Robert Beavers screening in conversation with Luke Fowler

“A concentrated and patient waiting allows what is hidden to become more conscious.” – Robert Beavers

CCA is pleased to announce an evening of three screenings, a talk and conversation around influential American filmmaker Robert Beavers. Three of Beavers’ most crucial 16mm works are shown in order to provide insight in the personal motivations of filmmaking and life. Followed by a short talk on his own work, Robert Beavers engages in a conversation with Glasgow based filmmaker Luke Fowler who shares his personal relation to the the oeuvre of Beavers. The evening concludes with a Q&A.

Robert Beavers is an American filmmaker who moved to Europe in the late 1960s, and is considered as one of the most influential avant-garde filmmakers of the second half of the 20th century. Beavers’ films reveal poetic meditations on history, place, art and architecture, and more precisely, a rigorous exploration of the nature of filmmaking.

From the Notebook…... (1971/1998, 40 minutes) is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks and Beavers’ reading of Paul Valéry's essays on Leonardo's creative method. As a conceptual film that seems to investigate its own production, it presents the skilled labour of filmmaking and negotiates the tension between formalism and romanticism. “One of the central points of inspiration for me was Leonardo's observation of shadows. I used the surface of my notebook and desk to translate some of his observations into film and also discovered the shadow as a place for sound.” (Robert Beavers)

The Stoas (1991-1997, 22 minutes) “The title refers to the colonnades that led to the shady groves of the ancient Lyceum, here remembered in shots of industrial arcades, bathed in golden morning light, as quietly empty of human figures as Atget’s survey photos. The rest of the film presents luscious shots of a wooded stream and hazy glen, portrayed with the careful composition on 19th century landscape painting. An ineffable, unnameable immanence flows through the images of The Stoas, a kind of presence of the human soul expressed through the sympathetic absence of the human figure”. (Ed Halter)

The Suppliant (2010, 5 minutes) filming was done in February 2003, while a guest in the Brooklyn Heights apartment of Jacques Dehornois. When I recollect the impulse for this filming, I remember my desire to show a spiritual quality united to the sensual in my view of this small Greek statue. I chose to reveal the figure solely through its blue early morning highlights and in the orange sunlight of late afternoon. After filming the statue, I walked down to the East River and continued to film near the Manhattan Bridge and the electrical works; then I returned to the apartment and filmed a few other details. I set this film material aside, while continuing to film and edit Pitcher of Colored Light, later I took it up twice to edit but could not find my way. Most of the editing was finally done in 2009 then I waited to see whether it was finished and found that it was not. In May 2010, I made several editing changes and created the sound track with thoughts of this friend’s recent death.” (Robert Beavers)