Photogram Film Fantasia

Some of the first photographs were photograms, camera-less black and white images created using reverse exposure. Moving photograms were an innovation of the Eastern European avant-garde film movement prior to World War II. However, many of these landmark experimental films were lost or never made as the area was militarily overwhelmed. Bruce Checefsky has resurrected seven of these short films, to be screened in series at [Anthology Film Archives ][Dec. 2].

If you can get past the overuse of photogram technology and the grating imitation of scratched, flickering 1930s film stock, Checefsky’s creations and recreations tread interesting cinematic ground. He pauses within each film to explain the original’s history and significance in generous title cards. Checefsky films Béla, written by Gyorgy Gero and A Woman and Circles, by avant-garde poet Jan Brzekowski, visualizing that which never reached production. Moment Musical and Pharmacy are based on films by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson that were lost or destroyed in the chaos of war. With loose precision, Checefsky glorifies and validates an unknowable moment in artistic history.

But Checefsky is not working under the same conditions as his muses. His use of elementary special effects is quaint, not groundbreaking, and his modern actors simply cannot channel the mindset of a Pole basking in brief peace. The films are intrinsically different in subject matter, premise and historical moment, but by utilizing the same production process, Checefsky blurs the films into a messy whole. Inni (Others) is a standout. Written by experimental filmmaker Andrzej Pawlowski from the diary of an asylum patient during the second world war to commemorate “the 22450 ‘beings unworthy of life’ who were murdered by the Germans between 1939 and 1944 in psychiatric hospitals located in Poland,” Inni (Others) is the longest film of the collection. As it is the only post-war film, Checefsky allows himself use of more varied cinematic techniques, including color, slow motion and striated visuals. He alternates between extreme close ups of anonymous skin and indistinguishable masses on what might be an old television screen. A haunting, unaffected voice-over permeates the piece. Perhaps Inni (Others) is individually retained because of its author’s dedication, heartbreaking subject matter, or mild narrative.

Making the Lost and Unmade explores the fleeting permanence of film. Films are designed to outlast their creators, to stand as a testament to a specific time and place. What happens when the film remains a script or the product is misplaced? Checefsky has endeavored to fill just such an ellipses with this film series. While it’s far from a perfect solution, this night at Anthology does engage in a worthwhile and interesting dialogue with our cultural past.