Anthology Film Archives

THE FILMS OF LARRY GOTTHEIM

April 12 – April 17

FILMMAKER IN PERSON!

To celebrate the appearance of avant-garde luminary Larry Gottheim’s first new film in more than 25 years – CHANTS AND DANCES FOR HAND – Anthology presents a comprehensive retrospective of Gottheim’s work. Anchored by two screenings of the new piece, the retrospective brings together, among other works, his seminal, justly celebrated sequence-shot films such as CORN, THOUGHT, HARMONICA, DOORWAY, and FOG LINE; his rarely-screened quartet of features known collectively as ELECTIVE AFFINITIES; and the later Caribbean-centered works that culminate with CHANTS AND DANCES FOR HAND. Filmed almost a quarter century ago in Haiti, this new work gathers together footage capturing various rituals, civil unrest, and street life, but Gottheim breaks this visual material into brief shards of imagery and (always sync) sound, and orchestrates it into a rhythmically complex, hypnotically repetitive experience. It’s a film that is culturally and politically evocative and formally precise, and these two dimensions interact in mysterious ways.

All film descriptions are by Larry Gottheim.

< Back to Series