The following clip is taken from Avery Willard’s 1966 experimental short, Reflections, starring Paul Ritchards. Here we see Willard’s keen implementation of double exposure, a recurring technique in his film work. As the camera moves elegantly across Ritchards’ body, abstract, superimposed images of New York City drift in and out of frame. The urban landscape begins to align with the landscape of the male physique. Provocative and hypnotic, Reflections calls to mind the mid-60s work of fellow avant-garde filmmakers like Kenneth Anger, Bruce Baillie, Tom Chomont, and many others.
Yearly Archives: 2011
Untitled (The Istanbul Biennial, 2011) by
A mountain of 175 pounds of candies “individually wrapped in variously colored cellophane” piled up in the corner of a gallery. The candy is unguarded, so the viewer is encouraged to take some. Each and every day, the remaining candy is weighed and more is added until the pile goes back to the same 175 pounds. This is Untitled (Ross), one of the most poignant works by Felix Gonzales-Torres, the Cuban American artist who lived and worked in NYC in the ’80s and early ’90s. This beautiful installation underscores the process as an intrinsic part of the art piece, which is constantly being re-created, and never finished.
175 pounds corresponds to the “ideal” weight that a doctor established for his patient Ross Laycock, the artist’s partner, when he was diagnosed with AIDS in the mid-80’s. Gonzales-Torres was once asked who his ideal audience was, and he answered without skipping a beat; “My audience is Ross.” Ross died in ’91. The diminishing amount of candy parallels Ross’ suffering and weight loss prior to his death, but the replenishment stipulated by the artist metaphorically grants him eternal life. More…
More Than Ever by
Tony Osso’s The Devotion Project is a series of short films that aims to document LGBT couples “of all stripes” according to the project’s website. Osso’s first endeavor More Than Ever is a simple and touching portrait of an older gay couple, Bill Campbell and John Hilton, in their 54th year of being together. It’s a sweet reminder, amidst Grindr and Manhunt and the breakups we all must go through that sometimes things can work out for us. More Than Ever won the Audience Award for best short film at this year’s NewFest. Osso is currently filming new installments of the series around New York. Enjoy.
Day 126: The Best Places to Scratch Your Film by
It feels like Christmas. After a two-week pause—somewhat unexpected, but these things happen—I’m back in the editing room this morning for the first time in weeks. What I have noticed in the meantime is how much more stressful real life is than working on a movie. I’ve missed the single-minded focus that it gives you, and also the way in which all the rest of life seems to disappear when you allow the tunnel vision, which is a movie. I begin to think that “workaholism” is not a ridiculous term, if you make the comparison to how work, like all the other “isms,” can sometimes be the best relief to the anxieties of everyday. I’ve indulged in worse vices in my life, but in this decade, this one seems to be front and center. More…
WTC View: My Autobiography of New York After 9/11 by
On the night of September 10th, 2001, I placed a roommate ad on the Village Voice website for my 2BR share in the West Village. The next morning I woke up to emergency sirens and witnessed the attack on the World Trade Center from my bedroom window. After a harrowing day, I left my apartment to stay at my boyfriend’s place in Brooklyn. Then, a few days later when I called my machine (remember doing that?) to get messages, there were a number of people who had called asking about my roommate ad. Some people even called me the day after 9/11, casually asking if they could “stop by and see the place.”
This was the strange but true story that was the inspiration for my first full-length play and later feature film, WTC View. It tells the story of a man who, like myself, placed a roommate ad for his apartment on September 10th. Because of this fact, people often mistake the play for being autobiographical. This is a situation that I’m somewhat familiar with because it’s happened before with other works of fiction and films I have written. In some ways, I find this flattering because I think it means people find the story so believable and real that it must be true. However, I also find it somewhat annoying because it assumes I just write down everything that happens to me and that there is little imagination involved in my writing. Still, the burning question remains…is it true or not? Is this the story of your life? Well, here’s my attempt at an answer. More…
Dear Mister Bidgood by
In a brand new semi-regular feature on KTLO, we have asked our most brilliant of friends, the photographer and filmmaker James Bidgood (Pink Narcissus), who is not only an outstanding artist, but a wit and raconteur with more wisdom and experience than anyone we know, to respond to reader’s problems. From small questions of etiquette to weighty life-changing queries, Mr. Bidgood will attempt to offer guidance and “Dear Abbey” realness in the way only he can.
Dear Mister Bidgood,
I’m 24 and have been having sex with dudes and only dudes since I was 20. I’ve had sex with 17 people, and my longest relationship was 3 weeks. This leads to my question. I have only ejaculated with someone else when jacking myself off. It’s usually the old vanilla in-and-out or sucking around. (I’ve been a top and bottom, but mostly bottom). What should I do so I can “come baby come” like in that Kool-Aid commercial? Sincerely, Jonathan More…
Hulu Alternatives: Christopher Isherwood On Day At Night by
Day at Night was a public access television program hosted by James Day which ran throughout the 1970′s. In this episode, author Christopher Isherwood (The Berlin Stories, A Single Man, Down There On A Visit) discusses his life and work on the occasion of the publishing of his autobiographical novel about his parents, Kathleen and Frank in 1972.
Day 103: The Way We Were by
It’s two weeks since we wrapped post and I can’t say I’ve caught up yet. It’s harder than I remember to re-enter everyday life. But no complaint. I’m now in the editing room every afternoon with Fonzie (Affonso Goncalves), my dear friend and brilliant editor. We are working on our fourth feature together, and it’s like going home and, even more so, to be back at Post Factory. The last few years I felt almost too comfortable with the idea that I was a filmmaker, but maybe I didn’t make films. For some reason, the elevator doors opening on the 11th floor of the Post Factory building and walking out and to my cutting room, it feels like a different life than the one I’ve been living, which has been as much about teaching and running a film series and being in the world in some sort of Emeritus way. I’m reminding myself that I’m too young to be that old yet. More…
Weekend Reading: Director Andrew Haigh on Writing for An Imaginary Audience by
By now you’ve probably heard so much about director Andrew Haigh’s wonderful new gay romantic drama Weekend that you may wonder if the film is really as good as the hype. Happily, as those of us lucky enough to see it before it was released in theaters today know, it is. Haigh is also as charming and easy to talk to as his film is to watch. After a grueling week of interviews and press, I met up with Haigh to talk about how his own sex diary inspired his new film, and his somewhat ambivalent feelings about his success on the eve of his film’s release. Note: There are a few plot points in the conversation that follows that you may not want spoiled. So see the film tonight and then come back and read the interview – yes, you guessed it – this weekend.
Adam: Chris’ character in the film is a character who is an artist and who’s making this kind of diary-like tape recordings of his experiences, cataloguing his experiences with his lovers and I’m wondering if you have any of your own sort of similar journaling thing like he does?
Andrew: I did what Russell did. I had a list that I kept password protected on my computer. I definitely used to come back straight after it happened and write a piece, like Russell does, about that person. It’s crazy when I look back at them now and read the kind of things that I said. They’re always quite sexual and I would just describe who the person was, and what happened. It was weird. It was like I would write it for someone else, even though I had no intention of ever showing that to someone. I came out quite late so it was probably a way for me just to deal with suddenly being out and sleeping with people. I suppose that list inspired elements of the film because I did look back at it before I started writing the script. Although the people on that list aren’t in the film.
Your autobiographical filmmaking -
Doesn’t go that far! More…
The Sirens by
In our last posting on Avery Willard, we spoke with the legendary drag performer Adrian about his friendship with Willard. This week, we turn to Amanda Hammett, one of the members of the hard-working team helping to put together In Search of Avery Willard. In the following post, Amanda gives us a little more background on Willard’s talents as a photographer and how he was seen by the photography community at the time. She also shares four astonishing shots of female impersonators from Willard’s never-before-seen collection. Here’s Amanda…
We were overwhelmed when we attempted to highlight Avery’s photographic work. The New York Public Library has ten boxes of his photos. As we started to examine the work, we noticed that Avery’s reputation as a master of the portrait was well earned – and he earned his income from it – most notably for stars on Broadway. But he didn’t stop there, moving from actors to friends, ad models to female impersonators to animals.
In one of our interviews for the documentary, photographer John Cox, who was Avery’s friend and collaborator, reflected on Avery’s work: More…