Part of Film After Film
Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

5:30 p.m.–7:00 p.m. Doors open; guests will be able to view American Falls in the Changing Exhibitions Gallery
7:00 p.m. Film and digital work in the Main Theater, introduced by Phil Solomon

Phil Solomon, who has been making films since 1979, is known for his “image alchemy,” manipulating existing and original footage to create evocative, dreamlike works that reveal subterranean depths in the imagery. While Solomon frequently works in a miniaturist scale with such formats as 16mm film and video, his triptych film American Falls, presented at the Museum as an installation in the third-floor Changing Exhibitions Gallery, is appropriately monumental in form and scope, taking as its subject nothing less than the promise and the failure of the American Dream through the twentieth century. This is a special opportunity to see American Falls and to also see Solomon introduce a selection of his work in the Main Theater. Included in the theater program is a trilogy of works composed entirely of footage from the video game Grand Theft Auto.

Screenings (7:00 p.m., introduced by Phil Solomon):
What's Out Tonight is Lost (1983, 8 mins., 16mm, silent) One of Solomon’s earliest films, this elegiac work has been recently restored by Mark Toscano for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Psalm I: "The Lateness of the Hour" (1999, 10 mins., 16mm) “A little Nachtmusik… breathing in the cool night airs, breathing out a children’s song; then whispering a prayer for a night of easeful sleep. My blue attempt at a sequel to Rose Hobart.”—Phil Solomon. Recently restored by Mark Toscano, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Innocence and Despair (2002, 4 mins.) “One week after 9/11, filmmakers Jay Rosenblatt and Caveh Zahedi put out a call to over 150 experimental and documentary filmmakers for contributions to a collective film project (Underground Zero) addressing those tragic events. My contribution was my first digital video (with material culled from 16mm footage, both archival and my own) and to make something of a public work, something I had never done before. I was meditating on ideas of before and after, of how the summering people in my little film could never have imagined looking up at the New York City sky at a world such as existed on that day.”—Phil Solomon

In Memoriam  (2005–2009)
A trilogy of works in memory of filmmaker Mark Lepore (1952-2005). While Solomon counts Caspar David Friedrich, Edward Hopper, and Georges Seurat among the inspirations, the footage is all taken from the video game Grand Theft Auto: Rehearsals for Retirement (2007, 10 mins.), Last Days in a Lonely Place (2007, 22 mins.) Still Raining, Still Dreaming (2009, 12 mins.).


Tickets: $15 public / $9 Museum members / Free for Silver Screen members and above. Order online or call 718 777 6800 to reserve tickets.