by Peter Todd, LUX (London), and Joshua Siegel, Assistant Curator, and Lisa Rosen, Intern, Department of Film and Media.

Program One: Film Poems
Three Portrait Sketches. 1951. Italy. An early experiment in portraiture, stop-frame animation, and varying film speeds. 6 min.
Portrait of Ga. 1952. Great Britain. Portrait of the filmmaker’s mother at her Orkney home. 5 min.
Aerial. 1974. Great Britain. Fantastical imagery of the elements—snow, earth, fire, smoke—in counterpoint with a hauntingly spare soundtrack. 4 min.
Hugh MacDiarmid, a Portrait. 1964. Great Britain. Scottish author MacDiarmid, then 71, recites some of his finest poems. 8 min.
Colour Poems. 1974. Great Britain. A complex interweaving of word and image, memory and chance observation. 12 min.
Where I Am Is Here. 1964. Great Britain. Tait discovers the unusual in everyday Edinburgh. A film poem that possesses its own inner logic and rhythmic cohesion. 35 min. Program 70 min.
Friday, November 18, 6:45; Saturday, November 19, 2:00. T2

Program Two: Islands
Happy Bees. 1955. Great Britain. "An evocation of what it was like to be a small child in Orkney" (Tait). 16 min.
The Drift Back. 1957. Great Britain. A family returns to the island of Wyre to farm and preserve the regional culture in this commissioned documentary. 11 min.
Place of Work. 1976. Great Britain. "A close study of one garden and house and what could be seen there and heard there within the space of time from June 1975 to November 1975" (Tait). 31 min.
Tailpiece. 1976. Great Britain. A coda to Place of Work and an elegy to Tait’s old family home. 10 min.
Garden Pieces. 1998. Great Britain. Music by John Gray. Tait’s last work before her death, this three-part film looks at the garden as a philosophical and phenomenological space. 12 min. Program 80 min.
Friday, November 18, 8:00; Saturday, November 19, 3:45. T2

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