Nathaniel Dorsky Movies

An exploration of the cycle of life and the inevitability of passing.

"Temple Sleep was photographed and edited during the initial Virus lockdown. The fly casting pools in Golden Gate Park became a mind healing place...

Abaton, a sacred place, a sanctuary for dreaming and healing.

"A pastourelle and an aubade are two different forms of courtship songs from the Troubadour tradition. In this case, the film Pastourelle, a sister...

How often and varied we come upon ourselves in this brief life. This film of early spring is a second made in collaboration with Jacob, a young...

Look Park presents close up shots of a country stream viewed in bright sunlight. The film opens with wide shots of the park to establish the location...

“This modest little film completely turned me around. Up until that point I had been using the world to make a film, and what Jerome showed me...

Terce is the sixth film made during the Covid crises… the yellow greens of spring at last… the beginning of a greater relaxation.

Threnody is a somber but luminous progression through a delicate articulation of earthly phenomena… an offering to a friend who died. It is...

Emanations is the third film made during the COVID crises… in this case October and November reveal small joys in a melancholic sea.

These four films spontaneously manifested as four stages of life: childhood, youth, maturity and old age. Elohim was photographed in early spring,...

Often I go out shooting with my Bolex in the park’s Arboretum. During the autumn and winter of 2003/2004 I would more than likely run into...

Epilogue is the seventh film in the Arboretum Cycle, a descent into the dark damp earth, a period of dying.

Conceived and photographed with the loving collaboration of Susan Vigil during the last year of her life, Song and Solitude is balanced more toward...

After a lifetime, two mutual friends, George Kuchar and Carla Liss, passed away during the same period of time.

"I have been wanting to make a shorter film in and about a briefer period of time. December was photographed during this often turbulent month and...

"February was photographed during the first weeks of early spring in San Francisco. For me there is a haunted sense of restlessness in its form, some...

In his contribution to the On Art and Artists interview series, Nathaniel Dorsky (b.1943) begins by discussing his childhood love of the John Ford...

A document from the weeks that Stan Brakhage was dying of bladder cancer. Dominic Angerame, then head of Canyon Cinema, and I went up to Victoria,...

William Brown, the son of my dear friend, Owsley Brown, is majoring in acting at the University of Southern California. During the lock down we...