We were trying to say goodbye to an epoch, the one into which we had
been driven in Apollinaire's "Petite Auto." The adventures of a detached
eyeball. Resources limited, content almost unlimited. Most celebrated
shot: artist with head in birdcage. "Marks the emergence of a
naive-sophisticated style." -- S. P.
Scrambled Alice in Wonderland with brutiste track. Pierre Schaeffer (musique concrete) threatened to sue. "Chases within chases. A mother runs after a child. A man ... seems to be pursuing himself. A woman who has been nibbling her lipstick through half of the film is pursued by a man. The pursuit of art is represented by a painter daubing at a landscape in an empty frame." -- TDOTS
Based on Le Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu, Balzac's Abstract Expressionist parable. "... should be studied by experimental filmmakers in every detail." -- Parker Tyler "We are at the crux of Peterson's genius: his ability to formulate a new perspective and to test its implications." -- P. Adams Sitney
"THE LEAD SHOES issued almost totally without flaw ...." -- Parker Tyler
Man in Bubble 1981 16 min
There is a wild sound in the streets where once bells called men to prayer and choruses chanted in march time to the decibels of an infernal brimstone cacophony from which the damned in a Boschean hell sought refuge in the solitude of the philosopher's egg, the transparent bubble of the alchemical Hermetic vessel. MAN IN A BUBBLE is a short documentary about personal acoustical space in an age of intolerable noise. Some stuff their ears against the electronic smog. Others wear headphones. A few scream and very few begin to discern in the deafening uproar the emergence of a Tondichtung worthy of the urban primitivism which gives birth to it. The film was shot in Chicago and New York. "Peterson has always been good on street photography, and the fragmented views of New York and Chicago have a jangling abrasive kick." -- J. Hoberman, The Village Voice "I think you've managed one of the happiest most hopeful visions of yr life withOUT one jot of sentimentality to spoil it. The 'dancers'/skaters, each wrapped in his or her own 'bub' is a tough weave of HARD joy ... Bravo!" -- Stan Brakhage
