Anno 1971 - 260

I planned the Divine Comprehension to be my magnum opus however, although it is complete, I never considered it finished. As in PROOF (and, in part, several other of my films) I dispensed with the narrative, creating sequence and short scenes that capture unexpressed emotions or feelings; an unanswered telephone call, the 1,000 Year Old Chinese Egg, fighting hamsters, a fish head floats by in a pristine stream, all tried together with reoccurring motifs. One such sequence includes the victims of the 1904 Slocum Disaster, the reclaiming of their bodies and the funeral service at their church - which is still stands today - all of which were captured in vintage Edison ‘Newsreel“ footage,.

Consisting basically of home movie footage of family, relatives, and myself during the mid-1940's I have included loops of certain sequences and actions that have attracted me. Invariably people find HOMECALL a very warm film; however, upon closer scrutiny quite another facet is visible. –D. D.

Filmed in16mm black and white in 1970 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Pamela and Ian is a bisexual love story that explores an idea suggested by Alain Robbe-Grillet that characters in a film are born in the beginning and die in the end and have no existence outside of the film.

The executioner binds a prisoner at the stake. He lights a match and the prisoner spits on it and puts it out. But the fire is lit with the second match. The prisoner puts his hands together and prays for the rain. Rain begins to fall. Falling, falling, falling, and water drowned the convict — good luck, bad luck — they all come quickly.

originally made in 1971 on Standard 8 mm film, silent / digitally revisited and edited further in 2016

Sharon Green's short film Self Portrait of a Nude Model Turned Cinematographer (1971) represents a collision of incipient cinefeminism and autobiographical filmmaking. Containing a blend of still photographs and subjective moving-image shots of her body, the work has largely been overlooked because of a reductive framing of it as mere homage to male avant-garde artists such as Stan Brakhage, for whom Green was a nude model.

An artist report by Franklin McMahon about the infamous Chicago 8 conspiracy trial of the eight (later just seven) defendants arrested during the protests of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. From 1969-70, McMahon was the courtroom artist for the trial, which lasted 5 months and resulted in almost 500 courtroom drawings by McMahon. This film, or "artist report," features these drawings alongside the voices and comments of McMahon and others involved with the trial.

An animation film based on a Latvian folk tale.

Describes proper selection of clothes, table manners, ordering in a restaurant, introductions, dating etiquette, and etiquette at a formal reception.

Explains the important points of good grooming. Covers cleanliness, health habits, hair styling, cosmetics, and tailoring.

A short film about ants and their everyday activities. The audio of the film is currently lost.

Traditional music of the Trobriand Islands is played on a variety of flutes, from simple curving stems to panpipes. Songs (wosi) are also an important part of Trobriand music, and although everyone may compose and sing, people with special talents are encouraged to develop their skills. A range of songs are filmed and translated here: gardening and sailing songs, kula trading songs, songs of love and enticement, of grief and mourning. The film also reveals glimpses of everyday and ritual life: villages, gardens (and their magic), exchange, harvest dances, children in the rain.

Surf movie with music by Pete Townshend.

Danish farmer’s son Rasmus Berg has been given a costly education in Copenhagen, and when he returns, he speaks Latin to his parents, and Latinises his name as Erasmus Montanus. He wants to “dispute”, and goes on to “prove” a number of absurdities, such as that his mother is a rock. He is contrasted to his brother Jacob who is only interested in knowledge which of practical application.

A spontaneous street movie, a record of ‘swinging London’ where Erkki Kurenniemi had travelled to assess the commercial potential of his instrument DIMI-A.

Part of the Highlights Of The Ann Arbor Film Festival at the Whitney Museum's New American Filmmaker series, Ad Hominem is a political satire made with repetition, again and again rerunning a few TV images of President Nixon's face.

The title owes a lot to Dali because the film takes off from the fascination shared by the great Catalan and his friends Lorca and Bunuel with the wounds of the martyred saint Sebastian. But the text in the intertitles comes, of course, almost exclusively from Georges Bataille’s Eroticism. This film is a darker, more focused, companion piece to the slightly earlier Barbarêveuse. It really ought to be a treat for any self-respecting sado-masochist. RS