Lynne Sachs- Ex. Credit

     Lynne was not only a wonderful speaker, but a delight to be around. She had that infectious smile that speaks most genuinely to herself as a human being; and too, there’s this subtle and keen way she has in seeing the world. Who else would have have thought to appreciate an hour of reflection/meditation between washing and drying a load of clothes?

     I think that her generosity and attention to detail was relayed quite well through her film Drawn and Quartered. In the short we see the spliced frames, like a graph of an XY axis, of inclusive images of naked bodies shifting around atop a NY city rooftop. I enjoyed her thoughts on her editing process, which in many ways reminded me of Mekas. She discussed forgoing preconceived arrangements or order to her edits. She spoke of taking what film developed and splicing it up together as she went, allowing her unconscious to unfold as she rediscovered her work. For Lynne, “meaning came from action as the subconscious spills into work during the process.” In some sense the “destructive” elements are taken out, as she’s not trying to build any kind of narrative around a set of characters. However, in other ways this “destructive” process is a nice riposte to conventional approaches to editing, as she “deconstructs” any preconceptions to editing and allows her work to flow organically.

     In addition, I was curious as to whether or not she has different feelings regarding Drawn and Quarted now that she’s older. The film is indeed comprised of this mélange of selective frames, disclosing intimate portions of the body. Yet, there are never any complete frames of her entire body nor that of her former boyfriend’s.

     For me, the film seems to elicit this fragmented moments, like pieces of an old memory that one can’t entirely reclaim. Almost as if these two lovers are incomplete in their memory of one another.

Perhaps this interpretation takes form only in retrospect to when Lynne shot the film in the 80s. But that’s the beautiful thing about abstract and experimental works. In that they have the capacity, the openness, the willingness to invite conversation and take new forms.