The Age of Man:
a Short Experimental Documentary about Dream Experience
Zeke Mazur
is currently working on a PhD on Neoplatonism and Gnosticism at
the University of Chicago. He spent several early years traveling
and making experimental documentaries including
The Age of
Man.
Abstract
The experimental documentary The
Age of Man (1990, 13 minutes, 16mm, co-directed by Z. Mazur and D.
Stolzenberg) is dedicated to the French surrealist ethnographer
Michel Leiris (1901-1990). The narrator factually reports two
actual dreams, related by their common obsessive fascination with
the erotico-embryological aspects of the female navel.
The
Age of Man (1990) Zeke Mazur and D. Stolzenberg based this film on
two dreams Mazur had after reading surrealist Michel Leiris’
autobiography of same title. Mazur narrates in a parody of the
serious tone which crime dramas use to assure viewers they are
being scrupulously precise —except in this case, all the exact
details are of fantastic events. In the first dream, Mazur finds
illustrated books by Leiris and Jean Cocteau. A series of images
and pseudofacts from these follow until one still “from the rare
color films of Cocteau” becomes a moving film of an erotic horror
scenario in a jungle. Upon the end of this dream, the film cuts
briefly to a documentary of a water processing plant—waking life
facts echoing themes in the dream. The second dream links to
imagery in the first: the jungle scene has a three-headed monster
abusing a girl’s navel, the second features a young woman with
three navels. The filmmaking is obviously low budget but excellent
at capturing the feel of dream imagery. The black and white
footage and heavy use of stills are reminiscent of photography of
the surrealist period so conjure up the early films of Cocteua or
what one imagines Leiris might have produced if he’d illustrated
his dream accounts. The mock documentary style is amusingly campy
but also makes a point about the subjective reality of dream
experience. The film is not commercially available but has
occasional showings including at IASD conference 2006.
