JOEL SCHLEMOWITZ

FILMS

All titles available from The Film-Makers' Cooperative

Nocturne [Avenue A, no lens]  (2008) 16mm, 3 minutes, color, sound

A camera roll stroll down Avenue A, New York City, shot without a lens. The specificity of time and place a partly ironic directive through which we can lens this little work, that might otherwise be lensed by us as non-representational cinema. A nocturne. Dashed off as a mere unedited camera-roll, a filmic "flinging of a pot of paint in the public's face," as has been said of some other nocturnes. And lastly, serving as a little saturnine invocation of the filmic flaneur.



Camera Roll (for Taylor)  (2008) 16mm, 3 minutes, b&w, sound

A camera roll city cine-poem, filmed in Brooklyn in the vicinity of the Gowanus Canal.



Silo  (2007) 16mm, 3 minutes, color, sound

A single camera roll shot in time lapse documenting the final night of the arts and performance center, ISSUE Project Room, at their former space inside of a converted silo on the Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn. Accompanying this on the soundtrack is a montage of field recordings from the Gowanus environs.



Teslamania  (2007) 16mm, 6 minutes, color, sound

Two camera rolls shot at the Collective Unconscious during a performance of "Teslamania" featuring Gecko Saccomanno and Tesla Coil Engineer Jamie Mereness. The film's visual effects, double exposures, and refracted images, were all done in camera, just as we see them here.

On the soundtrack Gecko provides various "Tesla tidbits," including Tesla's scheme to provide free electricity transmitted through the air, anecdotes about the Collective's Tesla Coil performances, "Tesla cooking," and a list of the inventor Nikola Tesla's many exotic phobias.

Music by Dorit Chrysler.



The Glowing Woman  (2007) 16mm, 5 minutes, color, sound

Poem by Wanda Phipps.

Spiraling colors and abstracted rotating text, poem by Wanda Phipps on the soundtrack both layered and singular. The color was created through hand-printing black and white film with a flashlight and colored filters onto unexposed color film in the dark.



morning poem #38  (2007) 16mm, 2 minutes, color, sound

Poem by Wanda Phipps.

Film version of an installation piece shown at the Courthouse Gallery at Anthology Film Archives.



morning poem #43  (2007) 16mm, 1-1/2 minutes, color, sound

A film of "morning poem #43," by Wanda Phipps.

The color was created through hand-printing black and white film with a flashlight and colored filters onto unexposed color film in the dark.



Dame Darcy - a film portrait  (2007) 16mm, 5 minutes, b&w, sound

A short and lively 16mm portrait of comic book artist and performer Dame Darcy, seen through a filmic rollercoaster tour of her comic book, "Meat Cake," and ending with the artist herself. On the soundtrack, a turn-of-the-last-century recording from a 78rpm Victrola record.



40/4000  (2007) 16mm, 3 minutes, color, sound

A camera roll. Forty years celebrated in four-thousand frames.



New School Union Diary  (2004), 16mm, b&w, sound, 30 min.

My first-person account of the forming a faculty union at New School University. More a work of personal cinema than a strict documentary, the film begins with the signing of a card, and concludes a year later with footage of a massive demonstration at Yale University where several unions, including our own, have gathered to show support for the striking workers. Accompanied along the way by droll reflections on the nature of a supposedly progressive institution's fight against its own employees.

Awarded BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT, Chicago Underground Film Festival, 2005



Birth of Eros  (2003), 16mm, color, sound, 3-1/2 min.

Music by Marisol Limon Martinez

An unedited, double-exposed camera roll shot at the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema, NYC, on the occasion of a birthday screening for Bradley Eros.



Loudmouth Collective / Ugly Duckling Presse  (2003), 16mm, b&w, sound, 20 min.

A film-portrait of the Loudmouth Collective and Ugly Duckling Presse. These poet-provocateurs are the creators of the infamous "Anti-Reading" series, a carnival-like alternative to the traditional poetry reading. On the film's soundtrack we hear how the Anti-Readings were started, descriptions of various Anti-Reading activities including the Poetry Fishing Pond, the Typewriter Inferno, Poetry-Poker, Poem Portraits, the smokable poems known as Poetry Cigarettes, the memory tester called "I Forgot," and the Diary in the shape of a Bunny. The film includes footage shot at Anti-Readings, with time-lapse, double exposures, distorting lenses, and frenetic non-traditional camerawork evocative of the playfully chaotic spirit of the events.

Awarded BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT, Chicago Underground Film Festival, 2004



All Saints Day [2]  (2002) 16mm, color, sound, 7 min.

co-maker, Jon Behrens.

A second collaboration between filmmakers Jon Behrens in Seattle, Washington, and Joel Schlemowitz in Brooklyn, New York, shot on ALL SAINTS DAY, November 1, 2001. They each shot 100 feet of film at the same time of the day 3,000 miles apart, and they did not tell each other what they shot. The film was hand-processed, cut up into two-foot lengths and then cut back together, alternating between Joel's footage and Jon's footage. The soundtrack for this film was done the same way. Screenings include: Seattle Underground Film Festival, 2002



Fogg  (2002), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.

Live sound by Marisol Limon Martinez, James Hoff, Joel Schlemowitz, from Millennium screening, April 27, 2002.

A museum visit, with Rossetti, Moreau, et. al. Inspired, in retrospect, by Marie Menken's "Bagatelle for Willard Maas."



Boulder-Brooklyn, a correspondence film  (2001), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.

Co-filmmaker: Nicole Koschmann

A three minute roll of film shot by Joel Schlemowitz of Brooklyn, NY and mailed to Nicole Koschmann in Nederland, just outside Boulder, CO. The two collaborators shot images on the same undeveloped film, fusing together images from New York and Colorado.



All Saints Day  (2001), 16mm, color/b&w, 7 min.

Co-filmmaker: Jon Beherns

A collaboration between filmmakers Jon Behrens in Seattle, Washington, and Joel Schlemowitz in Brooklyn, New York, shot on ALL SAINTS DAY, November 1, 2000. They each shot 100 feet of film at the same time of the day 3,000 miles apart, and they did not tell each other what they shot. The film was hand-processed, cut up into two-foot lengths and then cut back together, alternating between Joel's footage and Jon's footage. The soundtrack for this film was done the same way.



Moving Images - the Film-Makers Cooperative relocates  (2001), 16mm, b&w/color, sound, 14 min.

voices: Jonas Mekas, MM Serra

Jonas Mekas, one of the Film-Makers' Cooperative's founders, and MM Serra, the current executive director, describe the Coop's beginnings, the organization's recent struggles, and the difficulties of finding space for the arts, over richly layered images of the Coop's recent move.

The Film-Makers' Cooperative, founded in 1962 as a filmmaker-run distribution center, is now the largest archive and distributor of independent and avant-garde films in the world, with over 5,000 films and videos. Since 1967 the Coop had its offices at Lexington and 31st Street, but as documented in this film, it has now relocated to the Clocktower Gallery at 108 Leonard Street, New York City.

Awarded SILVER PLAQUE, Chicago International Film Festival



Reverie  (2001), 16mm, b&w/color, sound, 7 min.

Music by Rebecca Moore.

A film in the manner of the Symbolists. A cascade of dream images in a gothic setting. The dreamer imagines flames and fur, Doré's depictions of Dante, a clutter of objects on a Victorian desk, all amid a web of Rebecca Moore's haunting music.

Broadcast on the Sundance Channel, as part of UNDERGROUND SHORTS



morning poem #40  (2001), 16mm, color, sound, 2 min.

Read by Wanda Phipps. Guitar - Hiroshi Noguchi. Guitar & percussion - Joel Schlemowitz.

Poem by Wanda Phipps beginning "pink around a circle of pink" heard on the soundtrack. A spinning, flickering circle of words and colors accompanies this.



Typeoclavecin Film - Variations on the Blues for JoJo #10  (2001), 16mm, color, sound, 2 min.

Poem by Wanda Phipps, as read by her, and accompanied by the typeoclavecin, a typewriter as a musical instrument, built by the filmmaker for the accompaniment of poets through the technique of dictation.



Bagatelle Biologique  (2000), 16mm, b&w, sound, 4 min.

Corpuscles dash about. Nerves twitch. Neurons fire. Anatomical illustrations, overlaid with the body's activities scratched and handpainted directly onto the film.



Incantation Documentation  (1998), 16mm, b&w/color, sound, 5 min.

Performer: Rebecca Moore

From a film performance, Incantation of the Spirit of the Silver Halide, at Films Charas, July 15, 1997, featuring Rebecca Moore.

The performance consisted of a live segment filmed in front of the audience before the film show began. As the films were screened the footage of the live performance was developed behind the scenes and projected as the last film on the bill.

The performance was meant to evoke the sense of magic of the photochemical process as it relates to filmmaking — the ephemeral live performance finds rebirth through art, in the projection of its filmic record.



Bacchanale  (1998), 16mm, color, 3 min.

A Bacchanalia, kindly provided by the arts group, the Aesthesians, and set to the music of Saint-Saëns from an early recording of Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. The third chapter of Villa of the Mysteries.



In the Orbit of Marie Menken  (1998), 16mm, color, silent (24 fps), 3 min.

My tribute to the filmmaker whose works helped give birth to my inpiration and my joy in experimentation with the medium of film. As a filmmaker, I am in the orbit of Marie Menken.



Little Nothings  (1997), 16mm, color, sound, 4 min.

An experiment in combining the experimental image-based film with the sync sound film.

The film consists of Little Nothings, a poem by Wanda Phipps, is read by her, with the accompaniment of in-camera superimpositions. The poem was picked through chance operation, by throwing Wanda's poems into the air. The superimpostions were done in-camera, thus the synchronizations of word and image were also determined through chance operation. By superimposing in the camera over a sync sound shot the images in this film are presented as they were filmed, without editing.



1734  (1997), 35mm, color, silent, 2 min.

A short film of number 1734 from Emily Dickinson's works, which begins with the line: “Oh, honey of an hour.” The words of the poem appear written onto the frames.




Eye Music  (1997), 16mm, color, silent (18 or 24 fps), 2-1/2 min.

A hand-cranked film of a wind-up record player, hand-colored to simulate the unheard music.



Invitation to a Voyage  (1997), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 4 min.

After Henri Duparc's setting of the poem by Baudelaire, which is heard in faint echo on the soundtrack. Rococo adhesive transparencies over hand-colored film alternate with Jenn Reeves seen in black and white negative.



Bagatelle in Neon  (1997), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.

Music by Marisol Limon Martinez

Three friendly little minutes of lights at night on Avenue A, shot on black and white and extensively and laboriously hand-colored.



Extemporized  (1996), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 5 min.

Dancer: Alice MacIntyre Shooting assistant: Casandra Stark Mele

A brief extemporaneous dance film shot on the streets of New York with dancer Alice MacIntyre. Special thanks to Bill Rice for being there.



Weimar  (1996), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 8 min.

This little film took root while reading Henri Murger's Bohemian Life and Alex De Jong's Weimar Chronicles, while feeling admiration for the quiet heroism of Rudy Burckhardt's movies, while the next NYFA rejection arrived, and while a little free film was slipped my way, befitting a project about the value of art in people's lives, and ironically commenting on such through the thrift of its production.

No plot. No story. Just a series of suggestive tableaus.

The bohemians are played by: Stephen Callahan, Marchette DuBois, Lee Ellickson, Genese, Gary Goldberg, Rebecca Hampden, Alice MacIntyre, Bridget Meeds, Wanda Phipps, Jennifer Todd Reeves, Madeline Schwartzman, MM Serra, and Stuart Sherman.



Untitled  (1996), 16mm, color, sound, 6 min.

A mouse skull and moiré patterns.



For Joe  (1996), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 4 min.

A memorial film for Joe of Swiss Camera, repairer of all our Bolexes. I tried to make a film sardonic and precise, as I felt would be befitting to a person possesing both these qualities.



Pillowbook  (1995), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 4 min.

An erotic flip book of sorts.

35mm material cut in a paper cutter to 16mm width and perforated with a splicer, contact printed to 16mm, with the sound of the printer jamming on the soundtrack.

A postulation — as also seen in the works of Carolee Schneemann, MM Serra and Peggy Ahwesh — regarding the notion that when the viewer is given the task of having to work to decipher an erotic depiction it is more thrilling than erotica's more common clinical documentation.



Angelbubble  (1995), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.

A Morris Engel hydrokinetic sculpture, a short soothing film.



Doris' Garden  (1995), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.

A garden portrait for Doris Kornish.



Filmpoem for Wanda Phipps  (1995), 16mm, b&w, sound 3-1/2 min.

I came across Wanda's poem in a journal called The World, and it just struck me, so to speak. Before even meeting her I shot a roll of street scenes, and the rest is history.



Tombeau for Arnold Eagle  (1994), 16mm, color/b&w, 4-1/2 min.

A memorial film for my mentor.



Morris Engel Time Sculpture  (1994), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.

A short abstract portrait of Morris Engel's watch-part collages. The in-camera superimpositions and dissolves are intended to convey the feeling of depth within these precious little creations in a way that would satisfy the large flat movie screen.



Purple Candle Poem  (1994), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.

A hand-colored double printed abstract meditation centered around a candle.



When He Leaves  (1993), 16mm, b&w, sound, 1 min.

A poem by Bridget Meeds, as read by her, with accompanying text on screen intercut with a contact printed typewriter ribbon.



Poem for the Past  (1993), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 4-1/2 min.

A filmic analogy for the elusiveness of the past. The operations of unconventional printing techniques representing the processes of memory.

The film begins with 8mm home movies laid in a jumble over 16mm stock and exposed with a flashlight, and ends with the home movies run through a 16mm contact printer. Ticking clock, projector noise and Ligeti samples make up the soundtrack.



Channeled Energies  (1993), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.

Three minutes of painful and pleasurable images glimpsed in negative juxtaposed with a single long scratch played on an optical reader on the soundtrack.

London Film Festival, 1993. Whitney Museum of American Art, 2000.



Thaw  (1992), 16mm, b&w, silent (24 fps), 2 min.

Poem by Bridget Meeds.



This Hostile Thought is No Joke  (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.

This film may only be rented by persons/institutions upon signing a damage exemption contract waiving all responsibility of the filmmaker/distributor from damage to objects/persons (esp. projectors/projectionists) relating in any way to the screening and/or handling of this film.

Destroyed once in Pittsburgh!



Bitten by the Bug  (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 4 min.

For MM Serra, inspired by her California films. A single frame tour of Boston. The woman with the umbrella is filmmaker Amanda Katz.



Unmeasured Prelude for Kerry Laitala  (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.

Multiple camera passes of baroque statuary with a soundtrack of dripping water and a Louis Couperin prelude highly distorted. The centerpiece of the film is Kerry's Chattertonesque photographic self-portrait. A nice little film.



Jungian Conflicts  (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.

A little cipher of straight-faced humor. The two predominant images are a vase formed through two faces in profile and a spinning disk of the sort used in mesmerism. The structured first part is meant to represent the repression which breaks through the surface in the freer second part.



A Film for J.W.S.  (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 2 min.

A film collage for my friend James W. Smith drawn from the story of how he broke his back in a bicycle accident. X-rays and speeding pavement are intercut to a soundtrack made from cutting together individual notes from a found optical track.



Birds of Prey  (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 min.

The birds are made from garbage bags and coat hangers, held together with electrical tape. Their inability to fly gives them a sympathetic quality they would not have had otherwise.



Übel  (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.

Five variations on an unfriendly-looking object.



Weeping Film  (1991), 16mm, b&w, sound, 2 min.

A scratch film.



Abrasions  (1990), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3-1/2 min.

Charged ambiguity in a sado-erotic setting.



Rip  (1989), 16mm, b&w, sound, 2 min.
This film is the result of a conversation with filmmaker Carl Wiedemann on the subject of ripping film to vary the size of the image.



Diary  (1967-present), 16mm, b&w, color, sound

A film diary comprising of little projects too tender to exist with humility outside of this protective context, as well as little scrap pieces of projects and outtakes which never went anywhere but for some reason were too dear to throw out. A filmic junkbox of rusty tools and broken costume jewelry.

All titles available from The Film-Makers' Cooperative