Two Minds about Kodak's new Ektachrome 100D 7294 color reversal film

More than a year after it hit the market I had a chance to try Kodak's new Ektachrome color reversal film 100D/7294 (E100 in still format). 

The resurrection of Ektachrome was something I thought I'd never see, and it was a long time coming--eight years to be exact since it was unceremoniously pulled from the market. It had been more than long enough to process all the grief, anger, acceptance, and finally reconciliation of losing my artistic loved one. Now I'm ready for a sane assessment of this new old kid on the block.

Over the past year I shot 3 rolls of Super 8, 1 roll of 16mm, and 1 roll of 35mm slides. All were processed (flawlessly, I will add) by Dwayne's Photo of Parsons, Kansas in March 2020.*

*Update April 2025: I can no longer recommend Dwayne's Photo for film processing. In Feb 2025 they ruined 3 rolls of Ektachrome and refused to compensate me for the film. In fact the whole interaction was insulting to a customer of 30+ years and I will not be doing business with them again.

(Disclaimer: I receive no freebies from Kodak, nor Dwayne's; I paid full price for everything, out of my own pocket, as I have for decades. In fact I'm a little disappointed I wasn't among the multiple filmmakers contacted for the beta testing of this filmstock, and I'm even more troubled that my friend Nathaniel Dorsky wasn't either. You see, Nathaniel's work is a big part of the inspiration for the color reversal film comeback at Kodak. Back in 2015, Mr. Dorsky hosted a personal screening of his 16mm Kodachrome original footage for Kodak's then-new CEO, whose reaction was nothing less than ecstatic at the beauty of what he saw. He even told Nathaniel that the footage left him convinced of the need to bring back Ektachrome, yet he never got in touch with Nathaniel again...But that is another story for another time...)

All images are actual frame enlargements from 16mm and Super 8 Ektachrome 7294

WELL

I'm of two minds about the new Ektachrome. I'm divided enough that I could write two entirely different reviews: One would heap on praise for this film's existence as nothing short of a miracle, a re-awakening of a lost art form, and an astounding achievement in film manufacturing.

My second review might read something like a bleak, post-apocalyptic, paean to the end-of-cinema; full of aesthetic and monetary defeat and exasperation, finally asking "what's the point?"

And both of those imagined reviews would be truthful. But I think it's more useful to interweave my thoughts as they happen and let the reader decide whether this film stock is worth it. These days you'd have to be either a fool or an advertising agency to recommend anything without reservation.

By the way, this review is about the aesthetic possibilities of a cinematic art. For the precious few of us concerned with such things, ambiguity is a place where we feel most at home.

A "REVIEW"

First, an apology in advance to those of you who don't have 40 years of intimate involvement with color reversal motion picture film. Though I will try to be as lucid as possible in my descriptions, some of this will inevitably fall back on my experience with previously manufactured film stocks, like Kodachrome and the many other iterations of Ektachrome dating back to the 1980s, or currently made films like Velvia.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHARPNESS/SHADOW DETAIL

Ektachrome 100D/7294 is probably the sharpest color reversal film ever made. Beating out Kodachrome 25, all the previous Ektachromes, and perhaps even Fuji Velvia 50! No, I can't back that up with science, but to my eyes, 7294 gives an impression of sharpness that I haven't seen before in any of those other bitingly sharp reversal films. These eyes have viewed a lot of original reversal over the years but I must admit I was actually startled by the new Ektachrome's capacity for ultra-fine detail.

Where Ektachrome 7294 falls down is in it's inability to render shadow detail. Venerable Kodachrome had an especial ability to tease out detail in underexposed areas of the image that the new Ektachrome doesn't even attempt. This was one of the most unique qualities of dearly departed Kodachrome: an ability to pull hints of shape out of the shadows, to the point where darkness could take on a life of its own. For me there was a quasi-spirituality in the Kodachrome way of rendering darkness, like the murmur of prayers in an old, dark church. Yet Kodachrome was a film with ostensibly the same behavior as other reversal films: little latitude, high contrast and excellent d-max. It still amazes me how they pulled off such a contradiction so many decades ago. 

The new Ektachrome is a normal, projection-contrast reversal film that behaves much as you would expect. The exposure latitude is quite narrow, and I would venture to say that even though it is a bit lower in overall contrast than the hyper-saturated Ektachrome 7285, it's blacks seem to "fall off" into oblivion a little bit faster than even that stock. Put another way, 7294's shadow behavior harks back to Ektachrome VNF 7240 in that there's an odd sense of milkiness at the point where the film ceases to render any image and falls off into blackness. It's also similar to the short-lived Ektachrome 64T (7280) in that respect.

COLOR, EVER IMPORTANT COLOR

 

Now this is the part of the review where my tone could take a turn for the worse, but reversal film is so important to my aesthetic as a filmmaker, I'm going to do a little soul-searching instead.

Simply stated, 7294 is the most natural, neutral color reversal film I've ever seen. It renders the world exactly as it "is". It doesn't favor any one color cast or tone. Flesh tones are particularly exact in this regard, and if you are accustomed to dealing with the reversal films that came before, you're going to find the flesh tone reproduction a little uncanny in its accuracy. This is a color film that lets none of it's own personality intrude, and that is quite an achievement in terms of film technology. However, it's important to remember that there has never, ever been a film that didn't impose some of its own character over the imagery it recorded--and that's a big part what makes this art form so interesting.

As an experimental filmmaker, neutrality is not a desirable quality; if it were, I'd have eagerly embraced digital long ago. But I do want to say something in this film's favor: 7294 presents a challenge to me where Kodachrome and 7285 did not. Those other film stocks, particularly 7285, had an almost too-easy tendency toward psychedelia. They could be called on to create an idealized pastiche of certain schools of painting or pop-art, overwhelming otherwise mundane visuals with something along the lines of dream-logic. (In other words, right up my alley).

Sitting in my back room, projecting these newly processed rolls of 7294 for the first time, I said to myself: "Why did they bother to come out with a reversal film that looks basically the same as Vision 50D or Ektar?" And I feel completely justified in that knee-jerk reaction; it's obvious the engineers responsible for developing 7294 were slavish to the current Kodak "house look" when designing this stock.

Yet, yet, yet, despite what my mouth was saying, my heart and soul were deeply excited by this film stock, not just because I like a challenge, but because it is, indeed, beautiful. (And beautiful is not a word I would ever use to describe Vision 3 color negative: nice, yes, sometimes interesting, yes, but never beautiful.) 

Aside from the obvious reason for the existence of reversal, Ektachrome does retain just enough of the color pop I've come to love in reversal film, particularly in subjects like neon signs at night and those deep, clear blue skies. And of course, it can't help but have the solidity and now-ness that only an original film or slide can have--being an object that is wholly unique in the world and can be appreciated with little or no additional equipment or electronic rigmarole.

GRAIN

It goes without saying, Kodak has been on an anti-grain kick for several decades now, and the new Ektachrome is no exception. I don't believe it is simply marketing when they claim it is the 'finest-grained 100 speed color reversal film in the world'. But thankfully Kodak still have to abide by the laws of physics, so it does have grain. 

One of the advantages of being a filmmaker is that we understand film grain as something alive and in motion: A pulsating, energetic field of random molecular movement within and beyond our images, whether they be representational or abstract. This, like variances in color rendition, is a grossly underappreciated element in the aesthetics of film-based cinema; it is an added extra that can compliment, contrast with, and even become its own meaning.

The new Ektachrome 7294 has very similar grain structure to the previous Ektachrome 7285: Its individual grain particles are just slightly scaled-down by comparison. Here is where Super 8 filmmakers are at a distinct advantage--the grain is just lovely in that format. About the old Ektachrome, I felt Super 8 had never looked better as a format and the new Ektachrome retains this wonderful quality. The grain is present enough to be appreciated, but not obtrusive; and the overall image density holds together in Super 8 so there's none of that small format washout. 

In 16mm, the grain is present, but one can sometimes forget it is even there, depending on the imagery. Under normal, properly-exposed daylight shooting, 7294 is disappointingly similar to a Vision 50D workprint. In 35mm slides, grain is nearly invisible. The grain of new Ektachrome is both tighter in structure and has a more regular-seeming pattern than even the slow Kodachrome 25 of yore.

 

COST

It's too expensive and because of that I'll shoot far less than I used to. But it will make me a more efficient filmmaker. Yes, it will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHELF LIFE

The new Ektachrome has a very good shelf life, even when exposed but undeveloped. 

Color negative, on the other hand, should be shot and processed within a month, maybe 2, if it is to retain its intended contrast and color. When I was shooting Vision 3 I really grew to despise that little gnawing worry: constantly having to ask myself when I bought the film, how long it had been in the refrigerator, and can I wait just a little longer before sending it off for processing? 

I'm overjoyed the new Ektachrome retains the excellent stability that us 'amateurs' have historically come to expect with reversal films. 7294 can easily hold up for a year in the refrigerator after it has been shot without losing contrast or color saturation. At room temperature I'd have no problem letting it sit for 3-4 months after shooting. In today's world, with so few labs, rising shipping costs, and minimum footage charges, the ability to wait is a crucial convenience.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Despite the new Ektachrome's reluctance to take up the mantle of spokesfilm for the virtues of analog photography in a digital world, there is a certain je ne sais quoi to the film's plain-speaking rendition that belies my particular criticisms. 

Is 7294 capable of more than the sum of its parts? Possibly! 

I'm reasonably certain there is a personality lurking in there somewhere.

Discovering Color Negative, An Introduction

Note: Everything in this writing regarding the filmmaking process and the particular visual qualities of film stock is from the perspective of viewing the film image directly, on a film projector; either camera original, or in the case of negative, a standard-lite, first-generation print.

Since the demise of Kodak's sumptuous Ektachrome 100D (7285) in 2012, I've been shooting quite a lot of their Vision-3 color negative stocks.*  The transition from reversal to negative was neither easy, nor welcome, however. After 30-odd years of finessing my cinematographic abilities, I was feeling pretty confident as long as there was reversal in my camera. But life is like that I suppose. There is never a right time to lose a material that is so central to one's artistic vision.

My relationship with color reversal motion picture film began in 1982 with Kodachrome 40 Super 8 purchased at a local King Soopers store in Littleton, Colorado. At the time, a roll of K40 would set you back $3.99, and processing, an additional $1.59. I don't know what lab did the processing for King Soopers, but the quality was bottom-of-the-barrel. Rolls often came back dirty and scratched, with less-than-inspiring color. Every once in awhile a roll was lost or destroyed, but King Soopers always happily supplied a new roll and a little note of apology. I was too young then to understand how film labs worked, but no matter: if it weren't for King Soopers, film might not have been such a feasible hobby for a teenager with a weekly allowance of ten bucks. 

At 18 I started film school at CU-Boulder and a year later purchased my first 16mm camera (a Bell & Howell 70DR) along with two rolls of Kodachrome 25. By then I had some ideas about film stocks, having been introduced to the stunning, beautiful, and challenging films of Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner, and so many others. 16mm was a new and exciting animal and I couldn't wait to try to tame it.

Before I met Stan Brakhage face-to-face, I used to see him around "The Hill" (Boulder's retail district near campus.) My first encounter with Stan "in the wild" was while doing laundry at "Doozy Duds". Fearful of approaching him, I watched in awe/consternation as he solemnly sorted his underwear, socks, and shirts. My young mind had trouble reconciling the fact that one of the greatest artists of the 20th century did his own laundry. (Little did I know about the lives of experimental filmmakers.)

Other times I would see Stan dropping off or picking up his 16mm film from the developing counter at Jones Drug and Camera. (Jones was a Hill mainstay for so many years...and on a recent visit to Boulder I was grief-stricken to find it closed and converted to a Starbucks).

But back to 1989: I inquired at Jones about their processing...it was sent to Kodak and the cost was $36.99 per 100ft. (Ouch!) I wanted to be like Stan, but that price was out of my league. So I started researching alternative ways to get my Kodachrome developed. After some effort, I came across an ad in the back of Shutterbug for Dean's Grand Canyon Color in Arizona. I recall the lady who answered the phone seemed unfamiliar with 16mm (after all, this was well into the era of the camcorder). But after a little checking and a return phone call, she proudly informed me that yes, they could process it, and they would only charge twice the cost of Super 8...a very reasonable $12.50. 

I suffered what seemed like an eternity of anticipation/ butterflies during the week it took for those first rolls to return from their chemical sojourn in Arizona. When the package finally arrived, I can only characterize the ritual of threading up and witnessing those images as something akin to a first kiss; or first love; or first intoxication. It was physical...like the sensation you get in your solar-plexus during a roller-coaster ride.

Being well accustomed to the soft indistinctness of Super 8, my first viewing of camera-original 16mm gave me an almost visceral sense of both expansion and concentration. Yes, I had seen some incredible (and rare) prints of classic avant-garde films at CU...but this! This was camera original! Like finding a direct route to nirvana...a veil had been lifted.

From 1972-2005, Kodak produced Kodachrome with virtually no change in formula. That might well be a record for any film stock and it is most definitely a record for a color stock. 16mm Kodachrome was available in two iterations: Daylight balanced 25 ISO and Type A (Tungsten balanced) 40 ISO.

My last roll of Kodachrome 16mm, exposed in June, 2009 (with Dwayne's twin-check number.)

There were interesting differences in color palette between the two Kodachrome emulsions. Nathaniel Dorsky summed it up most eloquently when he likened it to the plumage of birds: K25 was 'male' (intensely saturated, demanding attention) and K40, 'female' (subdued, less conspicuous).

Yet the inherent characteristics of the two Kodachrome emulsions underwent further (albeit subtle) changes depending on the lab that processed it. From the mid-80s to the mid-2000s, there were a number of 16mm Kodachrome labs around the world. Of those I personally used, Kodak Switzerland and Kodak Palo Alto were the king and queen, respectively. Kodachrome from either of these labs was simply perfection, with fine, gentle grain, spectacular saturation, and the most subtle tonal gradations. Dean's Grand Canyon Color produced a grittier/grainier, less-refined look with colors that tended toward the primary (In the early 90s, Dean's was bought out by Fuji Trucolor and remained relatively unchanged until closing in the early 2000s). There was also Kodak in Dallas; a mostly capable lab with sometimes spotty quality control (particularly known for the infamous blue scratches on Super 8). For a brief time, A&I Color in Los Angeles were running Kodachrome and were excellent. After the year 2000, digital still photography was really taking over and the labs were starting to close/consolidate. Dwayne's Photo of Parsons, Kansas became the last K-14 processor, running continuously from about 1996 until the chemicals were no longer available in 2010. I believe their processing machine actually came from Kodak Dallas, but their look was fairly different. However it was consistent through those years--somewhere between the 'true-grit' of Fuji and the areté of Lausanne/Palo Alto.

Occasionally I'd spice up my Kodachrome diet with a little bit of Ektachrome VNF "Video News Film" (1977-2005). VNF came in four different (and faster) speeds. In general, VNF produced a softer image with a rather nostalgic feel. The colors were subdued and the blacks not quite as deep. Color would be de-emphasized in daylight and vivid at night. It wasn't a 'realistic' stock per-se, and it could turn ugly if you weren't careful. VNF was Kodak's first attempt to engineer a film designed for video transfer rather than projection. Fuji also made their version of VNF. I only got to try it once when it was already quite expired. By the 90s I believe Fuji had stopped making any color reversal in 16mm.

Filmmakers working in the 50s, 60s and 70s had the delight of many, many reversal stocks from Kodak as well as a panoply of material from Ansco/GAF, Agfa, Ferrania/3M, Fuji, Perutz, Orwo and probably several others I haven't heard of. Most of these companies were either out of the film business or concentrating on still photography by the early to mid-80s, thanks to the ubiquity of the camcorder. Perhaps I will go into greater detail on those historical stocks in a future post.

I believe the alchemic nature of film manufacturing and processing is a major element in the delightfully varied visual landscape of film-based cinema, but it is far from the only factor. There's also the camera and lenses with their respective quirks (especially evident in equipment that is more than half a century old)...But ultimately it comes down to the individual behind the camera and at the editing bench. Gesture and personal idiosyncrasy are the unifying touches in this witches brew of alchemy...an artist must become the gatekeeper of (and conduit for) this unpredictable zone between science and superstition (as Rod Serling might say). How else could one explain the near-infinite visual variations in the history of cinema? 

At first glance, the recent generations of Kodak color negative (Vision-2 and Vision-3) seemed to represent the final nail-in-the-coffin for alchemy in cinema. It appeared Kodak had finally achieved cold uniformity and computer-like precision in a process that had been, until now, subject to so many uncontrolled variations. (In case I haven't been clear enough up to this point: the artist film--as opposed to the commercial film--do not reject, but rather embrace these variations, and utilize them for meaning.) 

On the other hand, commercial producers see something like film grain (god forbid) as an obstacle to the effective portrayal of soap, or sex...or whatever it is they're trying to sell. Kodak appeared happy to oblige, boasting of the Vision series as 'optimized for digital scanning' (in layman's terms: having color that was neither here, nor there). Kodak also claimed improved intercutability; that is, the idea that there would be no difference in 'look' between the different film speeds in the Vision series (an almost outright lie, as I will explain in part 2.) These changes, when combined with Hollywood's all-consuming love affair with the 'digital intermediate', meant there weren't many enticing examples of the Vision series to go by. My own small trials Vision 2 were pretty halting as well.

Though I'd managed to stockpile about twenty rolls of Ektachrome before it was sold out, 2013-14 proved to be bittersweet years (with emphasis on the bitter). Kodak was in bankruptcy and I was even more worried there would be no film at all by next year. If they managed to survive, I wondered how I was going to be able to work with such (seemingly) soulless stuff as Vision 3. 

Every time I loaded a roll from my dwindling supply of Ektachrome, it was a little death. 

(To be continued).

*Kodak announced the re-birth of Ektachrome for the fourth quarter of 2017: read about it here

**And Film Ferrania is (re)building a film factory for the next 100 years of analog film...with color reversal promised as a first product   

Reprint of AMIA piece

This article was first published in The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, Spring 2012 issue. Though I am currently shooting color negative (due to the demise of Ektachrome in 2013) Film Ferrania is on track to manufacture a new color reversal film stock within the next year.

AT THIS MOMENT

I’m a committed color reversal filmmaker. I started shooting Super 8mm when I was twelve. At twenty, I discovered 16mm Kodachrome. Sometime later, I made a private commitment to explore the film medium until the end of my time here on earth.

Owning the simple, quality tools of amateur moviemaking (wind‐up camera, non-scratching projector, hot splicer, etc.) is easier today than when I started. They’re unobtrusive fixtures in my life and were built to last. Their effect on the psyche is far-reaching, however. The need to make films frequently springs to life in a reverie of hedonism, so much that even food or sex can’t compete. Projecting a color reversal original induces a superb high or, if you’re lucky, hallucinations.

I relish the anxiety of waiting for the film to come back from the lab and still get butterflies when I thread up a new roll. I can’t explain what kind of films I make. I’m an amateur with a day job. My films are public displays of affection.

Nearly ninety years after the advent of 16mm, I am aware how strange this lifestyle may seem. There are other mediums better suited to graphic imagery, but the sensual qualities of color reversal are what free my imagination. The definition of boring is trying to capture how the world really looks; capturing how it feels from an ecstatic state is profoundly interesting.

The ability to shoot, project, and edit from the same roll is a marvel of portability and economy. To work with color reversal is to sculpt elements forged in the explosions of distant stars at bargain‐basement prices. In skilled hands, color reversal film doesn’t have to resort to trickery. One of its gifts is a gritty, but otherworldly, perspective.

Yet I have doubts about cinema and myself. Is it wrong to dedicate oneself to the pursuit of beauty while there is so much ugliness and injustice in the world? Using film today is a willful partnership with uncertainty. It’s a corporeal dance with death but without the glamour. And I do understand the appeal of digital technology. Being a simulation of the corporeal, it affords some protection from doubt and a hint of immortality.

Making a print is the beginning of a more grown‐up effort, as my role shifts from pleasure seeker to preservationist. I do it because I’d like to share my work with a wider public. Someday I may project only my originals, accepting that they may be quickly destroyed. For now I accept the less‐than‐perfect materials we’ve been given.

Kodak’s Color Internegative II film (32/7272) is a high‐resolution print stock designed for low‐contrast color reversal originals. Yet a large majority of 16mm films have been made on projection contrast original, particularly those of interest to archives. In my work, every shot should be timed for maintenance—no change in color balance, no density correction, no scene matching. For this reason, I have learned to time my originals by eye, at least as a way of communicating my desires to the lab’s timer.

My sainted lab graciously humors me with a special internegative treatment: the lightest post-flashing combined with a 1.5 stop pull process. This is one bit of trickery that works and will greatly expand the limits of shadow detail, without compromising density. Shadows are the hinterlands where a large part of the magic of reversal occurs. Nathaniel Dorsky takes it even further. For him, a print can never be more than a facsimile. His reversal‐based films are edited to the qualities of the facsimile, not the original. He makes an internegative of many times more footage than the finished film and chooses only those shots that “translate” for the final cut.

A movie camera and body working in tandem can channel the subconscious. One could not set out to invent this rarified system on purpose. Its very lack of sophistication demands that you mean what you shoot and shoot what you mean. This is a form that exists at this particular moment, on this particular planet, due to an impossible confluence of factors.

Like many, I mourned the death of Kodachrome. My Bolex and I became one with it over the years. I almost never used my light meter with it. Kodachrome was the standard by which other films were judged. Its colors were forged in molten steel, and its blacks were more alive with shape and dimension than any 3‐D production.

Kodak then gave us Ektachrome 100D (7285)—a modern, “T‐Grain” emulsion. It is a happy film stock at first, and I’ve had to struggle to pull up the stakes of Kodachrome’s moodiness. But the initial amusement‐park rendition is not superficial; there’s a youthful wisdom there, in contrast to the stoicism of Kodachrome. I’ve learned to coax 7285’s subtleties to the fore. And I believe, as Stan Brakhage once told me, they are my subtleties—particularities of color that belong to no one else. This is one of them most profound mysteries of film, and it cuts across all genres: how so many people can use similar materials yet come up with such an infinitely shifting palate of possibilities. I guess that would be the definition of art.

I believe that as filmmakers, audiences, and preservationists, it is always in our interest to vocalize those ideas that might get us branded as “artsy,” “impractical,” and “crazy.” In years to come, these ideas will be more important. I hope it won’t be too late. I’m heartened to see a few younger people discovering the sensual delights of vinyl records, black‐and‐white photography, and filmmaking after having known only a simulated reality. After all, a life without a little hedonism is hardly worth living.

Article by Carson Lund

A sincere thanks to Carson Lund for his very generous writing on my films.

Direct link to Carson Lund's Blog: 

"Are the Hills Going to March Off"--A First Exposure to the Films of Timoleon Wilkins... February, 2014

Friday, February 21, 2014

A First Exposure to the Films of Timoleon Wilkins...

As subjects, roiling water surfaces and bokeh are fairly played out in lyrical/personal/diaristic 16mm Bolex filmmaking. That Timoleon Wilkins manages something like a fresh take on them says a great deal about the level of his sensitivity. Among other things, Los Caudales (2005) features dozens of seagull’s-eye view close-ups of lapping water on high-contrast black-and-white reversal stock, the resultant image a defamiliarizing dance of bright white dots and squiggles on a jet-black surface. Parts of Quartet (In Camera) (2009) study permutations of light photographed through telephoto lenses, and instead of an anarchic sprawl of light blobs, Wilkins achieves something closer to the balletic choreography of Len Lye’s films, albeit in a far more muted and unpredictable register. It bears mentioning that this is only a fragment of the material Wilkins finds fit to turn his camera toward.

Educated under the tutelage of Stan Brakhage at the University of Colorado and far from quiet about his admiration for and familiarity with filmmakers like Nathaniel Dorsky, Bruce Baillie, and Bruce Conner, Wilkins sits pretty squarely in the romantic tradition of avant-garde cinema, the strand of underground filmmaking that valorizes the cameraman as a soloist with a unique ability to imprint his or her own subjectivity on the camera eye. Up to a point, Wilkins benefits from the acknowledgment of such ancestry. For one, it’s part of what brought him to Boston in the first place, Dorsky being the relatively fashionable commodity that he is, at least in the bone-dry marketplace of contemporary experimental cinema. (Rob Todd’s continuing obscurity, on the other hand, needs to be corrected.)



Still, Wilkins’ work creates distinct impressions. The most conspicuous of these is tied to his status as a lifelong citizen of the West (Colorado, Mexico, and Los Angeles are the touch points I’m aware of), the landscapes of which inflect his films to a significant degree. If Peter Hutton’s New York Portraits, sublime as they can be, are quintessential expressions of the cramped geography of the East Coast, Wilkins’ films achieve something similarly archetypal with regards to the openness of the West. Big skies, sacred-seeming cloud formations, vast plains, elongated highways, wandering cattle, and vast beaches are all subject to scrutiny. Land merges into sky, thunderstorms erupt (or are merely implied to erupt through inspired aperture futzing), and Wilkins’ camera follows telephone lines along the highway as if to celebrate the freedom of movement afforded by the landscape. In my own experiences out West, such ample space means feeling liberated from staying too long in one place; movement becomes a texture of life.

Made between 1998 and 2010, Lake of the Spirits, Los Caudales, The Crossing, Quarter, and, especially, Drifter—all of which were shown at the Harvard Film Archive’s recent tribute to Wilkins—evoke this restlessness. Four of them are silent, yet the dynamism of their montage and the diversity of their images generates a tone more exploratory than contemplative. Intermittent flashes of bright light (or perhaps merely blank leader, it’s hard to tell) act as optical refreshment as well as ways to transition between rushes of abstraction (bokeh, light leaks, water surfaces, objects photographed and/or processed in such a way that they become unidentifiable) and sections of documentary-like observation (flowers, landscapes, sparingly used human faces). In posing these two representational extremes side by side, Wilkins is constantly seeking their points of intersection, the moments where the banal turns into something magical. Edited largely in-camera—that is, conceived as a linear flow of images in conjunction with the filming stage—these films are therefore documents of Wilkins’ thought processes while shooting them—the flickering of his consciousness, if you will. And they are unbelievably beautiful.  -Carson Lund

Frame enlargements from DRIFTER