From the Notebook of …
1971/1998,16mm to 35mm, colour, sound, 48 minutes
Cast: Robert Beavers, Gregory Markopoulos and others.
Filmed in Italy (Florence)
First Public Screening: New York Film Festival “Views fro the Avante-Garde”, 9 October 1999
Original Version: From the Notebook of …, 1971, 16mm, colour, sound, 60 minutes
First Public Screening: Centro Culturale San Fedele, Milan, 11 February 1972
Projection copies in Museum of Modern Art Film Department, New York, La Cinémathèque Royal de Belgique, Brussels, Österreichisches Filmmuseum, Vienna and Australian National Film & Sound Archive, Canberra.
From the Notebook of … was shot in Florence and takes as its point of departure Leanardo da Vinci’s notebooks and Paul Valéry’s essay on da Vinci’s process. These two elements suggest an implicit comparison between the treatment of space in Renaissance art and the moving image. The film marks a critical development in the artist’s work in that he repeatedly employs a series of rapid pans and upward tilts along the city’s buildings or facades, often integrating glimpses of his own face. As Beavers notes in his writing on the film, the camera movements are tied to the filmmakers’ presence and suggests his investigative gaze.
(Henriette Huldisch, Whitney Museum of Art)