But the idea of transformation has always been something that I romanticize in a work. I’m cautious of it but I also need it to connect my thoughts with the process of making. That’s really important.
—
Nari Ward
The Diamond Lane by Barbara Bloom
Part of the Editor's Choice series.
- Jacki Ochs’s The Secret Agent by Betsy Sussler
- Sonia Delaunay by David Seidner
- Philippe Demontaut’s Jean Maurice Isn’t Home Yet by Marie-Guy Baron
- Men Looking at Other Men by Jim Jarmusch, Lindzee Smith & Tim Burns
- ABC No Rio by Shelley Leavitt
- Women Looking at Other Women by Karyn Kay & Bette Gordon
- Charles Ludlam and Christopher Scott by Ted Castle
- Gary Indiana by Max Blagg
- Michael Smith by Rosemary Hochschild
Interviews
- Race in Space by Glenn O'Brien
- Cinematography by Johanna Heer
- E, the Undertaker by Burt Barr
- Metropolis by Christian Marazzi
- Heroin Boys by Jeff Goldberg & Doug Latimer
- Schlegel on Wit by Duncan Smith
- Oblique Meditations on Murder by Matthew Fleury
- Difficulty Swallowing: A Medical Chronicle by Matthew Geller
- Art at Auction by Walter Robinson
- Rainer by Terence Sellers
- Brenda Losing/Valerie Losing 2 by Cookie Mueller
First Proof
The Diamond Lane, 1981, is a 35mm color film written and directed by Barbara Bloom. Produced by Tom Burghard, Largo Films/ Starring: Susan Davis, Eric Fischl, Marianne De Graaf, Cees van Hoorn/ Camera: Theo van de Sande/ Music: Peter Gordon/ Editor: Leo de Boer/ Consultant: Van Lagestein/ Laboratory: Cineco, Amsterdam
Anyone can drive on the freeway––hesitating, resisting, losing the rhythm of the lane change––thinking about where they came from and where they are going. Actual participants think only about where they are, a concentration so intense as to seem a kind of narcosis––the mind goes clean, the rhythm takes over, a distortion of time occurs. The same distortion that characterizes the instant before an accident…
On the highways, the innermost lanes have been painted with a diamond pattern and reserved for vehicles with three or more passengers; the outcome being that the normal lanes remain bumper to bumper, while on the almost empty Diamond Lane the traffic flows at great speeds…
The first time this happened I thought you were crazy. Now I’m beginning to believe your theory of parallel worlds…
So they turn me to read up on quantum physics and turn myself in…
Deja vu? Don’t worry about the past, think about the future.
Related
The director on ritual, the pain of creation, and her new film, Madeline’s Madeline.
A rediscovered milestone in independent black cinema.
The late Iranian filmmaker’s final work is an ethereal study of the mechanics of cinema.
Originally published in
BOMB 2,
Winter 1982
Tim Burns & Jim Jarmusch, ABC No Rio, Charles Ludlam & Christopher Scott, Jacki Ochs, Michael Smith, Mirielle Cervenka, Gary Indiana, Sonia Delauney, and Phillipe Demontaut.
