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In 1968, Noren finished
The Wind Variations
a meditation on the winter light flowing through two windows, as it is modulated and transformed by the window curtains blowing in the breezeand
Huge Pupils,
the first of a series of films that have become known as
The Adventures of the Exquisite Corpse
.
Huge Pupils
(originally entitled "Kodak Ghost Poems") is a compilation of domestic moments, often tender, sometimes meditative, consistently lovely, and sometimes startling in their openness about sexuality. Other than Carolee Schneemann's
Fuses
(1967), I know of no instance where a viewer shares so openly and directly in a filmmaker's experiences with a lover.
Since the completion of
Huge Pupils
(reworked in 1977), Noren has completed four sections of
The Adventures of the Exquisite Corpse:
these are
False Pretenses
(1974) and
The Phantom Enthusiast
(1975), both currently out of distribution, being reworked, and the two most recent films:
Charmed Particles
(1978) and
The Lighted Field
(1987). Increasingly, Noren's interest is light itself, as it is captured and manipulated by camera and filmmaker. After his exploration of color in
The Wind Variations, Huge Pupils,
and
False Pretenses,
Noren returned to black and white and has proved himself a master of black-and-white filmmaking. Of course, other contemporary independents have done remarkable work with black and white (Su Friedrich and Peter Hutton, for example), but if one thinks of the movie camera as an instrument with which a filmmaker can compose and perform visual music, Noren may well be the most accomplished visual musician we have.
The Lighted Field
reveals that Noren is at the peak of his form: the film is a visual phantasmagoriaexquisite, scintillating, sensual, sometimes nearly overwhelming.
My interview with Noren was conducted in an unusual way. Once he had agreed to do an interview, Noren asked me to send him a list of questions, which I did in the summer of 1990. He labored for some months on answers, and we worked together, by mail and phone, condensing and refining the interchange.
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MacDonald:
When I learned you're originally from Santa Fe, and that you continue to visit New Mexico regularly, I was surprised. It helps account for your fascination with light, but I'm amazed that you've not used that section of the country as a subject for a film.
Noren:
The light there had a great influence on me and still does. There's a sense in which it made me. I was drawn to it very strongly, early in my life, a natural and very powerful attraction. An early mem-