Reel History: Dixon Films Archived by Museum of Modern Art
The Omaha Weekly Reader 10.23
(August 7, 2003 - August 13, 2003): 12-13.
by Sarah Baker.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York has archived the entire body of Dixon's work into its permanent collection.
Dixon, Ryan Professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, spent much of his youth in New York, Los Angeles and London making experimental films. In 1976, he left Hollywood and began a career in film criticism and teaching. He made his final film in 1994, and has written more than 20 books during his academic career.
To celebrate Dixon's work and the museum's acquisition of the work, MoMA held a two-day celebration. The three-part program, which took place April 11 and 12, traced Dixon's career, beginning with his late 1960s experimental shorts, continuing through his documentary and documentary-style works of the 1970s and closing with his 1993 feature-length film, "What Can I Do?"
"The two days (in New York) were so good that it was frightening," Dixon said. "The museum bent over backwards to be gracious to me. A lot of people I knew came to see the screenings. The projection was flawless. It was really beautiful to see the films." Dixon called the honor a "lifetime event."
The Acquisition
Dixon's film "What Can I Do?" premiered at MoMA in 1994 after Dixon mailed a copy to the museum and the film department called him saying they loved his film. The museum screened the movie several times over one weekend, and Dixon traveled to New York to introduce and answer questions about his movie.
Three years later, in 1997, he gave four lectures at the museum to celebrate the publication of his book "The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema." His lectures were in conjunction with a series of screenings of classic experimental films created by marginalized directors -- directors that didn't get credit for their unusual or ground breaking works because they were women, gay, black or underappreciated -- of the 1960s. Dixon also curated the screenings.
While he was in New York, Dixon got to know Josh Siegel, the assistant curator in MoMA's Department of Film and Media. The museum wanted to screen Dixon's films, and Siegel suggested the possibility of a retrospective. Dixon in turn told Siegel he was interested in making his films a part of MoMA's permanent collection. Dixon had the originals of his films in the basement of his home in Lincoln. No other copies existed. Dixon packed the originals and prints of his films into crates, and shipped them overnight to MoMA's state-of-the-art Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center in Hamlin, PA. And then, the weight of what had occurred settled in.
"It was a very strange feeling, sort of a summit moment," Dixon said. "This is the Museum of Modern Art. They have the world's largest film library. It's very rare for them to curate the entire body of work of one filmmaker. So it was great."
Siegel, the MoMA curator who worked with Dixon to acquire the films, said Dixon's work is now a part of the collection of the 23,000 other films MoMA has, and will likely be shown in conjunction with future exhibits or during special screenings. Siegel said the response to the April screening of 15 of Dixon's films was enthusiastic on many different levels.
"Some were enthralled by the performances of the actors in his feature-length film. Others were more turned on by the images of counterculture," Siegel said. "They offer a glimpse of a time that remains captivating even though it's gone. Wheeler belongs to a tradition in the '60s and '70s of truly independent, personal experimental filmmaking," Siegel said. "He was really one of the most actively involved in that period -- one of the most actively involved in really pushing the parameters of film."
The Experimental Age
Dixon made his first film with a soundtrack in 1966, when he was 16 years old. The sense of community that surrounded the group of about 100 experimental filmmakers in New York during the 1960s is something Dixon said is unparalleled in today's world of filmmaking.
His memories of the scene still burn bright. He found himself in the midst of an extended family of moviemakers. Dixon said he and his fellow filmmakers shared things, such as cameras, film and other moviemaking equipment, but they also shared apartments, studio space and food. There was no competition; only a spirit of cooperation. Similar creative filmmaking scenes exploded in London and San Francisco, and, to a lesser degree, in the industry-driven Los Angeles, but nowhere sizzled like New York.
"No one judged anyone," Dixon said. "We were all trying to help each other express our visions. No one criticized -- instead, we tried to help each other push things as far as we possibly could."
Dixon said the group of young filmmakers were outcasts from the roughly 5 million other people living in New York at the time. There were no rules of how to make a movie and there was no one to say what a moviemaker could or could not do, Dixon said. Plus, the cost of moviemaking in the mid-to-late '60s was astoundingly cheap. Filmmakers shot movies for free using borrowed cameras, old film and records from the director's personal collection. A 16mm sound film cost anywhere from $25 to $250; "you could make a feature for as low as $1,000" Dixon said.
The filmmakers got distribution through a group called the Filmmakers' Cooperative, which was then located at 175 Lexington Avenue in New York. The artists screened their films at a place called The Filmmakers' Cinematheque, which was in the basement of the now-demolished Wurlitzer building on West 41st Street in New York. Dixon said it was a time of endless possibility.
"It was a hopeful period, in which women and men seen as equal, long before the rest of the country accepted this simple fact," he said. "We knew that we were ahead of the rest of society in terms of acceptance of women's rights, and gays and lesbians. But we knew that, eventually, the rest of the world would catch up to us."
Dixon embraced the free-spirited vibe of the moment and created many movies. One of his films, "Quick Constant and Solid Instant," which he made in 1969, shows images of a Mass performed by the Fluxus Group, a '60s avant-garde group of performance artists. The images -- a stream of wobbly visuals of dancing flames, laughing children and joyous celebration -- seems to capture the time that Dixon remembers.
Another of Dixon's films, "Serial Metaphysics," which he completed in 1972, is the only film in which Dixon did not shoot a frame on his own -- it is made of found films of old television commercials. Making a comment on the commercialization of culture, the film has a dreamlike quality, with images of smiling children, beautiful women and lot of remnants of faux-Americana, all set to an eerie, haunting soundtrack.
Dixon became well known for his views on Hollywood vs. art in the world of film. David Sterritt, film critic for the Christian Science Monitor, said Dixon's work shows him to be a filmmaker who is committed to creating non-commercial, artistic pictures -- something that many young filmmakers aren't interested in. "He realizes there are a lot of things movies can do that Hollywood cannot do," Sterritt said. Sterritt said MoMA's acquisition of Dixon's works solidifies his place in the movement. "His work, as time goes on, will be one more stone in the edifice of late 1960s and early 1970s avant-garde film," Sterritt said. "It's instrumental that MoMA gave up its resources to preserve and show this kind of work. That's its importance."
Ed Halter, film critic for the Village Voice and director of the New York Underground Film Festival, said Dixon's films have the ability to transport the viewer to a different time. "If someone interested in music of the 60s hears a song that they've never heard before that fits perfectly into the picture of the 60s, it would be so exciting," Halter said. "That's what it's like seeing Wheeler's films. It's like there's this other rendition of a moment out there that fits in so perfectly with everything else. It's beautiful to have the chance to see that."