Larry Gottheim

"Gottheim's Cinema is a quest of origins. The films elaborate a response to the fictions of our world, the construction of images and sounds, the repeating cycles of life and nature. The profoundness of Gottheim's act is to elaborate a body of work outside of fashion and within a search for an authentic language of cinematic discourse." - John Handhardt, on the occasion of the presentation of the full "Elective Affinities" cycle at the Whitney Museum, 1981

I have been moving away from the formal structures that were the compositional framework of much of my work, having more recently been attracted by, for example, areas of Caribbean ritual and history which contain their own patterns. My interest in exploring sound/image relationships is a continuing one - stretching the possibilities of what one can "experience" through these channels. I have become uncomfortable with being characterized in terms of superficial aspects of content (e.g., landscape) or form (e.g., "structural") Hopefully new viewers will see the films in a fuller, more appropriate context, as well as just enjoy them.