November 11, 7 - 9 PM

Screening & Q&A with director Wheeler Winston Dixon

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AN AMERICAN DREAM (34:08)

THE SHAPES OF THINGS (34:33)

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Amos Eno Gallery is pleased to present Wheeler Winston Dixon: An American Dream, a screening and Q&A with the acclaimed experimental film director to be held on Friday, November 11 at 7:00 PM. This screening and reception will take place at Amos Eno Gallery on the lower level of 56 Bogart Street in Brooklyn, NY.

 

With a career spanning over five decades as an experimental American filmmaker, Dixon is known for his films as well as his extensive writing on contemporary film and culture. In An American Dream, Dixon traces the rise of late-stage capitalism in the United States, and the decline of personal interaction. Money, violence and consumerism dominate the hypnotic imagery, placing the viewer in the literal and metaphorical role of spectator in a society where 1% of the populace control 99% of the wealth. In the final analysis, as Dixon states, “An American Dream is a requiem for a society in which inequality is the new norm.”

 

In 2003, Wheeler Winston Dixon was honored with a retrospective of his films at The Museum of Modern Art, and his films were acquired for the permanent collection of the Museum, in both print and original format. Dixon is the James Ryan Professor of Film Studies, Coordinator of the Film Studies Program, Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and, with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, editor of the book series Quick Takes: Movies and Popular Culture for Rutgers University Press. Dixon’s most recent book is Black & White Cinema: A Brief History (2015), which was featured on Turner Classic Movies as part of their series “Artists in Black and White.” Just published is Dixon’s newest book, Hollywood in Crisis or: The Collapse of the Real (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); forthcoming is A Brief History of Comic Book Movies (co-authored with Richard Graham, also from Palgrave Macmillan), out in January 2017.

 

"Watching An American Dream, hypnotized by the beautiful motion of slowly flying fragments of glass accompanied by heavenly voices, is like washing down several Valium pills with a martini, and musing on the state of American life as you drift off into a long, imperturbable sleep."

– David Finkelstein, Kulturtidskrifter

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