Films
Film as a Subversive Art
Amos Vogel and Cinema 16 (2003)
My Modest Intention A Showcase for the Nonfiction Film Avant-garde Film Cinema 16 Explained Film as a Subversive Art Cinema 16: a film society remembered Love, Death and Politics Life as a Subversive Art Time Out New York The Camera as Pen Dogs and Jews Film Society Primer Advice to Film Lovers Witness and Catalyst The Structuralist Incursion Mechanisms of Domination Projections for the Future The Execution The Pointer Moves Memory and Prevention Q and A: Amos Vogel Democracy: Manipulations and Possibilities Fields of Rain Singing Regardless of Weather Tremors of Recognition Brief story outline for a film concerning God
The Execution
by Amos Vogel
As expected, the juggler had failed to recant. There was firmness on both sides. His views were well-known as was his determination. Those in power were equally adamant.
Thousand of people – the used up ones and their children – watched from below with fieldglasses, as he was gently pushed from the airplane circling far overhead, toward the vertical rope dangling free in space nearby.
His face turned slightly toward the sun, smiling gently, he wrapped his body around the rope, leaving both hands free to juggle, as always, his three balls; and began falling instantaneously.
For a few moments, he continued his juggling while falling. Then he was inexorably separated from the rope – by wind? by gravity? – separated as well from the instruments of his profession and belief, and began his free fall in a sinuous, elegant curve, his face serene, his freedom complete.
The fieldglasses and cameras kept him in view until his body suddenly caught fire, a brilliant mass of orange. His background changed from blue sky to tenements; then the plume of fire hit the ground next to a pyre of dry wood that could have ignited on impact. There was no sound. His dearest friend, nearby, walked toward him, calmly, to meet his body on re-entry. He knew that there had been no other way of living than by dying.
Dreamworks, Vol.1, No. 1, 1984-85
© Amos Vogel/Dreamworks
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