Close-up: Histories of the Avant-Garde Part III
January 26th 2009, 20h
The Working Men’s Club, 44-46 Pollard Row, E2 6NB, London. Ticket: £5/£3 Close-Up members
Doors open at 7.45 pm
Presented by Close-Up and The Dog Movement

PASSAGE THROUGH: A RITUAL by Stan Brakhage + MUSICAL STAIRS by Guy Sherwin

A chance to see one of Brakhage’s most important sound films for the first time in London alongside Guy Sherwin’s Optical Sound film Musical Stairs.

Parts 1 and 2 of Histories of the Avant-Garde looked at the resolutely, intensely silent Brakhage film Riddle of Lumen and Guy Sherwin’s Short Film Series. Part 3 enters the world of sound with these two filmmkakers and also looks forward to Part 4 in February, which will be examining music’s manifold relationship to Film with five American masters.

Brakhage’s relationship to sound was complex. It took an almost indirect collaboration with the composer Phillip Corner to fulfill Brakhage’s desire for a way of giving equal importance to music and image whilst keeping them parallel, distinct experiences. Long passages of black with Corner’s music are cut with silent flashes of colour photography culled from Brakhage’s ‘rejected’ footage. Meditative and demanding but ultimately one of Brakhage’s most rewarding films.
Sherwin’s Musical Stairs has a method of production and structure that could be seen in opposition to Passage. Image is physically printed on to the optical sound track to create an seemingly absolute synthesis of sound and image.