The Midday Calf

Rosalind Stevenson / 1967 / 20 minutes / 16mm / black & white / optical sound print / 24 fps
With Wendy Stevenson, Gerard Malanga, Barbara Hodes, Richard Nusser, Nelson Villamor, Pepper Davis, and Rona Page.

The Midday Calf is a continuous flow of images in a circular closed space… following directly on Deux Voix in which narrative was still present but called into question, this film works with a physical language based on the repetition of images, words, and abstract sound… the images in the film are centered around ideas of ritual and sacrifice… the sacrifice of the innocent as in animal and human sacrifice… the awaited moment when it is called to be enacted… but surrounding it is life that is lived and goes on… the starkness of the black and white, the extreme closeups, the often purposely unsteady camera, the circular acceleration… the faster the acceleration, the more constricted the enclosure… then opening…