I've been spending an evening looking at Michael Szpakowski's movies (Film doesn't apply here, nor does cinema; movies does), which he sent me on a CD. The movies are available on Szpakowski's web site http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/Some_QuickTime_Movies/index.html, and also on his relatively new vlog, "Scenes of Provincial Life," http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/vlog/ScenesOfProvincialLife.cgi, in which he publishes a combination of new works and older movies from his archive.

I don't know where to begin to write about them, as they put me in a mood in which I'm somewhere, but I don't know if this where is sustainable anymore.


The last piece I looked at was "Cherry Tree and Snow and Sun," and I suspect I'll dream differently, certainly tonight, for having seen it. Sound, sounds too.

The titles of the movies seem important. I look for the title to draw me to the work because I have a feeling for the subject, or it's one I want to know more about. I think Szpakowski has a good sense for writing titles with wide appeal. Titles that work for me are "Cherry Tree in Snow and Sun", "Santa Monica.", "The Scottish War"... The titles I don't like are, for example, "Live Feedback," which is something like painters who title their work "Untitled."

I like the larger-framed longer pieces more, although the smaller ones need not justify themselves, like an ocean its drops of water. But they are more tentative, less sure of themselves than the larger ones. But I know that longer work is the direction in which the work is going. (Szpakowski recently posted on the email list Webartery that "I'm gradually working my way towards a full length feature. On current form I hope to be making it sometime in my 10th decade.") moving. The range, too, as with "Funny Ideas," which I enjoyed immensely, is impressive. I also like the ones that move up and back, creating an alchemic movement of time and space.

There's a signature that runs through the pieces, a sensibility that draws one to an individual voice. Usually, we're not aware when we achieve this, so that I want to make a point of saying so. (Maybe it's just the newness of the medium, we'll have to see.) But the fact is that these are important steps towards a new form. Most importantly, Szpakowski is able to leap, happily, not one way or another. Not yet.

Joel Weishaus