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BIZARRE FILMS of DEVENSKY-NYC UNDERGROUND-INDEPENDENT-AVANTE-GUARD - $200 (boynton beach, fl.)
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OLD TIME COMEDY NIGHT -1969 - 11 m. "In David Devensky's picture the audience is shown an audience. We are looking at a picture of them and they, it turns out, are looking at a picture of themselves. At the same time, the suspicion grows that these purposely gross caricatures of the average movie spectator are looking past their own dark flickering images to something else. As in THE LICKERISH QUARTET there is the uneasy feeling that the actors and the audience have changed places and that these parodies of ourselves, facing us, looking straight into the camera, are looking through the screen and seeing us - and that they find the spectacle hilarious." Donald Riche - Music of Modern Art"An uninhibited vulgar skit" -New Cinema ReviewAnn Arbor, Yale, etc. awards. Preserved in the Permanent Archives of MOMA.BEETHOVEN CHICKEN - 1970 - 6 m. "...consists of chickens being butchered and hung on hooks, to the accompaniment of the Fifth Symphony. As the films progresses, the imagery mutates from the nearly documentary to the nearly surreal. An eyeball-slashing scene recalls "Chien Andalou" yet Devensky hold it on-screen much longer than Dali and Bunnuel. Finally a chicken's skull is pounded to bits by a hammer and each time we think (or wish) the final blow has fallen another follows it. The camera peeks all the while and one is uncertain what is more disquieting - the action on the film, or the ridged stare of the Camera." Richard Koszarski - New York American."Raw and cooked chickens, hanging by hooks, are synchronized to the First Movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Powerful, if not distasteful imagery as chickens graduate to lambs and pigs. Guaranteed to please or disgust!" - Devensky CATERPILLARS and ANTS - 1970 6m The apotheosis of Devensky’s work is Caterpillars and Aunts which technically resemble a Lumiere film. The camera stares at a man eating caterpillars for the entire running time. The spectale is so repulsive that the hand-held camera begins to shake wildly, Devensky himself admits that he had to look away during part of the filming. Thus the camera did the looking for him and for us. The experience is quintessentially voyeuristic, as even the filmmaker did not experience first hand what was going on” Richard Koszarski - New York American“Dave Devensky’s “Caterpillars and Ants” shows actor John Oken devouring, regurgitating, and again devouring canned caterpillars, scratching his noise and head and augment his lunch with the proceeding“ - Show BusinessCOFFEE GRINDS - 1969 8m “A sunny comedy about a young man who finds himself destined to spill coffee on everyone he meets, whether they be friend or foe” - DevenskyEVOLUTION’S STEP - 1970 10m “Devensky’s evolutionary theory...The same man as in “Caterpillars and Ants” is sitting alone in an apartment with an immense accumulation of debris, listening blankly to a fragile Kreisler-like melody on an old gramophone. During the film the camera peers at him and his junk and even swoops around in lengthy tracking shots. At times it rests solely on close-ups of his craggy face (another Devensky preoccupation). The man begins to freak out as “phantoms” appear and collapses amid the rubble. The melody appears once more and this time he reacts to it. If the film’s title indicates a continuation of thinking in “Proof” than what is seen is modern man surrounded bt his accumulations of things, at first dulled and insensitive to beauty (the fragile melody) but finally becoming responsive to it after a harrowing “rite de passage.” - Richard Koszarski - New York AmericanPROOF - 1970 25m. “Proof” is a film so personal that it approaches therapy, but there are certain Devensky preoccupations which become readily apparent to everyone familiar with his work. Perhaps the finest sequence is the investigation of fifty-year-old tombstones in a Jewish cemetery - a scene which bears close resemblance to Devensky’s scrutinizing of old photographs in other films. Indeed, many of the graves bear photographs of their inhabitants and Devensky imbues the scene with that same romantic nostalgia....”Proof” closes with a 2001-style light show and a direct statement of Devensky’s evolutionary theory.” - Richard Koszarski New York American HOMECALL - 1971 10m “a gentle personal revelry “ Roger Greenspan New York Times“Consisting basically of home movie footage of family, relatives, unknown others and myself during the mid-1940’s, I have included loops of certain sequences and actions that have attracted me. Invariably people find “Homecall” a warm film however, upon closer scrutiny, quite another facet is visible.” Devensky Best of the Ann Arbor Film Festival Whitney Museum of American Art. VAMPEER - 1972 10m “Vampeer is told through a color mist and floating vales. A non-narrative film in the tradition of th Weber-Watson “Fall of the House of Usher” (1928), “Vampeer” retains all the genre cliches but uses them atmospherically. A study in color and light. Devensky
Crowds - 1967 40mm
Shot in Manhattan over a period of several years, the main theme of “Crowds” is contained in its two sole subtitles: “Crowds besmirch our city streets” and “Certain elements make Crowds visually tolerable.” I tried to capture the grotesque and the beautiful - following people and incidents relentlessly. Some of the highlights of the ‘guided documentary’ include; a 3 foot, elderly and bizarrely dressed hunchback women as she totes a shopping bag of crumbs to fed the swam of pigeons encompassing her, street trash - both human and otherwise, perverts, bums and other assorted eyesores, exquisitely attractive men and women contrasted against filthy degenerates and freaks. Creative cinematography and montage enhances the many scenes and stories I waited for, or stumbled upon, during the several years of filming. A silent ‘Documentary’ capturing the beauty and the bizarre of Manhattan during the mid 1960s. Some of its many locals include; the lower East Side, Greenwich Village, The Bowery, Times Square, Little Italy’s Feast of Saint Anthony, etc. 40 minutes of unrelenting intense visual delight - the “horror and beauty of the street”
The Divine Comprehension 1971 -31 mm
I planned the Divine Comprehension to be my magnum opus however, although it is complete, I never considered it finished. As in PROOF (and, in part, several other of my films) I dispensed with the narrative, creating sequence and short scenes that capture unexpressed emotions or feelings; an unanswered telephone call, the 1,000 Year Old Chinese Egg, fighting hamsters, a fish head floats by in a pristine stream, all tried together with reoccurring motifs. One such sequence includes the victims of the 1904 Slocum Disaster, the reclaiming of their bodies and the funeral service at their church - which is still stands today - all of which were captured in vintage Edison ‘Newsreel“ footage,.
The Gramophone Man 1972-3 Feature
Calvin, president of his record collecting club, ekes out a merger livelihood by selling old records to fellow collectors. He is however, frustrated with his life and longs for more than just being “The King of a Pack of Losers“. One day, while walking home after buying a collection, he stumbles into nasty Mickey and his “kinky’ girlfriend Priscilla -who takes a shine to him. The vicious and jealous Mickey sets Calvin on a life transformation. Highly stylized, remarkably good acting “The Gramophone Man” is full of bizarre twists and turns (one sequence features Jack Smith of “Flaming Creatures” in an outrageous Drag Queen outfit), With intense humor and distorted pathos, the film barrows towards its powerful finale.
The Record Collectors 1978 35mm
The psychology of collecting records - whether they be Classical, Jazz, Popular or Rock is seen in interviews with both dealers and collectors all entwined with Devensky’s visual and sound obsessions. A powerful Documentary which shortly shows that it really doesn’t matter what one collects, for their ‘missing needs’ are all the same. The final incident is an interview with a disgruntled 78rpm record dealer who tells an unforgettable story of why in enter this business culminating, when, in otter frustration, he proceeds to destroys his stock of recordings.
DVDs are simply packaged and are SIGNED BY THE FILMMAKER. Notes and reviews also included.