Silently, Bearing Totem of a Bird

Eighteenth century Indian miniatures enact a traditional wedding ceremony of a Hindu Prince and Princess. An exotic landscape of the mind; fable-fantasy of childhood-manhood.

An Angry Arts "protestfilm" with black and white visuals. –S. D. H.

"In Spring, 1963 Show Magazine called me and asked that I make a film on arts in New York. I told them, why did they want me to make it - didn't they know I was a bit unusual? ... 'We want something unusual,' they said. So I went out and made a newsreel on arts. Show people looked at the rough cut of the film and became very angry. 'But there is nothing about Show Magazine and DuPont fabrics in the movie,' they said. 'What has that to do with the arts in New York!' I said. The battle was short. The film was destroyed. Really, I have no idea what they did with it. This workprint of the first FILM MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS is the only print in existence, as far as I know." -- J.M.

"Cine-Sonnet. Rome to Venice. A study of time in motion. An accelerated montage of reflections and landscapes framed in the window of an express train running from Rome to Venice. Dedicated to the writings of J.W. Dunne, the collage of Kurt Schwitters and the cubistic paintings of Braque." –S.D.H.

“Third Eye Butterfly” is a double 16mm projection piece in which the two screens – at times divided within into additional “mini-screens” causing textured kaleidoscopic effects – blur to create a third wider frame, encouraging the viewers to extend their vision beyond ordinary sight - Microscope Gallery

A dramatic feature shot on location in Rome. Centered around the adventures and illusions of three girls living abroad, the film explores their restlessness and personal involvements in assuming the role of woman as hunter.

Peyote Queen opens with black-and-white perforations that pulsate to the beat of drumming and escalate to light-bathed split screens and kaleidoscopic effects. Switching to lively organ accompaniment, the film pours out a stream of simple scratchings that rollick across the screen. Fish, breasts, flowers, boats, water, lips, hearts, stars—the hieroglyphs explode with color and celebrate the female creative force. The surge slows with the return of ritual drumming, this time with chanting, and a self-reflective coda. -- National Film Preservation Foundation

A meditation upon the interior space of London’s Heathrow Airport, contrasting the ceaseless movements of the silhouetted passengers against the angles of the metal structural framing which are then replicated upon the reflective surfaces of the building’s floors and windows, rendering them as ephemeral as the human figures that pass through this nexus.

A study of the architecture of the Jefferson Market building in Manhattan which employs quick, probing camera work and intentionally arrhythmic editing in stark contrast to the Venetian Gothic styling of the facade’s architectural details. In three brief sections, the film details the exterior windows and turrets, then, in stark contrast from within the darkened interior, demonstrates the play of light through the stained glass windows. In the final segment, the camera returns to the building’s exterior, but now its sightline is impaired by a chain link fence, possibly in an allusion to the structure’s origin as a courthouse and prison for women. The final shots focus on the plaque affixed to the exterior, which states, “…constructed in 1876 and served as a women’s court until 1932. Of particular interest are its turrets, tracery windows, ironwork and sculpture.”

Hudson River Diary: Book 1 "Chronicles the journey of a train named Cayuga as it travels from New York to Poughkeepsie. There is something profoundly sentimental as you make the trip. You may never have been to this part of the world but you are concerned and you care about it after you see the film." – Bob Lermann, Today's Filmmaker

"De Hirsch's Aristotle is a succinctly percussive appreciation of the visual rhythms of a country stream." Film 3 of 6 in the Cine-Songs Program.

Dedicated to all the magic makers of the world who weave a talisman for man's rebirth in his house of breath.

Six films in one reel: The Reticule of Love; The Recurring Dream; Aristotle; Malevitch at the Guggenheim; Silently, Bearing Totem of a Bird; Ives House: Woodstock.

A newsreel of Jonas Mekas shooting his filmed version of The Brig on the set of the Living Theatre production.

"The shape of change, the shape of memory has walked many miles in the mind to recreate a landscape, a manner of subterranean speech which may never reach its destination to the surface but roolls in the bloodstream swollen with speech invisible to the ear but palpable to the feelings that travel inside the network of the body/brain. The vision and the visitation occur simultaneously."–S.D.H.

"Metaphysical sketches of my stay at the Neil Ives house in Woodstock where the artist lived and painted" — S.D.H. Film 6 of 6 in the Cine-Songs Program.