Bagatelle II. 1964–2016. USA. Directed by Jerome Hiler. 16mm. 16 min.
“With Bagatelle II, I seem to have come full circle by returning to the so-called polyvalent style of my earliest film endeavors from 50 years ago. The film actually includes material from all the intervening decades. It’s both up to the moment yet life-spanning, with a thread of deep affection for the special characteristics of 16mm film” (Jerome Hiler).
In the Stone House. 1967–70 / 2012. USA. Directed by Jerome Hiler. 16mm. 35 min.
“In the latter 1960s, two young guys with monastic leanings leave the clatter of Manhattan’s art and film scene to catch the wave of higher consciousness that was about to change the world forever to find themselves washed ashore in a place only slightly updated from Way Down East. The monastic retreat quickly turned into the weekend getaway for a host of extravagant Manhattanites seeking films and fun. We learned from hitch-hiking guests that the police referred to our haven as ‘the stone house’” (Jerome Hiler).
New Shores. 1971–87 / 2014. USA. Directed by Jerome Hiler. 16mm. 32 min.
“It is simply a series of episodes that touch upon facets of living in a new area with new weather, new people, new identities and stubborn old fears. The Bolex camera goes to work across landscapes and living areas, workplaces and gatherings. A dance of images: can beauty partner with dread and death? It’s a film of the coexistences that percolate beneath the surface of ordinary events. A film of useless hopes and baseless fears” (Jerome Hiler).
Total running time: 83 min.
Although Jerome Hiler began filming in the early 1960s, for over thirty years he only showed his footage in fleeting assemblages meant for the privacy of home screenings. The three films in this program, edited between 2012 and 2016, integrate material from over forty years in a gracefully crafted visionary autobiography, as far from the anecdotal and diaristic as it installs itself at the core of the experiential. From the very first moving images he ever captured to present-day sights and plastic interventions, these films are a cascade of telescoped time and techniques (chiefly, the modulation of color, rhythm, filmed abstraction, superimpositions, and portraiture) through which the body and life of the filmmaker become affectionately visible.