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Nathaniel Dorsky

Nathaniel Dorsky

Raised in New York on a steady diet of Westerns and Disney True-Life Adventures, Nathaniel Dorsky started shooting 8mm movies at the age of eleven. In 1963, when he had just turned 20, he made Ingreen, a boldly symbolic psychodrama about a young man’s sexual coming of age. At that film’s premiere, he met soon-to-be fellow filmmaker Jerome Hiler, who would become his partner in life and a major inspiration for his work. (“We were filming for one another,” Hiler recently said.) In 1971 the two moved to San Francisco, where they’ve lived ever since. Around the same time, Dorsky entered a decade-long creative silence. He returned in 1982 with Hours for Jerome, a 55-minute feature compiled from footage shot between 1966 and 1970. Like all of Dorsky’s subsequent work, it’s a kind of cinematic lyric poem, entirely silent and rooted in a centuries-old tradition of devotional art (in this case, medieval illuminated manuscripts and prayer books).

The rest of the Eighties found Dorsky experimenting with new forms and materials: 1987’s Alaya was made up entirely of footage of shifting sand, and 1983’s Ariel, which had a rare public screening at this year’s New York Film Festival, is a beautiful hand-processed film full of thin, tremulous vertical lines and see-sawing horizontals. It was with 1996’s Triste—edited from over 20 years’ worth of footage—that Dorsky, as he once put it, fully arrived at “the level of cinema language that I have been working towards.” Since then, he’s made 16 luminous, description-defying short films, each with their own distinct tones and shadings. In films like Compline (09), August and After (12), and his two most recent titles, Spring and Song, Dorsky creates what he’s often called a “floating world,” in which street scenes, household interiors, meadows, rivers and forests are transformed into playgrounds for light, color and shadow. In a field often dominated by frenetic cutting and/or prolonged stasis, Dorsky’s films unfurl gradually but steadily in a kind of hushed suspension. They’re often attempts to do with light and texture what, in his book Devotional Cinema, Dorsky praised Mozart for having done in key changes and melodic lines: to “wed [a] style to the human metabolism in every detail".

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Dreams Reveal a Weightless World

Dreams Reveal a Weightless World

2024

Director, Director of Photography, Editor

O Death

O Death

2023

Director, Director of Photography, Editor

Place d'or

Place d'or

2023

Director

Caracole (for Izcali)

Caracole (for Izcali)

2023

Director, Editor, Director of Photography

Pavane

Pavane

2023

Director

Dialogues

Dialogues

2022

Director

Naos

Naos

2022

Director

Caracole (for Mac)

Caracole (for Mac)

2022

Director

Interval

Interval

2022

Director

Ember Days

Ember Days

2021

Director

Terce

Terce

2021

Director

Emanations

Emanations

2020

Director

William

William

2020

Director

Temple Sleep

Temple Sleep

2020

Director

Lamentations

Lamentations

2020

Director

Canticles

Canticles

2019

Director

Caracole (for Cecilia)

Caracole (for Cecilia)

2019

Director

Apricity

Apricity

2019

Director

Interlude

Interlude

2019

Director

Calyx

Calyx

2018

Director

Colophon (for the Arboretum Cycle)

Colophon (for the Arboretum Cycle)

2018

Director

Arboretum Cycle

Arboretum Cycle

2018

Director

September

September

2018

Director

Epilogue

Epilogue

2018

Director

Monody

Monody

2018

Director

Elohim

Elohim

2017

Director

Abaton

Abaton

2017

Director

Ode

Ode

2017

Director

Coda

Coda

2017

Director

The Dreamer

The Dreamer

2016

Director

Ossuary

Ossuary

2016

Director

Lux Perpetua II

Lux Perpetua II

2016

Director

Lux Perpetua I

Lux Perpetua I

2016

Director

Death of a Poet

Death of a Poet

2016

Director

Other Archer

Other Archer

2016

Director

Autumn

Autumn

2015

Director

Prelude

Prelude

2015

Director

Intimations

Intimations

2015

Director

Avraham

Avraham

2014

Director

Fortune

Fortune

2014

Editorial Production Assistant

December

December

2014

Director

February

February

2014

Director

Summer

Summer

2013

Director

Spring

Spring

2013

Director

Song

Song

2013

Director

Kodachrome Carl Rakosi in Golden Gate Park

Kodachrome Carl Rakosi in Golden Gate Park

2013

Director

August and After

August and After

2012

Director, Producer, Editor, Director of Photography

April

April

2012

Director

The Return

The Return

2011

Director

Music Makes a City: A Louisville Orchestra Story

Music Makes a City: A Louisville Orchestra Story

2010

Editor

Pastourelle

Pastourelle

2010

Director

Aubade

Aubade

2010

Director

Compline

Compline

2009

Director

Sarabande

Sarabande

2008

Director

Winter

Winter

2008

Director

Song and Solitude

Song and Solitude

2006

Director

Kodachrome Dailies from the Time of Song and Solitude (Reel 1)

Kodachrome Dailies from the Time of Song and Solitude (Reel 1)

2006

Director

Kodachrome Dailies from the Time of Song and Solitude (Reel 2)

Kodachrome Dailies from the Time of Song and Solitude (Reel 2)

2006

Director

Threnody

Threnody

2004

Director

Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America

Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America

2004

Editor

The Visitation

The Visitation

2002

Director

Love's Refrain

Love's Refrain

2001

Director

Arbor Vitae

Arbor Vitae

2000

Director

Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles

Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles

2000

Cinematography, Editor

Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey

Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey

1999

Editor

Variations

Variations

1998

Director

Triste

Triste

1996

Director, Writer

Black Sheep Boy

Black Sheep Boy

1995

Associate Editor

Renga

Renga

1989

Director

Alaya

Alaya

1987

Director

17 Reasons Why

17 Reasons Why

1987

Director

What Happened to Kerouac?

What Happened to Kerouac?

1986

Co-Producer, Editor

Pneuma

Pneuma

1983

Director

Ariel

Ariel

1983

Director

Hours for Jerome

Hours for Jerome

1982

Director

Revenge of the Cheerleaders

Revenge of the Cheerleaders

1976

Producer, Director of Photography, Story, Screenplay

Look Park

Look Park

1974

Editor

Library

Library

1970

Director

Fool’s Spring (Two Personal Gifts)

Fool’s Spring (Two Personal Gifts)

1967

Director

Summerwind

Summerwind

1966

Director

A Fall Trip Home

A Fall Trip Home

1965

Director

Ingreen

Ingreen

1964

Director

Catch A Tiger

Catch A Tiger

1963

Director

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