Poet In Orbit, by Joel Singer (1980)
Digital Moving Image
Event Type
Intermedia and Visual ArtsOrigin
Joel SingerIdentifier
V.SIN.JOE.1980.01Program Length
2 minDates
1980 | createdDescription
A motion portrait of poet James Broughton, by his long time partner and filmmaker Joel Singer. Original music by Lou Harrison. Notes from the filmmaker: "Made in 1980 in our home in Novato with James seated on a swivel chair filmed one frame at a time with James turning the chair ever so slightly from left to right and right to left from “zero” degrees back and forth to complete the 360 degrees. It took most of a week to film the 2 minutes. James got dizzy but we persisted... I showed Lou the silent film and he created the fabulous gamelan soundtrack. The film has been seen by VERY FEW people. It was never in distribution and was essentially lost until i discovered it in my digital files. James and I used a brief excerpt of the film in our film SCATTERED REMAINS - 1988 and a very brief excerpt of it was used in the wonderful documentary on James’ life, BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton from 2013 (his centenary)."Genres
Motion Picture music20th century classical
Musical Selections
[Gamelan soundtrack] (1980) / Lou HarrisonPerformers
James BroughtonSubjects
Short filmsStop-motion animation films
Poets
Gamelan music