by Peter Harcourt I entertain the thesis that “avant-garde” in Canada is an instance of misprision and that the notion of experimental documentary may prove more productive in a Canadian context. — Michael Dorland[i] There is a moment in Philip Hoffman’s passing through/torn formations when we see a young boy entering a culvert. At a later moment, … Continue reading Circuitous Quests: Passing Through Philip Hoffman’s Family Cycle
by Ronald Heydon Day One Writing the first words, always something of a mystery. Might as well begin at the beginning. Michael Sprinkler in The End of Autobiography traces the history of the word ‘autobiography’ to the end of the eighteenth century. The Oxford dictionary credits Southey with the first usage in 1809, and the French Larousse attributes the French form to a derivation … Continue reading The Landscape Journal
by Elizabeth Johnston, edited by Karyn Sandlos and Mike Hoolboom Book Review LANDSCAPE WITH SHIPWRECK is a book that acts upon the reader with an uncanny ability to engage both the emotions and the intellect. Quotations from diverse sources are liberally sprinkled throughout thebook, point and counterpoint, making a sort of contrapuntal music. Lifting you up, confirming, lulling, … Continue reading Book Review Landscape with Shipwreck: First Person Cinema and the Films of Philip Hoffman
by Janine Marchessault The representation of nature has been a central and longstanding aesthetic preoccupation in Canadian art and iconography. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in a series of films that have emerged from Philip Hoffman’s Hand Processing Film workshop located on a forty acre farm in Southern Ontario. Since 1994, the films … Continue reading Women, Nature and Chemistry: Hand-Processed Films from The Independent Imaging Workshop
by Barbara Sternberg BS: Hi Philip – When I saw What these ashes wanted (which I was almost afraid to see: would it make me cry over our loss of Marian; might I feel you had exploited Marian’s death for a film?), I felt it was your most successful film—most complete, most fulfilled in its methods and … Continue reading Living as Filming: Philip Hoffman interviewed
Philip Hoffman interviewed by Barbara Sternberg (2004) BS : Hi Philip – When I saw What these ashes wanted (which I was almost afraid to see: would it make me cry over our loss of Marian; might I feel you had exploited Marian’s death for a film?), I felt it was your most successful film—most complete, most fulfilled … Continue reading Living as Filming- Interview (by Barbara Sternberg 2004)
(16mm/B&W & Color/30 minutes) by Philip Hoffman in collaboration with Wayne Salazar August 1995 BACKGROUND In 1994 I collaborated with Finnish filmmaker Sami van Ingen to produce Sweep (1995/32min). The film chronicles a journey to James Bay, in search of the place that Sami’s great-grandfather, Robert Flaherty, had been and to Kapuskasing, where my mother’s family first … Continue reading Proposal for Destroying Angel
?O, Zoo! (The Making of a Fiction Film) script (HI-CONTRAST BLACK & WHITE FILM) A LION LAYS PEACEFULLY INFRONT OF A ROCKY FORMATION IN A METROPOLITAN ZOO. IT LOOKS ABOUT WITH ITS HEAD HELD HIGH. (VO) The footage was found by my sister in my grandfather’s storage loft. Having been at one time a newsreel cameraman, my … Continue reading ?O, Zoo! (The Making of a Fiction Film) (script)
by Michael Zryd Like all “anti-documentary” films–those which call into question the documentary genre’s easy claims to epistemological certainty–Phil Hoffman’s ?O, Zoo! (The Making of a Fiction Film) must be approached in terms of the particular documentary form it questions and the particular context of its maker and making. In ?O, Zoo! Hoffman plays off the filmic projects of John Grierson and Peter Greenaway to … Continue reading Deception and Ethics in ?O, Zoo! (The Making of a Fiction Film)
TEXT ON SCREEN (White on Black): looking through the lens at passing events, I recall what once was and consider what might me ENTER UPBEAT MUSIC – SOLO SAX (black and white) A man plays a trumpet in an outdoor street mall in front of some shops in Boulder, Colorado. He is wearing dress pants, a white golf shirt … Continue reading Somewhere Between Jalostotitlan and Encarnacion (script)