{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox film | name = Variations | director = Nathaniel Dorsky | distributor = Canyon Cinema | released = {{Film date|1998}} | runtime = 24 minutes | country = United States | language = Silent | budget = }} '''''Variations''''' is a 1998 American short silent avant-garde film directed by Nathaniel Dorsky. It is the second film in a set of "Four Cinematic Songs", which also includes ''Triste'', ''Arbor Vitae'', and ''Love's Refrain''.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Sitney |first=P. Adams |author-link=P. Adams Sitney |date=November 2007 |title=Tone Poems |url=https://www.artforum.com/inprint/issue=200709&id=18816 |magazine=Artforum |volume=46 |issue=3 |page=345 |access-date=May 6, 2021 }}</ref>
==Production== [[File:Nathaniel Dorsky 2.jpg|thumb|upright|Filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky in November 2017]] Since the 1960s, Dorsky had operated by shooting footage without a specific use in mind and then editing films together from the available shots. For ''Variations'', he began to rely exclusively on newly recorded material. Dorsky worked using a Bolex camera, recording primarily on 16 mm Kodachrome 25 stock.<ref name="macdonald">{{cite book |last=MacDonald |first=Scott |year=2006 |title=A Critical Cinema 5: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers |publisher=University of California Press |pages=79–101 |isbn=978-0-520-93908-0}}</ref> Dorsky's compositions in ''Variations'' are influenced by Early Renaissance painting. He noted the era's early use of perspective before the development of vanishing points.<ref>{{cite journal |last=MacDonald |first=Scott |author-link=Scott MacDonald (media scholar) |year=2001 |title=Sacred Speed: An Interview with Nathaniel Dorsky |journal=Film Quarterly |volume=54 |issue=4 |page=2 |doi=10.1525/fq.2001.54.4.2}}</ref>
For Dorsky, ''Variations'' marked a progression in his polyvalent editing style. He drew connections between shots based on elements like colors, patterns, or iconography. Dorsky sequenced the shots so that they could link back to earlier shots in the montage, beyond the cuts that connect them. By using this strategy, he aimed "to make a montage that opens up yet accumulates."<ref name="macdonald"/>
==Release== The film screened in the "Views From the Avant-Garde" program of the 1998 New York Film Festival.<ref name="holden-nyt">{{cite news |last=Holden |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Holden |date=October 10, 1998 |title=The Avant-Garde Lens, Heavenly and Harrowing |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/10/movies/film-festival-review-the-avant-garde-lens-heavenly-and-harrowing.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=May 6, 2021}}</ref> In 2000 it was featured in the Whitney Biennial.<ref name="jones-artforum">{{cite magazine |last=Jones |first=Kent |author-link=Kent Jones (critic) |date=May 2000 |title=Whitney Biennial Film/Video Program |url=https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/200005/the-whitney-biennial-film-video-program-38739 |magazine=Artforum |volume=38 |issue=9 |page=172 |access-date=May 6, 2021 }}</ref>
==Reception== Stephen Holden called the film "visually compelling", asking, "Is there a more beautiful cinematic image than a plastic shopping bag gently blown by the wind across a stretch of pavement?"<ref name="holden-nyt"/> Amy Taubin described it as looking "as if it were lit up from within".<ref>{{cite news |last=Taubin |first=Amy |author-link=Amy Taubin |date=September 29, 1998 |title='Views from the Avant-Garde' |work=The Village Voice |volume=43 |issue=39 |page=119}}</ref> Paul Arthur wrote for ''Film Comment'' that it "might be the pinnacle of a long and distinguished career", praising the way Dorsky's "observation of shapes, textures, movements, and colors of mostly commonplace realities organized into densely unhurried skeins of interconnected motifs".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Arthur |first=Paul |year=1999 |title=The Avant-Garde in '98 |magazine=Film Comment |volume=35 |issue=1 |page=39}}</ref> Kent Jones likened Dorsky's approach in collecting images to a "a nineteenth-century naturalist combing the woods for new species of fauna" and called ''Variations'' "a film that pulses with serenity."<ref name="jones-artforum"/> J. Hoberman described its tone as "subdued ecstasy" and commented that it "suggests a universal photosynthesis in which humans are surrounded by and permeated with radiance."<ref>{{cite news |last=Hoberman |first=J. |author-link=J. Hoberman |date=February 8, 2000 |title=Love and Anarchy |work=The Village Voice |volume=45 |issue=5 |page=137}}</ref> Arthur named it one of the best films of 1998, and Jones placed it fourth on his year-end list.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Jones |first=Kent |author-link=Kent Jones (critic) |year=1999 |title=Moments out of time |magazine=Film Comment |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=35–36}}</ref>
Dorsky was contacted by the production staff for the feature film ''American Beauty'', asking how director Sam Mendes could view ''Variations''.<ref name="macdonald"/> The completed film features a scene of a plastic bag blowing in the wind, and upon its release, film critic Stephen Holden wrote that it "borrows an image (and an entire esthetic of beauty)" from ''Variations''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Holden |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Holden |date=October 9, 1999 |title=Marching in the Vanguard |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/09/arts/film-festival-review-marching-in-the-vanguard.html |work=The New York Times |page=B19 |access-date=May 6, 2021}}</ref> Dorsky stated that, because of the existence of many similar images in earlier films, he was unsure that his shot was appropriated.<ref name="macdonald"/>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://nathanieldorsky.net/post/44931101152/variations-six-film-stills-variations-nathaniel ''Variations''] at Nathaniel Dorsky's official site * [https://canyoncinema.com/catalog/film/?i=3199 ''Variations''] at Canyon Cinema * {{IMDb title|1910665}}
{{Nathaniel Dorsky}}
Category:1990s avant-garde and experimental films Category:1998 short films Category:American silent short films Category:Films directed by Nathaniel Dorsky Category:Films shot in 16 mm film Category:Non-narrative films Category:Silent films in color Category:1998 American films Category:American avant-garde and experimental short films