Jack Chambers

"The Hart of London" is an endlessly layered tour de force. It explores life and death, the sense of place and personal displacement, and the intricate aesthetics of representation. It is a personal and spiritual film, marked inevitably by Chambers’s knowledge that he had leukemia. The late American avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage said of Hart, "If I named the five greatest films [ever made], this has got to be one of them." Even this high praise falls short of hyperbole. The Hart of London is at the centre of Chambers’s extraordinary achievement.

One of the most dangerous journeys on the planet, taken every day by tens of thousands, is also one of the least documented. Until now.

Circle is a 28-minute film, structured in three parts. Appropriately described by Gene Youngblood as an “extended haiku,” the film weaves elusive meaning out of simple form.

Chambers in R-34 impressionistically documents the work of London, ON collage artist Greg Curnoe through rhythmic and softly focused close-ups. Curnoe’s art intertwines with Chambers’ daily routines: collapsing the art practice of Curnoe with the art of everyday life.

An unusual version of the classic children's tale. Litte Red Riding Hood was performed at the Labatt Marionette Theatre in London, Ontario. The adaptation was written by James Reaney, the puppets were created by Greg Curnoe and the performance was filmed by Jack Chambers. This film was unreleased.

Mosaic, a testament to Chambers’ astute interest in surrealism and Soviet constructivism, features his family prominently and predicts Hart’s epic handling of the birth/maturation/death cycle.

Hybrid is a denunciation of Vietnam-War atrocities, photographs of which are spliced with scenes of gardeners cross-pollinating roses, an act depicted as mutilating but, ultimately, gorgeous.

The origin story of Bruce Wayne's legendary butler, Alfred Pennyworth, a former British SAS soldier who forms a security company in 1960s London and goes to work with young billionaire Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha, before they become Bruce Wayne’s parents.