Tuesday, November 12, 2024 at 7:30pm
Two Films by Joe Gibbons

361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn

Spying, Joe Gibbons, 1978, 16mm (blown up from Super-8), 32 mins

Spying is equal parts diary film, structural film and conceptual film. The filmmaker ‘spies’ on neighbors, passersby and day workers—whomever is visible from the vantage point of his camera as he gazes across the San Francisco cityscape. The film is a subjective portrait of the neighborhood: the routines of the inhabitants, their unconscious gestures of domesticity, an intimate look into the private moments of strangers as they are caught unawares by the voyeurism of Joe’s camera. It’s an aggressive film in it’s Rear Window quality but also a film that exposes the pathos of a loner as he gazes onto the lives of others who are active, have relationships, lovers, pets and manage to accomplish the small tasks of daily life. Spying is the ultimate home movie.“

- Peggy Ahwesh

Confidential Part 2, Joe Gibbons, 1980, 16mm (blown up from Super-8), 26 mins

Confidential, Gibbons’ most powerful film and a worthy companion to his silent Spying, is a series of unedited three-and-a-half-minute camera rolls in which he speaks to the camera about their ‘relationship.’ The most startling aspect of the film is that Gibbons is clearly not talking to the audience—the sequences are mainly midnight tête-à-têtes, which the viewer self-consciously overhears. Over the period of forty minutes, Gibbons confides in, coddles, apologizes to, berates (‘you can't even be objective!’), and ultimately attacks the machine.”

- J. Hoberman

16mm preservation prints courtesy of the Film and Electronic Arts Program, Bard College.

Tickets - Pay what you can ($10 suggested donation), available at door.

Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served. Box office opens at 7pm. No entry 10 minutes after start of show.