Expanding the human tapestry already depicted in The Edge (1967) and Ice (1969) to the scale of the United States, Milestones (1975) abandons the insurrectionary weapons of Robert Kramer's two previous feature films and focuses instead on describing a generation in search of what comes after. Co-directed with John Douglas, the film juxtaposes small actions and recollections of major American events with a vision that is both humble and epic: it's a depiction of activism in the 1960s and 1970s, in which chronicling ordinary lives is inseparable from historical questions and documentary fiction. Where do we go from here? How do we continue the struggle? The film itself is one part of the answer. A generation later, with the short film Ghosts of Electricity (1997), Kramer once again questions the future -- of images, bodies, and memory, at the dawn of the digital age. How will it still be possible, like the characters in Milestones, to have a shared history?

"Milestones was a big job and it was also a real eye-opener about America. For the first time, we traveled extensively all over the country, saw the enormity of it. And we just saw something about the nature of that land and how incredibly moving it was and a while other relationship to the history of that land -- much less abstract and much more felt." (Robert Kramer)

Films:
MILESTONES (1975, 205 min)
GHOSTS OF ELECTRICITY (1997, 19 min)

Includes a 56-page booklet (English and French)

Publisher: ReVoir