In Order for Disorder: An Evening with Fern Silva introduction and post-screening discussion with Haden Guest and Fern Silva.

Transcript

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

Haden Guest  0:00  

I’m Haden Guest, director of the Harvard Film Archive. I want to thank you for coming to this special Thursday night screening. We don't usually screen films (The Harvard Film Archive) on Thursdays, but we do on very special occasions, and that is certainly what we are celebrating tonight as we welcome Fern Silva for an evening of his films and a few others that he selected. Fern Silva is a renowned filmmaker, a consummate artist of the 16mm medium, and we're really thrilled that we can see his films tonight in all their photochemical glory. He's here now at Harvard as a Radcliffe-Film Studies Center Fellow, so I want to thank our friends at the Radcliffe Center for Advanced Studies, as well as the Film Study Center. Lucien Taylor just walked in and so I should thank him as well for all of their wonderful support.

The program is called In Order for Disorder and disorder, unruliness is certainly true of tonight's films. Fern Silva’s films—there's an intense energy and a kind of inventiveness that seems at times almost threatening to pull the films apart and yet, there is a lyricism, there is a deep sense of structure, which always I think allows the films to come together again. It's this tension that I think makes the films so exciting, so edgy, and really so intense to watch in the theater.

But in addition to Fern’s films, there are a few others including a beautiful work by Peter Hutton, Boston Fire. Peter Hutton is very close to the Harvard Film Archive, he taught in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies for many years and presented his films here, so it's really special to have that film, Boston Fire, which is a beautiful print from the HFA collection which came from the late Peter Hutton. So it's really special to open with that film, and the film is silent as is the second film, which is Fern Silva’s, Passage Upon the Plume. The rest of the films have sound, and so in addition to Fern's work, we have films by Betzy Bromberg and Thom Anderson, but you have the program as well. I'd like to ask everyone to please turn off any cell phones, any electronic devices that you have, we don't want any noise or distractions or vibrations or light except for what we see on this beautiful screen. I want to now please ask you to join me in welcoming Fern Silva.

[APPLAUSE]

Fern Silva  3:10  

Hello, thanks for coming. I want to thank Haden, Brittany, Mark, and most certainly John Quackenbush who's projecting tonight, and who is an incredible projectionist, and so I feel very grateful, and all of you for coming, and I think that Haden sort of summed up the program as much as I would have. But, I guess I'll leave it at that. I'll be here for q&a afterwards. It is an honor to be here. I thought of the HFA as a second film school when I was a student here, an undergrad at MassArt, so I could certainly say that a lot of the films I’d watch here were very influential and, in a sense, I think a lot of my work kind of becomes a mashup of all those different films in a way. So what else was I gonna say? I think that's about it. So thanks for coming and we'll chat afterwards.

[APPLAUSE]

Fern Silver  4:04  

Thanks for sticking around. I didn’t think we were gonna get dessert there for a second. I was worried.

Haden Guest  4:11  

Yeah, no. So that was an extra surprise. I like that little suspense that we had there. But I really want to thank you for this program, Fern. We talked about it for a while but it really came together thanks to you and your vision. I was just admiring watching it just how well it went together. And I wanted to sort of talk through a few things in the program and maybe start from the beginning... The spirit of Peter Hutton hovers over these first three films really quite palpably, of course, and not just his own work, but in the next two films, and I was wondering if we could first speak about Peter Hutton: he was a mentor to you, an important influence to you and I'm just thinking about the role of landscape in for instance, the films, which is very– We see it evolving and taking many different forms across your work...but I was wondering if you could speak about Peter’s influence upon you and…

Fern Silva  5:16  

Yeah, no, I mean, yeah! He was a mentor and a good friend, and I would say, at least formally, thinking about how he deals with composition and framing devices is something that I thought about a lot in my work, but I also realized he had a very particular approach, a sort of modernist approach perhaps. And so I think, as anybody studying under somebody who—I consider him a master of sorts, is certainly a master of like, landscape filmmaking—that I would sort of try to take those parts and other parts from other films and mix them up to try something different. But certainly, in that second film, I thought about him a lot, and most certainly the third film which is taking place in the Hudson. And that's very different than, you know, a film that he wants to make and he made a lot of films up there, right? And some of the greatest films like City for Rivers, one of my favorites. It's brilliant, and maybe you guys have a print of that as well?

Haden Guest    6:28

We have a few prints, but not that one.

Fern Silva  6:28

Yeah, it's incredible. So anyway, I thought about him a lot and that's, I think, part of the darkness that’s there is that I'm just sort of holding on to that, but there’s a lot of things that were going on, you know. It was a commission, I was living up there, I was teaching at Bard. Actually, as a matter of fact, teaching his classes because...

Haden Guest  6:28  

We're talking about Ride Like Lightning?

Fern Silva  6:29  

Yeah, exactly. And when he passed away, because they weren't sure that was going to happen, he just got sick very quickly, and then they asked me to come in and take over his classes. So that was a very heavy thing. And so at that time, there's one: thinking about Peter Hutton, thinking about wanting to make a film up there, and then that happened, and these folks asked me to make a film where I was staying. Also, there was a lot of conversation over climate change denial, and I think throughout my films, I think about social and environmental issues that sort of pop up and there's an anxiety around them and a sort of paranoia around that. Is it radical to make a landscape film now? What does that mean? It's like: is this gonna get torn apart? And so, you know, the elections were going on, there was a climate change denial situation happening, and then I had to just make a film pretty quick, and then I thought of too the story of Rip Van Winkle and the Hudson River School as these two sort of like contributors to the economy, or at least for the visitor in upstate New York, and I thought they're both kind of absurd in the sense that one, although the Hudson River School is incredible, they had a very particular vision which is the luminous vision, which is a very Christian vision of this landscape. And they’re up there for a reason.

Haden Guest    6:29

Transcendental, right.

Fern Silva  6:29

Absolutely. And then also the story of Rip Van Winkle is a little absurd. I don't know if you guys have read that book, it's kind of awful, but I thought that Washington Irving had lived up there and he wrote this book and described it very well, like, I mean, when I was reading it I was like, “Wow! He really got it.” It was like, right on point and I had sort of this feeling or sense of that place that you know, he understood, but I later found out that he'd never visited the Catskills and he was just writing that book. I don't know where that came from necessarily so I mean, I thought that was a bit absurd and also thinking about like how yes, one: they’re so on the backburner; people don't really know that much about the Hudson River School or Rip Van Winkle that are just passing through other than what's on the roadside. But also, you see that everywhere. Like the Rip Van Winkle travel agency, which is kind of hilarious because he fell asleep for twenty years, right? And he was tripping apparently, you know, by the ghosts of Henry Hudson [and his crew] up in the Catskills while they were bowling. So, I think I'm going on tangent here, but certainly…

Haden Guest    8:59

You’ll bring it back.

Fern Silva  8:59

Yeah, I’ll bring it back. But I feel like maybe Peter would humorously appreciate that because there is a little bit of a jab in there and there's a playfulness that’s sort of occurring, but there's this also this darkness that’s sort of hovering around.

Haden Guest  8:59  

Well, I just wanted to… That was just a way to begin the conversation. Not to suggest that the films were... because they're immediately from the beginning– Passage Upon the Plume perhaps is the closest to Peter’s work and, again, I thought the pairing was beautiful with the two black-and-white, silent films. But then right away you're making this connection between these two places, between Turkey and Egypt, that are at times unexpected and we have the balloons rising, the buckets rising, there's something... again, less painterly. There’s a sort of unexpected rhythm to the film that I think immediately defines a certain signature quality of your work.

Fern Silva  9:42  

And also, I guess in a sense, it would be a subgenre of avant garde, like lyrical filmmaking in a sense. I was thinking about that, sure.

Haden Guest  9:49  

So let's talk about Ride Like Lightning then, because this is a film that like a lot of your films, it seems to be operating in different modes at once. So perhaps a film about climate change on one level, there's a kind of collage quality to it. It also at times feels like a diary film, that you've got this series of portraits of filmmakers and friends. And so it's a film that seems at times, even from shot to shot, to be shifting gears, and I was wondering if you could talk about that kind of… it's sort of deliberate imprecision.That's to say that these things don't quite necessarily fit together, and there’s a tension between them.

Fern Silva  10:39  

That's a really good question. One, I think of that as a challenge because otherwise, even if there's a similarity between the other films is that they’re a sort of collage, in a sense, and so like, the glue or the backbone is really the sound and the interest being what is just sort of like kind of breaking apart, kind of like chop-chop. It was an influence of like musique concrete. But there's ways to sort of work around that as well, where there are all these relationships, and then those veer off into the next shot and imply, or anticipate, some sort of action that's going to take place that's diegetic, you know? But with, for example, Ride Like Lightning I'm trying to pull as much meaning as possible, although not everybody's gonna get it entirely, and that's fine. And so that's the point to sort of have it open for interpretation. And I think that if I operate in that way, that people could just gain little bits from it, but every little detail, every shot has a few meanings to it, right? And I don’t know if that necessarily answers your question, but even the people that are in it, they have a relationship to this place, they are all artists that work in landscape, they have either lived there or are visiting my classes, or had a relationship to Peter or these other people that are in it. And so that, to me, is important, but like, if people don't know who they are, that's okay. They’re sort of like in front of this landscape which then subverts the landscape film in a sense, right?

There's a scene where towards the end, it’s like in a bathroom, and you see this ribbon of rural place, that's in the Stewart’s, and Stewart’s is always in front of the landscape now. It’s their 7-Eleven, and in itself is like an identity, right? You see this Satan graffiti or whatever it is and just like also part of this darkness that isn't necessarily telling, it's just… it’s presenting.

Haden Guest  12:25  

Well it seems like– You mentioned that bucolic mural or whatever it is that has the satanic graffiti on and things like this, it seems like the idea of... You're trying to unsettle the idea of the bucolic in this film and over the creeping monster hand...

Fern Silva  12:25 

It's unsettling.

Haden Guest    12:25

It's unsettling but, at the same time, there's also something playful and, I should say, at times there's an element of kitsch in your work, of course.

Fern Silva  12:25

Absolutely. I love kitsch. Yeah.

Haden Guest  12:58  

[LAUGHS] I mean, but...

Fern Silva  12:58

Americana, right? Yeah?

Haden Guest  13:00  

Right. So let's think about...I mean, Wayward Fronds is another film that I find pretty fascinating. And it seems snakes are recurring across this program. And I love the way the Betsy Bromberg film—which that was the first time I saw that and I've gotta say that was really pretty amazing—but again, this idea of the kind of uncanny force, and there's these wonderful shots where at times the bed seems to be almost like itself moving like a scale, and I was wondering if you could talk a bit about this idea? It seems like there's a kind of… Within nature you're finding at times something, I don't know, darker and stranger than one might perhaps expect. I was wondering if it’s…

Fern Silva  13:51  

Well, I mean, I guess with that, Wayward Fronds—the snake movie, the Everglades film—it was– I mean, I was interested in the Everglades. Because I was hearing about, like all this money being dispersed to restore it, and knowing its history that there's been decades and decades and decades to try to tear it apart. But the fact that it's been so resilient was what I was interested in. Like, what does it mean to restore it? And if that were to happen, it would just take over civilization, and that's okay. But the snakes come into play because they've become like public enemy number one, they're like the exotic inhabitants or invasive species that have sort of taken over, and so I wanted to present them in a way that they were like, ended up, finding comfort or space or even a transient space being this hotel room or motel room that's been sort of discarded because of like, commercial tourism. And so that's sort of like a part of the idea that was sort of thinking about within that film, but really deep down, the public enemy number one for the Everglades are humans, right? And trying to sort of irrigate it and try to like plant, or have livestock or so on so forth. So I mean, I guess there's an appeal there and thinking about nature’s resilience in a sense, and that could seem like kind of, I don't know, it could be a threat to humanity. I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but maybe in a sense, I was thinking about that with that film, and that's where that comes in. I mean, the mermaids are amazing because they were sort of, they were able to survive, like this whole sort of spew of corporate tourism. They have been around since the late 40s.

Haden Guest    16:02

That's a mermaid school, right?

Fern Silva   16:02

Yeah, and they've been around forever, and they were able to sort of maintain this. It's sort of a part of the culture. Which is also incredible to think that something that is like, maybe sort of tourism or some sort of attraction becomes embedded, and that's something that's going to continue to unfold wherever it might be. And they work and they perform in a natural hot spring so in a sense, they're able to sort of cohabitate, so I thought of them being able to sort of survive all of this. You know, it's like a low-budget sci-fi I guess, but... that's the impression that I want. Yeah.

Haden Guest  16:02  

So this concern for the environment that, I think, is felt throughout your work...I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit: how you see your films. You know, really because you brought that up in terms of, Ride Like Lightning, in terms of, Wayward Fronds. I mean, in The Watchmen too there's a sense in which the largest, sort of, urban landscape and urban decay that we see, there seems like there's a real concern here, but yet at the same time, you're not really hitting that nail on the head at all. It’s more like, sort of evoking a kind of spirit or...

Fern Silva  16:45  

Right. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think you just said it. [LAUGHS]

Haden Guest  16:48  

Well, I guess I just want to say, I mean, at one point there’s this– So, you know, these aren't activist films in any sense...

Fern Silva  16:51  

No, no, never. Yeah, I'm not a professional activist, I guess. Does that make sense? But yeah, these are issues that I'm interested in, or I'm thinking about, or I'm anxious about. I mean, there's also a lot of the references that are being made– or this interest of representation or misrepresentation that's in this long line through Hollywood cinema, and I think that is something that I'm thinking about as well: how that sort of seeped into our subconscious and our expectations when we're watching films, and I think that's what I'm trying to glean from every like, from just different genres and different types of filmmaking... And even like, the personal film or the diary film with the handheld and so on and so forth, because you're gonna have a certain degree of expectation and then a narrative builds and then it gets broken off and it happens again.

Haden Guest  17:40  

Misrepresentation in terms of…?

Fern Silva  17:44  

Well, I mean, so for example, the Everglades is always a stand-in for the Amazon in the history of cinema. So as far as we know, what we think in our subconscious that the Amazon is, is actually the Everglades, and I think there's something to be said about that. Which is part of the reason why some images in that film are actually subverting that. Some of those images are actually the Amazon... that I shot in the Amazon. So I guess it's something I’m just bringing up. That's why at the beginning, you hear that Budd Schulberg film, Wind Across the Everglades is the first one that was shot there.

Haden Guest    18:36

And Nicholas Ray?

Fern Silva   18:36

Yeah, yeah. It was a beautiful film. Yeah. And it's about those things, it's dealing with those issues. So there's like these little nods and references to that. So I mean, I’d always think about what these places might be, what they are, and what they're supposed to be and sort of how that gets confused.

Haden Guest  18:36  

And in The Watchmen there's this interest in, sort of, panoptic surveillance, and then I think like all your films are this... So that level of the kind of surface meaning and then there always seems like there's another layer, or many layers with more, sort of, private meaning there, and things like the hotdog stands. We're left to wonder what's the connection between the prisons and… [LAUGHS] So that kind of, sort of, synaptic-like searching or something like that. I was wondering if you could just describe, I don't know, the kind of logic that guides that, yeah?

Fern Silva  19:20  

Like I said it's like just, I think explaining each one of these films or short movies, I could just go on and on and on what exactly all these meanings mean and together, and how they could form another meaning and from that meaning there's another meaning. I think just working that way, the sort of– That's a good point to make: the synaptic, maybe, charge or something that might spur a memory or an idea. I think it's the chance I'm trying to take. That by doing that, there's a possibility that some people get something out of it, whether or not it's intended, it's like this idea that will spur another idea, and then so on and so forth. I think that's why I do that.

But the prison film was sort of, you know, this was supposed to be this whole other thing that just ended up becoming this film. And that was also about this sort of like, the representation of this city and thinking about Chicago, living there at that time, and the ideas around what vernacular architecture means and thinking about urban renewal in Chicago, but also, the identity of Chicago being within these two prisons in these TV shows and cinema, these two very different structures. I came at it through doing some research at the Chicago Public Library over this prison riot at Juliet Correctional Facility in the late 60s that read like a script, and they were kicking somebody out of there and there was a big, massive riot and they're moving this person down the street 1.5 miles to Stateville, which is the only functioning panopticon F-house in the country. And so that film didn't pan out and when I was hanging out, I go outside to smoke a cigarette outside the library, there was a soup kitchen across the street and I meet some guys that were just locked up at Stateville. And they would start talking to me about, you know, being locked up for like two years not knowing what the hell happened. You know, they're like, “I was in there for two years, I was there for a year, and I have no memory of what happened.” And from there, I started searching for this, thinking about that, and came across the phenomenon of missing time, which is a phenomenon that people who have been incarcerated feel and the only other people that really feel it are people who've been abducted by aliens. And so those two things are kind of separated in a sense, and I sort of started to think about those two, kind of, fitting into this narrative. And then that's where, for example, Dan Aykroyd and the Blues Brothers come into place, and they are a big part of the identity of Chicago, and then they're coming out of this. Then it just started unraveling. But the fact was that there's an exact replica of Statesville in Cuba that's been shut down since the late 50s. So to me I was also thinking about “wow, we’re in the United States, there's this functioning prison, and there's one that was modeled after that in Cuba that's been done for like 40 years,” and that story starts to unfold. The prison guards have these recollections of seeing these settings of these UFOs and then at the last point, the very end, there's a regression that you're listening to, and it's a regression of a police officer that was confronted by these aliens, and they have a conversation of who the Watchman is, and they ask him if he's a Watchman. He tries to shoot them, and that's what he's saying when he's hypnotized, and he couldn't because they wouldn't let him because of the shining light. He was trying to reach for his revolver...

Haden Guest  22:38  

That’s his testimony...

Fern Silva  22:39  

Yeah, and he was from Illinois as well. So it was just sort of unraveling in that sense and I started thinking, at that time, is that the only way that we're gonna be able to keep cops from shooting people? Is if there's like this– Because that’s what it felt like. It's like so absurd and it goes into that space. But I'm just like, in a nutshell, explaining that. There's just so much more that's...

Haden Guest  22:58  

Right. Well, no already just touching, pulling on this one thread, we’re starting to, I think, find a lot there. And then in terms of this, you know, because it's, yes, so you locate the prisons, but then you're also finding these panopticonal structures elsewhere: the lifeguard stations that resemble the prison towers and, but then also this slow strobe that, you know, as if to say if the screen itself becomes this kind of blinking, watching... at a certain moment.

Fern Silva  23:33  

Yeah, at the very end, right? The beginning... it's a far fetched reference, but it was from Foucault’s Discipline and Punish where there's that– You know, they’re retelling this graphic scene where somebody gets quartered by these horses, and then you see these horses in front of that space. I think that's where my mind ends up going. It's like, oh, when I arrived I see that and I’m like, “Oh! It's the chapter in Discipline and Punish” and it has to make its way into the film, although I don’t think anybody would ever get that, so... Just also to describe the creative process.

Haden Guest  24:07  

Right. Great, okay, well, I wanted to open the floor up to questions and comments from the audience if there are any for Fern Silva? I mean, yeah, we can take it right here with Jake in the front. Andrew is coming down with the microphone. Thank you.

Audience  24:31  

Thanks for your films, of course. Wanted to ask mainly your thoughts, as a concept, about citation because we're here talking about the movies and we're talking about them very specifically in terms of region, in terms of place, in terms of representation. Also, there's footage that predates your films, like the Blues Brothers, and in most cases neither are cited in the end credits nor identified specifically within [UNKNOWN]. I was wondering if you could talk about that choice?

Fern Silva  25:05  

Of not citing a Hollywood film?

Haden Guest  25:08  

Or just, I mean, there's a lot of things that are cited in the films, right?—that aren't mentioned. Or even the people or just that...

Fern Silva  25:20  

Well, okay, so who...? So wait, okay, so for example... Let’s just use the example of the Blues Brothers. I don't do that because one, it's a big Hollywood film, first of all...

Haden Guest  25:31  

You do thank Dan Aykroyd.

Fern Silva  25:33  

I do thank Dan Aykroyd, because I actually was in conversation with Dan Aykroyd, and I'd mentioned that I was going to use a scene from Blues Brothers, and he’s like, “okay, whatever dude” you know? And I was like, “okay” and that's that. These films, I don't, yeah, the choices there's I guess I said, to not do that because it's the Blues Brothers. I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. I mean, it's also...I mean the films are not necessarily selling them, in a sense, they're being presented. But um, it's a conversation. It's funny that you bring that up because I'm thinking about that now that I'm making a much bigger film that's involving a ton of people and all the support, and that's something I'm very much taking seriously. I always thought of that as these smaller films that are sort of existing and not including, or mentioning, specifically the Blues Brothers would sort of mystify it in a sense. If you’re looking at a point, if it’s in the credits you sort of start to think about it in a whole other way that I feel like I would rather that film kind of like linger without that specific quotation, I guess, if that makes any sense.

Haden Guest  26:37  

Okay. I mean, I feel like it's related to just what earlier… you were speaking about the ways in which you embed meaning within the films and really, it's there to kind of be discovered in a way, and I think over multiple viewings some of these things start to come up, but some of them are pretty deep within the films, certainly in terms of citation, there's a lot there as well. Other questions or comments for Fern? Yes, the gentlemen in the middle here...Thanks Andrew.

Audience  27:13  

Yeah, on a similar note I'll ask about the pop music choices in, Ride Like Lightning. The title card using Metallica and things like that?

Fern Silva  27:27  

So the Metallica record is Ride the Lightning and I arrived at the title of the film being Ride Like Lightning, Crash Like Thunder, and that was a reference to Rip Van Winkle because in the story, they say that the reason why we're hearing lightning and thunder up in the Catskills is because the ghosts of Henry Hudson and his crew are bowling or playing nine pins, and that's where it sort of came from. But I mean, I liked the idea of sort of toppling those three over, and I'm a Metallica fan, or was. Ride the Lightning is like one of the best records ever, and I always had this idea of using it and finding an opportunity to do it and I just had to go with it. Also, you're listening to Big Youth over that. Which is like, otherwise reggae group, and they're saying, “If you ride like lightning, then you’re gonna crash like thunder”, and that’s sort of unfolding in these ways. I was just trying to sort of be playful in that sense, while making that small reference.

Audience  28:28  

Yeah. And just on top of that, you also use some other pop music choices, like Prince and some others. So I was just wondering if you talk a little bit about those as well?

Fern Silva  28:36  

Yeah. Well, I mean, I always think of pop music as sort of this universal connector, certainly in one sense, but some of these songs are just sort of unfolding while I'm shooting and are being recorded while I'm on like, quote-unquote, “location.” And, for example, in that film, my friend [UNKNOWN]—he's a filmmaker, lives up there—was playing that record. Prince had just died and that was also a part of it, but it's interesting that you say that because there's a point where you hear a cover of The Sound of Silence in the hallway, which is hilarious because it was on the radio and I saw these bats. These bats appeared and I thought of them as this omen, because they are this omen where if like you, a bat appears in your home, you're going to lose something it’s, gonna be very difficult. And like a week later, I lost my gallbladder. It was insane. Yeah, it was nuts. I mean, “lose it.” It was removed from my body. Just like ripped out of my body. And I'm just like, holy shit: that's real, you know? But anyway, he saw the film after it was finished, and he was like, “Holy crap, where'd you get that cover of that song?” I'm forgetting the name of– The Sound of Silence, but I'm forgetting the name of the person who covers it. It was playing on the radio and he’s like, “Holy shit, I…” cuz he's a DJ in Hudson and he was DJing while I was recording that and but it was him on the radio and he's playing that on the radio, which is hilarious, but later on in the film he’s playing the Prince song. Maybe that's not that fascinating, but to me, I was just like, “Wow, my god, we’re watching the film now and that's unfolding.” I don't know if that also answers your question, but this person, Dan Seward who is, Bunny Brains. I don't know if anybody remembers them? They're a big noise punk band through the 80s and 90s, and I loved them growing up, and they're credited, yeah. They're not doing their own music, he's not doing his own music, he has these scores, he’s just covering or looping the Velvet Underground. That's one thing, and then later on, it's like that weird techno music or something. And so he's in it, or he's doing some of the sound because I think he has a sensibility that's very connected to that region. Which is like, in a sense, that would sort of add this vibration that I was looking for. But those decisions he made, he was watching and then he was like, “well, this would fit here or this would fit here” and then I would edit it in. That's like one of the only times I think I've ever had anybody just sort of really score something, you know? Does that answer your question? Something or another? But yeah, that's going back to Ride the Lightning. Right.

Haden Guest  31:08  

But I mean, in just to follow up on the gentleman's comment, in terms of just if you could talk maybe a little bit about the ways in which you oftentimes– There is almost, you mentioned the DJ, but you are oftentimes left switching records sort of in the middle, and it seems like that kind of cutting on sound is really important and having sort of evocative excerpts of songs is really important.

Fern Silva  31:37  

I mean, it could really date that back to John Cage. He was, I think, it was at Black Mountain. He was going to teach this class on musique concrete, and nobody signed up for it. Apparently, nobody signed up for it. So he made this one song and it's like this kind of very much this musique concrete song that is like brilliant. At some point, listened to it. I was like, young, luckily, when I was a teenager, and I think that really was embedded in the way I was thinking about sound, and there are moments where just sort of like– It's super visual, it's incredible. And it sort of like continues. I mean, I feel like I’m always visualizing it, and then it would cut back and forth. But going back to the mashup idea, which is like basically a lot of these films, not to sound like such a millennial, but I think that I take all this information and then it sort of gets jumbled into space, and that's where all of these layers of meaning try to come out. And you know, it's so obvious and I mean, even like, industrialized cinema or commercial cinema, those moves are so obvious, and they're just I think, for me as an artist, I’m interested in playing with those ideas, building those and then breaking them apart and I think that's where those ideas come from. Where those decisions come from, rather.

Haden Guest  32:49  

Yeah, something about releasing a song and then cutting short creates a kind of disruption, a kind of disorder, if you will, that's really quite striking,

Fern Silva  33:02  

Cutting outside emotion.

Haden Guest    32:02

Exactly. Exactly. Other comments or questions? I did want to maybe just ask you about Ciao Bella, and if you wanted to say why you want to include that film? Because, as I said, that for me was a real discovery and I was so happy to see it tonight.

Fern Silva  33:21  

I am a fan of... I mean, I think a part of it is because formally, thinking about those three films formally, thinking about Peter and composition, framing devices. Thinking about Betsy, the sort of rawness, the sort of diaristic, working with friends in these spaces and sort of travelogue-ish side to it. The Thom Andersen film, the sort of absurdity with a soundtrack: the sound, image relationship. But with the Betsy film, it's like an early film of hers. It's so different than her other work. I mean, a lot of her more recent work, I think is like longer, slow, abstract. And also she worked in Hollywood. She did all this optical printing for all these major films, like she did optical printing for the T-1000 or the T-2000 in Terminator Two, which is outrageous. It was like cutting edge at the time. I don't know if you guys remember that movie? A total masterpiece. [LAUGHS] But I don't know, I think I just admire her so much and I think that outside of just like formal decisions, and it feels really raw. It's also the depiction of the city that I've lived in the past tweleve years. I never really witnessed in the 70s, and it’s also a place where she was very embedded and, at the time, to California to teach at CalArts, I think, and work in Hollywood. Yeah. I don't know if that explains? That's why. It was an opportunity to see this film that's rarely ever screened.

Haden Guest  34:48  

Yeah. I'm so happy we could see that. Well, I want to thank you all for being here tonight, and I want to ask you to join me in thanking Fern Silva.

Fern Silva

Thanks for sticking around.

[APPLAUSE]

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