Two series of films — Endearments and Intrigues receive Iberian audience

My fifth screening in Spain (September 25, 2018) will be a double program of 12 films. The idea of paired projections (Cineinfinito #67 & #68) was conceived by Filmoteca’s director, Felix Garcia, and will be shown at Zumzeig Cine Cooperativa in the center of Barcelona.

The following layout of text and images was originally produced on Mr. Garcia’s website, Cineinfinito, and later republished by Marco Ortega on his site, Experimental Cinema. I’m sincerely grateful for the continuing support of these distant friends.

 

Cineinfinito #67: Joseph Bernard (II)

CINEINFINITO / Zumzeig Cine Cooperativa

Martes 25 de Septiembre de 2018, 21:30h. Zumzeig Cine Cooperativa

Carrer de Béjar, 53

08014 Barcelona

 

 

Programa: (películas seleccionadas por el propio autor)

Endearments:

Icon (1978) Super 8 / sil / 5:32

Fugue (1981) Super 8 / sil / 2:25

Semblance: Frampton Brakhage Relation (1981) Super 8 / sil / 5:21

The Detroit Films (Reel #3) (1985) Super 8 / sil / 4:13

Common Air (1984) Super 8 / sil / 12:27

 

Formato de proyección: HD 2K (Transfers digitales supervisados por el autor)

(Agradecimiento especial a Joseph Bernard)

El artista visual Joseph Bernard nació en Port Chester (Nueva York), y se formó en las Escuelas de Bellas Artes de la Universidad de Hartford y del Art Institute de Chicago, donde estudió con el cineasta independiente Stan Brakhage.

Bernard ha dado clases de bellas artes durante 35 años, con el puesto de Profesor emérito, en el College for Creative Studies de Detroit. La sensibilidad hacia el collage experimental es evidente en sus pinturas, películas y fotografías. Entre sus influencias se encuentran la poesía y la música contemporáneas, junto con sus viajes a Provincetown, sur de California, Austin, Nashville y otros lugares.

Sus películas se han proyectado en el Funnel Theatre de Toronto, Institute of Arts de Dretoit, Chicago Filmakers, Universidad de Rutgers, Cinematheque de San Francisco, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Indiana University Cinema, Third Man Records tanto en Nashville como e Detroit y en el MOMA de Nueva York, etc.

Un proyecto en marcha es la restauración y archivo de las más de 100 películas mudas en Super 8 y fotografías que hizo entre mediados de los 70 y mediados de los 80. Joseph Bernard vive con su mujer, Maria Luisa Belmonte, en Troy, Michigan.

Visual artist, Joseph Bernard was born in Port Chester, NY, educated at the University of Hartford Art School and School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied with independent filmmaker, Stan Brakhage.

For 35 years, Professor Emeritus, Bernard taught fine arts at Detroit’s College for Creative Studies. Experimental collage sensibilites are evident in his paintings, films and photographs. Contemporary poetry and music remain as influences. His work is informed by travels to Provincetown, Southern California, Austin, Nashville and other locales.

His films have been exhibited at Toronto’s Funnel Theatre, Detroit Institute of Arts, Chicago Filmmakers, Rutgers University, San Francisco Cinematheque, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Dartmouth College, Indiana University Cinema, Third Man Records in both Nashville & Detroit and NYC’s Museum of Modern Art, among others.

An ongoing project is the restoration and archiving of his over 100 Super-8 silent films and prints made between the mid-1970’s to mid-80’s. Joseph Bernard and wife, Maria Luisa Belmonte, live in Troy, Michigan. 

***

“Con una mezcla de intuición y amor ciego por el color y la luz empezó una década en la que estuve sumergido obsesivamente en la producción de más de 100 películas mudas caseras en Super 8… No son películas basadas en un guion o en obras de teatro, no cuentan historias y, de hecho, carecen (excepto una) deliberadamente de sonido… son solo algo pura y enfáticamente visual … el movimiento de la luz y el color.” – Joseph Bernard

“Combining intuition with a blind love of color and light, I began a decade obsessively immersed in producing over 100 short, silent, super-8 home movies…These films are not based on the page or the theatre, they don’t tell a story and, in fact, are (all but one) intentionally without sound… just something purely, emphatically visual… the movement of light and color.” – Joseph Bernard

  

Icon (Icono, 1978)

Además de múltiples tomas de encuadre único, ICON, una película temprana, me permitió la utilización abstracta de letras troqueladas, y la idea de llevar al cine mi sensibilidad y herramientas de pintor. Super 8, muda, experimental.

Beyond much single frame shooting, ICON, an early film, allowed for the use of cropped stencil letters as abstractions and the idea of bringing my painting sensibility and tools to film. Super 8, silent, experimental.

 

Fugue (Fuga, 1981)

Bach implícito; reflejos registrados sin montaje, ligeros, aéreos, un poco desenfocados, desde la ventanilla trasera de un coche que vuelve de la playa en un día perfecto de verano. Super 8, muda, no narrativa.

Bach implied; splice-free, light, airy, soft-focus reflections out the back window of a car returning from the beach on a perfect summer’s day. Super 8, silent, non-narritive.

 

Semblance: Frampton Brakhage Relation (Semblanza: la relación de Frampton y Brakhage, 1981)

Una analogía simplista de obvias disparidades entre estos dos grandes maestros, confeccionada en la playa de Provincetown. Sin faltas de respeto, con el espíritu de un koan.

A simplistic analogy of obvious disparities between these two masters, concocted on the beach in Provincetown. No disrespect, just koaning around.

  

The Detroit Films (Reel #3) (Las películas de Detroit- Rollo 3, 1985)

Una “esencia del lugar” algo desenfocada y por tanto muy silenciosa, rodada en Provincetown (CapeCod/ Massachusetts), como para ser recordada más tarde en Detroit.

A soft focus and so very silent “essence of place”, shot in Provincetown (CapeCod/ Massachusetts) so as to be later remembered in Detroit.

 

Common Air (Aire común, 1984)

Esta empezó con la idea de encerrar la “nada” en una película, tal vez solo pasajes indescriptibles, evanescentes. Pero parecía como si para afianzar esto tuviera que partir de lo contrario –imágenes de cosas, de las cosas que me rodean. Se transformó en una película sobre la casa, un drama sin historia que parece ahora suspendido en el tiempo, un fragmento de memoria/vida dispersa. Aprecio mucho su profundo sentimiento por los restos del pasado.

This began with the idea of committing ‘nothing’ to film, maybe just unnamable, vaporous passages. But to establish that, it seemed I’d have to counter with the opposite – – images of things and those around me. It grew into a movie of the home, a story-less drama that now feels suspended in time, a piece of memory/ life dispersed. I think much of its deep affection for the past remains.

 

 

Cineinfinito #68: Joseph Bernard (III)

CINEINFINITO / Zumzeig Cine Cooperativa

Martes 25 de Septiembre de 2018, 21:30h. Zumzeig Cine Cooperativa

Carrer de Béjar, 53

08014 Barcelona

 

 

 

Programa:

Intrigues Series:

Intrigues (I) (1981 ) Super 8 / sil / 3:44

Intrigues (II) (1981) Super 8 / sil / 4:25

Intrigues (III) (1981) Super 8 / sil / 5:47

Intrigues (IV) (1981) Super 8 / sil / 2:03

Intrigues (V) (1981) Super 8 / sil / 2:53

Intrigues (VI) (1981) Super 8 / sil / 4:21

Intrigues (VII) (1981) Super 8 / sil / 12:22

 

Formato de proyección: HD 2K (Transfers digitales supervisados por el autor)

(Agradecimiento especial a Joseph Bernard)

El artista visual Joseph Bernard nació en Port Chester (Nueva York), y se formó en las Escuelas de Bellas Artes de la Universidad de Hartford y del Art Institute de Chicago, donde estudió con el cineasta independiente Stan Brakhage.

Bernard ha dado clases de bellas artes durante 35 años, con el puesto de Profesor emérito, en el College for Creative Studies de Detroit. La sensibilidad hacia el collage experimental es evidente en sus pinturas, películas y fotografías. Entre sus influencias se encuentran la poesía y la música contemporáneas, junto con sus viajes a Provincetown, sur de California, Austin, Nashville y otros lugares.

Sus películas se han proyectado en el Funnel Theatre de Toronto, Institute of Arts de Dretoit, Chicago Filmakers, Universidad de Rutgers, Cinematheque de San Francisco, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Indiana University Cinema, Third Man Records tanto en Nashville como e Detroit y en el MOMA de Nueva York, etc.

Un proyecto en marcha es la restauración y archivo de las más de 100 películas mudas en Super 8 y fotografías que hizo entre mediados de los 70 y mediados de los 80. Joseph Bernard vive con su mujer, Maria Luisa Belmonte, en Troy, Michigan.

Visual artist, Joseph Bernard was born in Port Chester, NY, educated at the University of Hartford Art School and School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied with independent filmmaker, Stan Brakhage.

For 35 years, Professor Emeritus, Bernard taught fine arts at Detroit’s College for Creative Studies. Experimental collage sensibilites are evident in his paintings, films and photographs. Contemporary poetry and music remain as influences. His work is informed by travels to Provincetown, Southern California, Austin, Nashville and other locales.

His films have been exhibited at Toronto’s Funnel Theatre, Detroit Institute of Arts, Chicago Filmmakers, Rutgers University, San Francisco Cinematheque, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Dartmouth College, Indiana University Cinema, Third Man Records in both Nashville & Detroit and NYC’s Museum of Modern Art, among others.

An ongoing project is the restoration and archiving of his over 100 Super-8 silent films and prints made between the mid-1970’s to mid-80’s. Joseph Bernard and wife, Maria Luisa Belmonte, live in Troy, Michigan.

***

“Con una mezcla de intuición y amor ciego por el color y la luz empezó una década en la que estuve sumergido obsesivamente en la producción de más de 100 películas mudas caseras en Super 8… No son películas basadas en un guion o en obras de teatro, no cuentan historias y, de hecho, carecen (excepto una) deliberadamente de sonido… son solo algo pura y enfáticamente visual … el movimiento de la luz y el color.” – Joseph Bernard

“Combining intuition with a blind love of color and light, I began a decade obsessively immersed in producing over 100 short, silent, super-8 home movies…These films are not based on the page or the theatre, they don’t tell a story and, in fact, are (all but one) intentionally without sound… just something purely, emphatically visual… the movement of light and color.” – Joseph Bernard

 

Intrigues I-VII (Intrigas, 1981)

La obertura de la serie de siete “Intrigas” está inspirada por las observaciones sobre la palabra “intriga” de Delmore Schwartz. Estas siete obras mías se centran en aspectos de la práctica fílmica.

The opening in a series of seven “Intrigues”, inspired by Delmore Schwartz’s observations on the word. These seven titles of mine center on aspects of filmmaking. 

 

 

Traducción de los textos: Javier Oliva

 

  

WFIU Public Radio Interview on "Profiles" with Yael Ksander at Indiana University, 3/11/16

 

Filmmakers Tony Buba and Joseph Bernard

 

Third Man Records, here in Detroit, hosted a second screening of PRISMATIC MUSIC.

 

Following the films on April 28, 2016, Greg Baise and I provided a Q&A, along with the audience.

 

A visit to Indiana University Cinema  3/11/16

The following images and text are sparingly meager memories of an extraordinary day spent at Bloomington's Indiana University Cinema. The personnel, film collection and facilities there are renown as world-class with absolute justification. I was thrilled to have joined the ranks of Jorgensen Guest Filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Bill Morrison, Kenneth Anger, Albert Maysles, Walter Salles, even Jonathan Banks, Paul Schrader and John Sayles to name a few. IU Cinema, under it's founding director, Jon Vickers, has a tag line; "... A PLACE FOR FILM", and it most certainly is!

 

  

 

The following remarks were delivered by James R. Hook, Ph.D candidate, associate instructor and member of the Media School's Underground Film Series. His introduction provided historic and aesthetic background which, after the screening of NIGHT MIX, led into our on-stage conversation under the banner of the Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Lecture Series. I'm honored by his scholarly insight, generous observations and stimulating questions. Our discussion eventually segued into a wonderfully rewarding exchange with the audience. This was just a perfect priming for that evening's following, full program of twelve films.

 

INTRODUCTION

Since the 1970s, multimedia artist Joseph Bernard has created over 100 silent Super 8 films that work to radically expand our understanding of cinema as an expressive form. His work offers a rich contribution to traditions of formalist and experimental filmmaking and has often been discussed in terms of—but remains steadfastly irreducible to—qualities of rhythm and color as well as the influences of abstract expressionism, photography, documentary, self-portraiture, and collage.

Mr. Bernard earned his BFA in Painting from Hartford Art School in 1970, graduating Summa Cum Laude, followed by his MFA in 1972 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he studied with the legendary experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage. As a teacher himself, Mr. Bernard has taught art courses for over thirty-five years at Detroit’s College for Creative Studies, where he received the title of Professor Emeritus in 2007. 

While preparing for today’s conversation, Mr. Bernard shared with me that he believes he has learned as much from musicians and poets about filmmaking as he has from other filmmakers. This is readily apparent when watching Mr. Bernard’s films themselves. These aesthetically ravishing and densely layered works are a far cry from a cinema constituted through narrative, character, setting, and traditional representational symbolism; rather, his is a cinema of rhythmic structures and metrical patterns, visual dynamics and textures. In short, Mr. Bernard’s work embodies a nearly unyielding awareness of the total expressive range and vocabulary of what we call the cinematic. His films reactivate formal and affective possibilities that were widely forsaken mere decades after the birth of cinema in the late-1800s. This was a moment when, as film historian and theorist Tom Gunning has famously explained, early modernists (such as the original Dadaists and Surrealists) saw their at-first unbridled enthusiasm for the potential of cinema as a new communicative technology quickly turn to disappointment at its all but instantaneous “enslavement to traditional art forms, particularly theater and literature.” 

Mr. Bernard’s films are routinely classified as silent—and, indeed they are, in the sense that they contain no literal sound track and are to be presented without live musical accompaniment. Still, as composer and music theorist John Cage—who Bernard has cited as one of many artists to whom he has paid homage—has written, “There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.” In terms of their affective impact, Mr. Bernard’s films are anything but silent. This is art in which there will always be new things to see and “hear” with every repeated viewing. One could make the argument that Mr. Bernard’s films are dialectical insofar as they frequently bring together opposing elements and resolve their tension in such a way that something new and novel is created. Thus, his films can feel frenetic and meditative; abstract and concrete; tactile and ephemeral; quasi-scientific and quasi-spiritual; faintly remote and warmly intimate…often all at the same time.

And finally, like the most provocative and rewarding works of that vexed category we call experimental art, Mr. Bernard’s films consciously and consistently show us how what an eye conditioned only by Hollywood-style bombast might deem as “less,” is in fact a vital precondition for allowing us to truly feel and see something more. Before inviting Mr. Bernard to join us on stage, we will now screen his film Night Mix from 1982, which runs just under 11 minutes. 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm grateful for the photography supplied by Chaz Mottinger and MariaLuisa Belmonte. Also, special thanks to Brittany Friesner and Jamie Hook for making my visit so memerable.