Wait

Wait

1968 · 7 min · ★ 5.2

"Completed shortly after Morning, Wait is a vivid depiction of the cinematic process of recording images on film. From frame to frame……. this work offers a sense of film emulsion coming to life, and responding to the forces of light. In addition shifting camera positions, panning, tilting, using the zoom, framing and focusing are all part of the work. A sculpturing of a space from frame to frame on a surface where there is no space. The title, Wait .... is asking the viewer to forgo our conditioned focus on the photographic image as a representation of a life situation, and instead, focus on the visual kinetic here and now. Physical therapy for the eyes, and delight for the senses." – Ernie Gehr

Directed by Ernie Gehr

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Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace · 2011

An ode to digital interlace, which is to video what intervals between frames are to film…

Reverberation

Reverberation · 1969

"Reverberation began as an attempt at a portrayal, a representing of a life situation by way of film, and turned in the making of it into a presentation of the physical movement of film itself, stranding the photo-memory of persons/objects/their relationships in a cinematic force-field wherein images are offered up and simultaneously swept away by conflicting energies. Sound as it comes from a speaker has its own quality. No matter how close it comes in reproducing sound of living beings or objects, this quality is always the sound of the projector, the wires, the tubes and the speakers. This is its actuality. And it can be heard and experienced as sound, a form of energy." -Ernie Gehr

Mirage

"Abstraction in Gehr behaves like an X-ray, revealing unexpected patterns of order under the skin of things. A film like Mirage, one of those most sensuous of Gehr’s abstract films may resemble superficially a strip painting by Kenneth Noland. But it is essential to realize that the bands of color Gehr captures come from the world, shot through a simple clear tube that strips away form and lets only chromatic patterns and motion come through. Even in his most abstract films, Gehr is relating to a world outside his consciousness and trying to stake out a relation to it, testing its order and chaos, its beauty and its threats." – Tom Gunning

20 Little Films

20 Little Films · 2012

20 Little Films

MovieDocumentary

Since 1995, the Viennale has invited renowned directors to create short, one-minute films as personal contributions to the festival. Ranging from home movies to political essays, musical sketches to abstract studies, these “little films” form a unique anthology of cinematic moments. 20 Little Films collects a selection of these works, premiering together for the Viennale’s 50th anniversary at the Locarno Film Festival.

Serene Velocity

Serene Velocity · 1970

Serene Velocity

An experimental short film which shows a time-lapse in the basement hallway of a Binghamton University building.

Bon Voyage

Bon Voyage · 2015

Avant-garde work by Ernie Gehr.

Departure

Departure · 2012

From a train trip home, legendary experimental filmmaker Ernie Gehr creates a triptych cum structural trajectory in which composition and perception convene into a “phantom ride. Departure sharpens the senses as it penetrates a recognizable yet reframed landscape.

Photographic Phantoms

Photographic Phantoms · 2013

Photographic Phantoms

In New York Lantern and Photographic Phantoms, a new narrative lyricism and political outspokenness enters Gehr’s cinema, haunted now by ghosts, from long-ago travels and struggles, that are gifted with an uncanny voice and presence.

Undertow

Undertow · 2021

“The eyes may be attracted to look left and right – and please let them – but the center is also intriguing and not separable from the rest. Among other things, a side view is transformed into a frontal view, but of course, that is not all.” - Ernie Gehr

Greene Street

Greene Street · 2004

"a five-minute film of the view west across the Soho street to a brick building. Gehr sat there from one day from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. and shot it with his Bolex camera, one frame at a time. It conveys the settled relief of being home, as against the pace of the monochromatic working day seen in the three prior films. It is closer to his earlier films in its abstraction of forms and play with time-lapse and film speed. In the beginning, the forms are screamingly reddish-orange and incomprehensible, but as the afternoon progresses shadows slip across the surfaces and windows, fire escapes, and bricks become visible: a world is revealed with the clarity of Vermeer’s famed Little Street (1657-8)." - Jason Rosenfeld

Street Scenes

Street Scenes · 2017

Animation created from early paper films.

Precarious Garden

Precarious Garden · 2004

Precarious Garden

A stereoscopic view of a suburban backyard.

Rear Window

Rear Window · 1991

"[A] view from a Brooklyn apartment sublimates Hitchcock's voyeurism into a frenzied engagement with the visible. The film varies exposure or racks focus so that the flickering, spatially ambiguous patterns that press the limits of the frame momentarily dissolve themselves as tree branches or a fire escape or a shadow caught on the screen of someone's laundry rippling in the breeze. 'I cupped one of my hands in front of the camera lens and attempted to make tactile to myself light, color and image,' Gehr explains in his notes, linking the film to his father's death and calling it a 'hopeless attempt' to render the ephemeral tangible." - J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

Lisbon Views

Lisbon Views · 2022

2022. USA. Directed by Ernie Gehr. Digital. 8 min.

Construction Sight

Construction Sight · 2018

Construction Sight

Ernie working his magic.

Floating Particles

Floating Particles · 2021

Floating Particles

“It’s a mysterious field, this screen rectangle populated by haunting phantasmagoric phenomena, be it representational or just patterns of color, light and darkness. Realism has no place here, but lifelike re-presentations of consciousness and the imagination do. Even in the most fleeting of spaces…. hmm, spaces on a 2-dimensional plane? Never mind! Look at the above still image. Intrigued? Then perhaps the work from where it came might interest you.” - Ernie Gehr

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