16mm Flower Films

Whether though haptic landscapes in SUMMER and GLIMPSE OF THE GARDEN or botanical collages like IN THE CONSERVATORY and THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS, plants and flowers are established as more than embellishment; they are pulled to the foreground as active participants. These filmmakers sometimes use flora as personal metaphor, but ultimately surrender to nature’s complete other-ness.

Supported by Allied Productions and hosted at Le Petit Versailles Garden.

Programmed By Courtney Muller.

BOUQUETS 1-10 (1994-1995) by Rose Lowder. 12 min.
Structured in the camera during "filming", according to
modalities worked out progressively in my previous films, these
researches develop to compose a film bunch of pictures picked
every time in the same site, at various times. These bunches of
pictures chosen and weaved in alternated order also include some
accidental photogrammes which, such of the herbs "poor", can be
harmful or useful, depending on circumstances.

IN SPRINGTIME (2012) by Joel Schlemowitz. 3 min.
The change of seasons in Prospect Park, Brooklyn.

IN THE CONSERVATORY (2010) by Caryn Cline. 5 min.
On a gray winter day in Seattle, the Volunteer Park Conservatory
offers a trip to a different climate: lush, wildly colorful,
strange, and beautiful. IN THE CONSERVATORY experimentally
captures the essence of the place, through the use of direct
animation, ambient sound, and music. Plants from the
conservatory's winter collection were gleaned and pasted onto
clear, 16mm film leader, then re-photographed on an optical
printer while they were still fresh, resulting in a chance
animation. The soundtrack combines ambient sound recorded in the
Conservatory with a performance of a Samuel Barber composition,
featuring Lucy Goeres on flute and Eliza Garth on piano.

SUMMER (1970) by Rudolph Burckhardt. 15 min.
"A few acres of Maine, a small lake in the woods, wild flowers,
clouds, mosses, and mushrooms after the rain. The visual
richness is fantastic, the objective eye is absorbing.
Burckhardt often cuts by glimpses, the second time you see the

film you see twice as much, and each time the power and depth of
feeling are new." — Edwin Denby

THE GARDENER OF EDEN (1981) by James Broughton. 8 min.
Filmed on the paradise island of Sri Lanka, this intense poetic
work celebrates the eternal dance of nature's sexuality, and
sings of the lost Eden we all search for but do not expect to
find. In the midst of his fertile garden, while he awaits Adam's
return, God tries to keep his eye on all the flowering
exuberance he has seeded. The film is written and narrated by
James Broughton, and photographed by Joel Singer. The music is
performed on twin conch shells, and the central actor is in real
life the most famous horticulturalist in Ceylon.

THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS (1981) by Stan Brakhage. 2 min.
Made with the assistance of the National Endowment of the Arts.
This film (related to MOTHLIGHT) is a collage entirely made of
mountain zone vegetation. As the title suggests it is an homage
to (but also an argument with) Hieronymus Bosch. It pays tribute
as well, and more naturally to The Tangled Garden of J. E. H.
MacDonald and the flower paintings of Emil Nolde.

GLIMPSE OF THE GARDEN (1957) by Marie Menken. 5 min.
Filmed in a garden through a powerful magnifying glass,
filmmaker Marie Menken's GLIMPSE OF GARDEN is a simple visual
poem accompanied by the sound of birdsongs. When GLIMPSE OF
GARDEN was shown at the Cinemathèque Française in 1963, Jonas
Mekas reported that the French audience laughed at it,
embarrassed by the film's benign simplicity. Suffice it to say
that GLIMPSE OF GARDEN represents Menken's interest in pure
visuals and essentially feminine point-of-view.