PennSound Cinema

Music with Roots in the Aether (Opera for Television Series in seven parts)
David Behrman
Landscape with David Behrman (57:40)
The Music of David Behrman (57:40)
Music with Melody-Driven Electronics

Music with Roots in the Aether (Opera for Television Series in seven parts)
Philip Glass
Landscape with Philip Glass (57:40)
With the Fourth Grade Class, P.S. 41, New York City
The Music of Philip Glass (50:57)
Music in 12 Parts: Part 2
Act I, Scene 1, Einstein on the Beach

Music with Roots in the Aether (Opera for Television Series in seven parts)
Alvin Lucier
Landscape with Alvin Lucier (57:40)
...including the performance of Outlines of Persons and Things (1975)
The Music of Alvin Lucier (57:40)
Bird and Person Dyning (1975)
Music for Solo Performer (1965)

Music with Roots in the Aether (Opera for Television Series in seven parts)
Gordon Mumma
Landscape with Gordon Mumma (57:40)
The Music of Gordon Mumma (57:40)
Some Voltage Drop (1974): Simulcast, Schoolwork, Telepos/Foxbat

Music with Roots in the Aether (Opera for Television Series in seven parts)
Pauline Oliveros
Landscape with Pauline Oliveros (57:40)
Including Unnatural Acts Between Consenting Adults, with Carol Vencius
Landscape with Pauline Oliveros (continued) & The Music of Pauline Oliveros (57:40)
Rose Mountain Slow Runner

Music with Roots in the Aether (Opera for Television Series in seven parts)
Terry Riley
Landscape with Terry Riley (57:40)
The Music of Terry Riley (46:03)
Shri Camel: Morning Corona

Music with Roots in the Aether (Opera for Television Series in seven parts)
Robert Ashley
Landscape with Robert Ashley (57:40)
What She Thinks (It's History)The Music of Robert Ashley (45:00)
Title Withdrawn

"Prologue" from feria: a poempark
3 minutes, 11 seconds
Text/narration Oana Avasilichioaei,
Film by Thierry Collins
Montreal, 2008

Hanuman Presents!
a reading at the Poetry Project
42 minutes, 47 seconds
sound, color
St. Mark’s Church, New York, May 18, 1989
Video mirror: mp4
Gregory Corso, Elaine Equi, Bob Flanagan, Amy Gerstler, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Hell, Herbert Huncke, Vincent Katz, Taylor Mead, Cookie Mueller, Eileen Myles, Rene Ricard, David Trinidad, John Wieners. With excerpts from films by Rudy Burckhardt. Introduced by Raymond Foye. Edited by David Dawkins and Henry Hills. Produced and directed by Vivien Bittencourt and Vincent Katz.

Jack Kerouac's "Mexico City Blues"
including Readings recorded Live at The Knitting Factory
30 minutes, 10 seconds
sound, color
NYC, December 4, 1988
High Quality Youtube mirror: here
Barbara Barg,Charles Bernstein,Lee Ann Brown,Maggie Dubris,Allen Ginsberg,Richard Hell,Bob Holman,Lita Hornick, Vicki Hudspith, Vincent Katz, Rochelle Kraut, Gerard Malanga, Judith Malina, Eileen Myles, Simon Pettet, Hanon Reznikov, Bob Rosenthal, Jerome Rothenberg, Tom Savage, Elio Schneeman, Michael Scholnick, Carl Solomon, Steven Taylor, David Trinidad, Lewis Warsh, Hal Willner, and Nina Zivancevic.Produced and directed by Vivien Bittencourt and Vincent Katz. For full credits and list of readers, click here

Yaknetuma From the Lower East
a collaboration with Laleen Jayamanne
8 minutes, 19 seconds
sound, color
New York City, 1974

The Automotive Story
a Cittadura Documentary
14 minutes, 34 seconds
sound, b/w
1954

The Apple
poem by Kenneth Koch, music by Tony Ackerman and Brad Burg, sung by Kim Brody
2 minutes
sound, color
1967

Central Park in the Dark
a collaboration with Charles Ives, Christopher Sweet and Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks
7 minutes, 8 seconds
sound, color
New York City, 1985

On Aesthetics
with Kenneth Koch
9 minutes
sound, color
1999

Mirror World, 2006
12 min, sound, color

Is This What You Were Born For?
Part IV: Perils, 1986
Film. (16 mm, b/w, sound, 5 min.)

Is This What You Were Born For?
Part VI: Mayhem, 1987
Film. (16 mm, b/w, sound, 20 min.)

Is This What You Were Born For?
Part VII: Mercy, 1989
Film. (l6mm, color, sound, 10 min.)

Citizen Film: Bill Berkson, School of Poets
11 minutes, 50 seconds

Footage of Carl Rakosi shot by Nathaniel Dorsky at the Arboretum of Golden Gate Park, a few blocks from where the poet lived in the Sunset District of San Francisco. It is shot on 16mm Kodachrome. With Rakosi is his companion, Marilyn Kane.

Film on Sergei Kurekhin
Part One
38 minutes, 16 seconds

Film on Sergei Kurekhin
Part Two
24 minutes, 5 seconds

Getting It Together: A Film on Lary Eigner, 1973
Directed by Leonard Henny (17:35)
For additional information, see Jacket2 entry

City Archives, 1978
29 minutes
Presented by the Walker Art Center and produced by the Minnesota Public Programming Corporation.
Written and directed by Richard Foreman.

Astronome: A Night at the Opera, 2010
63 minutes
Foreman's dynamic staging of John Zorn's opera Astronome premiered
in February of 2009 at his Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in New York. For this video,
ten performances were captured on film from hundreds of angles and edited by filmmaker Henry Hills.

Now You See It Now You Don't, 2017
produced by Bridge Film, Sophie Haviland and Richard Foreman
and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater

Mad Love, 2018
Bridge Film and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, produced by Sophie Haviland
More videos available on author's page.

POKER BLUES
A video by Les Levine with Greenwald / Museum of Mott Art Inc., 1991
16 minutes, 25 seconds

FAT FEET
A Yellow Ball / Ruckus Films Production, 1965-66
18 minutes, 45 seconds

LITTLE LIEUTENANT, collaboration with Sally Silvers, 1994
6 minutes, 17 seconds

A NEW LIFE, 1988-1998
17 minutes, 50 seconds
In
1988, under the inspiration of George Kuchar, I bought an 8mm camcorder. The single-system
16mm camera on which I had shot PLAGIARISM, RADIO ADIOS, & MONEY had died of stress and
I thought this would allow me to pursue synch ideas. Unfortunately video editing at
that time involved bumping the footage up to 3/4" U-matic and paying $12.50/hour to work
on 2 decks with a controller; it was cheaper to shoot 16mm and get a workprint. The
conceit of the abandoned project was to create artist couples (people that had never
before met) and have them discuss relationship issues and love. Participating artists
include Joe Gibbons, Lee Katz, Emily Breer, Robert Hilferty, Eve Heller, and Roberto
Juarez. Alongside this footage was an ongoing discussion with Charles Bernstein on the
implications of working in video as opposed to film. Plus, one cold morning when nothing
was working out, I addressed the camera directly in a (what seemed at the time desperate
and harrowing but now seems Woody-Allen-ish) scene that is central to the final edit.

GOTHAM, 1990
2 minutes, 13 seconds
a music
video for John Zorn's Naked City. "120 Minutes", MTV, June 1990; ALIVE TV (Alive From
Off Center), PBS, summer 1992.

MONEY, 1985
14 minutes, 27 seconds
Money is a
manic collage film from the mid-80s when it still seemed that Reaganism of the soul could
be defeated. Filmed primarily on the streets of Manhattan for the ambient sounds and
movements and occasional pedestrian interaction to create a rich tapestry of swirling
colors and juxtaposed architectural spaces in deep focus and present the intense urban
overflowing energy that is experience living here. MONEY is thematically centered around
a discussion of economic problems facing avant-garde artists. Discussion, however, is
fragmented into words and phrases and reassembled into writing. Musical and movement
phrases are woven through this conversation to create an almost operatic composition.
Give me money! Starring: John Zorn, Diane Ward, Carmen Vigil, Susie Timmons, Sally
Silvers, Ron Silliman, James Sherry, Peter Hall, David Moss, Mark Miller, Christian
Marclay, Arto Lindsay, Pooh Kaye, Fred Frith, Alan Davies, Tom Cora, Jack Collom,
Yoshiko Chuma, Abigail Child, Charles Bernstein, Derek Bailey, and Bruce Andrews.

RADIO ADIOS, 1982
10 minutes, 28 seconds
RADIO
ADIOS is a monologue in 12 plaited strands; an extremely precise, condensed and intensely
rhythmic Busby Berkeleyish spectacle of an examination of conversational and literary
language over a fair range of vocal timbre, microphones, volume settings and single-system
sync peculiarities and its dissolution into music to the accompaniment of simultaneous
Manhattan ambiances punctuated by fragments of jazz, personalized handheld camera
movement, movement from cut to cut--juxtapositions of scale, pulsating changes in light
intensity, a varying pallette of various filmstocks, generations, etc., at an appropriately
furious pace and in strict one-track sync,.offering simultaneously several levels of
apprehension or interpretation to encourage multiple viewings. Starring Hannah Weiner,
Diane Ward, Sally Silvers, Jemeel Moondoc & Muntu, Aline Mayer, Jackson MacLow, Abigail
Child, Charles Bernstein, Bruce Andrews and Rashied Ali on drums, with George Kuchar
as a Maoist revolutionary.

KINO DA!, 1981
1 minute, 42 seconds
KINO DA! (ah, key, key) KINO DA!/The Dead die die dada low king quanto zhong/MOVE! (ur, ur)/Grey todays it-a clear to the quick ear, quicker z'heels/The Poe (pay, po, pee, pick-pick), nuf of "D" yet/Call Vertov/(beep, beep)/Eisenstein even/& viterulably cheeness of a ram innerwear/(airs; when)/Time, Time, Money/d-d-d/ junk rock did travel & falls/(spring)/Fall/Spring is the simplest inflationary dime.///Be in everything Joy, in experimental & proletarian & wwea air of airs/at this school of poetry-painting/CUT! "To know/toe/no! no! MONTAGE (nadazha), in any instant (instant) of the writing of Stein & the facts of that (tle) kind./FEEL (the steak)/yes, ache, in trends & whatevers./Mmmm-pah-ah, Cops, man, in case (nnn), man (nnn)./(KO) be-a mayu po pony; (KO) be-a what?) o-long kind.//GO! (be what) OM, prose, Pentacost; be what this there the (pause) & (serious pause) the neb with a gram of ire illia-it's still justs Jah.//Viparko r-rrr re ad adici, yes!/YES!//ssssssssssane! /mmmm vidda pot re-a-uschious of a ship. Viparko Roma Schoma Schlav keybo z'Krushchev. (wink)

Emma's Dilemma, 1997-2004
NERVOUS KEN
In NERVOUS KEN, experimental film legend Ken Jacobs is "interviewed" by my urbane 12-year old M.C., Emma Bernstein. Envisioning an exploration of the nature of listening (of apprehending or not, remembering or not, and creating meaning) and of the repetitions & variations of verbal expression and its accompanying often-emphatic physical gesturing as a basis for making visual music, I, as filmmaker turned "media artist", employ the full range of temporal manipulation available within my concurrent digital set-up, exploiting unique corners which differentiate DV from 16mm, though including frequent references to themes & techniques from Jacobs' own work within the arcanum of film. The "musical score" is derived through permutations of the sync track. This was the first released section from the ongoing series, premiering March 2004 at the Museum of Modern Art. (duration 20min)

Emma's Dilemma, 1997-2004
KING RICHARD
KING RICHARD is a portrait of New York avant-garde playwright Richard Foreman in his Ontological-Hysteric Theatre. A charming yet revealing interview on the set by pre-teen protagonist Emma Bee Bernstein is interwoven with footage focusing on the periphery of a recent production--the elaborate set design and lighting, the non-speaking supporting cast (the so-called "stage crew") with their frantic movement patterns, typical props and recurrent imagery, all shot & edited in a disruptive manner to mimetically compensate for the loss of actual presence. (duration 20min)

Emma's Dilemma, 1997-2004
Maybe (or, In Pursuit of Parker Posey)
2 minutes, 26 seconds

Emma's Dilemma, 1997-2004
"A Lee Ann-thology of Concrete Poetry" with Lee Ann Brown
4 minutes

Emma's Dilemma, 1997-2004
Julie Patton
4 minutes, 10 seconds

Emma's Dilemma, 1997-2004
"Printed Matter" with Kenny Goldsmith
3 minutes, 13 seconds

Emma's Dilemma, 1997-2004
"Susan Howe"
3 minutes 35 seconds

Astronome: A Night at the Opera, 2010
63 minutes
Foreman's dynamic staging of John Zorn's opera Astronome premiered
in February of 2009 at his Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in New York. For this video,
ten performances were captured on film from hundreds of angles and edited by filmmaker Henry Hills.

Documentary by Jean-Pierre Prevost, with Claude Royet-Journoud and Lars Fredrikson, 1974
26 minutes, 34 seconds
WARNING: contains flicker like many of Jacobs's works; avoid if you have epilepsy or other unusual brain conditions.
For screening copies contact Filmmakers Cooperative NY or EAI, NY

Writhing Cities, 2016
33 seconds

Central Park, 2016
33 seconds

Snow in Headlights I, 2016
30 seconds

Window Cleaner, 2016
33 seconds

Dead Leaves, 2016
30 seconds

Deader Leaves, 2016
30 seconds

Seeking the Monkey King, 2012
Music: JG Thirlwell
39 minutes 42 seconds
Suggestion: Please see Another Occupation before Seeking the Monkey King

Another Occupation, 2011
Music: Rick Reed
15 minutes 45 seconds
Suggestion: Please see Another Occupation before Seeking the Monkey King

Capitalism: Child Labor, 2006
13'57"

The Sins of the Fleshapoids, 1966
Mike Kuchar
43 minutes, 14 seconds

The Secret of Wendel Samson, 1966
Mike Kuchar
33 minutes, 24 seconds

Hold Me While I'm Naked, 1966
14 minutes, 12 seconds

The Craven Sluck, 1967
Mike Kuchar
20 minutes, 53 seconds

Eclipse of the Sun Virgin, 1967
12 minutes, 38 seconds

Pagan Rhapsody, 1970
22 minutes, 14 seconds

I, an Actress, 1977
8 minutes, 35 seconds

Wild Night in El Reno, 1977
5 minutes, 45 seconds

Forever and Always, 1978
19 minutes, 51 seconds

The Mongreloid, 1978
8 minutes, 54 seconds

The Kiss of Frankenstein, 2003
36 minutes, 11 seconds

Meet the Kuchar Brothers, 2005
The Party
15 minutes, 16 seconds

Meet the Kuchar Brothers, 2005
The Interview
1 hour, 10 minutes, 5 seconds

I, of the Cyclops, 2006
16 minutes, 58 seconds

Temple of Torment, 2006
23 minutes, 9 seconds

Garden of Goodiest, 2006
18 minutes, 15 seconds

Coven of the Heathenites, 2008
26 minutes, 1 second

Nibbles, 2009
7 minutes, 3 seconds

Zealots of the Zinc Zone, 2010
27 minutes, 41 seconds

Webtide, 2010
23 minutes, 37 seconds

El Atlantis,1973
from footage from the early or mid-1950s; soundtrack -- a toy piano, played by Kuenstler, "tape slowed, edited, adjusted to fit the images" [Michael O'Brien]21 minutes

Paradise
Date unknown, probably after 1976
7 minutes

Country Su Casa
Date Unknown
3 minutes

Color Idioms, 1968
18 minutes

Two plays by Serge Gavronsky, 1968
"A Gentleman's Friend" and "A Play"
25 minutes

"Verse for Drunks"
Bowery Poetry Club, New York, January 9, 2011
16 minutes, 51 seconds

"SF/LA Diary," 2006
11 minutes, 11 seconds

"nor shall death brag", 1970's
4 minutes, 43 seconds

"kierkegaard either/or", 1970's
5 minutes, 27 seconds

How to be European
37 minutes, 48 seconds

Armand Schwerner: A Film by Phill Niblock
11 minutes, 35 seconds

Hannah Weiner: A Film by Phill Niblock
10 minutes, 28 seconds

Erica Hunt, Evidence: A Video by Phill Niblock
18 minutes, 15 seconds

Incident at Wal-Mart, or Where's My Daughter, 1999
8 minutes, 2 seconds
with Charles Bernstein

Unmaking Whoopee, or the Text is Thus a Gas, 2006
15 minutes, 11 seconds
with Logan Esdale & Graham Foust
also with Brent Cunningham, Barbara Cole, and Charles Bernstein

Jack & Kate, 1982/2005
with Jack Smith and Kate Manheim
Used with the permission of Dan Ochiva.
The film was shot around 1982, after Richard Forman had finished [Richard Foreman's]
Strong Medicine, where Kate wore the wedding dress she wore in the film. I didn't edit
the two reels together until around 2005, adding found sound and the blue overlay. I was
told that Kate and Jack had never met before, and with no script or plan, they began
interacting. The film is exactly as shot in camera, without any editing. I used two
rolls of Kodak 16mm Tri-X B/W film. It was never exhibited as a film, existing only
in this version.

Black Chalk, 1994
"Black Chalk," a dynamically paced series of images and language, is a narrative and poetic meditation about
the European conquest of the Americas, the life and work of Leonardo DaVinci, and contemporary society's issues.

How Much Paint Does The Painting Need, 1992
"How Much Paint Does The Painting Need" presents multiple perspectives on the process of making art
from the point of view of actors as well as critics and the artists themselves. A fusion of the present,
past, mythology, religious imagery and innovative art forms.
Jeffrey Robinson

Poetic Innovation in Wordsworth 1825–1833: Fibres of These Thoughts, 2018
University of Glasgow
video by Jeffrey Robinson featuring readings of from the manuscripts and late poems by
Andrea Brady, Judith Goldman, and
Peter Manson; based on Robinson's book published by Anthem Press

Triscuits, 2011
17 minutes, 10 seconds
silent film

Pinky's Rule, 2011
7 minutes, 38 seconds
an animated drawing by Amy Sillman & Charles Bernstein

Kon Kon, a documentary poem
Screening and Discussion
Kelly Writers House, February 3, 2011
1 hour, 25 minutes, 12 seconds
71 Elmgrove Ave, 2000
directed by Robert Arellano
71 Elmgrove Avenue (filmed in 2000) premiered January 2001
at Myopic Books on Wayland Square, where Keith read the soundtrack live, and was never
screened again until October 31, 2023 at the memorial for Keith, Light While There is
Light.
That's book-collector/seller Kristin Sollenberger playing herself outside the store,
along with George Monteiro. Keith wrote: "George is briefly in my Structure of the World,
the man who comes out of what seems to be a doctor's or dentist's office with his hands
over his face. I'm not absolutely sure I remember this correctly, so it may be someone
else, but I think I'm right."
Several Brown graduate students, along with faculty Sylvie Toux and Bob Arellano,
the film's director, play the bookworms, but the real star is the Burning Deck printing
press. Keith wrote: "The press is a Chandler & Price (made in Ohio) from around 1900.
We started Burning Deck with a Chandler & Price, but not this one. This one we bought
from Turkey Press when it moved from Providence to California. This kind of press,
by the way, is a revised version of an earlier model called the Franklin Press—because
Benjamin F himself appeared in a dream (posthumously) to the inventor and told him how
to make a printing press. Unfortunately, the Franklin press, though it printed well,
tended to smash printers' fingers, so was revised (perhaps more than once), and ended
as the Chandler & Price platen press."
Nothing but Mush, 1996
directed by Robert Arellano
Keith and I wanted to make another film together, and the first thought that came up
while we were rooting around for a premise was something a friend had told Keith: "The
funniest thing in the world is a man with a beard eating spaghetti." Marcin Gizycki makes
a cameo in the opening tracking-shot, along with Irene & Ray Jordan and several MFA
students, plus keep an eye out for Paol Keineg coddling Mrs. Butterworth. —havanarama
Victim of Providence, 1992
directed by Robert Arellano
On the Beast Side, a bus tunnel is the nose, a train tunnel is the stomach, and the Ladd
Observatory is the monster's all-seeing eye. In front of the Burnside House and
Blistein House, the poet Keith Waldrop reads parts of his story "The Master of the
Providence Crucifixion," while in Swann Point Cemetery Sean Sullivan brings to life
Lovecraft's letters, and Bob walks through a dyspeptic dream borne out of Louis' Family
Restaurant. This vintage 1992 flick was created by Bob Arellano & Friends in Leslie
Thornton's filmmaking workshop at Brown University's Department of MCM. —havanarama
The Logical Structure of the World, Part 1
The Logical Structure of the World, Part I: My Experiences (1970s)
takes its title from Rudolf Carnap, an astute and somewhat pompous philosopher of the
Vienna School. Logic and the world both begin with 'my experiences.' Each sequence of
this short film seems part of a narrative which never comes clear. Shot in the early
seventies, mainly in Providence, it ends with a dance around Lovecraft's grave. So much
for logic. So much for world. The soundscape that accompanies the film is a recording
by Robert Ashley and Paul de Marinis of Ashley's composition set to a poem by John
Barton Wolgamot — "In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women."
Adam Wyeth

Soundeye International Poetry Festival: A documentary film by Adam Wyeth, edited by Keith Walsh, filmed at the 2005 poetry festival in Cork. Featuring festival directors Trevor Joyce and Matthew Geden and poets Yang Lian, Maurice Scully (55:30), Charles Bernstein (42:50), Mairead Byrne (1:04:00), Nathaniel Mackey (35:00), Sean Bonney (13:30), Catherine Wagner, Tom Leonard (1:08:27), Maurice Scully (55:30), Catherine Wagner (22:35), Randolph Healy (39:45), Hugh Maxton, and Fiona Sampson.
Copyright for all films remains with the filmmakers and featured artists. PennSound
retains non-exclusive distribution rights.