Jerome Hiler
2021Throughout his career, Mr. Hiler has also worked on feature films and documentaries. In the documentary field, he has worked either as photographer, editor or director and, occasionally, all three.
Mr Hiler also works in the field of stained glass, which he considers a sister-art to film. Under the title CINEMA BEFORE 1300, he has presented slide lectures on medieval glass, culled from his extensive collection of photographs on the subject at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Princeton University and The Art Gallery of Toronto. Mr. Hiler brought his love of classical music together with film in working as co-director on MUSIC MAKES A CITY.
In the Stone House
Jerome Hiler
In the Stone House records and recollects a period of life of four years in rural New Jersey. In the latter 1960s, two young guys with monastic leanings leave the clatter of Manhattan’s art and film scene to catch the wave of higher consciousness that was about to change the world forever to find themselves washed ashore in a place only slightly updated from Way Down East. The monastic retreat quickly turned into the weekend getaway for a host of extravagant Manhattanites seeking films and fun. We learned from hitch-hiking guests that the police referred to our haven as “the stone house.” —Jerome Hiler
In the Stone House
New Shores
Jerome Hiler
NEW SHORES is a sister film to IN THE STONE HOUSE in many ways. Like the latter film, it consists of earlier footage edited in recent years. It could be seen as a sequel to IN THE STONE HOUSE especially since it begins with a cross-country journey to the West Coast, where I settled, and concludes with a visit, in 1987, to the “stone house” in rural New Jersey. Even though there is some sort of time line that can be imagined, the film stands on its own. It is simply a series of episodes that touch upon facets of living in a new area with new weather, new people, new identities and stubborn old fears. The Bolex camera goes to work across landscapes and living areas, workplaces and gatherings. A dance of images: can beauty partner with dread and death? It’s a film of the coexistences that percolate beneath the surface of ordinary events. A film of useless hopes and baseless fears.
New Shores
Music Makes a City: A Louisville Orchestra Story
Owsley Brown III, Jerome Hiler
Will Oldham
In 1948, a small, struggling, semi-professional orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky began a novel project to commission new works from contemporary composers around the world.
Music Makes a City: A Louisville Orchestra Story
Divided Loyalties
Warren Sonbert
Nathaniel Dorsky, Jerome Hiler
Warren Sonbert described Divided Loyalties as a film 'about art vs. industry and their various crossovers.' According to film critic Amy Taubin, "There is a clear analogy between the filmmaker and the dancers, acrobats and skilled workers who make up so much of his subject matter." -- Jon Gartenberg
Divided Loyalties
Words of Mercury
Jerome Hiler
Words of Mercury is a silent film projected at 18fps. It has many layers of super-impositions which were all shot in the camera. It moves from a stark wintery world and slowly develops into a place of overgrowth and richness that is almost suffocating and re-invites death.
Words of Mercury
Marginalia
Jerome Hiler
This film is to be projected at silent speed: 18 frames per second. Although "Marginalia" has no story, it reflects my concern with the feel of society at a time of ecological stress and cultural change. As usual, I have super-impositions which were shot in-camera as well as abrasions on the film surface which reflect the cursive waves of marginal notation and, also, situates hand-writing as a vanishing form of communication.
Marginalia
Bagatelle II
Jerome Hiler
“With Bagatelle II, I seem to have come full circle by returning to the so-called polyvalent style of my earliest film endeavors from 50 years ago. The film actually includes material from all the intervening decades. It’s both up to the moment yet life-spanning, with a thread of deep affection for the special characteristics of 16mm film.” —Jerome Hiler
Bagatelle II
