Jon Jost

Director Jon Jost's first experimental feature film, in which he introduces himself directly to his audience via the camera.

A terminal "road-movie," Last Chants single-mindedly follows the path of its central character, Tom Bates, through an unspecified period of time as he talks to a hitch-hiker and then throws him out of his truck, visits his wife and has a fierce argument with her, talks to a man in a breakfast cafe, picks up a woman in a bar and has a one night stand with her... (jon-jost.com)

Jon A. English plays a young musician who expresses his love for former girl friend Barbara Hammes by presenting her with a Xeroxed copy of the Rembrandt etching. (allmovie)

Times are hard for Northwestern lumber-mill operators like Ray and his wife Jean. Ray and Jean's lives are thrown into chaos when their daughter writes home from college, saying she has uncovered her repressed memories of sexual abuse, and naming Ray as her abuser. (imdb)

Jon Jost's portrait of life and loneliness in New York.

An ex-con and a waitress meet in a diner, enter into a relationship, and break for California.

A successful businessman spends his days seeking sure fire deals, discuss town gossip with his friends, and preparing his son for the big hunt. His world couldn't be going better, until it all falls apart.

Slow Moves tells the story of two strangers, Jeff and Julie, who meet on the Golden Gate Bridge and fall in love. They have no money and wander across the country in a beat-up car. The film was shot in only 4 1/2 days on an amazing budget of only $8000. (www.allmovie.com)

Uncommon Senses, a kind of sequel to Speaking Directly, might be called Jost's second feature-length State of the Union essay, made 15 years later. Like its predecessor, it is composed of several different and relatively autonomous sections, each of which has its own form and mode of address. While both films can be described as didactic, the first is overtly autobiographical, the second more a multifaceted statement about America. (www.jonathanrosenbaum.com)

A family in Newport, Oregon attempt to navigate a number of personal crises.

A detective fiction mixed with an essay-documentary about Los Angeles, Hollywood and the film industry, Angel City is a satiric comedy with serious intentions. Lead character, Frank Goya (Glaudini) is hired by conglomerate media mogul, Pierce del Rue, to investigate the death of his young wife; Goya traverses Hollywood and finds it is del Rue who did it and is using him as a cover. (Jon Jost.com)

A visual essay on communication, language, roles and theatre.

Time lapse photography of the Grand Canyon bathed in shadow and light.

A telling story of an unemployed Vietnam vet in Butte, Montana, whose wife leaves him after seven years when she feels there is no longer communication between them and - more painfully and pointedly - because she is unable to have a child owing to his sterility from exposure to Agent Orange. Told in a gentle style, richly emotional, Bell Diamond was made with non-professionals drawn from the community of Butte [Montana]. (Jon Jost)

After being thrown out of his house, a cowboy hits the road in a senseless wave of robbery, murder and rape. On a bucolic farm a seemingly retarded woman is kept on a rope by a mute farmer. Soon, the cowboy shows up. "Parable" is a radical reflection on the George W. Bush years, where the populace has become zombie-like.

A scathing portrait of the Hollywood/LA arts milieu of the late 70's, Chameleon follows the amorphous day of its lead character, an Armani-jacketed peddler of high-class dope, fraudulent art, and preening postures suited-to-fit the changing victims, though as with all such fakery, the real victim in the long run is the person who lives such a life. (jon-jost.com)

This is a very serious film of a fragmented family called by the father to assist him in committing suicide. Formally it is in no way a conventional film. (imdb)

An essay film/documentary perusing matters of art, society, history, and a grab-bag of the author's interests, which also serves as a primer to the aesthetics of digital video. (imdb)

Teaching at Italy’s national film school, I assigned the students the project to make a film over 3 day weekend. Walking around where I was crashing at a student apartment in the San Lorenzo neighborhood I accidentally made this sketch of the ambience there – the nearby big cemetery, the lively street life. Serendipity. (KG)