Oh my god, it’s finally here.

This was one of those projects. None of the lovely people — Lily Susskind, my mighty co-director; Matt Ferro, our genius behind the camera; STE’s own Jake Teresi, our enabler, producer, and host in New Orleans; Carsie Blanton, our musical muse and sponsor – had any idea if and when it would suddenly (in my unsteady hands) transform itself into something lovely, hard and brilliant, and I had only the slightest inkling (and only sometimes).

Certainly, it was a project with the makings of something good. Carsie had managed to round up a veritable who’s who of the world’s greatest swing dancers – Chance Bushman, Giselle Anguizola, Peter Loggins, Amy Johnson, Reuel Reis, Laura Manning and Lisa Casper — and we’d constructed a tiny crew equally versed in dance and film primed to push the boundaries of the dance on film we’d seen before. Thanks to the generosity and excitement of the performers who joined us, our time in New Orleans and the footage we’d collected was unbelievable. But in the editing process, trying to capture the spirit of all of these dancers and their opposing styles, to respect the dance and still cut it mercilessly, to delight in the magic of New Orleans without reverting to cliché, and above all to fit everything into barely three minutes of song seemed an impossible task.

And yet, at long last, here it is! Shot in the streets of the 8th Ward, inside a St. Charles streetcar, on the balcony of Mimi’s in the Marigny, and in the abandoned Six Flags in Michoud, Baby Can Dance is a celebration of life and joy and dance and a city that’s always pregnant with all three. Please enjoy.

I recently had the profound pleasure of spending a quiet evening at the normally wild and crazy Acme studios in Brooklyn with my dearest friend Rachel Trachtenburg, her mother Tina, and Acme’s brigadier general, Shawn Patrick. After a dinner and a movie of nachos and Sidney Lumet’s Network (try this as soon as you can), I was tasked with sharing a few of my favorite music videos. Most, unsurprisingly, were received well — Rihanna’s Spike Lee/Keith Herring/Warhol/Basquiat send-up Rude Boy and Beyonce as bored/scorned housewife/Marilyn Monroe in Why Don’t You Love Me? are both incredibly fun and really smart cultural homage — but my very favorite video of the year, Robyn’s pitch-perfect (as far as I’m concerned) Call Your Girlfriend, was roundly rejected.

I’m not surprised the Trachtenburgs didn’t like it: in every incarnation for as long as they’ve existed, they’ve embodied a sort of anti-pop sensibility. Their music is smart, sophisticated, daring and different. One of the reasons I jumped to make Dumb Dumbs – Greg Hanson’s truly weird debut video for Rachel’s band, SUPERCUTE! — is the exhilaration of doing something really, profoundly different. Greg and the Trachtenburgs couldn’t be ‘normal’ if they tried — and they don’t. For people with such an eye and ear for the messy, complicated, frenetic, unexpected, and bizarre, what interest could Robyn’s clean, simple, catchy, perfectly engineered product hold?* Still, I feel the need to defend Robyn against the accusation that every character in Dumb Dumbs would surely level at her: namely that she’s just more of the same, or worse, boring.

Call Your Girlfriend is perhaps the millionth example of the single-shot music video, a reaction to the frenzied editing of the late MTV era that relies on the theatrical treatment of time to render whatever complicated spectacle — be it Beyonce’s impossible hip thrusts or a marching band hidden in a field — more impressive by virtue of its unfolding uninterrupted, the video acting as proof by photographic documentation. But Call Your Girlfriend doesn’t utilize the single-shot for the normal spectacular: Robyn dances alone in an empty warehouse towards a (very) handheld camera with only sporadic club lights as support. Robyn’s dancing is somehow simultaneously silly and incredibly alluring: she don’t give a fuck. And there in lies the video’s genius: Robyn’s comfort in front of the camera, and apparent disregard for what you may think of her dance moves, lends the video an extraordinary intimacy. With no one else in the space, it’s clear: she’s dancing for you.

And that’s it. What I love about Call Your Girlfriend (both the song and the video) is what I love about all good pop, especially classic Hollywood: the incredible subtlety and craft needed for the form to completely disappear into the content. Every decision in Call Your Girlfriend — the imperfect motion of the camera, the lack of editing and backup dancers, the crazy lights — serves to bring Robyn’s charisma and energy to the fore. It’s a visceral experience, and it works.

And then there are the little touches — the delayed reveal of Robyn’s shoes, the moment (at 1:20) when Robyn dips backwards and the camera moves sympathetically — that betray how well-conceived and carefully executed the video really is. At the end of the video, there’s a moment of dead space between the song ending and Robyn clearing the frame where she steps up and, suddenly in almost alarming proximity, takes a deep breath, wipes her nose, and smiles. It’s much like the ending of Single Ladies – in which we watch Beyonce catch her breath before breaking into a laugh — and it serves the same purpose: to remind us that the performer we’ve just watched is actually human. Contrary to most indications, Beyonce does need to catch her breath, and though Robyn’s dancing isn’t the same sort of physical feat, it’s still an act of performing bravado, and the disarming human contact at the end makes it clear that she enjoyed it as much as you did.

The principle characteristic Robyn embodies in the video is, of course, grace; an easy, tossed-off gracefulness that says we just used the first take, I just threw these clothes on, and I didn’t wash my hair this morning. It’s called cool, and it’s at the core of all good pop: it’s both of Bieber’s haircuts, Kanye’s backpack, and Justin Timberlake’s dick in a box. It’s Robert Downey Jr.’s acting career. It’s the photos of Obama in college, smoking a cigar. And it takes a number of the smartest artists and marketers in the world to keep it up, to keep it current, to reinvent it for every generation. For every JT there are a million stale Drakes and Maroon 5s.

All of this is not to belittle the Trachtenburgs’ talent. It takes a completely different sensibility to color effortlessly inside the lines than to utterly disregard them, and I am in constant awe of the courage and aplomb it takes to be truly different. But there is something pretty remarkable, too — and pretty unexpected — about stripping everything down, stepping up, and making everyone want to be your girlfriend, in the world of cool.

*Although they appreciated Robyn’s taste in clothing, of course.

The boys (and girls) over at Greth Productions have long been a source of inspiration for us here at STE. Their work is alive and electric – crackling with humor, ingenuity, and a love for cinema that we see in the eyes of every zombie, cannibal, and bloodthirsty nun they throw on screen. I’ve counted Greg Hanson and Casey Regan amongst my closest friends and favorite collaborators since they lent us a hand on the set of Ruchiki, but hadn’t yet gotten to pay back the favor – until now.

Dumb Dumbs is Greg Hanson’s insane fever-dream of a music video for Rachel Trachtenburg (of Ruchiki fame) and her teen-girl outfit, SUPERCUTE! An homage to the drug-scare films of the 1930s and 40s, Dumb Dumbs is pure Greg – stylish, innovative, twisted and absurd. Liz and I were delighted to be asked to produce – almost as delighted as we are to share a little piece of the madness with you now. Enjoy!

I first visited New Orleans this past February and — like nearly everyone I know who’s made the trip — I found myself quickly ensnared in nets of magic and, from the very moment I left, anxious to return. How lucky I was to find myself, not three months later, back in Nola at the helm of a project that combined so many of my favorite things: a lovely folk singer, some extraordinary dancers, nightclubs, streetcars, and an abandoned six flags… the result (in whatever forms it settles into, still very much a mystery) is the Baby Can Dance project, a collaboration with Lily Susskind, Founder of Baltimore’s Effervescent Collective, and folk singer-songwriter Carsie Blanton and her delirious mix of folk, pop, jazz and, in this case, swing.

Carsie, Lily, the insanely talented Matt Ferro (whose camerawork can be seen in Pitkoff’s La Vie and No Sleep) and I descended on New Orleans (and on STE’s own Jake Teresi, who produced the hell out of this crazy shoot) and came together with a number of the very best swing dancers in New Orleans — and, thusly, the world — to photograph their dancing in ways it hadn’t been captured before. I think we very much succeeded. Below is a first little taste of what we’re playing with, featuring Laura Manning and Reuel Reis.

Much more to come.

Rook (Nicholas Garcia) relaxing by his bicycle.

The last few months have seen a remarkable change in me, as a steadfast commitment to my Boston way of life has given way to a rootlessness that has taken me across the country three times, the endless motion powering a thorough examination – and a rapid (westward?) expansion – of self. I mostly feel fractured, exhausted, and underwater – but I’m certain that the struggle will yield a real, sharp clarity in the months to come.

Luckily, when I do surface, I have two lovely travelogues to read.

The Long Haul maps my dear friend Nicholas Garcia’s thirty-two hundred mile cycling journey from Vermont to California. Nick is a lovely, vivid writer, and there’s something particularly refreshing about his journaling style – especially since he’s often updating from his phone, which forces his writing into the tightest of prose – it’s simple, unadorned, but lucid, generous, and crackling with wit.

Speaking of wit: Going Hollywood is our friend (and frequent STE collaborator) Adam Goldman’s document of his trip Westward as he stops in ten of America’s Hollywoods (currently he’s in Hollywood, Florida, having just left Hollywood, South Carolina, having previous hit the one in Maryland and both in Pennsylvania – get it?) on his way to the fabled Hollywood, California. Along the way he’s creating a long-form audio documentary (think This American Life) chronicling his trip and interviewing people about the experience of living in the other Hollywoods. A marvelous project, Adam’s blog is less useful as a travel document than as an excuse to read his writing (and, for a few posts, that of The Busy Signal and Skin Horse Theater’s Brian Dorsam), which is sparkling, consistently hilarious and impossibly charming.

I find that, right after checking the headlines (and the movie section) of my NYTimes app, I move straight to Going Hollywood and The Long Haul whenever I have a moment to breathe and a want to engage with the world. If I were you, gentle reader, I’d start both blogs at the very beginning – you’ll be surprised how quickly and inexorably you’re drawn in to the climb with Rook and Bonesy (as Nick and Jessa call themselves), and how curious and alive the country seems through Adam’s eyes.

For me, their journeys (a bit more straightforward, at least geographically, than mine) are reassuringly measurable, covering actual, physical terrain, and both clear and promising in their unfolding. I highly recommend them both – especially for anyone in the midst of a personal journey right now. Which is all of us, hopefully.

Earlier today, Paul passed me an article by Bill Simmons (for ESPN’s grantland.com) concerning Hollywood, entitled “The Movie Star.” Now, Simmons might be the most famous contemporary sportswriter – he certainly is in Boston – but (to my knowledge) he is not also a film industry expert. But I do very much like his writing, and I’ll read anything recommended to me by Paul. Still, I wasn’t immediately sold when I read this paragraph early on:

Any sports fan knows he or she will be in situations (at a wedding, at a bar, at work, wherever) in which they’ll get into friendly arguments about things like “The Lakers should trade everyone but Kobe for Dwight Howard” and [you'll] sound like a fool if you aren’t prepared. That’s the real reason we suffer through talking-head shows, sports radio and all the crap online — not just because we’re addicted to being sports fans, but because we’re trying to learn material to use later for our own benefit. Being a movie fan doesn’t work that way.

Spoken like a sportswriter, no? I, surrounded by movie buffs, constantly read up on Hollywood and the film industry from as many perspectives as I can (in large part to avoid sounding like an idiot). Isn’t that why, after all, I was reading this article? But the larger point made was actually a good one: competitive sports, particularly with today’s complex (bordering on ridiculous) analysis, offer pretty good answers to questions of comparative success, or whether someone’s work is improving or declining, or which players are most essential to a successful outcome. Hollywood – particularly because many would argue that good and successful (using box-office return as the barometer) aren’t one in the same – offers much more spin and far fewer answers.

But here’s where Simmons got me:

I believe there are 24 male movie stars right now, a funny number since that takes the NBA All-Star analogy full circle. But here’s the list: Smith and Leo; Depp and Cruise; Clooney, Damon and Pitt; Downey and Bale; Hanks and Denzel; Stiller and Sandler; Crowe and Bridges; Carell, Rogen, Ferrell and Galifianakis; Wahlberg and Affleck; Gyllenhall (it kills me to put him on here, but there’s just no way to avoid it); Justin Timberlake (who became a movie star simply by being so famous that he brainwashed us); and amazingly, Kevin James. All of them can open any movie in their wheelhouse that’s half-decent; if it’s a well-reviewed movie, even better.

Suddenly, I find myself fascinated; not just by the list itself (which, to my mind, is pretty unassailable) but to the pairings. Clooney, Damon and Pitt. Downey and Bale. Wahlberg and Affleck. Simmons hasn’t just compiled a list of movie stars, he’s classified each of them by type, almost as if, continuing his basketball metaphor, he were splitting them up into positions. The clarity, the effectiveness of it is striking – because it’s not a reflection on their movies (Smith and Leo, as Simmons explains very well a bit later in the article, make antithetical career choices) as much as how the public sees them. Wahlberg and Affleck have rebranded themselves as working class white (as has Boston, their touchstone) while Damon has joined the classy, old-Hollywood throwback actors (as Soderbergh announced so accurately in the Oceans’ series). Again, it isn’t about the movies they make (did Pitt or Clooney ever do an action series like Bourne?) as much as who they sit with in the lunchroom.

Too astute. Simmons moves on to analyzing Will Smith – the last movie star, they say – and his uncanny success.

True story: When Smith was trapped on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air set in the early-’90s, dreaming of starring in movies instead of selling Alfonso Ribiero’s jokes, Smith and his manager, James Lassiter, studied a list of the top-10 grossing films ever. Here’s what Smith told Time Magazine in 2007: “We looked at (the list) and said, O.K., what are the patterns? We realized that 10 out of 10 had special effects. Nine out of 10 had special effects with creatures. Eight out of 10 had special effects with creatures and a love story.”

It’s not quite depressing, per se, because it’s not at all surprising. It will, I can solemnly swear, have no bearing on what I decide to direct (although, if I’m smart, it may have some bearing on what I decide to produce) but I think it a must read, if only to arm yourself for the next conversation you have (at a wedding, a bar, at work, wherever) about Hollywood – because, about this, Simmons is wrong: film people DO think less of you if you can’t talk about this stuff.

Read it all here.

Adolfas Mekas died yesterday, at 85. It’s easily to speak about what the film world –and the avant-garde in particular – has lost: co-founder of the seminal magazine Film Culture and NYC’s Anthology Film Archive (both with his older brother Jonas), the first film critic for The Village Voice, one of the great voices of the New American Cinema, a godfather of American experimental film. It’s just as easy to speak reverently about his work: his 1963 opus Hallelujah the Hills is one of the most joyous, poetic, absurd experiences you will ever have watching a movie, and I suggest you put it on your to do list. See Going Home (1971) too. But to me and many of the boys who contribute to Saint Eliot, Adolfas will always be, first and foremost, the de facto founder of Bard College’s scrappy, boisterous, anarchic Film Department, which came to be known during his tenure as “The People’s Film Department of Bard College.” It is still a department crafted in his image. His face (last I checked) still adorns the clock in the Film Office, his patron saint (St. Tula, Our Lady Of Cinema) still offers snarky aphorisms (“blame not broken equipment. Your vision may be too small to see what the broken camera sees” is a personal favorite) from forgotten corners of the film building. Ask you then where ‘Saint Eliot’ comes from?

I never met Adolfas personally, but, from the very first moment I stepped on campus, his spirit filtered down from those film students (Old Bard, they called themselves, a term we would adopt as seniors) who’d had him as a teacher. My first visit to Bard introduced me to Alex Kalman (now of Red Bucket Films) then a sophomore newly accepted to the film department (one doesn’t officially join any department at Bard until the end of your sophomore year; there is a process called Moderation in which you formally declare your candidacy and have your work reviewed before being accepted or – gasp! – deferred for a semester or – double gasp! – rejected). I walked into Alex’s room and heard the familiar patterns of Marcello Mastroianni’s voice; Alex was watching 8 ½, which I, a pretentious seventeen year-old snot, had recently decided was my favorite film. I felt instantly at home – a misguided comfort that quickly gave way to awe when Alex decided to take me on a tour. Instead of going to the ‘new’ film building, we walked to a decrepit structure known as the Old Gym, a place that had been a student-run event space until the floor caved in during a party and the school had boarded it up. Approaching a small side door, Alex fished out his keys and, after making sure we were alone, let us in to a dark, cavernous space filled with old film equipment, a giant green-screen, and all manner of costumes and props – including a life-size banana costume he’d made and worn as the protagonist in his latest opus, A Banana Escapes. This, he explained, was the original ‘Studio X’, (the ‘new’ studio X, not so new anymore, was built in the heart of the ‘new’ film building). Even the name was badass. Make sure nobody sees you, he whispered as we prepared to leave. The building is condemned, and we don’t want to get the department in trouble with security. Security, it turned out, was right upstairs; their offices were – still are – on the top two floors of the Old Gym. I asked him where he’d gotten the key. Peter, he said, meaning Peter Hutton, the current head of the film department. But don’t tell anyone.

The Bard film department that I moderated into was not quite so grungy, so notoriously renegade. Which was okay, because neither was I. I, along with most of my classmates, never took the time to learn the optical printer (although I wanted to), and only developed my 16mm by hand a few times (with mixed results). Though I shot everything I could on my Bolex – I still do – I shot my senior thesis digitally, which seemed the only realistic choice when confronted with the constraints of time, money, and my own confidence telling a good story and directing actors. I suppose it was the right decision, but it wouldn’t have been Kalman’s.

By the time I was part of the film department, Adolfas was a crazy old kook who lived across the river – potentially unfriendly, Kalman explained to me, unless you bring him a bottle of scotch. What kind of scotch, I wanted to know; a question that, as soon as I uttered it, I sensed demonstrated a profound lack of understanding. Cheapest stuff you can find – he won’t care, Kalman said, as if in the answer was a key to a whole world. Which it was. Adolfas (as I later discovered through his work) was silly, unabashedly weird and, most of all, unpretentious. Kalman was too, which explained their mutual attraction; Mekas and Kalman were makers, constantly working (and working with their hands), always experimenting, more interested in doing than in talking about doing. I’m admittedly more precious with my work. I remember screening my moderation film, Daffodil, for Peter after getting some stern feedback at my moderation board and re-cutting and agonizing over a million little changes.  After we finished it (it couldn’t have been longer than three minutes), I started telling him about the changes I still had to make, and Peter stopped me. It’s good, he said. What’s next?

In 1963, The New York Times wrote that Hallelujah the Hills “boisterously affirmed that life can be a ball and movie-making can be fun.” Perhaps that’s what I valued about the People’s film department most. Writing as I am from Los Angeles right now – which brings Annandale-On-Hudson, New York into particularly sharp focus – I’m surprised at what I miss most: the credits I conned out of Peter to let me go shoot on my own over the summer (and not be bothered to do anything but edit when I got back), the sets I built, demolished, and returned to Walmart (for my money back! Always!), the keys I stole to the ‘new’ studio X so I could always have access, day or night. The adventure of expectedly finding yourself a member of a club that serves a slightly different master than everyone else; a club in which everyone – not just people your own age but also teachers and mentors (with no more respect for authority and bureaucracy than you, and sometimes less) – wants only, as you do, to make things.

“Film without fear,” sayeth St. Tula, according to The Sayings of Saint Tula (which you should buy immediately.) “St. Tula loves your film. Even if no one else does.”

A photo taken yesterday by Hetherington, hours before his death.

Hetherington was best known for Restrepo (2010), an intimate, lyrical, harrowingly visceral experience of war, which he co-directed with his longtime collaborator Sebastian Junger. Restrepo is a beautiful film; it’s also a film I’ll be unable to watch again.

I point, instead, to Diary, Hetherington’s last film work, which he uploaded to vimeo only three months ago. A dream-like meditation on the disparate worlds Hetherington moved between and his struggle to unite them, Diary appears now as an affirmation of all that Hetherington lived, and lived for. I won’t say any more about the work – I feel uncomfortable doing so, tonight – except to ask you to watch it.

From Hetherington’s vimeo page:

‘Diary’ is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.

Camera + Directed by Tim Hetherington
Edit + Sound design by Magali Charrier
19′ 08 / 2010

May we possess, as Tim did, the courage to live life in extremes, eschewing comfort for that which drives us; the dedication to push ourselves and our mediums to the very limits; and the strength to document with compassion, reserving judgement. Rest in peace.

We’re sorry we haven’t kept in touch (you look great, by the way). But while 2011 has, thus far, proved a year of bad communication, it’s proving to be a great year for work. Over the next few weeks, we’ll finally begin talking about Adam’s new short, Giampaolo’s Hollis Frampton opus, Jake’s new screenplay(s), Peter’s Kenneth Bowser project, Brian’s first festival appearance(!), and more. There are some structural changes coming to Saint Eliot as well; expect some changes to the website in the coming months, to reflect the changes brewing under the hood.

Today I have the pleasure of introducing my latest project (with Brian Barth and Skin Horse Theater’s Brian Dorsam), a four music-video cycle starring folk-rock goddess Devon Sproule, to be released with her upcoming album, I Love You, Go Easy.  I’ll let the teaser do most of the talking for now; suffice to say, we’re very excited about the new album, about the project, and about the work to come.

Meticulously ordered, balanced, constrained, calculated, rhythmical, and yet – to my mind – organic, natural and transcendent. When looking at Claire Morgan’s work, there is, first, the stillness: an entire world frozen in time; fragile, impossible, uncanny, and not to be disturbed. And yet there is also the motion: a sense of wonder, fascination and beauty, of life, of chase, and very often of flight.

The instability of that collision – along with the instability of the method and materials of the work – creates an atmosphere of such tension, of impossibility, that I can’t help imagining reaching forward and accidentally causing the whole thing to come crashing to the ground. But perhaps the tension I feel is less fear of disturbing the work (I am, after all, thousands of miles away) than it is recognition that the work itself is a disturbance. Each piece is a mysterious, impossible interruption.

It’s rare that a work of art causes us to reevaluate our understanding of a basic phenomena; how often do you leave a gallery or theater feeling different – having grown, not simply recognized, empathized, and affirmed? Yet, in Morgan’s mysterious interruptions, I find myself feeling my understanding of death – particularly, of the moment of transition between life and death – challenged, and expanded. A death here is moment of awful beauty, a rending apart of time and space, a frozen moment that revels in its eternity and its ephemerality, its chaos and its order, its stillness and motion.

See more at Claire Morgan’s website.