7:00pm- Reception
7:30pm* – Screening and discussion.
*Note: Street entrance locked at 7:30 – please arrive on time!

 The God of Day Had Gone Down Upon Him | 2000 | 50 minutes | COLOR | SILENT | 16mm

This photographic (as distinct from hand-painted) work is the third in what has come to be called ‘the Vancouver Island films’ and, as such, concentrates metaphorically upon ‘mid-age crisis,’ a psychological state comparable to ‘but not relieved by’ Death. The title is from Dickens’ David Copperfield.

This film of single-strand photography begins with the ‘fire’ of reflective light on water and on the barest inferences of a ship. Throughout, the interwoven play of light and water tell the inferred ‘tale’ of the film through rhythm the tempo, through visible textures and forms in gradual evolution, through resultant ‘moods’ generated by these modes of making, and, then, by the increasingly distant boat images, birds, animals, fleeting silhouettes of people and their artifacts, flotsome and jetsome of the sea-dead, as well as (near end, and almost as at a funeral) flowers in bloom, swallowed by darkness midst the crumbling of the sand castles. These nameable objects (sometimes, at first, quite enigmatic) are the frets of Symbol; but always the symbolic content is swept back into the weave of sea and light and seen, as is the merry-go-round near beginning of film, or the horizontally photographed fountain mimicing [sic] incoming ocean waves, to be as if spawned in the mind during oceanic contemplation. In fact, the structure of the entire film might be characterized thus: meditation on ocean is interrupted continually by rapidly cut visual frets of (at first) irritated thought; but then gradually across the course of the film these fraughts of symbols and rapidly edited constructs become a calm ‘kin to resignation, become more at-one with the diminishing light and incoming waves. The turning point of the film is near its mid-point where tall and relatively violent waves smash their cold and fearsome colors left to right across the screen, interwoven with an old man sitting in a dark blue room, followed by hints of backyard fences, grasses, distant ephemeral flowers and a hung whirling decoration. Reminders of this midpoint are accomplished through visual rhymes such as similarities of blue and a madly whirling kite against a bright sky, as well as by the (near end) entire sequence in which multiple garish flowers invade the (by then) almost fully meditative sea imagery. There are visual rhymes also connecting this work with its two previous ‘parts’ (A CHILD’S GARDEN and THE SERIOUS SEA AND THE MAMMALS OF VICTORIA), such as an orange ball attached to a boat which ‘rhymes’ with thrown orange balls in previous film. As the whole film is stiched [sic] with red-orange-yellow flares (indicators of light-struck sections) at beginning and ending of individual 100 foot rolls (making of the film a distinctive sequential evolution), so the end of the film has a slight flare-up (or fillup of hope?) after burdgeoning dark.

missed this salon? have no fear! you can check out these videos of Nathaniel’s introduction and post-screening discussion with the audience!

About the Artist: 

The major part of my work is both silent and paced to be projected at silent speed (18 frames per second). Silence in cinema is undoubtedly an acquired taste, but the delicacy and intimacy it reveals has many rich rewards. In film, there are two ways of including human beings. One is depicting them. Another is to create a film form which, in itself, has all the qualities of being human: tenderness, observation, fear, curiosity, the sense of stepping into the world, sudden murky disruptions and undercurrents, expansion, pulling back, contraction, relaxation, sublime revelation. In my work, the screen is transformed into a “speaking character”, and the images function as pure energy rather than acting as secondary symbol or as a source for information or storytelling. I put shots together to create a revelation of wisdom through delicate surprise. The montage does not lead to verbal understanding, but is actual and present. The narrative is that which takes place between the viewer and the screen. Silence allows these delicate articulations of vision which are simultaneously poetic and sculptural to be fully experienced. — Nathaniel Dorsky

Image credits: © Estate of Stan Brakhage, courtesy Fred Camper