Rock Ross

One of Rock Ross' most overtly experimental films, PSYCHO PORPOISE is a playful, static-filled glimpse at the interior life of horizontal lines. Electronic waves morph into hand-drawn, hand-scratched patterns and then full-fledged animation as an alarming red background gradually gives way to a more inviting green. - Michael Fox

Mexican singer Alejandro Fernandez's 1995 international hit "Como quien pierde una estrella" overlays posterized images of a teeming city and of a couple looking upward as an airplane moves like a fly across the sky with blank frames that translate the lamentations of the broken-hearted singer into English. The film's title suggests filmmaker Rock Ross has his tongue firmly in his cheek regarding the melodramatic feelings of the singer. But he couldn't very well call it THE SORROW AND THE PITY now could he? - Marilyn Ferdinand

Lesson 9 is a short film about the loss of a lover to insanity. Part horror story, noir-like mystery and disaster film, Lesson 9 weaves together shards of a narrative that has been shattered like excerpts from the journal of a lover gone mad. A disaster movie after the disaster, the film uses three different definitions of possession to form its thematic structure and to explore love, loss, sexuality and insanity.

This delightful silent short parodies feature films that flash the names of the big stars ("Liberty," "Justice" and "Death") before the title card, STUPOR MUNDI, appears. In something of a cross between a Keystone Kops comedy and an Edwin S. Porter melodrama, Lady Liberty, Justice (with her blindfold and scale) and Death form a love triangle, with fickle Death getting his comeuppance in the end. The marvelous musical soundtrack by Nik Phelps and live audience reactions to the film make this a warm and fuzzy experience, despite the archetypal gravity of the main characters.

BAGLIGHT, as the title implies, was inspired by Stan Brakhage's legendary MOTHLIGHT. Only this version, as the filmmaker aptly describes, is "cruelty free" (and it has a score).

A polite graduation ceremony in the San Francisco Art Institute courtyard warps into a tongue-in-cheek horror film and then a parody of television action shows. Employing irony with genuine affection, Rock Ross brings a welcome irreverence to experimental film and capital-A "Art." With characteristic drollness and a fondness for wordplay, Ross described TILL MY HEAD CAVES IN as "my first anti-intellectual film." - Michael Fox

A muscular movement from a Sergei Prokofiev symphony commands our attention even against the blackness of a blank screen. The darkness eventually gives way to a roasted-pumpkin orange title card and images of a lovely nude running through the woods. Scratches in the film (celluloid!) correspond to scratches on the soundtrack (vinyl!), but AUTUMNAL DIPTYCH is not an elegy to decay and death, its title notwithstanding. Every frame conveys joy at being alive (and at making movies). - Michael Fox

A polite graduation ceremony in the San Francisco Art Institute courtyard warps into a tongue-in-cheek horror film and then a parody of television action shows. Employing irony with genuine affection, Rock Ross brings a welcome irreverence to experimental film and capital-A "Art." With characteristic drollness and a fondness for wordplay, Ross described TILL MY HEAD CAVES IN as "my first anti-intellectual film." - Michael Fox

Rock Ross described this breezy, frenetic work as "an original mambo-rap creation myth of chaos of vacation." Indeed, the film begins with the bold, declarative text, "In the beginning there was only Chaos." Nocturnal grown-up party scenes alternate with children posing, play-acting and frolicking on a beach. The chaos of vacation is checked by the inexorable logic of vacation: day follows night follows day follows night. - Michael Fox

Frenetic and impressionistic, this nocturnal foray through San Francisco's streets (heightened by a stop at a nightclub) delivers a thrill-hit of ebullient adrenaline. The rush of excitement, of anonymity, of adventure, of being alive, of potentially meeting someone new is palpable. Somewhere in the middle of this burst of gorgeous black-and-white, the neon takes on a life of its own, squiggling into infinity. "This is about living fast and dying peacefully," the filmmaker said at the time, which adds another layer of poignancy. - Michael Fox

Rock Ross' goddess film. Whimsy. Remarkable whimsy of hyperactive proportions.

"Moments chosen for nuclear annihilation... where are you going to run to?" Working in his beloved 16mm (with an acoustic blues song on the soundtrack), the filmmaker answers his own apocalyptic question with seductive snippets of a relative rocking on the porch; horses bounding in free-spirited pleasure; a shirtless, smoking hunk eyeing the camera; a young woman working out a tune on the piano; a Sunday family meal. Nothing particularly profound, mind you, unless it all vanished in a flash of heat and hydrogen. - Michael Fox

With the single-minded attention to detail of a teenager preparing for the prom (or an actress preparing for an award) but augmented by the boisterous camaraderie of friends, a group of San Francisco men pluck, primp and transform themselves into women for a performance (or perhaps an evening on the town). Rock Ross described this sped-up snapshot, which he set to a mash-up/spoken word slice by Malcolm McLaren, as "made for a time capsule." Was he referring to the poignant fact that youth and beauty don't last forever or something else altogether? - Michael Fox

Possibly inspired by Bruce Weber's photography and, if so, perhaps anticipating Weber's beautiful black-and-white films, Rock Ross created this luxuriantly monochromatic ode to surfing and surfers. SOSUEME is an unabashed homage to the athletes' graceful, curved movements and the seamless interaction of body and board. Set to a Giacomo Puccini opera enhanced with a spoken-word track by Malcolm McLaren, the film provides unceasing pleasure as a hypnotic escape or an aesthetic tour de force. The joke in the title is explained at the outset by an onscreen confession: "The filmmaker acknowledges the completely unauthorized and illegal use of sound and image in this film." - Michael Fox

Rock Ross described this atypical collaboration as "a celebration of abandon in the parallel nation" and he wasn't being completely tongue-in-cheek. VESPUCCILAND is an exuberant and witty dance for the camera, shot in vivid, defiant color, records half a dozen spitfires (including Ross and fellow San Francisco experimental filmmaker Michael Rudnick) frolicking on a summer morn. Garbed in white costumes and ersatz hoods, the dancers embody the spirits of rebellion, solidarity, anarchy and free expression. Guaranteed to provoke a smile or three, and to evoke nostalgia for the trampled idealism of the 1970s. - Michael Fox

Collaboration between Michael Rudnick and Rock Ross.

Rock Ross' ironically titled, time-lapse record of a 1980s Gay Pride parade in San Francisco is hardly the celebration of a celebration one would expect. By stationing his camera at a jog in the route so that the floats and people head right at us and then veer off at the last minute (and speeding up their movements in the process) he transforms the pageant's erratic asphalt ambling into an anxiety-ridden urban expedition. - Michael Fox

DR. HAWAII is a film project made by Rock Ross and Michael Rudnick in the early 1970s while both were students at the San Francisco Art Institute. It is a unique sampler of all the various cameras, lenses, film equipment, techniques, filmstocks, editing, lighting, A/B/C/D roll FX, tricks and gimmicks. These various disciplines were incorporated into the film as they were learned. The structure that all this hangs on is that of a man watching television and imagining he is the star of all the shows... also domestic tension raises the stress. There is no escape... or is there?

Collaboration between Rock Ross and Michael Rudnick.