Pacific Film Archive: Four by Nathaniel Dorsky
Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2625 Durant Avenue #2250
Berkeley, CA 94720-2250, USA
Two Premieres. Nathaniel Dorsky in Person
“The films of Nathaniel Dorsky blend a beauteous celebration of the sensual world with a deep sense of introspection and solitude. They are occasions for reflection and meditation, on light, landscape, time, and the motions of consciousness. Dorsky’s films reveal the mystery behind everyday existence, providing intimations of eternity” (Steve Polta, San Francisco Cinematheque). Dorsky writes of Sarabande, “Dark and stately is the warm, graceful tenderness of the Sarabande.” And of Winter: “San Francisco’s winter is a season unto itself. Fleeting, rain-soaked, verdant, a brief period of shadows and renewal.” Describing his two most recent films, Compline and Aubade, he writes, “Compline is a night devotion or prayer, the last of the canonical hours, the final act in a cycle. This film is also the last film I will be able to shoot on Kodachrome, a film stock I have shot since I was ten years old. It is a loving duet with and a fond farewell to this noble emulsion. An aubade is a poem or morning song evoking the first rays of the sun at daybreak. Often, it includes the atmosphere of lovers parting. This film is my first venture into shooting in color negative after having spent a lifetime shooting Kodachrome. In some sense, it is a new beginning for me.”
- Sarabande (2008, 15 mins, PFA Collection).
- Winter (2008, 21.5 mins, PFA Collection)
- Compline (2009, 18.5 mins, From the artist).
- Aubade (2010, 11.5 mins, From the artist).
• (Total running time: 67 mins @ 18 fps, Silent, Color, 16mm)
