"Untilted"1984

"Made in 1983-4, UNTILTED takes an intrigued look around and reports on how things appeared then and what everyone was up to. Lines from a poem by John Ashbery (the title is his also, but from a different poem) cross the screen at times and our grasp of his elusive language is strengthened by the accompanying images. The land and people of Maine, New Mexico, and New York City appear to wittily chosen music by Busconi, Duke Ellington, Merle Haggard, Philip Glass, Cecil Taylor, et al. There are heroic hang-gliders soaring over hills, cars streaming sweetly around a corner in Lower Manhattan, and Yoshiko Chuma's dancers in fierce rehearsal, performing with vulnerable whimsey at a traffic intersection and frolicking intently (and unclothed) in the woods. Nudes appear with nonchalance in various other, often unlikely, circumstances, their nakedness different in quality every time. We take a tender look at pedestrians in Herald Square, snow falling at night on a city street, a fern in the sunlight, and bananas dancing where they will. Words, music, and images are so skillfully assembled here that they serve to reveal each other in surprising and delightful ways. UNTILTED is a great pleasure at first viewing and so rich that you will want to see it over and over again." – Louise Hamlin (1984).