5:30 p.m.	Cage/Cunningham Elliot Caplan (U.S., 1991)

David Vaughan is the archivist of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He is the author of Merce Cunningham/Fifty Years and Frederick Ashton and His Ballets.

Drawing on archival footage, John Cage’s and Merce Cunningham’s musings, and interviews with their collaborators, Elliot Caplan weaves a graceful tribute to the pair’s fifty-year partnership in the vanguard of twentieth-century art. In its casual revelations and open-ended, unobtrusive style, the film echoes the spirit of accident and the amiable, yet independent, togetherness of the two artists’ work. Cage putters around the kitchen and waters his plants, pronouncing his preference for the everyday sounds of the city wafting through his window. Cunningham, sitting straight-backed or dancing alone at the barre, draws the viewer in to his devotional attention to the center. The film shows little direct interaction between them, but quietly observes their performance of work and life, colored by the tender reminiscences of those who have known and worked with them.


—Lucy Laird

• Written by David Vaughan. Photographed by Caplan. With Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Nam June Paik, Carolyn Brown. (95 mins, B&W/Color, 16mm)

Preceded by short:
Beach Birds for Camera (Elliot Caplan, U.S., 1993). The exquisite alertness of birds, re-choreographed for the camera, is danced to the music of John Cage. (28 mins, B&W/Color, 35mm)

• (Total running time: 123 mins, From Archives of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company)