Wheeler Dixon

A panoramic view of the world in the 20th Century. "Mankind has probably done more damage to the Earth in the 20th century than in all of previous human history." - Jacques Yves Cousteau. “I think every age has a medium that talks to it more eloquently than the others. In the 19th century it was symphonic music and the novel. For various technical and artistic reasons, film became that eloquent medium for the 20th century." - Walter Murch.

Squatters is a feature film chronicling two days in the life of two young men and two young women, who roam the French countryside breaking into houses and living there for a few days before moving on. In the film, the group find an isolated country mansion in the south of France, break in, and spend two days involved in increasingly intense confrontations...

An elderly woman in New York City has a group of dinner guests over to her apartment one evening, and describes the difficulties of her life and her family relationships.

An elderly woman in New York City has a group of dinner guests over to her apartment one evening, and describes the difficulties of her life and her family relationships.

An elderly woman in New York City has a group of dinner guests over to her apartment one evening, and describes the difficulties of her life and her family relationships.

An elderly woman in New York City has a group of dinner guests over to her apartment one evening, and describes the difficulties of her life and her family relationships.

WOMEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES traces the careers and films of directors such as Alice Guy Blaché, arguably the first person to direct a film with a plot in 1896, "La Fée Aux Choux,". Others documented in this film include Ida Lupino, who also had a long career as an actor; Ruth Ann Baldwin, who directed numerous early westerns; Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's film propagandist; as well as Dorothy Davenport Reid, Lois Weber, Kathlyn Williams, Germaine Dulac, Cleo Madison and many other women who made a lasting contribution to film history. WOMEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES features film clips, stills and other archival materials, bringing to life the work of these essential and often neglected filmmakers.

"The Diaries is a split screen movie. It has two projectors running at once, at least for most of the film. I was influenced here by Warren Sonbert’s later films. What Warren did was something that infuriated everybody that knew him, and in fact still infuriates people today. He made early films like The Bad and the Beautiful (1967) and the Tenth Legion (1967), and then he would re-edit them into other films later. But he wouldn’t preserve any copies of the originals, which would then cease to exist. I did the same thing. The Diaries was an attempt to reshape material that’s in my early films; I decided to go into the cutting room and just put the stuff together. It’s really all of the key moments, I think, from all of the films that I no longer felt were individual entities or didn’t deserve to be, or weren’t strong enough, compiled into two reels. I edited it around 1976. It’s really an evocation of all of my experiences in life up until that period." - WWD

"No matter where you arrive in legend, you find yourself at the point of initial departure." - Wheeler Winston Dixon

A series of dramatizations of famous Bible stories.

A series of dramatizations of famous Bible stories.

An exploration into the enigmas, riddles and secrets that enamor and often terrify man as he strives to understand the universe around him.

An exploration into the enigmas, riddles and secrets that enamor and often terrify man as he strives to understand the universe around him.

An exploration into the enigmas, riddles and secrets that enamor and often terrify man as he strives to understand the universe around him.

Yes, it's yet another UFO documentary of stock footage, blurry photographs, and rambling narration that may or may not relate to what is on screen.

Yes, it's yet another UFO documentary of stock footage, blurry photographs, and rambling narration that may or may not relate to what is on screen.

Yes, it's yet another UFO documentary of stock footage, blurry photographs, and rambling narration that may or may not relate to what is on screen.

A documentary that attempts to prove the existence of UFOs.

A documentary that attempts to prove the existence of UFOs.

A documentary that attempts to prove the existence of UFOs.

A documentary exploring the existence of UFOs and examining the possibility that extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth in the past.

A documentary exploring the existence of UFOs and examining the possibility that extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth in the past.

Do ghosts come from outer space? Are they amongst us? The Amazing World of Ghosts seeks to unveil the mysteries that defy mankind's understanding and define the modern age… and then runs out of stock footage before getting anywhere.

A documentary exploring the existence of UFOs and examining the possibility that extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth in the past.

"This is a short film based on an incident I read in the National Enquirer, a really innocuous item about Caroline partying late at night with Erskine Guinness, the heir to the Guinness Brewery fortune. I imagined Caroline waking up the next morning, recovering from the excesses of the night before, and trying to mix some orange juice in a blender, but being so out of it that she used three cans of gin instead of water to make the concentrate into OJ. It’s an odd film; runs about 1:30." - Wheeler Winston Dixon

Three separate events: the birth of a litter of pups at a British reform school for delinquent minors in 1946; a dentist's convention in Cincinnati circa 1936; and common place views of New York City in the 1920s as interpreted by a visitor from Ohio.

A young boy auditions for a position in a choir academy; he is turned down. He returns home with his mother and father where the father is met with the news that his father has just died, and he must leave immediately for the funeral. Upon his arrival at his parents' home, he finds he is too late for the funeral. Later that evening, over coffee, he tries to reconcile himself with his sense of loss in a brief talk with his mother. This narrative framework serves as the jumping-off point for numerous digressions and reminiscences utilizing both "found" and originally photographed imagery.

"A short film shot in the winter of 1974." - WWD "An unusually balanced film, a very simple film (but then, one which knows itself) . . . light is the subject matter, beginning in sun and ending at fireplace, but this continuity is not permitted to disturb the singular emotion of the film. I am especially intrigued by the stops and-starts within zoom and pan movements-these metamorphizing eye-movement more exactly than the usual smoothness, thus keeping the work most carefully personal." - Stan Brakhage

In this film, [Dixon] explores time, duration, and the irrevocable instant when one thing leads to another that leads to another - and then, inexorably, to the final moment when all is called into question." - Jorge Orduna

A black and white documentary in which the director conducts a late-night outdoor interview with a European mod about his life, his imminent deportation from the United States, and his experiences during the decline and fall of 1960s Britain. This scene is intercut at random intervals with vintage Beatles footage.

"In 1971, I drew a large mural on the wall of my studio - involving painting, tracing, and photo-silkscreens - which was located on the top floor of an abandoned building in New Brunswick, NJ. In 1974, the building was demolished. One morning, just before the demolition crew moved in, I set up my Bolex and shot 100' of the mural before it was completely destroyed, and here it is. The film is silent; the light is all natural; the film is Ektachrome Reversal 7241, a really beautiful daylight film stock - 2.5 minutes of contemplation." - WWD

Meditations on light and a window fan for Jerry Hiler and Nick Dorsky. "Warm regards from the West Coast -- I only wish I had seen your films much sooner than I did because we are so much closer as filmmakers than I ever could have expected." - Jerome Hiler

"A brief film from 1974 - really an experiment - which uses eight layers of superimposition to create a work of such density that no one image dominates for more than a few seconds." - Wheeler Winston Dixon

“Serial Metaphysics — a thirteen-minute experimental 16mm film which has been described as 'an examination of the American commercial lifestyle, recut entirely from existing television advertisements' — was edited by Dixon himself, on a single night, New Year’s Eve 1972, culled down from 72 hours of American TV commercials. The film is a fever dream as seen through our existing television advertisements, foreshadowing for hopeful future generations a promised future life of happiness and security in the land of plenty.

“Serial Metaphysics — a thirteen-minute experimental 16mm film which has been described as 'an examination of the American commercial lifestyle, recut entirely from existing television advertisements' — was edited by Dixon himself, on a single night, New Year’s Eve 1972, culled down from 72 hours of American TV commercials. The film is a fever dream as seen through our existing television advertisements, foreshadowing for hopeful future generations a promised future life of happiness and security in the land of plenty.

THE DC FIVE MEMORIAL FILM is structured in five sections: a young man writhing in ecstasy in a deserted house in Massachusetts; rephotographed home movies of my childhood in 1953 Connecticut; footage shot at my farm in upstate New York in the summer of 1969, as some friends of mine share cigarettes in the woods; a party at the Sanctuary Discotheque in the summer of 1969, photographed using the same reel of color film reloaded into the camera at least seven or eight times; and finally the apotheosis of the work, in which a group of young women, arms linked, walk through the Port Authority Bus Terminal in the dead of night.

"The poet Rod Townley, who was a friend of mine, received a commission (and this will give you some idea of how the ’60s operated) to drive a sports car from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles in 2 1/2 days, but only if we could get it there in 2 1/2 days. I couldn’t drive at that point, so I just took along the Bolex. We left from Philadelphia; we stayed up all night the night before, and then got in the car & drove. The first night we stopped in Nashville, the second night in Albuquerque, and the last night, we got to Los Angeles. Rod delivered the car, & I took off for San Francisco, because LA seemed dull and dangerous. When I got to San Francisco, I looked up a guy named Terry Barlow, whom I hadn’t seen in years and years, and just walked in on him unannounced. The trip was shot in black and white, and the other stuff in color negative. I shot Terry Barlow in Golden Gate Park, doing an improvised dance next to a carousel.”- WWD

“Quick Constant and Solid Instant documents a Flux Mass at Voorhees Chapel at Rutgers University in 1969; intercut with the paintings of John Wallington, and Rod Townley on his Harley Davidson motorcycle. Soundtrack: Gerard Malanga, reading his poems at The Rose Room, Rutgers University, 1969.” – Wheeler Winston Dixon “The rich filmic collapse of personal memory into cultural history is summed up at the end of Quick Constant and Solid Instant (1969), a Fluxus performance set to a Gerard Malanga poetry reading. ‘It will take you a long time,’ intones Malanga, ‘to understand why I wrote poems for you.’” - Ed Halter, The Village Voice

"A wedding in 1969 with several dear friends; shot on one reel of 16mm film, with all superimpositions done in the camera. Soundtrack: Gabriel Fauré." - Wheeler Winston Dixon

"Late one night in the Time/Life Building in 1969, the television speaks." - Wheeler Winston Dixon

"On The 4th of July in upstate New York, 1969, at a small farm I owned at the time, local children and their parents play with sparklers in the evening - a very simple film." - Wheeler Winston Dixon

"A brief silent film. Working on an upright Moviola in a cutting room at Preview Theater in Manhattan, 1974. Photographed by David Kofke." - Wheeler Winston Dixon