Film Screening:

18 at 18: Nathaniel Dorsky at Duke (Program 1)

-- Filmmaker in attendance

The Duke University Master of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts program welcomes visiting artist Nathaniel Dorsky to Duke and Durham in the spring semester of 2018 for four nights of films, February 2-5. The program, entitled 18 at 18, features 18 films from the filmmaker, screened at silent speed, 18 frames per second.

Films to be screened:

Triste
(Nathaniel Dorsky, 1996, 18 min, USA, Silent, Color, 16mm)

Triste is an indication of the level of cinema language that I have been working towards. By delicately shifting the weight and solidity of the images, and bringing together subject matter not ordinarily associated, a deeper sense of impermanence and mystery can open. The images are as much pure-energy objects as representation of verbal understanding and the screen itself is transformed into a “speaking” character. The “sadness” referred to in the title is more the struggle of the film itself to become a film as such, rather than some pervasive mood.

Variations
(Nathaniel Dorsky, 1998, 24 min, USA, Silent, Color, 16mm)

Variations blossomed forth while shooting additional material for Triste. What tender chaos, what current of luminous rhymes might cinema reveal unbridled from the daytime word? During the Bronze Age a variety of sanctuaries were built for curative purposes. One of the principal activities was transformative sleep. This montage speaks to that tradition.

Love’s Refrain
(Nathaniel Dorsky, 2001, 22.5 min, Silent, Color, 16mm)

Perhaps the most delicately tactile in this series, Love’s Refrain rests moment to moment on its own surface. It is a coda in twilight, a soft-spoken conclusion to a set of four cinematic songs.

The Visitation
(Nathaniel Dorsky, 2002, 18 min, Silent, Color, 16mm)

The Visitation is a gradual unfolding, an arrival so to speak. I felt the necessity to describe an occurrence, not one specifically of time and place, but one of revelation in one’s own psyche. The place of articulation is not so much in the realm of images as information, but in the response of the heart to the poignancy of the cuts

Sponsors: the Duke University MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts, the Vice Provost for the Arts, the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI), and the Center for Documentary Studies.

Free tickets available here.
If sold-out, please note that there will be a stand-by line at the venue each evening for attendees without ticket reservations. Once all ticketed patrons have been seated, those in the stand-by line will be afforded any vacant seats on first-come-first served basis!

Parking Info: https://artscenter.duke.edu/parking/