becomes spheres, suns, clocks, heads and other circularities. In their spheres, as it were, these are famous movies, discussed in P. Sitney Adams’ landmark book VISIONARY FILM: THE AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE, 1943-1978 (1979).
“Our Lady of the Sphere” (1969, 10m) adds tinted colors, changing sound effects and spatial motion. In “Orb” (1973, 5m), the bursts of color become increasingly psychedelic as the back- grounds spin, loom and recede. In the notes, Jor- dan says he created these color effects by matting with an animation stand, which hadn’t been done before. He also observes that the sphere is both “a fixed point of reference—a perpetual traveler— and the changeable or transmutable possibility inherent in creation... If these things seem obscure, I suppose it may be assumed that in some past life I must have been an alchemist, though I do not pursue that study now, except through the visual magic of film.”
“Moonlight Sonata” (1979, 5m) returns to clas- sical music, but not the Beethoven piece known by that name, but rather Satie’s fifth “Gnossienne.” “Carabosse” (1980, 5m) is another Satie film. “Once Upon a Time” (1974, 12m) finally adds the spoken word in dialogues that imply a dreamlike narrative about the search for Prince Serendip. (This derives from a folk tale that various sources
attribute to Persian, Ceylonese and Indian sources, and which circulated throughout Europe from the 16th century.) There’s even live tinted footage of a tarantula.
Even by Jordan’s standards, “Masquerade” (1981, 5m) is unusually beautiful, startling and compact. Using a static, fully-colored tableau of a man fallen in a duel, various objects mani- fest that signify the life, the soul, the animating force leaving his body; there may be a pun here on “animation.” The music is some kind of Re- naissance lute-and-flute thing; we wish the mu- sic were identified on more of these pieces. Most of these delicate epics run about 5m and serve as appetizers for the 42m “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1977). This work of sub- limity, as opposed to sublimation, is an honest- to-goodness narrative, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, narrated by Orson Welles, and using the famous engravings of Gustave Doré as illus- tration. This is perhaps Jordan’s most “commer- cial” project, as one could imagine it being shown in schools or on PBS’ GREAT PERFORMANCES. The notes on working with Welles are illuminating; basically, they worked independently. This film is followed by the 17m “Enid’s Idyll” (2004), which refers to a particular narrative with- out actually telling it. All the illustrations are by
“Our Lady of the Sphere”
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