Eureka (1979 film)
| Eureka | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ernie Gehr |
| Based on | A Trip Down Market Street by the Miles Brothers |
| Distributed by | The Film-Makers' Cooperative |
Release date |
|
Running time | 30 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent |
Eureka, also known as Geography, is a 1979 American experimental short film by Ernie Gehr. It uses as its source material A Trip Down Market Street, a 1906 phantom ride which traverses Market Street in San Francisco. Gehr rephotographed the film, slowing it considerably by capturing each frame multiple times.
Production
[edit]In August 1974, Gehr participated in the film program New Forms in Films, curated by Annette Michelson. She showed him a 16 mm print of A Trip Down Market Street given to her by Ruth Perlmutter, who had been a student of hers at New York University. Perlmutter had obtained the print from a salesman from the San Francisco Bay Area, who in turn had found it in a trunk of his father's belongings.[1] Gehr called Perlmutter to get his own print of the film, and after watching it repeatedly over several months, he decided to make something from it.[2]
To make Eureka, Gehr projected A Trip Down Market Street with a Kodak Analyst projector which allowed him to project individual frames. He used a Bolex 16 mm camera to record each image four to eight times.[3][4] Gehr adjusted this ratio throughout the film and sought a speed that would register as being "on a borderline between stillness and motion".[5] The contrast in the image was then increased when Eureka was processed at the film laboratory.[3] The film's title refers to a logo for Eureka, California that appears on a wagon toward the end of the film.[6] Gehr used Fever as a working title for the film but changed it because of the similarity to Paul Morrissey's 1972 film Heat.[7]
Release and reception
[edit]Eureka premiered at the Collective for Living Cinema on January 13, 1979.[8] J. Hoberman described the effect as "a dizzying and majestic play between the exaggerated flatness of the image and the rigorous perspective it represents."[9] John Pruitt wrote that the film draws "emotional power from poignantly reminding us that in any representational film, the viewer sits before a screen on which a world is projected which he would like to enter, or at least sense in an unmediated manner."[10]
Amy Taubin remarked that "Gehr's very simple choice has increased the complexity of the original, without losing the sense of the film recording a moment in history."[11] Scott MacDonald described the film as a chronicle not only of the history of San Francisco, but the history of a film print, noting the indexical relationship between the projection and preservation of the film and the visual evidence of wear and tear.[12]
References
[edit]- ^ Habib 2020, pp. 267–268.
- ^ MacDonald 2006, p. 387.
- ^ a b Habib 2020, p. 267.
- ^ MacDonald 2006, pp. 387–388.
- ^ MacDonald 2006, pp. 388.
- ^ Hoberman, J. (June 1982). "Back to Basics". American Film. Vol. 7, no. 8. p. 8.
- ^ Pipolo 2021, p. 160.
- ^ Peterson 2012, p. 114.
- ^ Hoberman, J. (1979). "Ernie Gehr's Geography". Millennium Film Journal (3): 114.
- ^ Pruitt, John (1979). "Ernie Gehr's Geography". The Downtown Review. Vol. 1, no. 1. p. 10.
- ^ Taubin, Amy (September 1980). "ROBERT BREER, Whitney Museum; ERNIE GEHR, Anthology Film Archives". Artforum. Vol. 19, no. 1. Retrieved July 2, 2025.
- ^ MacDonald, Scott (1990). "Ernie Gehr: Camera Obscura/Lens/Filmstrip". Film Quarterly. 43 (4): 15. doi:10.2307/1212718. JSTOR 1212718.
Bibliography
[edit]- Habib, André (2020). "Finding Early Cinema in the Avant-Garde". In Bernardi, Joanne; Cherchi Usai, Paolo; Williams, Tami; Yumibe, Joshua (eds.). Provenance and Early Cinema. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-05299-5.
- MacDonald, Scott (2006). A Critical Cinema 5: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24594-5.
- Peterson, James (2012). "Is a Cognitive Approach to the Avant-garde Cinema Perverse?". In Bordwell, David; Carroll, Noël (eds.). Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-253-05299-5.
- Pipolo, Tony (2021). The Melancholy Lens: Loss and Mourning in American Avant-Garde Cinema. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-755116-5.
