Eye Weekly - FLicKeR

 

Directed by Nik Sheehan. (STC) 72 min. Opens Nov 28 at the Bloor Cinema.

Reprinted from: Eye Weekly 

Toronto director Nik Sheehan’s biodoc on visionary painter and writer Brion Gysin doubles as a cogent yet appropriately trippy primer on how the activities of a few freaks who drifted between Paris and Tangier in the ’50s came to have a vast cultural influence. It was Gysin who led the Beats to Morocco after the British-born, Alberta-bred artist first joined Paul Bowles there in 1950. And it was Gysin who pioneered the literary cut-up technique that would be popularized by his pal William S. Burroughs.

What interests Sheehan most of all in FLicKeR is another of Gysin’s innovations, the Dream Machine. This mysterious contraption offered the prospect of a drugless high. Though Sheehan has his own custom-made, the film also shows how low-cost versions can be jimmied up with a light bulb, some construction paper and a record player. (An additional record player may also be employed to spin Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” or the astral music of your choice.) Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull and Genesis P-Orridge are just three of the countercultural icons we see experiencing the machine’s effects on camera — alas, none report having visions of Karl Rove being sodomized by a mountain goat. In any case, Sheehan succeeds at renewing interest in an artist whose influence far outweighs his fame.

Now Magazine: Flicker Review - Dream on

Flicker

Dream on

By Susan G. Cole 

Reprinted from Now Magazine

Who can resist the idea of a drugless high?
Nik Sheehan asks just that in Flicker, a fascinating exploration of the Dream Machine and Brion Gysin, the artist/poet/mystic who promoted it in the early 60s.

Get close to the Dream Machine – a metal cylinder with cut-?outs that revolves around a light bulb – close your eyes and experience a soothing, sometimes hallucinatory effect that Gysin and cohort William Burroughs believed could permanently alter human consciousness.
Sheehan, with his own Dream Machine in tow, visits Gysin’s old friends, including Marianne Faithfull and filmmaker Kenneth Anger – who respond to the sight of the contraption as if it were the Holy Grail – and new fans, too, like DJ Spooky and Iggy Pop. The wide range of creative people hot for the Dream Machine testifies to its allure.

Sheehan’s not sure if he wants to make a movie about the Dream Machine or about Gysin’s art, philosophy and influence, but that’s all right. The hallucinatory images, the quick cuts, the split focus all reflect the era in which Gysin worked and dreamed.

Yes, there will be a Dream Machine at the Bloor for you to check out. It didn’t exactly blow my mind, but then neither did LSD. So who knows? It could work for you.

FLicKeR

FLicKeR

A film by Nik Sheehan

Reprinted from: http://www.spotlighttoronto.com/musings/?p=2443

The “light fantastic” takes on a whole new meaning in director Nik Sheehan’s phantasmagoric FLicKeR – the story of an artist who invented a drug-free way to achieve altered states of mind – through dancing pulses of light. The feature was produced by Maureen Judge of indie production company Makin’ Movies Inc.

FLicKeR, which was awarded a Special Jury Prize for a Canadian Documentary at the 2008 Hot Docs Festival and has wowed audiences at festivals in Canada and around the world, is the story of the influential Canadian artist and mystic Brion Gysin (1916-1986) and his amazing invention, the dream machine, which he believed would revolutionize human consciousness.

Featuring greats like William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin (in archival footage), singer Marianne Faithfull, rocker Iggy Pop, Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo, singer/artist Genesis P-Orridge of Psychic TV, poet John Giorno, filmmaker Kenneth Anger, and artist/turntablist DJ Spooky, FLicKeR is a hypnotic documentary that asks fundamental questions about an individual’s freedom to dream and create.

The concept is simple – a bright light is placed inside a rotating cylinder with patterned holes until a pulse of between 8-13 Hz is achieved. This is the exact frequency of alpha waves in the brain – the brain waves associated with creativity and dreaming. Subjects report seeing shapes and images, sometimes full-blown hallucinations.

Gysin saw his machine as a replacement for the television and the cinema, where everyone could make “their own spiritual movies.” It was to be “the drugless high.” He and his friends tried to market the machine, attempting to place it in every suburban living room. The forces of control soon put a stop to their plans, but the dream machine continues to intrigue everyone who encounters it.

Gysin was involved with the Paris surrealist artists of the 30s, worked in counter-espionage in WWII, and saw himself as a reincarnation of a 10th Century King of the Assassins. His friendship with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones led to the wide influence of Moroccan Jajouka music, a major influence on rock musicians.

FLicKeR has played to wide critical acclaim at the following festivals: Hot Docs, Atlantic International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Corona Cork Festival, Leipzig International Documentary Festival, Sheffield Documentary Festival, and Copenhagen International Festival. San Francisco Weekly critic Michael Fox called it a “rare documentary that jumps beyond informative and entertaining into the realm of mind-expanding, FLicKeR blends revelatory biography, energizing philosophy, and seductive trances.”

KINOSMITH is an independent Canadian film distribution & marketing company founded in February 2007 by distribution veteran Robin Smith. With a mandate to bring critically-acclaimed Canadian and international films to audiences across the country, the company also provides marketing advice to productions in development and in the can. Its current roster of theatrical releases includes: Up The Yangtze; Tuya’s Marriage; Alice’s House; All Together Now; and The Tiger’s Tail. Upcoming releases include Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma; Ballast; FLicKeR; Confessions Of A Porn Addict; and The Art Star And The Sudanese Twins. http://www.kinosmith.com/

Opens in Toronto on Friday, November 28, 2008
The Bloor Cinema
506 Bloor Street West

www.flickerflicker.com