Description

To Light, To Love, To Time

Author/Editor: Jonathan Schwartz and Garbiñe Ortega (editor)

CONTENTS

A few years ago Jonathan Schwartz gave one of his filmmaking classes the theme: On being human. The human, for Jonathan, is hardly exclusive. It embraces the animal in (and outside of) us. It includes the finite brilliance and inexorable passing of the earth’s seasons, and the contingencies and turmoil of varied cultural and natural landscapes. As an artist and person, he is fascinated with childhood and old age and the perspectives and discoveries of each. In his films, he sometimes comments on the political or psychological follies of humanity through sound or animation, but more often explores emotional spaces through both domestic and far-flung gestures and topographies.
          […] Combining his radical spontaneity of gesture with his attention to cinematic form and montage, Jonathan’s films actualize the passing of time through a devotion to the present, to presence. But this lyrical presence is simultaneously and constantly aware of the inexorable passage of time and the anxiety that inevitable mortality provokes. Jonathan’s whimsy and infectious sense of wonder—both in his films and his life—mingle with bouts of anguish. It is “hard to land” as he says—as some things will disappear. And we must act “as if clinging could save us” to cite one his favorite poets, Galway Kinnell. (Irina Leimbacher, Punto de Vista, 2019)

Published in 2019 by the Punto de Vista Festival, Pamplona, Spain, Jonathan Schwartz: To Light, To Love, To Time, pays homage to the filmmaker through contributions from writers, academics, filmmakers and friends, including Erika Balsom, Ben Rivers, Max Golberg, Ben Russell, Irina Leimbacher, Deborah Stratman, Jodie Mack, Rebeka Rutkoff and more.