THE PATH (1961)

"Light as the symbol of the ineffable. The 'plot' of this subjective recreation of a dream seems to concern a mysterious journey; the spectator, however, is visually directed toward forms and substances rather than to the protagonists by a filmmaker who is a master of visionary cinema." - Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art

"Richard Myers has, thru his films, given us the ONLY consistently creative variable to dream-thinking in our time. All else, in film, slides toward surrealism and/or props itself with misplaced Freudian symbols, at best, or else gets lost in the Jung-le, at the verses. Myers' work is rooted in what he doesn't know about, just exactly what he knows - his own home grounds mid-America, and like D.W. Griffith he takes the great risk of being native to his art, attending it on its home-grown grounds/his-UNowned-dreams." - Stan Brakhage


FIRST TIME HERE (1964) is not realistic; neither is it purely illusory.

It is a fantasy which alienates itself from the "real" world and takes us on a journey through the glitter-cardboard prop world of a carnival exhibit which shows "effects" of an atomic bomb on a mock city. Through particular details we see an organic and continuous chain of events which lead to an actual atomic blast. Through many generalized images the main theme of renewal is stated, FIRST TIME HERE is a celebration of the "mess" we have gotten ourselves into.

"Major discovery of the Ann Arbor Film Festival ...." - Pauline Kael

"Richard Myers shows extraordinary talent as a creative filmmaker. CORONATION is brilliantly executed; a psychological fantasy worthy of the highest praise. FIRST TIME HERE is both fascinating and deeply disturbing." - W.S. Doan, Director, Film Center, Hull House, Chicago

CORONATION (1965)

Music by Fred Coulter. Costumes by James M. Someroski.

"Richard Myers is one of the most talented and one of the most unknown filmmakers in the country. Personally and geographically isolated from the hysterical film propaganda machine, we seldom hear his name; aside from the Ann Arbor Film Festival and its related tour, we never see his films. In the same sense that Bruce Baillie's MASS is generally regarded to be the film masterpiece of 1964, Myers' CORONATION ranks with the two or three very best experimental films of 1965. No experimental film that I know of can compare with it from the standpoint of sheer spectacle. In this respect it ranks with HOLLYWOOD, and in this respect I can pay CORONATION no greater compliment. Its rapid-fire narrative moves with the variety of news items found in a big city newspaper when on Monday morning it recounts the carnage of the weekend." - George Manupelli, director and filmmaker, Ann Arbor Film Festival