Program notes for Independent Film Maker Standish D. Lawder
(4/9/1975)
Wednesday April 9, 1975 8:30
INDEPENDENT FILM MAKER: STANDISH D. LAWDER
Standish D. Lawder was born in New York in 1936, raised on home movies in Connecticut, and, for the past ten years has taught film at Yale University. His book, The Cubist Cinema, a study of early experimental film and modern art, has just been published by New York University Press. Under grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Film Institute, he is currently developing a unique stereoscopic motion picture system.
Early Films from the Paper Print Collection. Library of Congress. 10 minutes.
These short films, mostly by Edison, were made between 1896 and 1900; that is, at a time when the art of film had fully arrived but before the emergence of "film artists." Thus they are experimental films in the truest sense, for they represent the earliest attempts to identify events and situations, which, on film, become fascinating, mysterious, even magical.
NECROLOGY, 1969, 13 minutes. A two-part instant anthropological study film about life and death in New York City today. "The film is one of the strongest and grimmest comments on the contemporary society that cinema has produced." (Jonas Mekas, Village Voice)
CONSTRUCTION JOB, 1969-1975, 6 minutes. A compilation job, a construction film, a treasure chest of bizzare and amusing footage, gathered from the entire range of the history of cinema.
DANGLING PARTICIPLE, 1970, 16 minutes. Offers a wealth of practical information on contemporary sexual hang-ups and where they came from. "The funniest underground film I’ve ever seen." (Sheldon Renan, Pacific Film Archives)
INTERMISSION DISCUSSION
ELEVEN DIFFERENT HORSES, 1969, 3 minutes. Made from some footage I shot on a family vacation way back in 1949. It features my brother Doug and a horse whose name I’ve forgotten. A cybernetic study film.
COLOR FILM, 1973, 4 minutes. Inspired by a series on "The Self-Referential Cinema," at the Museum of Modern Art. "A fine example of pure minimal cinema.
There is no meaning or message: the film exists purely for itself." (Amos Vogel, Film as a Subsersive Art)
RUNAWAY, 1969, 6 minutes. "Lawder achieves the perfection of all his techniques in a small six-minute film called "Runaway" in which he uses a few seconds of cartoon dogs chasing a fox." (Jonas Mekas) "A kind of anti-film which illustrates the endless idea of a film being eternal—the loop, the cycle, the motorcycle, the motor mechanism of, in this case, running dogs. Running in such a loop that it becomes self-destructive. The Anti-Film, which is in a way to say, "I'm for Film!" (Stan VanDerBeek)
RAINDANCE, 1972, 14 minutes. A rapid-fire, high-intensity film in which individual frames are imprinted on the retina of the eye in a rhythm, sequence, and intensity that corresponds to Alpha-wave frequencies of the brain. Described as "the most adverturesome and powerful of Lawder’s work (Scott Hammen, Afterimage, 1973), and "the most radical transformation of found footage" (John Locke,
ART FORUM, 1974)
CATFILM FOR KATY AND CYNNIE, 4 minutes, silent, 1972. Made for "Intercat '72" a film festival in New York devoted to films for, with, or about cats. "This piece is a kind of haiku strongly reminiscent of Brakhage’s 8mm. Songs in its simple but totally seductive lyricism." (Scott Hammen, Afterimage)
DISCUSSION WITH QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
