Phil Solomon: Detailed Program Notes
In Memoriam(Mark LaPore, 1952-2005)
where Mark and I,
boys of summer,
were allowed to roam and wander
without mission
without murder
“cheating” our way through the streets of polygonal horrors,
finding (to our continuing astonishment)
amusement,
poetry,
and
darkness,
just over there,
at the edge of town.
--Phil Solomon
Home movie montage/monologue
"Since that fateful day when I met Mark LaPore after one of Saul Levine's Introduction to Filmmaking classes at Binghamton in the fall of1973, we found that weshared a mutual love for art,cinema and rock and rollthat lasted across our32 years of friendship. I will be screening and narrating avariety of film and videoclips that were shot over the years with Mark, including the years atBinghamton, graduate school and after at Mass Art, and our ongoing lives as college professorsandfilmmakers until his untimely death in 2005. Home movies, filmed ‘postcards’ to each other, travel footage, unreleased work in progress, etc. Avery personal introduction to the life and work of a great artist and a great friend." ---Solomon
The Sudan Trilogy
Medina
(Mark LaPore, 1983, 20 min.)
Medina, shot on Super 8, belongs to a loose trilogy of films set in Sudan. “The shifting camera movements in Medina pursue a shallow tactile space of the hand rather than a deep perspective of the eye, as their lateral motions caress surface patterns and textures.”
--Tom Gunning
Work and Play (Mark LaPore, 1983, 10 min., excerpt)
Shot also on Super 8 in Sudan, LaPore’s use of a fixed camera and unedited camera rolls generates a certain “modesty of technique which allows for a deeper participation in the enframed action.”--Gunning
The Sleepers (Mark LaPore, 1989, 16 min.)
“Memory, as well as the residue of information in text and film from Sudan, led me to make The Sleepers in order to resolve the impression that the third world is present in the first world as an idea and a condition.” --LaPore
Crossroad (Phil Solomon & Mark LaPore, 2005, 5 min.)
"Performed and edited in one evening with Mark LaPore on the very last night I spent with him. All of the material is culled from the notoriousvideogame series, Grand Theft Auto"--Solomon
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the lord above “Have mercy, save poor Bob, if you please”
Mmmmm, standin’ at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride
Standin’ at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride
Didn’t nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by
Mmmm, the sun goin’ down, boy, dark gon’ catch me here
Oooo, eeee, boy, dark gon’ catch me here
I haven’t got no lovin’ sweet woman that love and feel my care
You can run, you can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown
You can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown
Lord I’m standin’ at the crossroad, babe, I believe I’m sinkin’ down
--Robert Johnson, “Cross Road Blues (Take 2)”
So Sure of Nowhere Buying Times to Come (David Gatten, 2010, 9 min.)
Excerpts from Sir Thomas Browne's 1658 text Hydriotaphia Urne-Buriall Or, A Brief Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes Lately Found in Norfolk are superimposed with the stone faces of grave markers and burial urns. This image-text bookends a series of objects framed in the ancient glass window panes of a tiny shop, in a tiny snow-covered town, on a mountain top in Colorado. A pocket watch, a postal scale, a small mirror. A stop watch, some stamps, a knife, some bandages, an hour glass. Time is short. Time is running out. The time left is all the time we have.
Still Raining, Still Dreaming (Phil Solomon, 2008, 12 min.)
"Mark LaPore always professed his dreamto do are-make ofBasil Wright's great ethnographic essay film, Song of Ceylon. Still Raining, Still Dreaming, the final film of the In Memoriam series, is my homage to that dream, dedicated tohis memory." --Solomon
Like Rain it sounded till it curved
And then I knew ’twas Wind—
It walked as wet as any Wave
But swept as dry as sand—
When it had pushed itself away
To some remotest Plain
A coming as of Hosts was heard
That was indeed the Rain—
It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools
It warbled in the Road—
It pulled the spigot from the Hills
And let the Floods abroad—
It loosened acres, lifted seas
The sites of Centres stirred
Then like Elijah rode away
Upon a Wheel of Cloud.
--Emily Dickinson, "Like Rain it Sounded Till it Curved"
Rainy day, rain all day
Ain’t no use in gettin uptight
Just let it groove its own way
Let it drain your worries away yeah
Lay back and groove on a rainy day hey
Lay back and dream on a rainy day
Lay back and groove on a rainy day
Lay back
Oh yeah !
--Jimi Hendrix, "Still Raining, Still Dreaming"
Essay by Tom Gunning:
Tom Gunning, “Towards a Minor Cinema: Fonoroff, Herwitz, Ahwesh, Lapore, Klahr and Solomon,” Motion Picture, Vol, 3, Nos. 1-2, 1989-90: 2-5.