Phil Solomon: Programme 1
Date: 24 October 2011 | Season: London Film Festival 2011, Phil Solomon | Tags: London Film Festival
PHIL SOLOMON: PROGRAMME 1
Monday 24 October 2011, at 7pm
London Tate Modern
THE EXQUISITE HOUR
Phil Solomon, 1989/94, 16mm, colour, sound, 14 min
“… Partly a lullaby for the dying, partly a lament of the death of cinema … [it] is dedicated to the memory of my grandparents, Albert Solomon, who was a projectionist for Fox, and Rose Solomon, who took tickets at Lowe’s Paradise in the Bronx.” (Phil Solomon)
THE SNOWMAN
Phil Solomon, 1995, 16mm, colour, sound, 8 min
“A meditation on memory, burial and decay – a belated kaddish for my father.” (Phil Solomon)
CLEPSYDRA
Phil Solomon, 1992, 16mm, b/w, silent, 15 min
“Solomon has evolved his technique so that in his latest work (‘Clepsydra’ – ‘waterclock’) the textures are constantly changing and are often appropriate to each figure in metaphoric interplay with each figure’s gestural (symbolic) movement. He has, thus, created consonance with thought as destroyer/creator – a Kali-like aesthetic ‘There is a light at the end of the tunnel’ (Romantic); and it is a train coming straight at us: … (and, to balance such, perhaps, with a touch of Zen) … it is beautiful!” (Stan Brakhage)
PSALM III: “NIGHT OF THE MEEK”
Phil Solomon, 2002, 16mm, b/w, sound, 23 min
“It is Berlin, November 9, 1938, and, as the night air is shattered throughout the city, the Rabbi of Prague is summoned from a dark slumber, called upon once again to invoke the magic letters from the Great Book that will bring his creature made from earth back to life, in the hour of need. A kindertodenliede in black and silver on a night of gods and monsters.” (Phil Solomon)
REHEARSALS FOR RETIREMENT
Phil Solomon, 2007, video, colour, sound, 10 min
“Had I known the end would end in laughter / I tell my daughter it doesn’t matter.” (Phil Ochs)