Inventing Obscurities—Beckett, Bourque, & Sherman

Dec. 11 + 12 - 7:30 pm

$6 Suggested Donation

New American Art Union
922 SE Ankeny St

Work Stills:

About This Screening

And all these questions I ask myself. It is not in a spirit of curiosity. I cannot be silent. About myself I need know nothing. Here all is clear. No, all is not clear. But the discourse must go on. So one invents obscurities. Rhetoric. —Samuel Beckett Stuart Sherman's 10 films (Typewriting, Eating, Bridge Film and others) resemble his one-man shows through suggestive juxtapositions and intense physical presence. "Like riddles, jokes, koan, and paradoxes, Sherman's films operate on this edge of sense, in a world of wonder." (Sally Banes) In Just Words Louise Bourque explores the internal struggle of World War II generation women using home movie footage of her mother and sister alternating with footage from an intense performance of Samuel Beckett's Not I creating an unnerving and touching experience. Film was the only work that Samuel Beckett wrote specifically for the cinema. Starring Buster Keaton, and featuring no dialogue or music, Beckett explores the eighteenth century Irish philosopher Berkeley's dictum that "to be is to be perceived". Film has two characters, "O" or the "object", played by Keaton, who throughout the film is pursued by the subject "E" or the "camera-eye".