Thomas Comerford in Person
Although he has been making a name for himself as a director of exquisitely quiet, meditative avant-garde films since 1997, Thomas Comerford has remained a relatively unsung figure on the experimental scene. . . . [It is with] his latest trilogy, Figures in the Landscape, Land Marked/Marquette, and this year’s The Indian Boundary Line that [his] concern with landscape found its fullest and most brilliant articulation. . . . It is in Figures [which uses a pinhole camera] that Comerford begins to develop his sense of a haunted present, one unknowingly determined by past events. With Land Marked/Marquette, which explores landscapes historically related to Jesuit missionary/explorer Jacques Marquette, Comerford inaugurated his doubled role as both filmmaker and amateur historian, using intense research to frame his insatiable hunger for images. . . . A sense of landscape as a complex nest of inscriptions and codes deeply informs The Indian Boundary Line, which is something of a gentle masterpiece. . . . The film is episodic, each episode pairing differing views of the vanished boundary line [that divided the United States from Native American territory] with readings from historical texts.—Thomas McCormack, CinemaScope
Figures in the Landscape (2002, 12 mins, Color, 16mm). Land Marked/Marquette (2005, 23 mins, B&W/Color, 16mm). The Indian Boundary Line (2010, 42 mins, Color, 16mm, 8mm, Super 8mm on Digibeta)
•(Total running time: 77 mins, From the artist)
See http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/visit for ticket prices
