From Noren's
(1979).
est, since music doesn't get more sincere than that, and animals are great improvisers.
How much preplanning do you do? How much editing do you do, once you've shot the material? And how often do you make imagery?
There's preplanning only in the sense that I'm always thinking about images, thinking with images, always wanting to make images. Always ''working.' By this time it's a natural function. I seldom look at anything without thinking of how it can be transformed into an 'image.' It's automatic, I'm not even conscious of doing it.
Preparation is mostly keeping the materials at hand and maintaining the correct frame of mind, which makes working possible. A delicate balance between energy and circumstance. This is much harder to do than it sounds. But, of course, the basic, vital thing is good light where everything is revealed in its miraculousness. That is my passion. I love it physically, as I would a beautiful animal. October light is my favorite, and the raw spring light that always seems 'new,' somehow, but I take whatever I can get. I love it all, and I shoot whenever I can.
At its best, this is done in a special state of mind. It's not a trance state, and certainly not the taking of angelic dictation as [Rainer Maria] Rilke meant it. I think of it as a state of 'health,' where thought and feeling are one and the same. The response to light: the process of
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seeing and feeling and thinking about it, and 'capturing' it, is harmonious and simple and direct, without doubt or hesitation. In this condition I know exactly what to do and how to do it, no questions. This state sometimes lasts for a long time before diminishing. I'm superstitious about forcing it, so when I feel it start to lessen, I stop working.
In editing, I gather material shot over a period of time and assemble it more or less in the order in which it was shot, chronologically, and then I study it until I begin to see how things belong together, what connections to make. This is always difficult. In theory, there are thousands of possible combinations, but in theory only. There is only one 'right' way for it to go. It's very much as though the film were already 'made' in a part of my mind, and the working is simply letting it reveal itself. This is a very painstaking process. It's frustrating and extremely exhilarating at the same time, and it's very hard work.
For you, all surfaces of reality seem equal, and shadow is as real as either light or the objects making the shadows. At times in fact you seem to offer an implicit polemic about this: I'm thinking of the section in
when you explore the surface of the TV screen, elaborating what you see there, but in a way that makes clear that for you the TV is no more interesting
than any other surface of comparable size. You avoid commenting about realityabout politics, social relations, whateverin favor of exploring visual surfaces. Do you see your filmmaking as an end in itselfthe production of a new set of visual experiencesor as a visual training that includes moral or political implications in the long run?
I'm not sure I know what you mean by 'reality.' There is no human act that is not politicalthe 'personal'
politicalso in that sense my films are political. I wouldn't presume to advise anyone on their moral conduct or their spiritual condition. I'm not qualified. All I can hope to do is to send out my best and highest energies. If they are received and made use of, then I'm delighted.
If I had the time and the means there are many things I would like to propagandize on behalf of, like animal rights and ecological preservation, for example. But I hardly have time to do what I'm doing already, and I honestly don't think it does much good. How can you hope to 'explain' to someone why they shouldn't torture an innocent animal? I thought at one time that most of our evils were a result of ignorance and that education could bring enlightenment and change. I no longer think this is true.
These days a good many filmmakers have been moving to video, either as a means of disseminating their films (videos, not films, are sent to prospective programmers) and/or as a new form capable of expressing much of what they want to express in their films, but
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more accessibly and less expensively. In a very basic sense, your films are
film and what an artist can accomplish with it. I can't imagine them on video.
The problem I have with video is the way it registers natural light; it's crude, insensitive, inaccurate, and barbaric. I don't know if this can be improved. The technology is fascinating and attractive in many ways. It is much easier and less expensive to work with, and the possibility of being able to inexpensively distribute many copies of a work is very exciting. As it is now, I'm lucky to have three or four prints of a film in circulation at any one time because they're so expensive. I'm not a snob about itif the light problem were solved I'd start working with it immediately, but I don't think it can be. Probably video will replace film altogether in the futurea dreadful thought, but probably true. As for transferring film to video, I've never seen an example in which the film wasn't diminished.
Can you give me a sense of how often your films are rented? Years ago, when I talked with Diana Barrie, she felt that the issue of her films being seen or ignored wasn't all that important: for her, the pleasure was in making the films, and worrying about screenings was the downside of the process. If her films weren't seen, in fact, that'd be OK, so long as she could continue making work. In some senses, her films (especially her early Super-8 films) remind me of yours. Do you share her attitude?
