In the Stone House

In the Stone House is a very special and intimate diary movie. Apart from the whirring of the projector, a completely silent 35 minute experimental short showing scenes from the lives of Nathaniel Dorksy and Jerome Hiler in the late '60s and early '70s when they left Manhattan and moved to New Jersey. As romantic partners and filmmakers, they explored similar terrains with their Bolex cameras, yet their artistic approaches diverge in subtle but significant ways. Whilst neither movie makers employ sound or narrative, Hiler loves to use superimposition and occasional in-camera editing tricks, adding a touch of Méliès-like magic to his work. In contrast, Nathaniel often seeks abstraction, perhaps aiming to decontextualize imagery until a secret immanence appears. His technique has been distilled to near-purity, following a developmental trajectory similar to Picasso's, making him, in my view, a genius. Hiler's films, to me, are more intimate-wondrous and densely packed with quality images, in contrast to some other filmmakers in the same field, whose works can sometimes feel undermined by longueurs.

The title of the movie, "In the Stone House", has an intriguing origin. Hiler discovered that the police referred to their home as "The Stone House"-a realization that initially seems odd to the contemporary viewer until contextualized within the homophobic climate of 1960s New Jersey, where it was illegal for men to live together as a couple. The police likely kept a file on these two gentle souls, who lived their lives in a hermetic, non-confrontational manner.

Both Hiler and Dorsky rarely screen their films outside of infrequent, special one-off cinema showings, making the experience of viewing them especially reverential. The cinema becomes a temple. There's an image in one of Hiler's films where a woman is shown wearing a pair of flip up glasses where the flip up parts are made of celluloid. She is a member of the tribe who these films are made for. Hiler and Dorsky have described this period of their lives as monastic; they retreated to the countryside to live contemplatively, and we're fortunate that they chose to share the highlights of this time through their wonder-filled films. If you ever get the chance to see "Hours For Jerome", Dorsky's diary film from the same period, it's a must-see, another cinematic miracle from the Lake Ossawa area.

To preserve the experience of "In the Stone House", I took notes on the images (mostly in my order of recollection rather than chronologically), as rewatches are almost impossible. Some of these images are printed in Illuminated Hours: The Early Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler:

The first opens with stone steps bathed in ponds of light, framed in darkness. Winter shots out of rectangular slots. Heavy snow storm in a metropolitan street. Sneakers going round in a phantom ride on a fairground swing superimposed on daily life. Sacred landscapes at dusk. A Stone buddha in the dark with flowers and plants edited in camera around the edges. Numerous images of Nathaniel appear, the most loving being a green frog superimposed on his body. A Méliès moment unfolds when a blue lens is lifted at a lakeside, revealing a portal to fantastic mythical figures in the city. A freight train rides a viaduct over a city street; the scene, shot from a moving vehicle, captures three layers of motion. Manhattan glows in pink and red. There is a ticker tape parade. Women in interiors wear vibrant, multi-colored blouses. A close-up of a stone-colored viper with an arrow-shaped head evokes awe. The camera delves into stony crevices. Photography taken by a lake show the filmmakers setting up their cameras to capture an eclipse, then eclipse footage capturing light streaming down the canyons of the moon-a phenomenon known as Baillie's Beads.

With "In the Stone House", Hiler gives us intimate glimpse into his and Nathaniel's lives and creative processes. The film is a testament to the power of visual storytelling, where every frame is imbued with a quiet, almost mystical significance.