Trying to Kiss the Moon (1994)

Trying to Kiss the Moon is an autobiographical film-poem, which contains poignant home movie footage of his life in the US prior to the childhood polio attack which forced him to rely on crutches and eventually confined him to a wheelchair.
Dwoskin attempts to recreate his past by rendering impressions from his life using old film fragments from 20-odd hours of amateur home movies shot by his father. He stitches together his personal doc without following chronological structure.
The clips are from both color and B&W sources, some with sound, some without. Some scenes are occasionally narrated by Dwoskin himself. His friend and colleague, documentary and feature filmmaker Robert Kramer also contributes comments about the events.



These events are liberated and interwoven like an inner landscape framing one life: all life-connected and film-connected by personal associations and rediscovered fragments. Flashes, reflections and memories are situated like remnants in an old drawer, box or film can. The images are elaborate and extend the film's intimate and integral form of self and shared expression. The thoughts and anecdotes are presented in a multi-layered display that becomes an extension of the self, and the self as an extension of film. The overall expression is that of a filmic selfportrait one that is reflective and open ended.
This cognitive extraction of the multiple meaning intrinsic within images through the conscious manipulation of time is also reflected in Dwoskin's paintings.
This autobiography can be seen also as a cinema of implication in which the uncomfortable, extended gaze facilitates the process of interactivity that is intrinsic in the act of seeing.
You can buy Stephen Dwoskin 15 films box.

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