DORSKY & HILER, PGM 2: JEROME HILER
CARELESS PASSAGE 2024, 20 min, 16mm, silent "More than ever, origins have been on my mind. In the case of CARELESS PASSAGE, the origins of sight. Particularly, how, after millions of years, our ancestors developed that bubble-like globe that allowed them to see the world. Subsequently, I found that, before this liquid-filled sphere developed, a form of sight existed whereby a small 'pinhole' on the surface of an organism allowed a bit of light in to reflect on an interior surface. I had the delightful realization that 'cinema' preceded eyesight itself. (I knew it all along). My film, as usual, is a walk around town but haunted by surrogate shapes of 'bubbles,' 'eyes' and soupy things in emergence. Squares, those uniquely human shapes enter as well and try to find their place in a slippery world." –Jerome Hiler WORDS OF MERCURY 2011, 25 min, 16mm, silent "WORDS OF MERCURY is my loving farewell to color reversal 16mm film. The Bolex camera, which has served me so well for over fifty years, became a container for a process of distillation. I wanted to extract as much as I could from my remaining rolls of Ektachrome 7285. Film emulsion is so rich with latent colors and images, it was a simple decision to make a film of superimpositions which were all shot in the camera. […] The film takes a journey from darkness and a bare world through the seasonal spreading of seeds to a place almost choked and repugnant with color – a place that invites death. The final couplet from Shakespeare's 'Love's Labour's Lost' speaking of the place of death, supplies me with my title. I seem to make the same film again and again in different ways." –Jerome Hiler NEW SHORES 1971-87/2014, 35 min, 16mm, silent "Like [IN THE STONE HOUSE], NEW SHORES consists of earlier footage edited in recent years. It could be seen as a sequel to IN THE STONE HOUSE especially since it begins with a cross-country journey to the West Coast, where I settled, and concludes with a visit, in 1987, to the 'stone house' in rural New Jersey. Even though there is some sort of time line that can be imagined, the film stands on its own. It is simply a series of episodes that touch upon facets of living in a new area with new weather, new people, new identities and stubborn old fears." –Jerome Hiler