| Summary: | AMATEUR AS AUTEUR is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Burckhardt's travelogue of Port-au-Prince is a unique city symphony whose pace and rhythm favor tropical island life. He does not focus on voodoo but on Haiti's "daily life, neighbors, jokes, gossip, small dramas, Saturday night dances, and ghost stories," evoking a place where time seems to stand still. --BRUCE POSNER At 21, Rudy Burckhardt moved from Switzerland to New York City with poet-playwright Edwin Denby. He became an essential participant in the burgeoning modern art scene of painters, musicians, dancers, writers and the like. Taking up photography and filmmaking, Burckhardt "photographed and filmed his friends, including many New York School artists, as well as myriad views of his adopted city" [Roberta Smith] and produced substantial bodies of work in each, blending them together seamlessly in content and style. --BRUCE POSNER 16mm 1.37:1 black and white sound 15:08 minutes. Music: Erik Satie.
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