Tom Chomont
Directing
Biography
Tom Chomont was a prominent figure of the New York underground film world, and made films for over 40 years. Tom Chomont was a longtime HIV and Parkinson’s Disease survivor and sadly died on June 28, 2010. “Tom Chomont’s films are at once highly poetic and carefully controlled personal statements, and so private both in form and subject matter that they become almost hermetic…the instability of human existence, the poles of all -encompassing imagination on the one hand and nothingness and death on the other, are the notions underlying these works.” – Fred Camper From 1962 through 1989, Tom Chomont made over 40 films. All but two of his films are silent and all are short, ranging from less than 1 minute to 16 minutes. Perhaps, the subtitle of his film Phases of the Moon best characterizes his film work: The Parapsychology of Everyday Life. His films, often portraits of friends, are a lyric evocation of the ordinary world, but at the same time they bear witness to an unabashedly spiritual and sexual parallel universe. His incomparable technique of offsetting color positive and high contrast black and white negative creates a subtly beautiful and richly evocative, otherworldly aura. Since 1990, he has worked exclusively in video. The videos are hard-edged and raw. While many center around explicit s&m imagery, they go beyond the performative aspects of sadomasochistic practice and become an entrée to a transcendent and philosophical other world.
Known For
Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmakers captured between 1955 and 1996. Fast-paced and archival in spirit, the film celebrates the avant-garde as its own “nation of cinema,” a vital community existing outside the dominance of commercial film.
Birth of a Nation
Portrait studies of Mrs. Hodges, Gail Beavers (the filmmaker’s sister) and Gregory J. Markopoulos.
Spiracle
Filmed when Beavers was 18–19, this self-portrait depicts him and Gregory J. Markopoulos in their Swiss apartment. A diary of domestic life, it transforms everyday objects and intimate details into a charged meditation on love, memory, and desire.
Early Monthly Segments
In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his New York circle, including Parker Tyler, W. H. Auden, Jasper Johns, Susan Sontag, Storm De Hirsch, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, and George and Mike Kuchar, most observed in their homes or studios. Filmed in vibrant color, Galaxie pulses with life. It is a masterpiece of in-camera composition and editing, and stands as a vibrant response to Andy Warhol's contemporary Screen Tests. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2001.
Galaxie
"Panic Bodies is a 70-minute, six-part exploration of the ways we experience the body's betrayals: disease, decline and death. The film is a panorama of emotionally charged recollections of strange relatives and estranged siblings, staged recreations of fast-fading pasts and personal mythologies, and reflections on the anxious states created by the body's fragile claims on time and space. It's about being a stranger in your own skin. Panic Bodies perfects the phantom quality of any good work about mourning, but it is not reducible to that. It is also enlivened by the intimacy that comes from having made a spectacle of personal secrets." (Kathleen Pirrie Adams, Xtra)
Panic Bodies
Short video by Tom Chomont, features Robert Beavers and his mother during the filming of Pitcher of Colored Light. Consists of sections titled Bathed in Light, Going For a Ride. Mother Garden, Robert's Mother's Flowers, Time Taken, and Brief Visit.
Mother's Day
Made in 1998. Short experimental film.
Head Shot
Portrait of gay filmmaker and Parkinson's sufferer Tom Chomont.
Tom
Portrait of the American experimental filmmaker Tom Chomont, who resided in Eruope from 1969-1975, before returning to New York.
Lover
1 minute, color, silent 16mm
Gloria in the Glass
"I would say that the films of Mike Kuchar interest me very much. Also, some footage by a young film-maker in Boston, Tom Chomont, his footage (unedited) for Night Blossoms. I was particularly impressed with Mr. Chomont’s footage because it reminded me of the painting (form and color) of Odilon Redon. Too often, the young new American film-maker will leave too many things to chance, thus avoiding that most import ant principle that, I fear, is lacking today in not only the amateur fields, but also in the professional, and that is arete, or excellence." (Gregory J. Markopoulos)
Night Blossoms
Made in 1990. Short experimental film.
The Hidden Staircase
A portrait of Eric de Kuyper.
Portret
Made in 1997. Short experimental film.
The Cat Music
No description available.
Flames
Flashing lights illuminate black faces and dark eyes, oscillating between darkness and inverted lightness.
Earth
Lijn II is a tiny portrait of a friend made on a contact printer from scraps of a film that was lost
Lijn II
Short experimental film made in 1994.
Spider Jan.16.91
Short experimental film made in 1994.
Aquarium
The film began as a record of the painter Joseph Glin and his series of paintings inspired by "La Maison Des Mortes" by Guillaume Apollinaire. After filming Joe destroyed the paintings and closed his gallery, Shekhina, where the paintings were filmed.