Marie Menken
1909 - 1970
Lights
Marie Menken
Shot over a period of three years. Marie Menken photographed New York window displays during the Christmas holiday. In order to avoid foot and street traffic interrupting the shots, Menken filmed from midnight to 1:00 in the morning, but had to keep the camera under her coat to keep it from freezing.
Lights
Arabesque for Kenneth Anger
Marie Menken
Kenneth Anger, Willard Maas
Filmed at the Alhambra in Spain in just one day, according to Marie Menken. Arabesque for Kenneth Anger concentrates on visual details found in Moorish architecture and in ancient Spanish tile. The date 1961 refers to the addition of Teiji Ito's soundtrack and its subsequent completion, but the film was likely shot in 1960 or earlier. - David Lewis
Arabesque for Kenneth Anger
The Geography of the Body
Willard Maas
George Barker, Willard Maas
A quotation from Aristophanes, "The desire and pursuit of the whole is called love," precedes views of a man and a woman's bodies, often in extreme close up. Off-screen, a voice recites fragments of oracular literature and purple prose. We see an eye, an ear, a mouth, a tongue, bits of hair, a hand, the tips of fingers, toes. Occasionally, the frame includes a larger scape of a body: a chest, a back, a breast. Usually the camera is stationery; sometimes, it moves across a body, remaining in close up. They hold hands for one moment. The bodies are without clothes; no genitalia are visible.
The Geography of the Body
Image in the Snow
Willard Maas
Hunter Jones, Ellen McCool
A young male protagonist dreams of a muscleman hero, a black dancer, and a princess who gives him a magic urn. When he wakes he rejects his mother (Menken) and wanders the cold streets, where he finds his dream characters corrupted or dying.
Image in the Snow
