The following text was first published on October 13th, 2023, in conjunction with Movie Club #8: ‘Gestures’ by Vincent Guilbert. It is now published publicly for the first time, in celebration of Loren Connors’ 76th birthday.
All images by Vincent Guilbert.
by Ruairí McCann + Maximilien Luc Proctor
MLP: How did you first find out about the music of Loren Connors, and how did you end up making Gestures?
As far as I can remember, I think the first time I heard about Loren Connors was at the end of the nineties; at that time, I was really into Japanese music, and was able to listen to Live At Downtown Music Gallery, New York City, August 1, 1992, a duet CD with Haino Keiji (whom, at that time, I was purchasing almost everything). That was probably my first time hearing Loren.
Years later (in 2007), thanks to my dear friend (and wonderful musician) Michel Henritzi, I discovered The Hymn Of The North Star; I was so deeply moved by this overwhelming piece, that I started to look for any Loren CD I could find at the time… It was the ‘beginning’ for my unconditional love of his music.
Over the years, Loren became one of the musicians I respected the most; don’t ask me why: maybe his music touches a particular string in me… Anyway, I don’t want to be too long, but it happened that in March 2016, after a few years of tergiversation, I finally ended up in sending him an email (with certainly too much things in it). One or two days later, he kindly answered that he would be happy to meet me and do a film-portrait… Seven months later, I flew to New York, with a small video camera and no plan.
RM: It’s interesting to learn that the making of Gestures was set in motion in an almost off the cuff way because I wanted to ask you about a possible tie between Connors’ methods and your own. Improvisation is such an important part of Connors’ work, both in music and in painting, with the act of creation embraced as an in the moment, unpredictable process rather than following a more predestined route where a song is sculpted and revised slowly over a long period of time. Did you find yourself working in a more improvisatory fashion closer to Connors’ approach with this film or are improvisation and creative happenstance key elements of your filmmaking in general?
I would say that I am definitely into improvisation, especially while filming a ‘documentary’.
I know that the fact of pointing a camera to someone may be quite ‘violent’ and unnatural… Happenstance is fundamental. But at the same time, I love ‘nothingness’ too; I mean, I don’t wait for anything particular to happen, since—for me—ordinary moments in life are as important as ‘the rest’ (i.e. ‘happenings’, or cinematographic moments).
I recorded/filmed an interview of Loren during the filming, but as soon as I started to edit Gestures, I felt that adding words to it, would ‘break’ everything, that all these moments, these fragments of time/life, would be lessened by words… Loren’s gestures are beautiful, and each second with him was like the most beautiful treasure to me.
MLP: How did you first get interested in experimental film (and music for that matter)? And what brought you to Japan?
[It’s] a difficult question to answer simply. As far as I can remember, I think that one of my first real introductions to experimental films was when I was about 16 or 17, and saw a bad VHS copy of L’Ange by Patrick Bokanowski, which left me with a very strange feeling, but astounded [me]. It was quite ‘musical’ too.Then in the mid-nineties, I was able to get LaserDiscs of movies by Shûji Terayama… I suppose that my interest in experimental films started somewhere between the discovery of ‘L’Ange’ and Terayama’s world.
Regarding the music, I will try to be as succinct as I can: when I was 13 years old (1989), my ‘favourite band’ was Faith No More. Through this band, and especially their second singer, Mike Patton, I started to listen to Mr. Bungle, whose first (official) album was produced by a certain John Zorn. Don’t ask me how, but I then started to look for music made or released by Zorn… and it was the beginning of the end! Thanks to Zorn, I was able to discover many Japanese musicians (not only, but quite a lot of them were), and started- notably – to be seriously into the onkyokei scene…
It’s work that brought me to Japan; in 2005 I filmed a documentary, and met the person who would become my boss a year later.
MLP: I’m also curious—though this might not be for the interview—if you’ve met Jim O’Rourke since he’s also over there? (Or Haino Keiji for that matter?)
I met Jim O’Rourke a few times, since 2004. At that time, I was filming musicians from the onkyokei, and he was there sometimes. But I never talked to him. Just polite greetings, as far as I can remember. Being shy, I hid behind my camera. I met Haino-san too (and before that, I saw him in concert several times in France).
I filmed him for a project last year, here in Tokyo…
RM: I really like the back and forth between watching and listening to Connors play his guitar and to him playing and listening back to records. The latter got me thinking about the relationship between music and memory.
I have seen you mention in a few places that memory is a key preoccupation in your work. What is it about memory that makes it such an important, recurring focus for you, and do you have any thoughts on the commonalities or differences between the act of remembering and the act of making art?
This is quite a difficult question to answer…and I am not even sure I can put into words what I feel about it. Memory is what makes our identity, or let say makes ‘what we are’, and I consider both remembering and forgetting equal in that regard. I can’t really explain why memory is so important to me… In my daily life, I sometimes almost feel besieged by fragments of the past, that may be distorted (even biased) memories, or extremely accurate images from some moments I lived. But I suppose that all of us have a different experience of the act of ‘remembrance’.
So I feel that in some of my films, I’m trying to get as close as possible to something that could be the ‘process of memory’ – as I understand it – in the editing, using fragmented moments and sounds, sometimes cutting back and forth. Reading Bergson in my thirties, who wrote about memory and temporality in 1896, was very inspiring at some point.
Gestures, to talk about that particular film, is… what I—may—remember of these moments sharing Loren’s intimacy; eating a yogurt in his kitchen, listening to records, showing me his paintings, looking through his files of pictures and drawings, playing guitar, all his (beautiful) gestures… and most important, the sound(s) of his space, of his life. Loren wrote that Gestures “is a study in sound”, which makes me extremely happy, since sound is one of my main concerns when making a film.
Regarding your question about the commonalities or differences between remembering and making art, I think that the act of creation is driven by memory, even if certainly unconsciously.
Vincent Guilbert was born in 1976 in Saint-Denis, France. The themes developed through his films and photos are mainly related to time, memory and the fragment.
Ruairí McCann is an Irish writer, curator, illustrator and musician, Belfast born and based but raised in Sligo. He has contributed to various publications, such as photogénie, aemi online, Screen Slate, Documentary Magazine, Film Hub NI and Sight & Sound.
Maximilien Luc Proctor (MLP) is a French-American filmmaker, the founder of Ultra Dogme and the avant-garde instructor at Berlin’s Art on the Run filmschool.
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