Dream of the Sphinx
When I was a kid there were rumors in the family about some animated shorts my dad had made in the '60s--Dream of the Sphinx and, with Adam Beckett, The Letter. He'd won prizes in France, they said, been a shooting star in the obscure world of experimental animation where folks make movies about the inner lives of tomatillos and lint people who come to life in laundromats at night.
Where are the films? We wanted to know.
Sold. Lost. Somewhere.
Oh.
So it was kind of cool and out of the blue nowhere when a researcher emailed a few days ago asking after James Gore and directing me to the library where the old reels live. I poked around the internet a bit, emailed another filmmaker. It seems the shorts were screened in classes at CalArts for decades. And my dad's been an elusive sax-playing mystery man of trippy experimental animation yore.
Could you put me in contact with him? They asked.
I can try.
But, alas, the mystery man remains elusive. He's off fishing with sea gypsies in the gulf of Thailand.
Where are the films? We wanted to know.
Sold. Lost. Somewhere.
Oh.
So it was kind of cool and out of the blue nowhere when a researcher emailed a few days ago asking after James Gore and directing me to the library where the old reels live. I poked around the internet a bit, emailed another filmmaker. It seems the shorts were screened in classes at CalArts for decades. And my dad's been an elusive sax-playing mystery man of trippy experimental animation yore.
Could you put me in contact with him? They asked.
I can try.
But, alas, the mystery man remains elusive. He's off fishing with sea gypsies in the gulf of Thailand.
posted by Contact at 10:47 AM
3 Comments:
Your dad sounds real cool!
You should contact the McSweeney's guys about their new DVD periodical Wholphin. Its a collection of found and rediscovered and bizarre film pieces and shorts. This sounds like something they'd be all over!
Dear Ariel,
I used to teach animation and show your dad's film to my young students to inspire them. Sadly, the copy (given to me by the late, great Prescott Wright, former director of the Tournee of Animation and distributor of my film "Animation Pie") went missing many years ago. It pains me to this day and I keep hoping it will magically turn up again, because it was truly a magical film that looked like it flowed directly from you dad's trippy mind onto the countless sheets of paper obviously photographed frame by pain-staking frame on his kitchen table or scotch-taped to a window sill.
I hope he and his sea gypsies are living the good life and do give him my best wishes and thanks.
Hope you'll be able to locate a copy of his "Dream" and share it with the world.
Best regards,
Robert Bloomberg
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