Water and Power

United States

1989

57 Min

Color

1.37:1

English

Currently 4.4/5 Stars.
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MUSIC John Bergamo, Kurt Festinger, Greg Johnsson, Robert Lloyd, Vivian Miller

Berlinale (Forum), Sundance (Documentary Competition): Grand Jury Prize

Synopsis

Its title comes from the Los Angeles water district. Much of the film was shot in the Owens Valley and in an old office building in downtown LA and is metaphorically about the exchange of energy between two places. It is also about water, in all of its states, and about cyclical motion: the planets, the tides, the implied rotation of the camera on its axis, and the repetitive actions of the performers. There are also quotations from older movies and their soundtracks: at times their landscapes become continuous with those of the present. Human habitation in this wilderness is tenuous and risky.

Director

Pat O'Neill

Pat O’Neill (b. 1939 in Los Angeles, California) is an experimental film-maker who has worked as well in commercial cinema. His expertise include the area of Direction, Cinematography, Production, Editing, Visual Effects, Special Effects and the Animation Department.

His early 16mm films include Runs Good (1970), Easyout (1971), and Down Wind (1973). His later 35mm films include Water and Power (1989), Trouble In The Image (1996), and The Decay of Fiction (2002). On December 30, 2008, Water and Power was added to the National Film Registry.1 Water and Power was preserved in 2009 by the Academy Film Archive in collaboration with O’Neill.
He is known most notably for his use of the optical printer.

He has also taught at the California Institute of the Arts. He influenced a generation of CalArts students, who include Adam Beckett, Robert Blalack, Chris Casady, and Larry Cuba, who all later went on… read more