Bob Cowan

Monsters from space attack earth, two scientists and a couple of teenagers try to stop the extraterrestrial invaders.

"Just what it says." –B. C.

Seadrift is based on a story The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft, and was shot partially in Marblehead Mass. Each section represents a synthesis of the various aspects and moods of the story. The sum total of the fragments expresses the atmosphere of the whole.

The Shadow Glass is roughly based on Ewers' 'Student of Prague'. It concerns a young man who, feeling incapable of surmounting the harsh realities of love and life, sends his reflection cut to procure and win for him the object of his desire. Rather than being his servant and slave, the reflection takes over and controls the life of the man. In frustration and anger the man kills his reflection in order to be set free. The reality of the situation is the reality of suicide. The entire film could be interpreted as taking place in a brief second–for as long as it takes pull the trigger.

"Just what it says." –B. C.

A ritualistic mood piece with colour-rich images

A ritualistic mood piece with colour-rich images

Described (rather cheekily) by director Michael Snow as a musical comedy, this deft probing of sound/image relationships is one of his wittiest, most entertaining and philosophically stimulating films. In his words, the film “derives its form and the nature of its possible effects from its being built from the inside, as it were, with the actual units of such a film, i.e. the frame and the recorded syllable. Thus its ‘dramatic’ element derives not only from a representation of what may involve us generally in life but from considerations of the nature of recorded speech in relation to moving light-images of people.’”

This movie was made mostly in Brooklyn during some very hot and empty evenings. Since the evenings were so empty, Jane Elford, the star, urged me to get started making another movie (we had completed PAGAN RHAPSODY the year before). I said "okay," and launched her in a photographed series of telephone calls, not really knowing who was going to be on the other end. I was interested at the time in irrational, neurotic responses and so the heroine was put into unstable situations that I dreamt up because I was making a movie with a plot and there should be some action .... Many of the stars appear nude and all I can say is that because of the heat and the general, overall feeling of the film which is one of the usual desperation and explosive emotions, I couldn't see any other way of them playing it. The general tone of everything was ... "Why even bother to get dressed?"

Edgar, an aristocrat, commissions Camillo to write a play based on an affair he had ten years ago with the Countess del Monaco. But Edgar first has to find a suitable actress to play the Countess – his search will lead to his own death.

A dance-music-processional homage to the life force, a unification of nature and man, shot in San Francisco, Yosemite and New Mexico; made on a grant from the Canada Council. –B. C.

"From the way the film begins, and the way the outside images are used, it is clear that they are not intended to be entirely specific to the girl; not, say, to represent her 'thoughts.' The objects and images are rather metaphors–i. e., the pale, barren snow scenes–for the girl's state. Further, they place her isolation in a more general context than that of a single person's experience. The film creates a whole system which describes that isolation. This is made clearer still by the end, which alters the girl's color and removes her from her relatively personalized room." –B. C.

Mike Kuchar'ss lyrical portrait of everyday life, from making art to making love, all as the Vietnam War rages.

Ken Jacobs’s most elusive and mysterious film is at once an allegory of movie-making, a demonstration of 8mm versatility, and a celebration of a now vanished neighborhood beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

"Parts of this film were shot for a mixed media show at the 'Electric Circus' in New York, and were later expanded and re-edited into the present form. A semi-documentary that gradually expands to a pure sight and sound experience. Music by Chambers Brothers." –B. C.

"A personal melancholia concerning the death of my mother with my own personal memoir images of school, home, lost first love and fears of my own obliteration. Made on a grant from the Canada Council." –B. C.

An abstract, rhythmically cut film with various images of women, some of whom are dancers. The sound track, which is semi-electronic, is composed and played by Cowan. –B. C.

" ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE BLESSED culminates my involvement with artist Red Grooms and Mimi Gross. It is a diary of our work as we head for the Pacific Ocean in a suicidal plunge for theatrical infamy. The film traces the construction of two craven images made in the likeness of myself by Grooms and Gross. Then it switches to the sandhills of Nebraska where fat cattle walk around. There the film explores Grooms' biggest construction, "The Chicago Installation." The film rolls relentlessly onward to the West Coast showing, for the first time on any screen, a theatrical production we three put in the University of California. It marks my directorial debut on the stage and Red Grooms' comeback after ten years of exile from live theatre." - George Kuchar

A desperate, married woman meets a mysterious man who she blatantly desires. Through some twists and turns, things do not go over as well as she seems to wish.

A teenager and his girlfriend must save the world from "eye" aliens after their attempts to convince authorities of an invasion fall on deaf ears.

"SOUL FREEZE is Cowan's masterpiece to date, and one of the most consciously anguished of films. It is centered around a man who is being 'tempted' by female sexuality."–Fred Camper

A special guest appearance by Canadian TV star Bill Ronald along with the massive presence of "Mrs. Bronx" herself, Frances Leibowitz, and her girlfriend Iris, make this film a must-see for travel enthusiasts...

"A tribute to overwhelming nature, this film is rich in both color and sound. A combination of original footage and images from children's books, text books, etc." –B. C.

A young man's struggle with his sexuality overtakes his life, driving him deep into his subconscious where guilt and fears of physicality chase him still further. Cornered by an intangible terror, he realises he must either break out or break down.

A young man's struggle with his sexuality overtakes his life, driving him deep into his subconscious where guilt and fears of physicality chase him still further. Cornered by an intangible terror, he realises he must either break out or break down.

Experimental short

"A film counterpointing the hard reality of the present with the fantastic actuality or imagining of the idyllic past. This is best realized in the halting transition from the journey through time back to the watery one that evoked." –Ken Kelman

The survivors of a nuclear war are taken care of by robots called "fleshapoids." One day one of the fleshapoids runs wild, kills its "mistress," and hides in the home of a human female, for whom it begins to develop feelings.

"A tribute to overwhelming nature, this film is rich in both color and sound. A combination of original footage and images from children's books, text books, etc." –B. C.

“LUST FOR ECSTASY is my most ambitious attempt since my last film…. I wrote many of the pungent scenes on the D train, and when I arrived on the set I ripped them up and let my emotional whims make chopped meat out of the performances and the story…. Yes, LUST FOR ECSTASY is my subconscious, my own naked lusts that sweep across the screen in 8mm and color with full fidelity sound.” – George Kuchar

A tender and realistic story of a scientist who falls in love with a mummy he has restored to life.

The film combines teenage lust and deranged delinquency to create a cautionary tale for the ages.

“It glows with the embers of desire! It smokes with the revelation of men and women longing for robust temptations that will make them sizzle into maturity with a furnace-blast of unrestrained animalism. A film for young and old to enjoy.” —George Kuchar

An insane, deformed killer stalks the grounds of a resort house, bringing sudden violence to those of easy virtue and godlessness.