Now through January 23 you can stream experimental animator Lewis Klahr’s short film, Lethe, at Vdrome.
As described at their website, Vdrome is “an online platform that offers regular, high quality screenings of films and videos directed by visual artists and filmmakers, whose production lies in-between contemporary art and cinema.” The video streams are available for only a limited time, so keep checking back for new titles (or better yet, subscribe to the Vdrome email list to receive updates).
Vdrome has included an introductory essay on Lethe by film scholar Tom Gunning:
Klahr’s films generate a blend of melancholy and desire from this interplay of grasping and losing, remembering and forgetting. We must balance these demands while watching his films or we risk losing their deepest lessons. Our shared desire to grasp and retain images from childhood can make his images appear mawkishly nostalgic or sentimental. But on the other hand, recognizing the inadequacy of these childish dreams, their flimsy kitschy nature, can make his film seems sarcastically camp, condescendingly dismissive of the popular culture in which they sometimes seem to drown. Moments of both nostalgia and satire exist in Klahr’s films, but we need to grasp how they confront and transform each other.
Klahr visited Madison in 2006 for a screening at the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Starlight Cinema. David Bordwell wrote a blog entry at the time of Klahr’s visit, which along with Gunning’s essay provides a good starting point for those not familiar with Klahr’s work.