Theory of Achievement

Theory of Achievement 1991

6.20

This short film was packaged on video with Hartley's featurette "Surviving Desire." It affectionately examines the lives of a group of "young, middle-class, white, college-educated, unskilled, broke, drunk" Brooklynites who would love to make something of their lives -- assuming they can pay the rent first.

1991

Mountain View

Mountain View 1989

1

A dance drama work that, through movement and very little spoken text, details the interaction of several people residing at or visiting a motel or motor inn named Mountain View. The work spans a period of about 24 hours, following the individuals through late afternoon, an evening spent in the motel bar, and a picnic-style social gathering the next day. Some of the characters encountered are the family who runs the motel (a mother, her young adult son, and an older man, perhaps her father); a spunky, tomboyish girl; an interracial couple lodging at the motel; a young mother; a pair of newlyweds; a barfly; three people involved in a love triangle; and the punkish friends of the motel owner's son.

1989

Praise House

Praise House 1991

3.20

“Draw or Die” is the divine imperative received by the painter, Hannah, who is being nurtured by her Grandmother, but controlled by her pragmatic mother. When her Granny spirit shouts this command to Hannah, she closes a celebration of personal visions in a dance piece that is close to visionary in itself.

1991

House of Trés

House of Trés 1989

6.00

A quickfire portrait of the New York City ballroom scene in the ‘80s.

1989

Book of Days

Book of Days 1989

8.30

This film is a rich and haunting reinvention of medieval life that never loses its contemporary perspective. When the plague afflicts a village, this world seems to go up in an apocalypse of hatred and disease that presages our own century.

1989