Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

July 25, 2015 - 7:30 pm

Billy Wilder Theater

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968)

Springing to the sprightly beat of Miles Davis’ score, William Greaves’ improvisational docu-fiction about the making of a film finds director Greaves impishly fomenting insurrection on his own set as cast and crew struggle to comprehend his vision and motives. Levels of performance and the very status of filmed events are inverted in the film, acclaimed decades after its production as a masterpiece ahead of its time.

Producer: William Greaves. Director: William Greaves. Screenwriter: William Greaves. Cinematographer: Terry Filgate, Stevan Larner. Editor: William Greaves. With: Patricia Ree Gilbert, Don Fellows, Susan Anspach, Jonathan Gordon, Bob Rosen. 35mm, color, 72 min.

Preceded by

Print courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, preserved with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Black Faces (1970)

A montage of faces from the Harlem community.

Director: Young Filmmakers Foundation. 16mm, color, 1 min.

Print courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

From These Roots (1974)

William Greaves’ masterful montage film, employing mostly still images, documents Harlem's prevalence as a center of art and culture in the early 20th century.

Producer: William Greaves. Director: William Greaves. SCR: William Greaves. Cinematographer: David Greaves. Editor: William Greaves, David Greaves. With: Brock Peters (narrator). Digital video, b/w, 28 min.

Part of:

Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York, 1968-1986

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Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One