J. Leighton Pierce

During the 1970s, feminists called lor a reorganization of domestic politics,questioning the assumption that child care is biologically determined"women's work" and demanding that men learn to function as true domesticpartners tn the quest ior economic stability and personal fulfillment, ralhepthan exclusively as "breadwinners." That the domestic round was the newlrontier in cultural development was clear in the landmark film by LauraMulvey and Peler Wollen, Riddles of the Sphinx (19'17), which argued thatwho takes care of young children is /re issue on which the organization ofsociety turns

'While domestic partnership tlas evolved, at least in some sectors of somesocieties, <luring the decades since Rirldles of the Sphinx was sfwidely dis-cussed,, cinematic attention-or, really, inattention-to the domestic haschanged little. The realities of domestic work, and especially child carg haveremained virtually invisible. This continued invisibility is one reason whyLeighton Pierce's 1990s films and videos seem so remarkable. In Pierce'swork the domestic arena becomes the site of visual-auditory dramas thathave the potential to undermine conventional ideas about the domestic. fn-tleed. Pierce's understanding of how mediamaking lits into daily lil'c is nearlythe inversion of the conventional assumption shared, it would seem, by bothcommercial mediamakers and most ol those wlro provide critiques of thecommercial. The general assumption, ol coursq is that the domestic worldand the art-making worid must remain separate (Stan Brakhagc and JonasMekas are exceptions that prove the rule). One may create a life that includesboth, but such a life requires us to "intercut" betrveen the two spheres.

256 A Critical Cinema 5

While Pierce earns his living outside his home (since 1985 he has taughtrnedia production at the University of lowa), he built his reputation as arnajor contributor to independcnt film and video history within his homqaspnrr of his day-to-day domcstic experience. Thursùry (1991 ). br instance,is a visual-aurJitory evocation of his kitchen, shot during the quiet momentsduring his infant son's naptime on Thursdays: images and sounds of Piercepouring coffee, washing disheq of a tree blowing in the breeze outsids thewindow, the sound of a distant train, of a rainstorm . . . are combined intowhat Peter Hutton might call a "reprieve" from the tendency of modern lifeand most cinema to project us relentlessly lorward (see nly interview withHutton in A Critical Cinema 3). Similarly, the video I{ *'ith Those Eyes andEars, tbe lirst section of Prine'iples of Hormonic Motion (1991), was madesoon after Mackenzie Pierce was born. Pierce spent time in the baby's room,exploring visual and auditory details of the space and combining them intoa lovely, haunting experience that simultaneously evokes the baby's fasci-nation wilh his new world and the father's excitement at sharing life withthis mysterious new being.

Pierce's output, in both fllm and video, has becn considerable since theearly 1990s, and of consistently high quality. His most impressive work todate, however, is his domestic "epic," 50 Feet of String (1995; remade in ashorter version in 1998), and the videos he's made since 2000. JA Feet oJ' Stringdiscovers/creates a gorgeous,, somewhat surreal world in and around Pierce'shome in lowa City by combining imagery and sounds collected lrom mid-summer to fall and organizing them into an intricate montage, broken intoa series of discrete segments introduced by textual titles-"E," "corner ofthe eyg"" | 2:30,""1awn care," "white chair," in each o[ which Pierce engageswith particular visual-auditory dimensions of his domestic surround.

What makes 5A Feet of String and Pierce's other films of the 1990s dis-tinctive are the particulars of his reinvention of the domestic. His use ofsubtle dimensions of lens lechnology and camera placement transforms theplaces he records. Often only one narrow plane of the space within the lramcis in clear focus at any moment; the remaining aspects of the space are invarying dcgrees of blur. In addition to causing his imagery to combine spacesof great clarity with impressionistic renderings of color and shapg Pierce'slechnique determines the nâture of the developments that can occur withinany given imagq in at least two ways First, the narrow breadth of the spacerevealed by the film frame allows for the sudden translormation of the im-age by the movement of a human or a vehicle into or out of the frame. Inthe "two maples" section of J0 Feet ol' Sting, fior examplg movement intoand out of the frame is the central visual motil. This brief section (it lastsa bit more than a minute) includes eight shots, each separatcd lrom tho nextby a moment of darkness. The first shot is taken from a moving hammock;

J. Leighton Pierce z3I

Compass in Leighton Pierce's J0 ieeet of Srring {1995). Courtesy Leighton Pierce-

ia the second, Mackenzie Pierce runs into the distance, apparently havingleft the hammock; and in the following five shots, we see the boy on a dis-tant swing. as he swilgs, right and left, into and out of the frame, withinthree different compositions, each of which provide$ a tiny visual surprise.The final shot of "two maples" reveals a yard beyond which a blurred carmoves lel't to right, conlirming and concluding the swinging movements ofthe previous seven shots,

The second result of Pierce's combination ol techniques has to do withthe drama he achieves by manipulating the layers of focus. In "pickup truck,"for examplg he creates an astonishing moment by extending a single shotfor more than two minutes. Tbe shot begins with extended images of severaldistant trees with yellowing leaveq blowing in the wind, as seen through ablurry "curtain" of plants in the foreground. Because this particular focusplane is maintained for a minute and a half, the subsequent refocusiilg onlothe curtain of weeds comes as something ol a surprise (made more drama-tic by being timed so as to coincide with the auditory passing of a truck wenever actually sce that has moved closer and closer during the previousminute). This refocusing continues, as weeds nearer and nearer to us come

A Crit ical Cinema 5

into focus, and culminates with the sudden coming-into-pristine-focus offirst one stalk, then t$i/o even cioser, and linally, at the conclusion of theshot, a single, thin stem. Each of these final changes in the image has thcimpact of magic: because our training as filmgoers is to notice what is infocus and ignore what is not, each new visual revelation seems to come outof nowhere.

Each of the two general ligures of style evident in the passages discussedhere can be read as an aesthetic manilèsto. The ûrst of these tras to do withthe inlerplay between the space defined by the film frame and Piercel evo-cation of what lies beyond the frame. We are always seeing a very particu-lar image und seeing and hearing a variety of events that are occurring atthe edge of the frame or entirely outside the frame, either nearby o1 some-times, at what seems to be a considerable distance. This particular dynamicis a visualization of the idea that the limited frarne of the domestic iq infact, * more energetic space than it may seem: it is a nexus of those human-environmental comings and goings that provide the fundamental rhythmsof experience. The other ligure of style, Pierce\ Iayering of space and soundwithin a particular composition, suggests that the excitement of life is notsimpiy a function of accessing new places but can lie in recognizing the as-tonishing complexity of the spaccs nearby. The lor,g, continuous shot in"pickup truck" is a visualization of the idea that the most crucial drama ofexperience can be our discovery of what has been in front of us all along.

For Pierce, sound has always been as. crucial a dimension of the experi-ence of a iilm or a video as the visual imagery. lndeed, Pierce was a com-poser of musiquc concrète before he became a filmmaker and learned to workwith ûlm and video in large rneasure so that he might offer his listeners some-thing to look at as they experienced his sound compositions. Picrce soon dis-covered that the combination of visuals and sounds ollered virtually inûnitepossibilities, and he has become one of tbose few mediamakers who havebeen able to ellectively integrate the two tracks in complex and interestingways (Peter Kubelka, Abigail Child, and Jamcs Benning arc others).

During recent years, Pierce has moved more flully in the direction of videoand has developed a range of techniques in the newer medium that allowhim to take full advantage of digital sound without giving up the kinds ofvisual subtlety he has developed in his filmmaking. This gradual transitionlrom filmmaker who also makes videos to videomaker who has made re-markable films has been occurring more or less simultaneously with a fun-damental change in Pierce's domestic life. As this introduction is written,Pierce's divorce from his marriage of twenty-plus years, and the resultingpainful transition, is subtly evident in several of his recent videos.

ln fuil QAA2), 37 th & Lex (2$02), and Evuporation (.2002), Pierce createsa strange and powe riul emotional amalgam. On one hand, these threc videos

J. Leighton Pierce 259

are spectacular to look at and listen to; Pierce\ dexterity in translormingthe visual and auditoly particulars of his surround into experiences that areboth gorgcous and slrangc has ncver bcen môre obvious. But within the tech-nical tour de fiorce oi these videos-both hidden by and evoked by their sty-listic virtuosity-is a narrative of marital tlissolution and a reorienting ofPierce's loyalties. In I?r//, Pierce's isolation from his lamily seems clear, andin 37th & Ie-r, we read a love letter to someone with whom Pierce is forg-ing a new relationship. Of these recent videos, however, Evaporation is, atleast for me, lhe most evocative and the most powerful; it charts the evap-oration of thc domestic security that has seemed at the heart of so many ofPierce's lilms and videos.

At {irst glance, Ëvaporation can seem still another of Pierce's remarkablybeautiful evocations of place-in this instance of Niagara Falls rind thecoast of Maine. llut this is a beauty that hides, or;rl le:rst exists with, a gooddcal of pain. Periodically dvring Evaporat,or we see Mackenzie Piercg iirstlooking at the awesome drop of Niagara from the Canadian side, then star-ing out a window at the ocean, aad still later,, walking through a marsh look-ing down into tiny pools of water. These literal spaces resonate on ametaphoric level. Niagara, one of the world's ioremost metaphors for ro-mance and the beginning of marital bliss, in this instance suggests the be-ginning of the end, the drop away from the domestic security representedby marriage-for a child a fearsome fall into insecurity. Mackenzie Pierce'sstaring out the window and finding his way through the marsh suggest theshock of these new developments for him, and Piercet continual return tohis son in the video suggests his own empathy lor his young child {Piercehimself still has his art-making to stabilize his experienca and in this in-stancc, the beauty of the work suggests that lor hin this moment of trans-formation is exciting, liberating). Of coursq neither father nor son knowshow the future or the past will play out in their lives. Is the ghostly imageof a man, a woman, and a child, walking lhrough a lield, which rve seem tosee as Evuporallorr concludes, a premonition of the future? An evocation ofthe past? Both?

I spoke with Pierce in October 1998. and we have remained in contactprimarily by e-mail, periodically adding to thc interview.

MacDonald: Some avant-garde lilmmakers' first filmg or early lilms, areamazing: Kenneth Anger's fireworks 119471,lor example: or Deren's MeslrcsoJ' the À./iernoonll943l. But as I got to know your eariier work, it struck methat you're more like Harold Lloyd, who made dozens of films before Tigur-ing out precisely what his ârtistic persona should be, and ,rstt got startedon the films we remenrber him ior. Your early work is certainly capable young

A Critical Cinema 5

work. but it\ not blow-away greât work, in my view. Then, all of a sudden,right around the time you began having children, you began to make re-markable, and quite distinctive, movies and video*

Plurre.' When I was a graduate student at Syracuse University, JohnOrntlicher (one of my teachers) said of my early wolk-like He Likes tnChap Dortn l"ree"r [980], one of the more aggressive of those early films- -"Those are wise-guy lilms."

That comment stuck with me for quite a while. I started to realize thatwhat I really wanted to do was not just make clever, "wise-guy" structurallilms but to l'ind a way to ittegrate my filmmaking into my home life. I hadalready started to make films about my family-my grandfather and myfather-but when we had our first kid, Mackenzie, the stress of teachingundhavinga[amily andtryingto make films made me realize I couldn'i con-linue to separate them and get anything dône.

Teaching-I had ta be away from home to do that. But I started to tryand integrate my home life with my lilmmaking as much as possible. I startedshooting in the house,, and to make lilms and videos about my domestic sur-round. They weren't rcally about the kids (at that time just one); they justallowed me to parent and make ûlms at the same time. So that's when it allstarted coming together.

MacDonald: Was the video If nith Those Eyes and Eurs the first of theworks made at home?

Pierce: Yeah. I ordered my camcorder two weeks after Mackenzie wasborn. IT done video all along but not with my own little camcorder. lf withThose Eyes and Ears was a new beginning lor me. I started just being withthe newborn and shooting. It wasn't one of these trying-to-see-the-way-the-baby-sees projects. It was just trying to be with Mackenzie, as he was star-ing at the lightbulb or at the I'an going around. It was like a form of paral-lel play. Video was perfect for that because it's cheap, and I could shoot alot of i t .

MacDonald: Had you always explored sound?Pierce: Tbat's very important. I did sound before I did lilm or video. I

was in art school in Boston (the School of the Museum of Fine Arts), whereI studied painting and ceramics-and electronic music. Before that, lT donemore conventional music-ever since I was little. In Boston I did musiqueconcrète, building sounds on tape.

When I linished school in Boston. I hung out for a while, then went backto school in lowa and continued working witl.r electronic music there. Ac-tually, I thought I weat to lowa to be a music majoç bul I discovered a prob-lem with musique concrète: TVhat do you do at a concerl? I[ seemed veryawkward to me, to be sitting in an auditorium "watching" an audiotape! Somy {irst impulse was, "Well, I'm kind of interested in taking pictures; I'11

J. Leighton Pierce 261

take a tlm course, and that'll give me something to put the music ,o,' it'll besomething to look at while you're listening."

ùIacDonald: Of course, that's how cinema got invented in the firstplace. Edison had developed the phonograph and decided it needed visualaccompaniment.

Pierce.' Well, I'm following in his footsteps. I've never taken someone'smusic and made a {ilm to accompany it, but there are similarities.

I think my fllms look the way they do because I didn't come to ûlmmakingJrom lûm.I never wanted to be a lilmmaker-until I actually started work-ing with the material. Then I thonght, "This is pretty rich stuff! Images ardsound., phew!"

I shoot now. and have for years,, with the goal of getting to the part whereI can do sound. I make images saying, "This'll be fun to do sound to." Soundis still the part I like the most.

fufacDonald: When I was first getting involved in avant-garde û1m, oneof the big debates was how to iniegrate sound into what most people con-sidered a primârily visual art. Few came up with adequate solutions to theproblem. There are exceptional works,like Framptonk Critical Muss|9711,Snow's Wave lengli [967], Kubelka's Unsere A]rikareîse ( Our Trip to A/rica)[|9651, Larry Gottheim's Mouches Volantes [976], where the sound is re-ally an integral, sometimes even an equal, part of the piece. But even in Wave-Iength, and in J. J. Murphy's Print Generatianll9T4l, the sound is analogausto what's happening in the imagery but the complexity of the sound isn'treally equal to the complexity of the imagery at least as most people expe-rience those works.

When I first saw 50 Feet of Sting, what struck me was that the motif ofthe string is a metaphor for both image and sound: the string suggests a spa-tial measure, and it's a string you pluck. Cleariy, 50 Feet was an attempt tomake an integral sound-image work, not a u.rlnl piece accompanied by sowd.

Pierce: I edit all my visuals silent, and the sound is always the last thingI do. But when I'm editing the visuals, there's a slrong rhythmic compo-nent and a strong anticipation of what's going to hâppen on the sound trackin conjunction with these visuals. Some of the sounds are syrtc-I makethem in sync-when a car goes by, you hear a car go by; others aren't. Inone instance I have this long rack focus that goes on for more than twominutes. As I was editing the visualq I designed in my head a series of soundevents that would make it OK lor the viewer to sit lor so long with that oneshot.

It's hard to balance between image and sound. One of these days ['m go-ing to make a silent lilm, just to lind out how to make a ûlm ttlat doe$ whât-ever I want it to do in terms of rhythm and movement. withaut sound. Ihave done the opposite: pictureless "movies"-sound pieces.

A Critical Cinema 5

ùIucDonuld: When I think back to If with These Eyes and Eurs, I hear itlirst. It's as if the lans going around are â vi.lal accompaniment to the sound.

Pier<'e: Maybe in that case you remember the sound lirst because thesound is more overdstermincd than the images are. You can teltwhat all theimagery rs.' that's a fan, that's â tree - . . But the sound m:rkes the piece hy-perreal. For one thing, norm:rlly you never hear a fan, really heat it,, everylittle lrum. I try to make sound that seems to fit with the imagery but still isnot entirely "rcal" in the more conventional senses. Hopel'ully, it causes youto go to anolher part of your brain-because it's rot.iust a fan sound. it'salso something more.

And there's some musical intent as well-in the rhythm of those sounds.M ac Do n a I d : Once you had established yo u rself as family man a n d a tilm-

and videomaker, urul as a fvll-time faculty person at the University of lowa,you had a serious heart attack. To what extent do you think your heart at-tack is a result of trying to do and be all this? Is your commitment to mak-ing, especially to being a prolific maker, dangerous? It certainly costs money,and it must create stress.

Pierce: I think the heart attack was just genetics. I've got screwy genes.My dad died young. I didn't'-though I would have, had I not had the at-tack just a few miles lrom one of the few hospitals that can deal with myparticular problem.

It's hard for me to talk about the financial cost of my work because loryears-ever since I was in graduate school in the mideighties-l've neverimagined a film and then tried to ligure out how to get enough money tomake it. It's always the other way around: What are my resources, and whatlilm can I make within them? It's the same with time: because I'm a fatherand a teachel I have little bits of time, and I work at home because I cando something in fifteen minutes in the kitchen.

bfacDonukt: So what are your resources? Are you dependent on grants?Pierce: I was married; we had the family account and the {ilm ace.ount,

which got money from tours arnd grirnts and awards and so on. It allowedme to buy my tools without guilt. My career wâs financed by Film in theCities, which is now defunct. For a while, I was getting grants from Film inthe Cities every two year$.

And the University of Iowa has given me support. For 50 thet o/. StringI had both temporal and financial support. I got a very rare deal from lowa:a three-year halt'-time teaching loadl I taught one semester each year forthree years, plus they gave me money to buy film stock and a computcr.

My costs for nraking a film arc just thc cost of thc lilm stock, the cost ofwork-printing, and the cost of the prints. Everything else, the mixing andall that other stuff, I do myself. It's a relatively cheap way to make lilms.

And video-l can make a video for thirtv dollars. I have all the hardware.

J. Leighlon Pierce

l:lacDonald: You were saying the other day that you read J. B. Jacksonpohn Brinckerho{Uackson is the author of D i:scovering the Vernac'ular Land-scape (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 19841, A Scnse at Time,u Sense ol' Pluce ( \4rlc, 1994), and Lundscape in Sight: Looking at America(Yale, 1997)1. I thought, "Well, that makes sense: Leighton makes an epicout of his front porch-a totally vernacular space."

Pierce: lt eloes relate to my work. Jackson's books are about how we per-ceive space. Iti not like I'm interested in how to represent my front porch,but T am very intercsted in the nrental spacc that cinema creates, somethingwe generally take ibr granted in Hollywood narrative rvork, and in how wecân start to bend lhat mentâl space in other kinds of films. I'm interestedin perception,, and how ç'e as people think we understand space. I'm alwaysfrying learn more about lhat, a\d how to make mental spaces in film-because, after all, there is no spacc in lilm really; wc just think there is.

I read books on perceplion, cognitive psychology.il{acDonald: Like who?Pierce: Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the

Human.Braln [New York: Avon, 19941*a good read. He's a neurologist^It"s a big thing for a neurologist to say, "Maybe there isn't this mind-bodysplit; maybe it really i^s all the same thing."

I was reading Jackson right after that Flaherty Seminar that was sup-posed to be on landscape [Pierce showed 50 f?et of String atthe 1996 RobertFlaherty Seminar, "Landscapes and Place,"curated by Ruth Bradley, KathyHigh, and Loretta Toddl, but really didn't seem to be, when I was prepar-ing a course lor graduate students on the sense of space. I read a lot of stufflor that-much of it had an ecological concern.

l:f ct'Donçld: I've always had a nagging frustration with the frequent ten-dency among academics to pooh-pooh the idea of the beauty of landscapeand townscape (I'm not talking about Jackson here), to take a position thatkeeps them from leeling any responsibility for the beauty that surroundsthem on so nlany campuses. What most people have to struggle for, aca-demics get lor lree -* and often ignore it! | think it\ more than a question olwhat we'rc trained to sce as beautiful. Sorne places rzrs more amazing thanothers-though there are interesting, and perhaps amazing, dimensions tomost places.

Pierce: Actually, I've always found it very dillicult to shoot when I'm inreally spectacular places-like the mountains. When I go to the mountains.I end up lilming little sticks on the ground, r,r, the overwhelming grandeur.One of the reasons I made J0 Feet oJ' Sting at home-and made the "rule"that I had to stay rvithin a hundred yards of my kitchen-was to avoid away of seeing that is forced on us when wete surrounded by obvious beauty,that takes us over in a beautiful spot. In Yosemite you don't have to learn

A Critical Cinema 5

to look at the beauty, or the grandeur, whatever you lvant to call it: il rel/s.lpu what to look at.

But if you're sitting in the kitchen you've lived in lor years, you mightnot really look at it. It's not that I'm avoiding beauty. I like to go to spec-tacular places, but not lor my work.

MucDonald: Do you read a lot of nature writing?Pierce.' Not a lot. Wbll, since my heart problems, I've been rereading

Wa \den (854} Thoreau's grouchy!MatDonakl: The reason I ask is that nature writing usually involves a

tremendously disciplined and precise observation oi the environment.American nature writing is an elegy to American nature, a way ol resistingthe seerningly inevitable disappearance of a wide range of increasingly en-dangered places. By making us more alert to whath left, nature writers at-tempt to engage us more fully in both vernacular and sublime landscapes,and often in efforts to save them lor future generations.

I see a close relationship between nature writing and what you do. Bymaking a "rule" that you re going to stay within the confines of your spacein Iowa City, and creating what for some people is a long, slow tlm in whichyou create â new awareness of the details of a very limited environment,you're doing an activity analogous to what Mary Austin did in Iand oJ' Lit-tle Rainll903l,when she wrote about the Owens Valley, which has since beendrained to feed the lirst LA aqueduct {both Chinatov,n 11974, RomanPolanski] and Pat O'Neill\ Water and Power [i989] are about that process)and what, even earlier, Susan Fenimore Cooper did in Rural l1ours ! 850],and that Thoreau did in so much of his work.

Pierce: I think you're right: there is a relationship between that kind ofwork and mine. I have read Terry Tcmpest Williams's Àeli.rge [ 992; Williamsis an essayist-novelist, and naturalist-in-residence at the Utah Museum ofNatural History in Salt Lake Cityl. I've heard that when Terry TempestWilliams does nature walks, she'll go out her back door, and sometimesthat'll be it: she won't move any further. She'l1 do her whole talk by just look-ing down, really looking*-it's a deep looking-at what's right there in frontof her. I've only heard this, but I like that idea.

I do have goals for my lilms and videos. I hesitate to say what they argbecause once you admit a goal, rhen everyone can say, "Well, tial didn'thappen to me." But I v:ould like to be able to change people's perception.if only briefly, as a result of these films. IT like you to walk out ol the filmand suddenly notice this sidewalk you've seen hundreds of times, that treeyou've stopped noticing. Just the lact of your being more fully aware ofwhere you are*there\ value in that. Once you see exactly where you ar4thcû you can make more capable decisions about what you're going to doabout what vou see.

J. Leighton Pierce 265

Riding mower in Leighton Pierce's 50 Feet of SIring (1995). Courtesy Leighton Pierce.

MacDonald: Thoreau\ line "l have traveled a sood bit in Concord" isperfect lbr your films.

Pierce {' laughter ) : lt is.MacDonald: I think this strand of avant-garde tlm-the tra<lition of

using cinema to look more carefully at the places that surround us, espe-cially to see the sublime ,,? the vernacular, has been undervalued. I'm think-ing ol Peter Hutton's work, Andrew Noren's, Larry Gottheim's, Rose Low-der\, Nick Dorsky's . . . But it's certainly one of the kinds of work thatoriginally attracted me to the field of independent film.

Pierce: I'm aware of occupying an old school of filmmaking-thoughI'm younger than the people you've mentioned. My work is not overtlypolitical*although I could argue that it ri political. Thar Flaherty experi-ence got me thinking about this again. Politics--overt politics-is where alot o[ ûlmmaking r now, or has been for a whilc.

I've often lelt the need to apologize for liking to make beautiful things.Some of my students say, "You know, really, you should never admit thatyou're trying to make a beautiful film, because beauty robs you of thought;"And / say, "Well, actually, that's the whole idea! I want you to blank outtlrought, at least until you really look and listen." A frlm can seem apoliti-

zDo A Critical Cinema 5

Ttry tractor in grass in Leighton Pierc€'s J0 I'eel of String (1995).Courresy Leightr:n Pierce.

cal because it'-s beautiful, to be just about wallowing in "Beâuty" and es-caping real lifq but hopefully therei a lingering e$ect that's notjust escapismand that in the long run has a political impact.

MucDonald: When I was in Japan last January, I was able to visit a num-ber of famous gardens when there were few tourists. My son, Ian, was teach-ing in Okayama, where one of the "three greatest gardens in Japan" is. Givenwhat I had read about it, I expected the Korakuen Garden to be the size ofCentral Park. But compared wilh o$r city parks, this was a modest-sizedgarden, but one that inciuded a considerable range of experiences; it mod-eled, as so many Japanese gardens do, making the most of a small space. Infact, in the case of Zen gardens, making a tiny space remarkable for cen-turies is a spiritual prâctice.

Do you see your filmmaking as a spiritual practice?Pierce: I hesitate to talk about this, but yes, I do think of it as a kind of

Zen practice. Shooting the ûlms certainly rs" I enbrace Zet-l would saythat" I'm not sure itl correct to say thal shooting the fllms is like a Zen prac-ticg but shooting with this device that changes fhe way I see' iorces me loconcentrate. rs somethine like meditation.

J. Leighton Pierce 267

Then, later, making the films-shooting isn't making the lilms; it\ justgâthering the materials-r^r something like making a garden. I hate to be sopresumpauous as to say I'm making a beautiful Zcn garden. but that is kindof what it's like. And I'm trying to invite people into that "garden."

fu{acDoncld: How often do you shoot?Pierrc: lt depends. For j0 ft'el of String, I shot four hundred fect every

two weeks during the l'all. It was like going to a normal job. I do have thatattitude about making {ilms: I "punch in"-"I didn't shoot my four hun-dred feet this week; I gotta go do it."

So, then, not waiting lbr the right light or the right moment. I decide norvis the time to shoot. I think there's value in that. My film Thursday-myûrst really scrious rule-bound Êlm-was made according to a schedule thathad nothing intrinsically to do with lilmmaking. This relates back to whatI was saying about the kids. When Mackenzie was one year old, I was homeall day every Thursday with him. I wanted to make a lilm and didn't knowwhat I was going to make a lilm about. I had eight one-hundred-ftrot rollsin my freezer and decided to establish a "rule": every Thursday, for the nexttwo months. when Mackenzie took his nap, which was from eleven o'clockto one o'clock-he was a very dependable sleeper-l would shoot a hun-dred feet. And I made a film out of it, along with l-ragments of other filmsif I ever get back to tha! matcrial.

The point is, t clidn't know u'hut the film was going to be, but having thattwo-hour period where I couldn'l leave the house forced me to sit down andwork even when the sun wasn't out. I found that a very valuable discipline.

And when I'm editing, I just go down to my basement-if I had a timeclock, I'd set it up so I could punch in and punch out'

Actually, it\ a littlc embarrassing to suggest that when I go down to eclit^l'm on some spiritual journey.

MacDonald: Are you embarrassed because you don't think it's true, orbecause in certain highly intellectual academic situations you're embarrassedto admit it'!

Piercc: Wbenl go down the basement, I'm not really approaching a Zenstate-.but I think I was seeking that, especially it 50 Fee t of String, anrJ inG/rrss [1998], awJin Memories of Wuter (#21, 6, 27; all 1997\. Those fllmsare about trying to get into a meditative state myself and invite peopie intolhat state. Some people have no interest in that kind of experience; othersdo. at least on occasion. So that ls'what I like to do, and thatS the kind ofwork that I'm drawn to.