"I think of my films really much more as projected light art,"
"I've always been interested very much in the question of how do we see? How do the eyes think, how does the brain see? What is this mechanism that's [composed of] retinas and lenses and stereo vision, that produces what we call 'vision'? The optic nerve is an extension of the central nervous system. So it isn't just visual—it's cerebral or cortical."
- Standish Lawder
NECROLOGY
"In NECROLOGY, a 12-minute film, in one continuous shot he films the faces of a 5:00 PM crowd descending via the Pan Am building escalators. In old-fashioned black and white, these faces stare into the empty space, in the 5:00 PM tiredness and mechanical impersonality, like faces from the grave. It's hard to believe that these faces belong to people today. The film is one of the strongest and grimmest comments upon the contemporary society that cinema has produced." - Jonas Mekas, The Village Voice
"Several short films (at the Ann Arbor Film Festival) seemed notably successful in the creation of special effects. Among these was NECROLOGY, by Standish Lawder, an eleven-minute panning of the camera down what seemed an endless stairway, upon which people stood motionless and glum. These circumstances, plus the constant idea of the title, gave a haunting suggestion of people on their eventless way to hell. I was told later that the film was made with a stationary camera trained on a down escalator, and then the film was run backwards. A long, humorous 'cast of characters' at the end ... seemed to me to destroy a desirable mood, but it certainly pleased the crowd ...." - Edgar Daniels, New Cinema Review
"Without doubt, the sickest joke I've ever seen on film." - Hollis Frampton
El nombre NECROLOGY nos hace entrar al video como buscando respuestas. Suben al cielo, suben al infierno, están muertos, son fantasmas, ángeles, qué es lo que pasa. Al final pareciera ser simplemente una serie de retratos, para doblarnos de risa en los créditos, y darnos cuenta de que estuvimos buscando explicaciones a algo que es bastante simple, aunque después las dudas partan de entender cómo se hizo, y dónde estaba la cámara. Los creditos conforman una parte muy importante, pues pareciera que toda la narrativa está ahí, es donde se nos cuentan pequeñas historias.
“Lawder demonstrates the power of words to define and explain, to suggest what the image cannot. Necrologythus posits that the film doesn't really end with its final image; its credits, rather than being extraneous or external to the film's world, actually define what the film is, what it means. Lawder surprises us at the end by telling who and what it is that we've just seen. His small descriptions of the characters who so briefly appeared within his frame expand the film beyond its images into a rich world of imagination.
CORRIDOR
"... an extraordinary exercise in visual polyphony ... the pyrotechnic surface is exfoliated with Hegelian relentlessness from an elemental formal core ... the many are no less the many for being inescapably the One." - Sheldon Nodelman
"CORRIDOR is a marvelous meld of music and cinematic tension that maintains a visual excitement throughout with its constant exploration of horizontal and rectilinear patterns, chiaroscuros and deep grains, pulsating double and negative exposures, and constant tracking shots of a nude figure standing at the end of a long, close corridor. A first-rate piece of work that has to be seen to be appreciated. CORRIDOR is a film of which any filmmaker would be rightly proud." - James Childs, New Haven Register
Para mí, CORRIDOR es la exploración de un espacio y las posibilidades de la cámara. Se nos muestra desde casi todos los ángulos posibles, y se explora la experiencia que puede partir a través de ésto. De un simple pasillo se crea una sensación de tensión, (por lo menos en mí) que parte creo de estar buscando una narrativa que no existe. Es básicamente la búsqueda sobre crear una sensación a través de música y montaje.
“What happens is that the film is projected in 24 frames per second. If you take a piece of film, double print it, you can drive the brain into alpha mode but double printing two frames at 12 seconds…it nudges it into a dreamlike state.”
- Standish Lawder
