Peter Tscherkassky
“The question of belly or brain is one which Tscherkassky stopped asking long ago—for ultimately sobriety is the route to ecstasy.” (Gabriele Jütz)
The Austrian avant-garde filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky began his work with Super 8 films in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, his work increasingly came to focus on the “found footage” film—the reuse of existing film material. By editing and reprinting these images, he creates an entirely new and surprising reality of his own. In his films, he explores the codes of narrative cinema and the hidden power of the cinematic image.
Tscherkassky combines the abstract with the representational, and the conceptual with craftsmanship, revealing new, visually rich, and unexpectedly sensual imagery with each film he makes. Tscherkassky is more than just a filmmaker: he is also an author, teacher, curator, and co-founder of Sixpack, a distributor of innovative Austrian film and video.
Peter Tscherkassky’s new film Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (Austria 2005, 17 min) will have its Dutch premiere as part of this Impakt Event. In addition, the program curated by Tscherkassky includes his Cinemascope Trilogy (L’Arrivée, Outer Space, Dream Work), other short films of his own, and work by filmmakers such as Eve Heller, Bruce Conner, and Man Ray.
During the presentation, Gertjan Zuilhof will interview Peter Tscherkassky about his work and his selection of films.
Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine, Peter Tscherkassky (2005)
A wonderful example of metacinema, Peter Tscherkassky’s ‘Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine’ reworks images from Sergio Leone’s ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’. The source material is distilled to its essence, literally stripping away the original colour, exposing the black-and-white polarities of life and death as well as the elemental basis of cinema itself.
Her Glacial Speed, Eve Heller (2001)
‘The world as seen in a teardrop of milk. I set out to make a film about how unwitting constellations of meaning rise to a surface of understanding at a pace outside of worldly time. This premise became a self fulfilling prophecy. An unexpected interior began to unfold, made palpable by a trauma that remains abstract.’ (Eve Heller)
Take the 5:10 to Dreamland, Bruce Conner (1977)
‘…the state produced by a film like “Take the 5:10 to Dreamland” is very similar to the feeling produced by a poem. The images, their mysterious relationships, the rhythm, and the connections impress themselves upon the unconscious. The film ends, like a poem ends, almost like a puff, like nothing. And you sit there, in silence, letting it all sink deeper, and then you stand up and you know that it was very, very good.’ (Jonas Mekas, The Soho Weekly News)
Le retour à la raison, Man Ray (1923)
Man Ray’s films of the 1920s are, in his own words, ‘inventions of light forms and movements.’ ‘Le retour à la raison’ (return to reason) from 1923 takes the viewer on a brief journey of self-discovery with its interplay of strange light and dark images and vital kinetic energy. Bizarre images of insanity work their way to the familiar territory of desire – a female form. This film was made very quickly, as Tristan Tzara had billed it for a program of Dadaist events without telling Man Ray until the day before. He was still adding sequences to it moments before screening. Poorly received at the time, it is now regarded as a highly significant work.
Happy End, Peter Tscherkassky (1996)
‘“Happy End” is a found-footage film. The original material stems from a Viennese married couple who filmed themselves over the 1960s and ’70s. The films were shot from a tripod, using a shutter release extension cable. They are cheerful documentaries of various celebrations where the camera is, quite naturally, included in the company. At first glance the compression of the shots in “Happy End” works as a comedy with partly involuntary participants. But the obvious light-heartedness and joie de vivre is so infectious that one cannot laugh at them, only with them. At the same time, “Happy End” is a requiem for two people who died long ago. The vanity of human existence peeps between egg liqueur and sweet cakes. In the end “Happy End” is a tragicomedy.’ (Bert Rebhandl)
Shot-Countershot, Peter Tscherkassky (1987)
‘Not a stage direction, but rather something very concrete is hidden behind the technical term “Shot-Countershot.” Something which calls for intelligent and playful dealings with the medium of short film.’ (Marli Feldvoss)
L’Arrivée, Peter Tscherkassky (1997/1998)
Peter Tscherkassky’s Cinemascope Trilogy has been made completely without the use of a camera. In the first film of the trilogy, ‘L’Arrivée’, Tscherkassky makes the audience wait, both literally and figuratively, for the film. Then a steam train slowly arrives at a station, an image by the Lumières that heralded the arrival of cinema.
Outer Space, Peter Tscherkassky (1999)
For the second film, ‘Outer Space’, Tscherkassky used footage from Sidney J. Furie’s film ‘The Entity’. Tscherkassky shows a woman who is terrorised by an invisible and aggressive force, while simultaneously being exposed to the audience’s gaze.
Dream Work, Peter Tscherkassky (2001)
The third film, ‘Dream Work’, begins with the daily routine of a woman who takes off her slippers and combs her hair before going to bed and falling asleep. From then on, the film moves to an unexpected and formless dream state. Parts of memories and human interaction move, repeat and associate freely in the unconscious, meanwhile being transformed and reinterpreted under the influence of fear, individual will power and desire.
