Screening
Courtney Stephens Presents Pat O'Neill's "Water and Power"
On Tuesday, April 22nd, at 7pm, Courtney Stephens presents Pat O'Neill's 1989 experimental feature WATER AND POWER at the Film-Makers' Cooperative.
Pat O’Neill’s Water and Power (1989) is an experimental masterwork that excavates the archaeological, ecological, and mythological strata of Los Angeles.
The film presents Southern California as a geographic riddle, a mirage shimmering on stolen water. How does human time intersect with narrative time, or natural time? What are the costs of perpetual self-invention?
O’Neill channels his skills as a special effects virtuoso (having worked on films like Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind) using advanced optical printing techniques to create his extravagant tableaus. But the film's technical brilliance serves its deeper purpose: revealing how a city's conscious self-image floats atop unconscious currents of violence and historical amnesia. Features the beloved, late, Amy Halpern. —Courtney Stephens