Rodney Werden

Filmes

Whatever Is A Colour Is Necessarily Red
Director
Location, the gravel pit. Two adolescent women debate the premise, Whatever Is A Colour Is Necessarily Red, while their contemporaries cheer and heckle their efforts. The debate, Whatever is a colour is necessarily red, is a Buddhist classic written for very young students who merely have to memorize their parts. The purpose is to set the paradigm for unscripted debating and to instill the value of discussion. There is no winner or loser, only a challenger and defender who both desire to know the truth of something as revealed through the process. In practice monastic debating is a sport performed outdoors in front of an audience who cheers, hisses and boos often at any hesitation or incorrect responses. In my representation of the monastic debating I use the metaphor of throwing and catching a ball.
Money Talks Bullshit Walks
Director
"Money Talks Bullshit Walks is a quote from a prostitute I picked up off Church Street in the winter of 1985. During this time, I picked up and interviewed nine hookers. The tape is an assemblage of this information." -R.W.
Blue Moon
Director
The audience observes the parallel events of a prostitute servicing a client intercut with a film producer visiting an old friend and guiltily offering him money for sex. "In a month of the blue moon a victim may rail with heroic defiance, but humiliation and restoration of order are inevitable." -Andrew Paterson, Parachute, February 1984
Snip, Snip
Director
Mary Brown, the head of Ontario's Censor Board, spends an afternoon with the gals cut, cut, cutting.
He's a Growing Boy, She's Turning Forty
Camera Operator
Two main characters, a young gay man, and his female (heterosexual) boss exchange stories about their personal problems, (his difficulties about being gay, and his fears about losing his job because of it). She talks of her neglectful husband whom she suspects is having an affair with another woman.
He's a Growing Boy, She's Turning Forty
Two main characters, a young gay man, and his female (heterosexual) boss exchange stories about their personal problems, (his difficulties about being gay, and his fears about losing his job because of it). She talks of her neglectful husband whom she suspects is having an affair with another woman.
“I Bet You Ain’t Seen Noth’n Like This Before
Director
Far less withholding is Werden’s most astonishing tape, “I Bet You Ain’t Seen Noth’n Like This Before,” one of a series of conversations conducted with sex workers and fetishists. In the video, Werden speaks with an older man who sits naked at home. The man explains that he has the ability to penetrate himself with his own penis, and then performs the act for the unblinking camera, ultimately reaching climax by rubbing up against a set of audio speakers emitting pulses of shortwave radio noise. “The tape is devastating,” Greyson wrote. “Its impact lies in the implicit collaboration between the subject and the producer—indeed, the subject controls everything that occurs. There is no possibility of exploitation, for Werden has refused to comment, moralize, or otherwise frame the experience of this very articulate gentleman: what you see is what you get, and I bet you ain't seen nothing like this before…”
Bad Girls
A sequel to Modern Love, Bad Girls chronicles the rise and fall of Robin and Heide at the Cabana Room as a two-woman band called Robin and the Robots. They are terrible and become an overnight success. The worldly European, Heide, becomes a cocaine addict, but plays her cards right, keeps her mouth shut, and becomes the new (solo) Diva of the Cabana Room with an avant-garde swastika and combat-gear skinhead act. Robin does talk shows (and gets sued), has a lesbian affair with her manager, the fascistic Ms. Susan (and gets burned), and finally does a nude photo session (and gets fired).
Modern Love
Technical Advisor
Modern Love is the story of Xerox operator, Robin, who falls in love with a sleazy show business type named Lamont Del Monte. Their disastrous love affair is paralleled by a frustrating relationship between Heidi (who only speaks German) and Pierre (who only speaks French).
Modern Love
Heidi
Modern Love is the story of Xerox operator, Robin, who falls in love with a sleazy show business type named Lamont Del Monte. Their disastrous love affair is paralleled by a frustrating relationship between Heidi (who only speaks German) and Pierre (who only speaks French).
Say
Director
A stationary woman is asked to repeat words as commanded by a voice off-camera. Say......
Call Roger
Director
"Male model available for life drawing and photography. Call Roger 961-1310". As Roger poses provocatively for a still camera, respondents to his newspaper ad provide the voice over.
I'm Sorry
Director
The punishment for guilt and remorse is carried out for the video camera through several brisk strokes with a riding crop on bare buttocks.
Baby Dolls
Director
May I, Can I
Director
An anonymous off-camera group examine a nude woman for "agreeability." Sexual themes and allegorical structures serve as the vehicle for the narrative. The tape consists of close up shots of a nude woman with off-camera voice over.