Marjorie Keller

Trip to Carolee

Super 8mm transfer to digital, color, sound, 5:07 minutes. Still images of things passing; a diary between city and country. Marjorie Keller and Coleen Fitzgibbon drive to Carolee Schneemann’s to feed Kitsch.

As Is Was

This film was shot the same weekend as Z (Zee Not Zed), when Stan Brakhage was visiting University of Rhode Island, where Marjorie Keller was teaching at the time. They get some coffee, then go for a walk on a beach in an old whaling harbor.

Is As Is

A portrait of a mother with her arms full in the backyard bathing her twin babies as the early spring light sings and dances. Later the father cooks a fish. Marjorie Keller is the mother.

Departure

DEPARTURE is a film that was shot in 1976-77 during a year when I lost my job due to both cutbacks at the campus at which I taught and my involvement in the movement against them. I collected footage and imagined I would edit the film together the night I left. I was unable to do this and it took several years to finish it.

The Answering Furrow

Georgic I: The annual produce first seen in spring. The furrowed earth ready for planting. The distribution, support and protection of young plants. The implements of the garden. Georgic II: The life of Virgil is recapitulated in summer, with a digression on the sacred. The sheep of Arcadia. The handling of bees. The pagan Lion of Kea. Georgic III: The skill and industry of the old man in autumn. Ancient custom and modern method. The use of implements of the garden. Georgic IV: The compost is prepared at season's end. The filmmaker completes THE ANSWERING FURROW with the inclusion of her own image. Note on the music: The music works with the image to parallel the trace of history. Charles Ives recalls Protestant hymns, which recall the origin of the hymn in 12th century Milanese music, which allows for that music closest to the hum of bees and of amplifiers, the Orthodox Greek chant.