Movies: Ernie Gehr

Animation created from early paper films....

Film by Ernie Gehr...

A slice of life. An advanced exploration of motor- coordination. Taking to the streets for a new formulation of optical mechanics in a darker key and a slanting grade....

"One of two new digital works in the all-Gehr program, Morse Code is not only clever; it's unexpectedly funny. Having now spent several years exploring the possibilities of DV, one senses that Gehr has attained a new level of comfort and flexibility ...

In this fascinating exploration of the rich, elusive qualities of the video surface, Gehr layers transparent and translucent repetitions of a complex urban street scene to form a mesmerizing tableau. – Haden Guest...

This film accompanies Ernie Gehr: Mechanical Magic....

Ernie Gehr's short, silent film [...] shows two young girls, almost children still, on a New York street. Both wear blue, one washed out blue jeans, the other a short, somewhat poor jersey dress. Both are lanky, weary, a little prudish in front of th...

“This is a work that evolved out of play and a sudden impulse. I had been recording footage for a work in Midtown Manhattan. On one particular occasion it was not a productive day for me. As a result I felt a bit stressed out, and began to just drift...

"a five-minute film of the view west across the Soho street to a brick building. Gehr sat there from one day from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. and shot it with his Bolex camera, one frame at a time. It conveys the settled relief of being home, as ...

2022. USA. Directed by Ernie Gehr. Digital. 15 min....

"This mysterious, delightful film opens with a sound collage of jazzy music and voices played against a black background. After a few minutes, there is an extended shot of a young woman sitting at a table by a window with a slight look of embarrassm...

2020. USA. Directed by Ernie Gehr. Digital. 24 min....

"The concluding work is Circling Essex Crossing. In this piece, what arises out of a series of images documenting the construction of Essex Crossing is, for me, a metaphor for the evolving transformation of the Lower East Side." - EG...

By Rail, To Boston (2024) 17 min. Color. Sound....

Digital. Screened as a part of MOMA's 'Mechanical Principles' series...

The film is a half-hour series of brief close-ups of people on the street, shot from a high, but still intimate, angle. In a constant interplay of figure and ground, the film shows fragments of feet, heads, hands and elbows against the backdrop of an...

Sounds and images were recorded at the Polish flea-market, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, autumn 1989, a few days before the Berlin Wall came down. An uneasy, almost sort of carnival atmosphere pervaded the place and like some magical crystal ball, reflect...

In New York Lantern and Photographic Phantoms, a new narrative lyricism and political outspokenness enters Gehr’s cinema, haunted now by ghosts, from long-ago travels and struggles, that are gifted with an uncanny voice and presence....

Better than ever. 'They’re dancing better than ever,' commented Ernie Gehr's wife Myrel Glick on seeing how he brought these girls' dance into contemporary light. Yes indeed. That's the mystery. That the past dances now better than ever, even while w...

Images of a city, superimposed....