James Cagle
2021Metonic Cycles
James Cagle
"... is the most esoteric film I have made. It moves in a calculated, almost mathematical way. It is without any kind of special effect. With the exception of a type of rhythm that is established, its evocation is dependent upon the content of each image and how the images relate to each other relative to their position in time and space ... METONIC CYCLES raises many types of questions. They are questions which deal with philosophy and perception. While the questions are not answered, the observer, if on the proper wavelength, can develop an ambivalence, that is, a feeling that is a mixture of comprehension and lack-of-comprehension. The resulting point-of-view can be one of acceptance, e. g., that while the images have an unreal appearance, this is the way things really are." — James Cagle
Metonic Cycles
Excavation
James Cagle
Excavation demonstrates James Cagle’s engagement with structural filmmaking. More specifically it's an example of a "flicker film". Composed of both still photographs and live footage, Excavation employs extremely short-shot juxtapositions to create disorienting collisions of imagery. For Cagle, this film symbolized a personal exploration of, in his words, “techniques and ideas that have accumulated over the years, but had been without expression for one reason or another.” A dynamic visualization of his thoughts, it “excavates” both the private workings of his inner world, and also the material components of filmmaking.
Excavation
Matrix
James Cagle
"MATRIX is a flicker film which utilizes 81 still photographs of my wife's head. It is a film dependent upon variation of intense light changes by calculated combinations of black and white frame alternations with exposure changes. Throughout, the light intensity rises and falls as the head rotates in varying directions within a 360 degree frontal area." — James Cagle
Matrix
Waterwork
James Cagle
"A single shot (slow zoom) gradually magnifying rapidly-moving blue/white water pattern (rushing river). A sensitive and subtle film for visual contemplation, which inevitably reminds one both of how seldom we see ordinary 'simple' reality; but moreover, how wonderfully transformative is the medium of cinema, to render this reality in a new, optically dazzling, pattern. A hypnotic experience, for the cinema/willing, to drown within – and therein the danger: an art must keep the recipient alive and awake." – John Schofill
Waterwork
