David Devensky
2021Proof
David Devensky
PROOF is a film so personal that it approaches therapy, but there are certain Devensky preoccupations which become readily apparent to everyone familiar with his work. Perhaps the finest sequence is the investigation of fifty-year-old tombstones in a Jewish cemetary - a scene which bears close resemblance to Devensky's scrutinizing of photographs in other films. Indeed, many of the graves bear photographs of their inhibitants and Devesky imbues the scene with that same romantic nostalgia... PROOF closes with a 2001-style light show and a direct statement of Devensky's evolutionary theory"
Proof
Beethoven's Chicken
David Devensky
"... consists of chickens being butchered and hung out on meat hooks, to the accompaniment of the Fifth Symphony. As the film progresses, the imagery mutates from nearly documentary to nearly surreal. An eyeball-clashing scene recalls "Chien Andalou" yet Devensky holds it on-screen much longer than Dali and Bunuel. Finally a chickens' skull is pounded to bits by a hammer. And each time we think (or wish) the final blow has fallen another follows. The camera peeks all the while and one is uncertain of what is more disquiting - the action on the film, or ridged stare of the camera. –Richard Koszarski, New York American
Beethoven's Chicken
Vampeer
David Devensky
VAMPEER is told through a color mist and floating vales. A non-narrative film in the tradition of the Weber-Watson "Fall of the House of Usher" (1928) VAMPEER retains all the genre clichesbut uses them atmospherically. It is a Gothic, surrealistic study in color and light. –D. D.
Vampeer
Caterpillars and Ants
David Devensky
The apotheosis of Devensky's work is CATERPILLARS AND ANTS which technically resembles a Lumiere film. The camera starts at a man eating caterpillars for the entire running time. The spectacle is so repulsive that the hand-held camera begins to shake wildly, Devensky himself admits that he had to look away during part of the filming. Thus the camera did the looking for him and for us. The experience is quintessentially voyeuristic, as even the filmmaker did not experience first hand what was going on." –Richard Koszarski, New York American
Caterpillars and Ants
Comedy Vignettes of 1970
David Devensky
I made this film with my brother Danny to try and capture our warped sense of humor. What turned out is a series of comedy characters, situations, running gags and satires. We're basically the show with some help from our family pets (2 dogs & cats). The film suffers from a preponderance of oral and anal neuroses. It is highly gross, sometimes clever and it has kept us both limp with laughter. –D. D.
Comedy Vignettes of 1970
I Wish I Could Shimy Like My Sister Kate
David Devensky
Free – only if requested with 3 other titles. Old maids of the "gay 90s" lament over Sister Kate's Shimmy. In the end they find that the shimmy is also possible for them! All synchronized to music's rhythm + words." –D. D.
I Wish I Could Shimy Like My Sister Kate
Evolutions's Step
David Devensky
Devensky's evolutionary theory... is considerably more subtle. The same man as in CATERPILLARS and ANTS is sitting alone in an apartment with an immerse accumulation of debris, listening blackly to a fragile Kreisler-like melody on an old gramophone. During the film the camera peers at him and his junk and even swoops around in lengthy tracking shots. At times it rests solely on close-ups of his craggy face (another Devensky preoccupation). The man begins to freak out as "phantoms" appear and collapses amid the rubble. The melody appears once more and this time he reacts to it. If the film's title indicate a continuation of thinking in "Proof" then what is seen is modern man surrounded by his accumulation of things, at first fulled and insensitive to beauty (the fragile melody) but finally becoming responsive to it after harrowing rite de passage" –Richard Koszarski, New York American
Evolutions's Step
Old Time Comedy Night
David Devensky
"In David Devensky's picture the audience is shown an audience. We are looking at a picture of them and they, it turns out, are looking at a picture of themselves. At the same time, the suspicion grows that these purposely gross caricatures of the average movie spectator are looking past their dark and flickering images to something else. As in The Lickerish Quartet there is the uneasy feeling that the actors and audience have changed places and these parodies of ourselves, facing us, looking straight into the camera, are looking through the screen and seeing us- and that they find the spectacle hilarious." –Donald Richie, MOMA
Old Time Comedy Night
The Gramophone Man
David Devensky
Calvin, president of his record collecting club, ekes out a merger livelihood by selling old records to fellow collectors. He is however, frustrated with his life and longs for more than just being “The King of a Pack of Losers“. One day, while walking home after buying a collection, he stumbles into nasty Mickey and his “kinky’ girlfriend Priscilla -who takes a shine to him. The vicious and jealous Mickey sets Calvin on a life transformation. Highly stylized, remarkably good acting “The Gramophone Man” is full of bizarre twists and turns (one sequence features Jack Smith of “Flaming Creatures” in an outrageous Drag Queen outfit), With intense humor and distorted pathos, the film barrows towards its powerful finale.
The Gramophone Man
The Record Collectors
David Devensky
The psychology of collecting records - whether they be Classical, Jazz, Popular or Rock is seen in interviews with both dealers and collectors all entwined with Devensky’s visual and sound obsessions. A powerful Documentary which shortly shows that it really doesn’t matter what one collects, for their ‘missing needs’ are all the same. The final incident is an interview with a disgruntled 78rpm record dealer who tells an unforgettable story of why in enter this business culminating, when, in otter frustration, he proceeds to destroys his stock of recordings.
The Record Collectors
The Divine Comprehension
David Devensky
I planned the Divine Comprehension to be my magnum opus however, although it is complete, I never considered it finished. As in PROOF (and, in part, several other of my films) I dispensed with the narrative, creating sequence and short scenes that capture unexpressed emotions or feelings; an unanswered telephone call, the 1,000 Year Old Chinese Egg, fighting hamsters, a fish head floats by in a pristine stream, all tried together with reoccurring motifs. One such sequence includes the victims of the 1904 Slocum Disaster, the reclaiming of their bodies and the funeral service at their church - which is still stands today - all of which were captured in vintage Edison ‘Newsreel“ footage,.
The Divine Comprehension
Crowds
David Devensky
Shot in Manhattan over a period of several years, the main theme of “Crowds” is contained in its two sole subtitles: “Crowds besmirch our city streets” and “Certain elements make Crowds visually tolerable.” I tried to capture the grotesque and the beautiful - following people and incidents relentlessly. Some of the highlights of the ‘guided documentary’ include; a 3 foot, elderly and bizarrely dressed hunchback women as she totes a shopping bag of crumbs to fed the swam of pigeons encompassing her, street trash - both human and otherwise, perverts, bums and other assorted eyesores, exquisitely attractive men and women contrasted against filthy degenerates and freaks. Creative cinematography and montage enhances the many scenes and stories I waited for, or stumbled upon, during the several years of filming.
Crowds
Homecall
David Devensky
Consisting basically of home movie footage of family, relatives, and myself during the mid-1940's I have included loops of certain sequences and actions that have attracted me. Invariably people find HOMECALL a very warm film; however, upon closer scrutiny quite another facet is visible. –D. D.
Homecall
