Serial Metaphysics Explained

Serial Metaphysics
Director:	Wheeler Winston Dixon
Language:	English

Serial Metaphysics is a 1972 collage film by experimental filmmaker Wheeler Winston Dixon.^{[1] [2]}

Summary

An examination of the American lifestyle recut entirely from existing television commercials creating "a vision of the world as viewed through the eyes of the corporate sponsor with a target audience in mind".^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}

Ed Halter from The Village Voice stated that Wheeler's "loopy Americana remix grooves to an increasingly trippy reverb."^{[7] [8]}

Production

The film was edited down all in one night on New Year's Eve from 72 hours of TV commercials.^[3]

Reception and legacy

The Whitney Museum of American Art^[9] showed the film (twice in 1973 and 1974) where then-curator Bruce Rubin commented that Wheeler "is a masterful film editor. His sensitivity to the movement within the frame and of the camera itself allows for fluidity in his editing that is exuberant and refreshing. It is as though his films tap into our collective unconscious by exploring the surface realities that permeate our lives."

See also

• Criticism of capitalism
• A Corny Concerto - audio from the 1943 animated short can be heard in the film
• Gustav Holst's The Planets and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 can also be heard in the film

External links

• Serial Metaphysics at IMDb
• The entire film on the filmmaker's official Vimeo channel

Notes and References

1. Foster . Gwendolyn Audrey . Dixon . Wheeler Winston . 2003 . "Every Frame was Precious": An Interview with Wheeler Winston Dixon . Film Criticism . 28 . 1 . 53–79 . 44019199 . 0163-5069.
2. Web site: 2014-04-10 . Rare Chance for New Yorkers to See the Films of Wheeler Winston Dixon . 2024-05-19 . FilmInt.nu . en-US.
3. Web site: 2014-05-21 . First Fruits of Inspiration: The Films of Wheeler Winston Dixon . 2024-05-19 . FilmInt.nu . en-US.
4. Web site: Wheeler Winston Dixon: From Ancient History to A Hundred Years from Today - LA Filmforum . 2024-05-19 . www.lafilmforum.org . en-US.
5. Web site: 2003-12-11 . Wheeler Winston Dixon . MoMA.
6. Book: Dixon, Wheeler Winston . Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema . 2003-09-17 . Columbia University Press . 978-0-231-85048-3 . en.
7. Web site: Foster . Gwendolyn Audrey . 2010-04-04 . Community, Loss, and Regeneration: An Interview with Wheeler Winston Dixon – Senses of Cinema . 2024-05-19 . en-US.
8. Web site: Halter . Ed . 2003-04-08 . Radical Cheek . 2024-05-19 . The Village Voice.
9. Book: Dixon, Wheeler W. . The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema . 1997-01-01 . SUNY Press . 978-0-7914-3565-6 . en.