An affectionate and humorous portrayal of the relationship between a woman and her dog. As the dog explores the world and meets other dogs on their many walks together, the film shakes and mirrors the excitement and chaos of a dog’s life. Many of these scenes are repeated and reprinted, lending a distinct rhythm of
Filmed in extreme close-up, the lit-up pine needles of a Christmas tree are abstracted into forms of line and contrast. “Christmas Tree” then moves around the living room to focus on JoAnn Elam stringing popcorn, a playful dog, a tapestry on the wall, and a curly-haired man playing guitar. The date and location of production
Fireworks Test” appears to contain test footage for a variety of different goals in mind for JoAnn Elam. The first half matches the form and content of Elam’s later work ” Celebrated Royal Fireworks (Original), ” in which firework explosions are filmed in the night air and on a movie screen. The second half of
A loose triptych, “Hockey” begins with a nighttime hockey game before turning its attention to an orange cat outside a house, walking up to the door and waiting to be let in. Finally, the camera explores an urban neighborhood during a rainy day, with special focus on a basketball bouncing into a puddle, a Wells
“Piano & Kitty” appears to take its label from the window-framed feline and movers transporting a piano that appear at the end of the film. However, the majority of the runtime instead consists of a series of short, mostly underexposed vignettes depicting different lamps and lightbulbs, a car parking at night, and lace curtains and
A short montage of a black cat sitting in a windowsill within the creeping vines of a plant. Date of production unknown.
Two black cats-frequent players in JoAnn Elam’s work-wrestle and play on the floor of a home, the camera racing to track their rapid movements.
Shot around 1983, this footage first shows a man working on a farm and it exemplifies JoAnn Elam’s fascination for farm labor. The rest is rather dark, but it seems to be set inside Elam’s house, where the silhouette of a cat playing with a plant appears by the window. As many elements in this
This footage follows two dogs and two cats around the house, with the camera sometimes zooming in on the animals’ eyes looking directly towards us and on their furry bodies and thus creating a sense of intimacy with them. Throughout these domestic scenes, possibly shot at JoAnn Elam’s home in Chicago, the cats and dogs
Staggering to a start, “LA Cigith Gato Con Julia – B&W Fireworks -Julia & Kittens” opens depicting trance-inducing sirens shrouded by visual noise and darkness. The location and subject pivots taking interest in a young iteration of an Elam regular, a black kitten, scampering about a tile floor. Enticingly, a woman (seemingly the titular Julia)