Joel Schlemowitz
Joel Schlemowitz is a New York based film and video artist with over forty-five short experimental films to his credit. He has also made some twenty-four installation pieces called filmboxes. Currently he is completing a feature length adaptation of Sacher-Masoch’s novel “Venus in Furs,” for which he is the recipient of a grant from the Jerome Foundation, and is writing a book on experimental film production.
He is an instructor at the New School for Social Research in New York, and a lecturer at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. His films have been shown at Anthology Film Archives, Millennium Film Workshop, Films Charas, Museum of Modern Art, Harvard Film Archives, Orgone Cinema, The London Film Festival, The London Filmmakers’ Coop, and elsewhere.
- Incantation Documentation
- In the Orbit of Marie Menken
- Thaw
- Little Nothings
- Eye Music
- Invitation to a Voyage
- Bagatelle in Neon
- Extemporized
- Weimar
- Untitled
- For Joe
- Pillowbook
- Angelbubble
- Doris’ Garden
- Filmpoem for Wanda Phipps
- Tombeau for Arnold Eagle
- Morris Engel Time Sculpture
- Purple Candle Poem
- When He Leaves
- Poem for the Past
- Channeled Energies
- Thaw
- This Hostile Thought is No Joke
- Bitten by the Bug
- Unmeasured Prelude for Kerry Laitala
- Jungian Conflicts
- A Film for J.W.S.
- Birds of Prey
- Übel
- Thaw
- Weeping Film
- Abrasions
- Rip
- Diary
- Email
Incantation Documentation (1998), 16mm, b&w/color, sound, 5 min.
Performer: Rebecca Moore
From a film performance, Incantation of the Spirit of the Silver Halide, at Films Charas, July 15, 1997, featuring Rebecca Moore.
The performance consisted of a live segment filmed in front of the audience before the film show began. As the films were screened the footage of the live performance was developed behind the scenes and projected as the last film on the bill.
The performance was meant to evoke the sense of magic of the photochemical process as it relates to filmmaking — the ephemeral live performance finds rebirth through art, in the projection of its filmic record.
This film includes the hand-developed footage from that evening, cut together with some video footage of the performance, suggestive of the piece’s desired effect.
In the Orbit of Marie Menken (1998), 16mm, color, silent (24 fps), 3 min.
My tribute to the filmmaker whose works helped give birth to my inpiration and my joy in experimentation with the medium of film. As a filmmaker, I am in the orbit of Marie Menken.
Thaw (1998), 16mm, color/b&w, silent (24 fps), 7 min.
Poem by Bridget Meeds. This is a revised and expanded version of a film I made in 1992. At the time I was experimenting with the notion of making a film based on a poem that suggested the feeling of a poem without resorting to the literal approach of poem image = film image. I wanted to evoke the poem without the film being merely some sort of filmic reflex action: showing a loaf of bread if the poet says bread, and showing a
shot of a river if the poet says river, and so on.
I’m not sure that the result wasn’t a little too vague in the end, and so I decided to remake it, presenting the text within the film so the viewer could make the same sorts of comparisons and decisions that I had gone through in interpreting the feeling of the poem into a short experimental film.
The original film appears twice, at the beginning and at the end, allowing you to experience it both before and after the encounter with the poem itself. The first appearance in followed by the poem itself, and this is followed by a hand-painted version of the film with the text incorporated into the corresponding passages of the film. Lastly is the recapitulation of the original 1992 film, this time we know the poem and can reference our memory of it in relation to the tempo and images of the film.
Little Nothings (1997), 16mm, color, sound, 4 min.
An experiment in combining the expe
rimental image-based film with the sync sound film.
The film consists of Little Nothings, a poem by Wanda Phipps, is read by her, with the accompaniment of in-camera superimpositions. The poem was picked through chance operation, by throwing Wanda’s poems into the air. The superimpostions were done in-camera, thus the synchronizations of word and image were also determined through chance operation. By superimposing in the camera over a sync sound shot the images in this film are presented as they were filmed, without editing.
1734 (1997), 35mm, color, silent, 2 min.
A short film of number 1734 from Emily Dickinson’s works, which begins with the line: “Oh, honey of an hour.” The words of the poem appear written onto the frames.
Please note: 35mm version only.
Eye Music (1997), 16mm, color, silent (18 or 24 fps), 2 1/2 min. <
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A hand-cranked film of a wind-up record player, hand-colored to simulate the unheard music.
click to see
Invitation to a Voyage (1997), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 4 min.
After Henri Duparc’s setting of the poem by Baudelaire, which is heard in faint echo on the soundtrack. Rococo adhesive transparencies over hand-colored film alternate with Jenn Reeves seen in black and white negative.
Bagatelle in Neon (1997), 16mm, color, sound on cassette (see description), 3 min.
Three friendly little minutes of lights at night on Avenue A, shot on black and white and extensively and laboriously hand-colored.
Never to be shown with the same soundtrack twice. Supply your own cassette of jazz or swing of moderate tempo, preferably of a good vintage (say, the 30’s), or one will be su
pplied for you.
By special arrangement with the filmmaker this work can be shown with “live” sound accompaniment employing a wind-up 78 record player.
Extemporized (1996), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 5 min.
Dancer: Alice MacIntyre Shooting assistant: Casandra Stark Mele
A brief extemporaneous dance film shot on the streets of New York with dancer Alice MacIntyre. Special thanks to Bill Rice for being there.
click to see
Weimar (1996), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 8 min.
This little film took root while reading Henri Murger’s Bohemian Life and Alex De Jong’s Weimar Chronicles, while feeling admiration for the quiet heroism of Rudy Burckhardt’s movies, while the next NYFA rejection arrived, and while a little free film was slipped my way, befitting a pr
oject about the value of art in people’s lives, and ironically commenting on such through the thrift of its production.
No plot. No story. Just a series of suggestive tableaus.
The bohemians are played by: Stephen Callahan, Marchette DuBois, Lee Ellickson, Genese, Gary Goldberg, Rebecca Hampden, Alice MacIntyre, Bridget Meeds, Wanda Phipps, Jennifer Todd Reeves, Madeline Schwartzman, MM Serra, and Stuart Sherman.
Untitled (1996), 16mm, color, sound, 6 min.
A mouse skull and moiré patterns. This mouse skull was found at a notable point of transition in my life, and I put it on film almost immediately. It was, however, quite a while before I could devote the funds to a print. Dispite the delay I’m fairly pleased with the resulting little film.
For Joe (1996), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 4 min.
A memorial film for Joe of Swiss Camera, repairer of all our Bolexes.
I tried to make a film sardonic and precise, as I felt would be befitting to a person possesing both these qualities.
Pillowbook (1995), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 4 min.
An erotic flip book of sorts.
35mm material cut in a paper cutter to 16mm width and perforated with a splicer, contact printed to 16mm, with the sound of the printer jamming on the soundtrack.
A postulation — as also seen in the works of Carolee Schneemann, MM Serra and Peggy Ahwesh — regarding the notion that when the viewer is given the task of having to work to decipher an erotic depiction it is more thrilling than erotica’s more common clinical documentation.
Angelbubble (1995), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
A Morris Engel hydrokinetic sculpture, a short soothing film.
Doris’ Garden (1995), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
A garden portrait for Do
ris Kornish.
click to see
Filmpoem for Wanda Phipps (1995), 16mm, b&w, sound 3 1/2 min. RENTAL: $25
I came across Wanda’s poem in a journal called The World, and it just struck me, so to speak. Before even meeting her I shot a roll of street scenes, and the rest is history.
Tombeau for Arnold Eagle (1994), 16mm, color/b&w, 4 1/2 min.
A memorial film for my mentor.
Morris Engel Time Sculpture (1994), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
A short abstract portrait of Morris Engel’s watch-part collages. The in-camera superimpositions and dissolves are intended to convey the feeling of depth within these precious little cre
ations in a way that would satisfy the large flat movie screen.
Purple Candle Poem (1994), 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
A hand-colored double printed abstract meditation centered around a candle.
When He Leaves (1993), 16mm, b&w, sound, 1 1/4 min.
A poem by Bridget Meeds, as read by her, with accompanying text on screen intercut with a contact printed typewriter ribbon.
click to see
Poem for the Past (1993), 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 4 1/2 min.
A filmic analogy for the elusiveness of the past. The operations of unconventional printing techniques representing the processes of memory.
The film begins with 8mm home movies laid in a jumble over 16mm stock and exposed with a flashlig
ht, and ends with the home movies run through a 16mm contact printer. Ticking clock, projector noise and Ligeti samples make up the soundtrack.
click to see
Channeled Energies (1993), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.
Three minutes of painful and pleasurable images glimpsed in negative juxtaposed with a single long scratch played on an optical reader on the soundtrack.
London Film Festival, 1993.
Thaw (1992), 16mm, b&w, silent (24 fps), 2 min.
Poem by Bridget Meeds. (see also: Thaw, 1998 version.)
This Hostile Thought is No Joke (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.
This film may only be rented by persons/institutions upon signing a damage exemption contract waiving all responsibility of the filmmaker/distributor from damage to objects
/persons (esp. projectors/projectionists) relating in any way to the screening and/or handling of this film.
Destroyed once in Pittsburgh!
Bitten by the Bug (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 4 min.
For MM Serra, inspired by her California films. A single frame tour of Boston. The woman with the umbrella is filmmaker Amanda Katz.
Unmeasured Prelude for Kerry Laitala (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.
Multiple camera passes of baroque statuary with a soundtrack of dripping water and a Louis Couperin prelude highly distorted. The centerpiece of the film is Kerry’s Chattertonesque photographic self-portrait. A nice little film.
Jungian Conflicts (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.
A little cipher of straight-faced humor. The two predominant images are a vase formed through two faces in profile and a spinning disk of the sort used in mesmeri
sm. The structured first part is meant to represent the repression which breaks through the surface in the freer second part.
A Film for J.W.S. (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 2 min.
A film collage for my friend James W. Smith drawn from the story of how he broke his back in a bicycle accident. X-rays and speeding pavement are intercut to a soundtrack made from cutting together individual notes from a found optical track.
Birds of Prey (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 min.
The birds are made from garbage bags and coat hangers, held together with electrical tape. Their inability to fly gives them a sympathetic quality they would not have had otherwise.
click to see
Übel (1992), 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.
Five variations on an unfriendly-looking object.
Weeping Film (1991), 16mm, b&w, sound, 2 min.
A scratch film.
click to see
Abrasions (1990), 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 1/2 min.
Charged ambiguity in a sado-erotic setting.
Rip (1989), 16mm, b&w, sound, 2 min.
This film is the result of a conversation with filmmaker Carl Wiedemann on the subject of ripping film to vary the size of the image.
Diary (1967-present), 16mm, b&w, color, sound
A film diary comprising of little projects too tender to exist with humility outside of this protective context, as well as little scrap pieces of projects and outtakes which never went anywhere but for some reason were too dear to throw out. A filmic junkbox of rusty tools and broken
costume jewelry.
All titles available through The Film-makers’ Cooperative.
Email Joel Schlemowitz at schlemoj@newschool.edu
