Program
North Beach (1979) 11 min., 16mm, silent
Kino Da! (1981) 3 min., 16mm, sound
Money (1985) 15 min., 16mm, sound
Bali Mecanique (1992), 11 min., 16mm, sound
Little Lieutenant (1994) (Co-maker: Sally Silvers), 7 min., 16mm, sound
Porter Springs 4 (1999) 15 min., 16mm, sound
The Next Stop (2001) 9 min., 16mm, sound
Electricity (2007) 7 min., video
Failed States (2008) 7 min., video
HENRY HILLS has made 22 short experimental films since 1975.
He received an M.F.A. in filmmaking in 1978 from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he studied with James Broughton, George Kuchar, and Hollis Frampton. His early San Francisco films (PORTER SPRINGS 1-3 and the NORTH BEACH series) are ornate, intensely rhythmic single-frame silent landscape studies. His first sound film, KINO DA!, is a portrait of San Francisco poet Jack Hirschman reading in Russian and English cut-up into "zaums" and metrically reassembled ? la Klebnikov.
Upon moving to New York in 1978 he began an association with the "Language" poets and with the first generation Downtown improvised music scene. MONEY (1985) documents these movements of the early 80s with an all-star artist cast, while simultaneously developing parallel formal innovations. One of the densest sync-sound films ever made (2500 "scenes" in 15 min), MONEY, which remains entertaining today, was the culmination of a string of radically formal investigatory studies into the possibilities of sound/image sync.
In the late 80s he began incorporating the results of his formal investigations into more widely accessible thematic works. SSS, his radiant 1988 dance film, converts the rubble of a decayed Lower East Side into a joyous playground. BALI MÉCANIQUE presents the rhythms and rituals of that Paradise island through a recreation of a Legong performance. LITTLE LIEUTENANT recreates the optimism and ambiguities of the Weimar era through innovative usage of rear screen projections. With PORTER SPRINGS 4 (a family portrait composed from footage shot and sounds recorded over 30 years) his work took a more personal, emotional turn.
He is currently releasing sections from his DV exploration EMMA'S DILEMMA. In progress since 1997. NERVOUS KEN is a portrait of filmmaker Ken Jacobs and KING RICHARD a portrait of playwright Richard Foreman. His most recent work include ELECTRICITY (2007) and FAILED STATES (2008), both of which premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival in recent years.
Hills has been a Professor at the film academy FAMU in Prague since 2005. Since that time he has organized a series of screenings with filmmakers of the American avant-garde at Prague's Bio Ponrepo Cinema, Školská 28 Gallery and FAMU, with support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding. As part of this spring's series, Školská 28 gallery will present work by filmmakers such as Bradley Eros, Lewis Klahr and Janie Geise.
"I like to work in minute detail. In my hands composition is not really a temporal thing, rather it's spatial, a sculptural process. Hence a particular space is an apt topic. When I make films, my first rough cut is composed of relatively long shots, lots of space and a slower pace. I gradually add elements, interweaving them to increase the density and complicate the rhythm to keep it interesting for me. It has a strong correspondence to music and the kind of music I'm drawn to, similarly, is heavilyrhythmic, multilayered with unpredictable changes. Although much of my editing is improvisational, it consists of levels upon levels of improvisation with a goal of keeping the rhythms irregular and the progression of imagery and ideas unpredictable, to mimic the rhythms of my own body and mind. By filling the space, I expand the time. And expanded it returns to me, available to be viewed over and over, somehow different every viewing."
- Henry Hills
