#nathanieldorsky

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Nathaniel Dorsky  I  2020  I  16 minutes  I  silent speed  I  18fps  I 16mm  I color l  silent

Interview with NATHANIEL DORSKY (I)

Nathaniel Dorsky, born in New York City in 1943, is an experimental filmmaker and film editor who has been making films since 1963. He has resided in San Francisco since 1971.

Dorsky was a visiting instructor at Princeton University in 2008 and he has been the recipient of many awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship 1997 and grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, two from the Rockefeller Foundation, and one from the LEF Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the California Arts Council. He has presented films at the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, the Tate Modern, the Filmoteca Española, Madrid, the Prague Film Archive, the Vienna Film Museum, the Pacific Film Archive, the Harvard Film Archive, Princeton University, Yale University, and frequently exhibits new work at the New York Film Festival's Views from the Avant-Garde and the Wavelengths program of the Toronto International Film Festival. In spring 2012 Dorsky took actively part in the three-month exposition of Whitney Biennial.[1] And in October 2015, the New York Film Festival honored his work with a thirty four film complete retrospective at Lincoln Center. Manohla Dargis of the New York Times listed this retrospective in second place in her list of the top ten films of 2015.[2]

In his book Devotional Cinema (2003), Dorsky writes of the long-standing link between art and health as well as the transformative potential of watching film. He also writes of the limitations of film when its vision is subservient to a theme or representative of language description, which can describe a world but does not actually see it.

Dorsky's films are available only as 16mm film prints and are distributed by Canyon Cinema in San Francisco and Light Cone in Paris. Prints of stills from his films are available at the Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, and the Peter Blum Gallery, New York City.

"The major part of my work is both silent and paced to be projected at silent speed (18 frames per second). Silence in cinema is undoubtedly an acquired taste, but the delicacy and intimacy it reveals has many rich rewards. In film, there are two ways of including human beings. One is depicting them. Another is to create a film form which, in itself, has all the qualities of being human: tenderness, observation, fear, curiosity, the sense of stepping into the world, sudden murky disruptions and undercurrents, expansion, pulling back, contraction, relaxation, sublime revelation. In my work, the screen is transformed into a "speaking character", and the images function as pure energy rather than acting as secondary symbol or as a source for information or storytelling. I put shots together to create a revelation of wisdom through delicate surprise. The montage does not lead to verbal understanding, but is actual and present. The narrative is that which takes place between the viewer and the screen. Silence allows these delicate articulations of vision which are simultaneously poetic and sculptural to be fully experienced." - Nathaniel Dorsky [3]

“The films of Nathaniel Dorsky blend a beauteous celebration of the sensual world with a deep sense of introspection and solitude. They are occasions for reflection and meditation, on light, landscape, time and the motions of consciousness. Their luminous photography emphasizes the elemental frisson between solidity and luminosity, between spirit and matter, while his uniquely developed montage permits a fluid and flowing experience of time. Dorsky's films reveal the mystery behind everyday existence, providing intimations of eternity." - Steve Polta, San Francisco Cinematheque. [4]

To celebrate the release of Basin by Rocheman, The Hotel presents on Wednesday, July 8, 2026 at 19:00, a rare UK screening of Nathaniel Dorsky’s silent film "Hours for Jerome.

Basin LP will play through The Cinema Museum’s hi-fi system before and after the screening.

Hours for JeromeNathaniel Dorsky 

This footage was shot and edited from 1966 to 1970 and then edited to completion over a two year period ending in July 1982. Hours for Jerome (as in a Book of Hours) is an arrangement of images, energies, and illuminations from daily life. These fragments of light revolve around the four seasons. Part one is spring through summer; Part two is fall and winter. 

Part I, Hours for JeromeNathaniel Dorsky 1966-70/82  |  21 minutes  |  silent speed  |  18 fps  |  16 mm  |  color  |  silent

Part II, Hours for JeromeNathaniel Dorsky 1966-70/82  |  24 minutes  |  silent speed  |  18 fps  |  16 mm  |  color  |  silent

The Cinema Museum 2 Dugard Way (off Renfrew Road) London SE11 4TH

The screening will be at the Clinton Street Theater on Monday, July 20 at 7:00 PM. The screening includes a presentation of three early sound films, followed by a showing of Hours for Jerome.

In addition to “Hours for Jerome Part I & II”, the program features the following early films by Nathaniel Dorsky: “Ingreen”, 1964, “A Fall Trip Home”, 1964, and “Summerwind”, 1965.

Also, a free zine featuring writings about the films will be available.

An email from the Korean translator, Jean Hyemin Kim 

I’m pleased to write that the Korean translation of Devotional Cinema will be officially out on the 28th of May. To commemorate this, the publisher collaborated with a filmmaker collective called Lotringen to screen Nathaniel’s 3 films: Variations, Alaya, and Arbor Vitae from May 30 to 31 in KuCinemateque in Seoul. I’m not a part of this screening event, but I’m aware the curator is going to display the copies of Devotional Cinema (헌신의 영화) for purchase at the venue as well. 

I believe that the Korean audience will appreciate your book published in Korean along with these screenings. 

It’s been my honor and joy to translate your beautiful book into Korean

Jean Hyemin Kim

This ten program mini retrospective is to celebrate the publishing in English of a new book on the early years of their filmmaking titled Illuminated Hours, The Early Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler.

There will be seven hosted in person programs in New York at MoMA followed by three in person shows at Anthology Film Archives. This selection of films will open with Jerome Hiler’s slide lecture, Cinema Before 1300. The emphasis will both be on the early formative explorations and a selection of their later work from the last six years or so. Many new films will be screening in NY for the first time.

The series is online here; MoMA and Anthology Film Archives will be finalizing their screening schedules and updating their calendar pages. 

Nathaniel on the left, 1944, with his grandfather in the Bronx Botanical Gardens. Jerome on the right with his godfather, 1944, Jamaica, Queens

MoMA calendar link Anthology Film Archives link

Illuminated Hours: The Early Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler, by Francisco Algarín Navarro & Carlos Saldaña. English edition managed and edited by Nick Hoff. ISBN: 978-8-4940-9766-9

Caracole (for Mac) is part of the First Look film festival at the Museum of the Moving Image on Saturday, March 16th at 3:00 p.m. in New York City. This group show is the avant-garde showcase within the festival and will take place in the Redstone Theater beginning at 3 pm, titled, Illuminations: Elsewhere/Here.

Caracole (for Mac)

Nathaniel Dorsky  |  2022  |  7 minutes  |  silent speed  |  18fps  |  16 mm  | color  |  silent