(WHOLE NOTE, 2000)
Program:
BREAKING TIME (Parts 1-4) (1983, dir. Saul Levine, 51 min)
"In the fall of 1977, I returned to the New Haven area to live with my parents and aunts after being unemployed for a year. I resumed working in my father's gas station and small used-car lot as both a service attendant and driver of cars between New York and New Haven. BREAKING TIME is a four-part work made up of four separate films on three reels. Each film is a complete work itself and may be shown separately. I feel that together they make a different work.
The return to my home allowed me to look back on the working people and places of my childhood with the eyes of an adult. It was a continual struggle to make a past present and I was only able to complete [the series] after I left the area. The work also reflects my experiences in the past working as a traffic surveyor and the automotive and petroleum base of the culture I grew up in." - Saul Levine
1 - MORTGAGE ON MY BODY (1978-1983, 23 min)
Stations throughout Connecticut and even New York City. Riding around with my father and back to the gas station.
2 - ARRESTED (1977-1983, 4 min)
Mainly a portrayal of my father, the blizzard of 1978 and the summer and spring.
3 & 4 - LIEN ON MY SOUL and PORTRAIT NOT A DREAM (1978-1983, 21 min)
LIEN ON MY SOUL is a cityscape of New Haven shot from an East Rock park. Includes the 4th of July, a wedding, lovers, bikers, kids - an ecological meditation.
PORTRAIT NOT A DREAM: My mother's cry of rage.
WHOLE NOTE (2000, dir. Saul Levine 11 min)
A portrait of my father in the last days of his life. "Nothing is as whole as a broken heart" - Hassidic saying.
Total Run Time: 62 Minutes
