“If all forms of cinema could link the souls of the world into a loving global unity, we might all see ourselves as one planetary phenomenon instead of a disparate globe of warring states.”
-James Broughton
On a cold NYC Wednesday evening in March, I found myself on Second Ave and 2nd Street in the office of John Klacsmann, the archivist at Anthology Film Archives. We had an in-person screening of some of James Broughton’s films. In their collection, they have archived almost all his films: The Pleasure Garden, The Bed, Nuptiae, Golden Positions, Dreamwood, and High Kukus. Broughton considered himself a poet as well as a filmmaker, and it is clear when watching his films. The film I chose to watch was The Bed (1968). The soundtrack begins with birds, or a whistle? And transitions into an instrumental tune as we watch a four-poster bed slide down a hill and come to a halt in a field, its final destination. It first reveals a naked woman and then her lover. They dance, they play, they hold each other. They embrace. The embrace of the film. A film embracing. It’s a 20 min psychedelic movement of figures interacting with the bed. Making the bed, praying by it, writing, dressing and undressing, making love, putting on shoes, knitting, reading nursery rhymes, a spider on the lips of a woman, always an embrace. Eating, smoking, playing cards, the people changing from old to young, all different ethnicities. Undressing the feet of a woman to kiss them. A woman wrapped in pearls lounging, smoking a cigarette as a man comes by to wash her breast. A priest offering last communion. An orgy. A man and a woman sharing a nightgown. EMBRACING. A film exploring a bed's embrace. I loved it so much. It is a true poetic experimental film. A manifestation of his vision of a free spirit. As James said, “Cinema is a lie in which makes us realize the truth” … I mean I couldn’t have said it better myself.
-Jen Fisher