Serene Velocity

United States

1970

23 Min

Color

Silent

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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DIR Ernie Gehr

Berlinale (Retrospective)

Synopsis

A literal ‘Shock Corridor’ wherein Gehr creates a stunning head-on motion by systematically shifting focal lengths on a static zoom lens as it stares down the center of an empty, modernistic hallway. Without ever having to move the camera, Gehr turns the fluorescent geometry of his institutional corridor into a sort of piston-powered mandala. If Giotto had made action films, they would have been these. – J. Hoberman

Director

Ernie Gehr

Ernie Gehr (born 1943) is an American experimental filmmaker closely associated with the Structural film movement of the 1970s. A self-taught artist, Gehr was inspired to begin making films in the 1960s after chancing upon a screening of a Stan Brakhage film. Gehr’s film Serene Velocity (1970) has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Gehr served as faculty at the San Francisco Art Institute. His films are distributed by Canyon Cinema in San Francisco. —Wikipedia