Gordon Ball
Films by Gordon Ball
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Add rightsFormat DVD Interzone
Original format Super 8, 16mm
Year 1966-1991
Language(s) English
Artist(s) Gordon Ball
Running time 68 min
Films
GEORGIA (1966) 3'
FATHER MOVIE (1978) 7'
MEXICAN JAIL FOOTAGE (1980) 18'
SITTING (1977) 2'
ENTHUSIASM (1979) 13'
MILLBROOK (1985) 9'
DO POZNANIA: CONVERSIONS IN POLAND (1991) 17'
Description
Gordon Ball's films have been praised for their originality and direct intensity. Filmmaker Stan Brakhage wrote, about Ball's two works dedicated to the death of his mother and father, that he "has accomplished something unique in the autobiographical genre of cinema." Jonas Mekas called Mexican Jail Footage the "best prison film I've seen," while Robert Frank, about the same film, exclaimed: "I can't forget it."
Ball's work rejects technical refinement in favor of "technical sincerity"; it can be made partly on the fly, like Father Movie, or entirely spontaneously, like his first film Georgia. It is, in the filmmaker's words, "indifferent to everything except its own sincere rhythmic consciousness... what one person can offer us and no other." It is an uncompromising cinema filled with humanity, strong enough to make, as poet Allen Ginsberg wrote about Enthusiasm, "weep for life itself."
Ball's films have been presented on three continents and in many prestigious institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the San Francisco Art Institute, the San Francisco Cinematheque, the Anthology Film Archives, the Kyoto Cinematheque and the British Film Institute. They have also won several awards at various festivals.