“While most films see nature in human terms-as metaphors for emotions or for cinema; as raw material for human useñ-a few present glimpses of nature as something larger, as it existed before humans tamed it. Speaking also of my own wilderness trips, I will show: Creation (Stan Brakhage, 1977), of an Alaskan glacier; The Wold-Shadow (Brakhage, 1973); Halsted Street (Conrad O. Nelson, 1931), which follows the line of a Chicago street; Second Weaver (Benally, 1966), a Navajo view of humans and the land; Seven Days (Chris Welsby, 1974) and Le Tempestaire (Jean Epstein, 1947), which use fast and slow motion to hint at those of nature’s mysteries which elude our eyes.” (FC)
Fred Camper, who lives in Chicago, writes regularly on film and art for the Chicago Reader and other publications.