THE FILMS OF JAY ROSENBLATT - VOLUME 2

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“Jay Rosenblatt makes short, pointed, poetic films, and to see a collection of his work is to know he's a major artist. His specialness has no single source. He's a master at matching music and image, and the nature of his work, which usually involves discovering and using found footage, requires profound patience. Yet mostly, I suspect, what makes almost every Jay Rosenblatt film a full emotional experience is his empathy, his deep, unfeigned and unmistakable respect for life in its many forms.”

- Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle.

Jay Rosenblatt is an internationally recognized artist who has been working as an independent filmmaker since 1980. His films have been shown worldwide, in film festivals, museum retrospectives, and on television, and have garnered many awards. His most recent film, WHEN WE WERE BULLIES, was nominated for an Academy Award.

His work explores our emotional and psychological cores. They are personal in their approach yet universal in their appeal. The germ of a film for Rosenblatt is his own experience. “The point of departure for PHANTOM LIMB is the trauma, the death of my brother. I use that as a starting off point to discuss grief and loss. I didn’t know how I would do it but that’s what I wanted to do. HUMAN REMAINS, on the other hand, started by coming across an image that triggered something. I was looking for certain footage for my film KING OF THE JEWS, and came across footage of Hitler eating, I found this very disturbing because I saw him as a monster not human. This was the beginning of HUMAN REMAINS.”

The death of a child triggers this collection of personal reflections on grief and loss. (Phantom Limb is the illusion that a limb still exists after it has been amputated).

In terms of structuring his films, Rosenblatt has noted that “the editing process is also the writing of the film.  The way I construct fim, it would be very hard to imagine anyone else doing the editing.  Especially with documentary film, I feel the editor is on an equal footing with the director: coming up with a structure, making sense of the material, a lot of the filmmaking is editing.”

In terms of his creative manipulation of the found footage, the filmmaker has noted “I find it fascinating when you know the original context and be able to completely re-contextualize it. But it’s not always essential that I know the original context. A lot of the time I can try to figure out based on some of the image, sound, since I’m looking at old educational films in the public domain. Most of the time I do know the original context, and other times, it’s the original context that leads me to the footage.  Take the example of the scene of amputation in PHANTOM LIMB.  My assistant was looking through reels of film in search of some footage, and we came across a clip labeled “Hot and Cold Treatments in Hospital Setting.” It may not have meant anything to us at the time – and we could have easily skipped it – but when we gave it a try, we found that amputation scene. The film would have been a completely different work without it.”

Rosenblatt also refashions the sound track, rather than utilizing the audio from the source footage. “I rely on voiceover a lot...I also rely on music, sound effects, and sometimes silence. I rarely, if ever, have used the original sound of the footage – a lot of it is a bit kitschy, given the era to which it belongs. With the original sound attached, you really can’t recontextualize, and even the silence is orchestrated. When you pull the sound, sometimes the images just pop out of the background, making it an especially potent tool.”

As a result of his creative reworking of all this found footage material into tightly structured collage films of condensed length, Rosenblatt elevates the short film format to an art form. He has remarked that “A lot of people look at shorts as a calling card to making a feature. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked when I was going to make a feature. I have nothing against features, it’s just that it’s not my goal to make a feature. You know, there are a lot of great short story writers who don’t write novels.”

 

THE FILMS OF JAY ROSENBLATT - VOLUME 2
(US, 2002-2011)

Director: Jay Rosenblatt

AFRAID SO (2006, 2:42)
PHANTOM LIMB (2005, 27:59)
I JUST WANTED TO BE SOMEBODY (2006, 10:04)
THE DARKNESS OF DAY (2009, 28:06)
PRAYER (2002, 2:48)
THE D TRAIN
 (2011, 4:55)


Bonus Materials
NINE LIVES: THE ETERNAL MOMENT OF NOW(2001, 1:26)
WAY TO YOUR HEART (2011, 3:19)
WORM (2001, 1:54) co-directed with Caveh Zahedi

Bonus Material included with DVD

BRAIN IN THE DESERT (1990, 4:23 ) co-directed with Jennifer Frame
Distribution Format/s: DSL/Downloadable Standard Definition file/s on server; DVD

Total Running Time: 01:21:00

Language: English

Booklet Text: Michael Rabiger

Published By: Locomotion Films

Institutional Price: DSL $500; DVD $295

To order call: 212.280.8654 or click here for information on ordering by fax, e-mail or post.