T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G uses flickering frames of solid color juxtaposed with positive and negative still images of a man—sometimes cutting off his own tongue with glitter-covered scissors, sometimes suffering a series of glitter-stained fingernail scratches across the face. Other rapidly alternating still images of eye surgery and a couple in the midst of intercourse. The soundtrack is a continuous looped recording of the word "destroy" over the entire length of the film.
Single frame exposures of words.
Sharits produced Color Sound Frames by rephotographing strips of his previous films. He moved the strips, singly and in pairs, across a light table in front of the camera at various speeds. Sprocket holes of the original strips are visible at the edges of the frame, and the soundtrack of this film replicates the rat-a-tat of silent film sprocket holes played with the sound on. - CMOA
Two reels of mis-takes in shooting Part II of 3RD DEGREE. Film was loaded in camera improperly and the image slides about off-center and becomes blurred – creating some rather amusing and mysterious imagery. A made “found” object. —ubu.com
“The screen, illuminated by Paul Sharits’ N:O:T:H:I:N:G, seems to assume a spherical shape, at times – due, I think, to a pearl-like quality of light his flash-frames create … a baroque pearl, one might say – wondrous! … One of the most beautiful films I’ve seen.” – Stan Brakhage
Single frame exposures of dot-screens.
A series of tail ends of varied strips of film, with sometimes recognizable images dissolving into light flares, appear to run through and off of a projector. A romantic "narrative," suggesting an "ending," is inferred. This film can be projected at either sound speed (3 minutes) or silent speed (5 minutes).
Blank color frequencies space out and optically feed into monochrome images of one lovemaking act which is seen simultaneously from both sides of its space and both ends of its time.
Feature-length compilation program presenting 37 out of 41 original fluxfilms produced and directed in the 1960s by Fluxus artists, including George Maciunas, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Robert Watts, Paul Sharits, et al.
In Razor Blades, Paul SHARITS consciously challenges our eyes, ears and minds to withstand a barrage of high powered and often contradictory stimuli. In a careful juxtaposition and fusion of these elements on different parts of our being, usually occurring simultaneously, we feel at times hypnotised and re-educated by some potent and mysterious force.
Three-screen film. On the first screen, close-ups of an agitated match in front of a young woman's fearful face. On the soundtrack: matches, warnings of a rattlesnake, the phrase: "Listen, I will not speak." The ribbon runs at variable speeds, sometimes blurring, sometimes slowing down, to stop, on which the image / celluloid begins to fry and to burn, then leaves, runs, stops again, leaves again ... On the second screen we see the first rephotographed; here the "burns" are both fixed or new (a burn in the second degree). On the third screen, we see the second screen rephotographed. The subject of the film is the fragility of the film, as medium, as well as the vulnerability of man. Both the film and the figure resist threats / intimidation / mutilations.
The films are of two patients, extracted from a medical film study of brain wave activity during seizures.
Various gestures of hand held razorblade, single frame exposures.
Discovered in summer of 1985, of a set of “haiku-imagistic films” I did before coming to my characteristic style, as in Ray Gun Virus; I thought I’d destroyed all these pre-pure films, in about 1969-1970, the time of my separation from my first marriage. The film concerns my marriage, which lasted seven years; it was shot during its first year, when I was a painting student at the University of Denver. It is full of apprehensions, in a montage style which counterposes “opposites”: sexuality and religion; seasonal opposites; hopefulness undercut by fears of eventual separation (the image of a statue of two women, arm in arm, reading a book). I find it visually and kinetically interesting, after all these years. (Paul Sharits) —Canyon Cinema
Streaming, scratched lines continuously appear two at a time over images of flowing water.
Each film frame is a different image from the Sears Roebuck mail order catalogue. The film places pictures of the objects sold by Sears to the consumer society side by side with pictures of female models
Paul Shartis's Ray Gun Virus (1966) is a transfixing, must-see-in-person “flicker” film that distills the cinematic experience to projected light and color patterns, allowing “the viewer to become aware of the electrical-chemical functioning of his own nervous system.”
Two projectors pulse in tandem
A highly varied and playful series of short sketches involving induced camera "mistakes," printing "errors" and various "assaults" upon film (some rephotographed) which in one way or another reveal the process/materiality of cinema. The "unframing" called for in this film (bringing the top frame line down into the viewing area as is possible by adjusting the projector framer) is a way of heightening the intended unmasking of the usually hidden vulnerability/fragility of the film strip.