Ken Jacobs, "The Image, Finger Raised to Lips, Beckons"

Such intense feelings are evoked by his films. "Let There Be Whistleblowers" was an 18 minute wandering through b&w found footage of a railyard and the people in the the trains and in the yard that ends in a starkly contrasted tunnel that flashes and pulses while the whole movie is scored to minimalistic drum beats by Steve Reich. It becomes so surreal and aggressive that I started thinking of it in terms of life and death.

I can't give summaries of his films, you just have to see them. all I can say is that each and everyone of them as left my stomach clenched and twisted, my eyes sore, my mind numbed, but I've felt pushed through all this to come into some inarticulate synthesis of feeling and thought.

some excerpts from the essay he handed out at the beginning:

"We don't need all sense to be called on to enjoy any of them, and there's nothing strange in not wishing to divide attention between them. the 3-ring circus was a terrible idea, a scattering of attention and a perfect example of more is less."

"...many people can close their eyes and visulaize music, see abstractions or changing landscapes...the music video is something else, not a synesthetic elaboration but a mini-movie blotting out such felt connection; a manhandling forcing correspondance with musician's faces and bodies and antics, telling a story to the beat and contour of the music. Celebrity worship, promos for the bands."

"...as someone involved in painting I should have come to the silent image sooner...these days I wouldn't ask the imagery of ORCHARD STREET to move over and make way for sound."

"I watch films without sound to better pick up on what there is to see, foregoing story-justification for the things that happen. I like that they happen just because they do, as in real life, whenever the rationalizing mind is thwarted in its need to justify the strangeness of...real life. It's a child's vision, I suppose, when one miracle after the other passes in revue."

He ended with Brakhage's "Window Water Baby Moving" and I felt just like the baby.