Places

In 2008, George Kuchar made this short film about his mother’s death for our Abecedarium:NYC project.  I gave him the word PELAGIC which means “related to the ocean” and asked him to make a video inspired by its meaning.  During this period,  he told me, there were just so many tears that this movie came to his mind almost spontaneously. (Lynne Sachs)

“The borough of The Bronx was a wonderful place to shoot movies when I lived there. If you needed jungles and mountain streams there was always either The Bronx Botanical Gardens or Van Cortlandt Park. For prairie settings an area near Bruckner Blvd. was ideal and for seaside vistas there was Orchard Beach. A magnificent setting, bleak and empty (like an Antonioni film), was the wasteland which is now occupied by Co-op City. For bombed out, war locales a vast stretch of tenements that stood in the projected path of the Cross-Bronx Expressway made apocalyptic visions possible. For inspiration there was always the unobtrusive structure named GOLD MEDAL STUDIOS where scenes from the Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward, Anna Magnani film called, THE FUGITIVE KIND was shot. And then there was the splendor of the PARADISE THEATER on Fordham Road; a true movie palace of incredible opulence. What more could a budding filmmaker want? The sexual frustrations and religious traditions also helped fuel the imagination and the full-bodied figures of many Bronxites added fuel to the furnace of seething passions. Though the scenery may have shifted and changed here and there the dreams continue so follow that yellow stained brick road, who ever you are, and become the thing you always wanted to be! Good luck!”  (George Kuchar)