Images from Still Light: Film Notes and Plates by Robert Beavers (1971, Il Torchio). One of the most treasured editions in our library. Jonas Mekas wrote the introduction and he quotes Gregory Markopoulos, who describes the films of Robert Beavers as being composed of "the language of diamonds."
In reading about Beavers's process, and the shadows that find form in his films, I was immediately struck by his devotion to the act of reading, and the translation of that experience to the cinematic reckoning. Both involve a form of projection.
Leonardo, Rilke, Ruskin. Texts and textiles, sound and light, architecture and silence, restraint and extravagance. They are all there. Sunrise to sunset.
And the first line of text on the first page of notes reads: "Show the travel of space which is the projection of film."
*Title of this post is what Beavers has named a series of films he made between 1967 and 1970.
