L Joyce WIELAND Selected Films

6works 64min.

Theatre Image Forum(TOKYO):9/18 21:15
Theatre Image Forum(TOKYO):9/23 18:40
Aichi Arts Center(NAGOYA):11/10 19:00
Sailboat Joyce WIELAND / 16mm / 3min. / silent / 1967 / Canada
 
Sailboat has the simplicity of a child’s drawing. A toy-like image of a sailboat sails without interruption on the water, to the sound of roaring waves, which seems to underline the image to the point of exaggeration, somewhat in the way a child might draw
a picture of water and write word sounds on it to make it as emphatic as possible. The little image is interrupted at one point by a huge shoulder appearing briefly in the left-hand corner. (Robert COWAN, Take One)
Cat Food Joyce WIELAND / 16mm / 14min. / 1967 / Canada
 
A cat eats its methodical way through a polymorphous fish. The projector devours the ribbon of film at the same rate, methodically. The lay of Grimnir mentions a wild boar whose magical flesh was nightly devoured by the heroes of Valhalla, and miraculously regenerated next morning in the kitchen. The fish in Wieland’s film, and the miraculous flesh of the film itself, are reconstructed on the rewinds to be devoured again. Here is a Dionysian metaphor, old as the West, of immense strength. Once we see that the fish is the protagonist of the action, this metaphor reverberates to incandescence in the mind. (Hollis FRAMPTON)
Rat Life and Diet In North America Joyce WIELAND / 16mm / 16min. / 1968 / Canada
 
I can tell you that Wieland’s film holds. It may be about the best (or richest) political movie around. It’s all about rebels (enacted by real rats) and police (enacted by real cats). After long suffering under the cats, the rats break out of prison and escape to Canada. There they take up organic gardening, with no DDT in the grass. It is a parable, a satire, an adventure movie, or you can call it pop art or any art you want – I find it one of the most original films made recently. (Jonas MEKAS)
Solidarity Joyce WIELAND / 16mm / 11min. / 1973 / Canada
 
A film on the Dare strike of the early 1970s. Hundreds of feet and legs, milling, marching and picketing with the word“solidarity” superimposed on the screen. The soundtrack is an organizer’s speech on the labour situation. Like her films Rat Life and Diet in North America, Pierre Vallieres and Reason Over Passion, Solidarity
combines a political awareness, an aesthetic viewpoint and a sense of humour unique in Wieland’s work.
Handtinting Joyce WIELAND / 16mm / 6min. / 1967-68 / silent / Canada
 
Handtinting is the apt title of a film made from outtakes from a Job Corps documentary which features hand-tinted sections. The film is full of small movements and actions, gestures begun and never completed. Repeated images, sometimes in colour, sometimes not. A beautifully realized type of chamber-music film whose sum-total feeling is ritualistic. (Robert COWAN, Take One)
Water Sark Joyce WIELAND / 16mm / 14min. / 1965 / Canada
 
I decided to make a film at my kitchen table, there is nothing like knowing my table. The high art of the housewife. You take prisms, glass, lights and myself to it.“The Housewife is High.” Water Sark is a film sculpture, being made while you wait. (Joyce WIELAND)

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